RIP Randall

ardkore junglist legend

produced some tracks but primarily a deejay, that's where Randall McNeil's contribution lay

a detailed tribute from Carl Loben + Ben Murphy at DJ magazine

54 - way too early to go

an archive of his deejay sets and other stuff set up posthumously 

Revered for his ‘double impact’ style of mixing, aka 'double drop' mixing -  playing two tracks and aligning their drops so that they detonate simultaneously

Randall on schooling the young Andy C on how to do it:

“I remember telling him how I’d scope out tunes and how I’d count the bars and the maths of double drops. Basically knowing your tunes inside out. He knew it already and just took it another level. I merely showed him the blueprints.”

A regular at the AWOL night at the Paradise in Islington, the focus for the scene's innercore cabal (Goldie Grooverider Fabio Reinforced cru Kemistry & Storm et al) during that period between the closing of Rage and the start of Metalheadz at the Blue Note.  

I remember Goldie regaling me with a story of a one particular triumphant mix by Randall at AWOL that got the jungalistic equivalent of a standing ovation. Something about how he went in and out between the two tracks, back and forth, in some incredibly involuted but sustained way...  the rapid switchbacks so steal-your-breath astonishing, the duration so improbably extended, the precision so needlepoint, that a clamor of awestruck disbelief erupted.... the track was duly rewound - only for Randall to repeat the feat of mixological acrobatics exactly, same jump points -  this was a connoisseur performance 4 the connoisseurs, a tour de force showcase of the emerging artistry of a new kind of music

In the same interview Goldie spoke of how in response to deejays like Randall (and Grooverider at Rage) he made sure his own tracks were always "both music and mixable, with entrances and exits"

Randall appears in the "Inner City Life" video at around 1.10

Here's some of Randall's own productions

 

and a remix (in collaboration with Foul Play)

Randall was the go-to mixer for Reinforced compilations, doing the fully mixed version of The Definition of Hardcore in '93 and more recently a 25th Anniversary comp

Is This Techno?

 

Or is the question "Is this Techno's Off Spring"

It's weird to me that 4 Hero - under an alter-ego, Is This - would do something so passively inspired.

It's not so much offspring (as that would suggest the idea of another genetic input shaping the outcome, if we're going with sexual reproduction as the metaphor here) as it is a clone of Detroit. 

(Then we get into all that kind of quasi-biologistic stuff about bastardy and "illegitimate offspring tend to lead more interesting lives"  - True People, hereditary proprietorship, pedigree versus mongrels, the dangers of inbreeding, recessive genes...)

Below, an unreleased Is This bit that is less shackled-to-the-Source-of-All-Things. Indeed it sounds more or less like a 4 Hero tune, with the breakbeaty shuffle. 