toytown tekno 5 of ?

 

Cheeky-dodgy E-as-candy puns in both the group name and the track name 

The mixes

Chris Howell  - 1/3 of Smart E's - went on to record as Luna-C and a score more aliases and also to found Kniteforce Records  - later known as Kniteforce Again. He remains a stalwart with reissues, box sets, first-time issues of vintage unreleased stuff, and veterans coaxed back into the new-old fray. He's also written a tract entitled The Rave Commandments, as Christopher Howell (perhaps authors need to have more formal names?). 

Give it up to Kodwo Eshun for seeing something in "Sesame's Treet" when no one else did

  (from his Club Licks column in the Wire September 1992)

Context 

The full Club Licks column 

Here's a post-Treet tune I really like by The Luna C Project 

Actually, there's a more exciting euphoria-soaked remix of it on one of those 93 comps with 'dark' in the title 

Ah, it is in fact this one by the mighty Sublove (one of those groups who have been reissued etc etc by Kniteforce in recent years)

It's on a cusp between darkside and happy hardcore. The vocal sample is  cheesy and jaunty in style 'n' mood, but the lyrics are designed to comment on the fact everyone in the room is "under the influence". It preys on and amplifies the suppressed anxiety of dancers who maybe feel a little out of control, or like they're being controlled:  

"There's an invisible intruder / That's got inside your mind / Invading your sense of right and wrong / Making your conscience blind"

Something about the voice makes me think of The Buggles, or Bruce Woolley and the Camera Club. 

The sample was also used earlier in this Smart E's track

The sample is from a song called "Spectator Sport" by a super-obscure '80s pop group called New Beginnings. Who do have that proggers trying to go bouncy-pop vibe of Buggles. But they also appear to be some kind of Christian rock group. Which would explain the "invading your sense of right and wrong" line. Plus, I have always heard the words "an invisible intruder" as "an invisible Judas" !

But back to the first Luna-C Project EP - the whole thing is themed around insanity

A Thirdform recommendation from the comments: Luna-C alias Trip with "The Snowball", named after a super-intense pill in circulation in darkside days

Flipside maintains the druggy theme

Now that's something I'd like to get my hands on (although all the promos on YouTube I'm sure)

Crikey there was a Smart E's album - I guess if you've had a number 2 single, it's obligatory

I feel like in the Great Rave LPs discussion, someone spoke up for this record as pretty good

"A Most Excellent Choon", tee hee

Closing thoughts from John Harris in 2006: 

"Remember, though: in the dark days of 1991-93, it looked like the guitar really was extinct, but rock bit back and eventually won. Who now listens to such rave milestones as the Prodigy's 1992 hit Charly, the entire oeuvre of Altern 8 (two blokes who essentially released the same record over and over again - what cards!) and Shaft's 1992 smash Roobarb and Custard? Only very strange people." 

MAXimalizm - Hyper On Experience versus Acen

Addressing the maximalist tendencies of peak-period hardcore, as exemplified by Acen, in both the Wire review and the accompanying online interview, I mentioned Hyper On Experience as the closest counterparts in terms of hyperactive grandeur. 

But I hadn't noticed that just like Acen has come back with new material, so too have Hyper On, with releases on Kniteforce in 2018 (The Family Man EP) and 2020 (a double 12-inch maxi-EP with 8 tracks, so really more like a short album, titled Runs in the Family)

MAXimalizm intact, in full effect. 

As is the jokey tradition of  family-idioms for titles: see the earlier Fun for all the Family, Keep It in the Family, The Family We Never Had and finally, taking the self-piss, Deaf In the Family (A Sad Title for an Otherwise Splendid EP)

There's also been a slew of remixes of classic Hyper On tunes by retro-junglist youngbloods (or relative youngbloods in some cases), once again through Kniteforce, which seems to be the hub for this kind of thing now. These packages are listed,  - questionably?  - as albums on Discogs, because they contain the original 4 track EPs and then the same number again of remixes.

Because Kniteforce is doing this thing of keeping it strictly vinyl (a sound business decision no doubt) and listing the obligatory Bandcamp digital option at a deliberately astronomical price (1000 quid) to discourage anyone from taking it, it's quite hard to hear either the most recent of the new EPs or the remix packages online.

You can get soundclip tastes:

https://kniteforcerevolution.com/store/product/runs-in-the-family-ep-2x12-vinyl

https://kniteforcerevolution.com/store/product/fun-for-all-the-family-ep-12-vinyl

https://kniteforcerevolution.com/store/product/keep-it-in-the-family-extended-ep-digital

https://kniteforcerevolution.com/store/product/the-family-we-never-had-extended-ep-digital

https://kniteforcerevolution.com/store/product/deaf-in-the-family-extended-ep-digital

Some individual tracks also got the multiple remix treatment

https://kniteforcerevolution.com/store/product/disturbance-remixes-2x10-vinyl

https://kniteforcerevolution.com/store/product/lord-of-the-null-lines-remixes-ep-2x10-vinyl

https://kniteforcerevolution.com/store/product/the-complete-bootlegged-foul-play-remixes-ep-12-vinyl

Here and there some have seeped out on YouTube. 

MAXimalists meet! Acen remixes "Lords of the Null Lines"

Another collision of old skool legends - Sub Love versus Hyper On 

https://kniteforcerevolution.com/store/product/legends-vs-legends-vol-3-10-vinyl

Sub Love themselves have had extensive Kniteforce archivalism

https://kniteforcerevolution.com/store/product/sublove-legacy-ep-vol-1-2x12-vinyl

https://kniteforce.bandcamp.com/album/kf105-sublove-legacy-vol-2

https://kniteforce.bandcamp.com/album/kf120-sublove-legacy-vol-3

The reissuing and the remixing is a kind of maximalist endeavour in itself - a lot to digest. Kniteforce getting a bit carried away with excitement! 

Thinking back to the golden olden daze... there's so many great Hyper On Experience tunes.... "Imajicka" and "Assention' the twin towers over everything....  the equivalents of "Trip II The Moon" and "Windows" maybe...   actually it's more like triplets towers, because of "Lords of the Null Lines," awe-inspiring in both original and Foul Play incarnations

But this is one that I particularly loved for its skidding, turn-on-a-dime breaksmanship

Great title too (a Hyper On forte generally)

Fun video on the making of the Peter Cannon remix of "Thunder Grip"

And the finished re-work

Taking the how-it-was-made thing to the MAX - Alex Banks "deconstructs" the new-old choon "Cannon Rush"

A remix from the original time that de-maximalizes it, makes it less eventful, more repetitious

Another tune I really liked -  so inventive beat-wise

After Deaf in the Family and the 2 On 1 series one-off "Ouiji Awakening", Alex Banks and Danny Demierre went their separate ways - with Alex joining with JMJ to form EZ Rollers and DD becoming Flytronix. Both had their moments.... 

... but at the time I felt they had succumbed to the general Moving Shadow drift into the too too smoov.  (Everyone seemed to upgrade their gear at the same time and also decide that bongos were really cool sound-textures). I found Dimensions of Sound mostly anodyne and over-clean, and didn't bother with them after that.  Flytronix similarly quickly lost my interest (the name and the record artwork certainly didn't help). 

However, listening again recently, I found much to like in both post-Hyper outfits's output - perhaps because I'm listening at home at my computer, rather than out in a club. It's funny how music (ardkore) that was originally considered too hectic and pell-mell to even be music (according to some idiot ears) quite quickly matured into this very pleasant sound that was compatible with work, driving, having people round for dinner. The musicality that was always there, if you had the non-idiot ears to detect through the frenz-E, came out fully as this deluxe-relax sound. (The name E-Z Rollers captures it perfectly - and the contrast with Hyper On Experience as a name conveys the shift that took place with 2 or 3 years) 

It is a shame though that Hyper On in its original manic-epic incarnation never did an album (I suppose the 4 EPs added up to an album of sorts).  

They were high on the list of rave acts who could have should have never did discussed a while back here. 

Very high up

Second only to Acen...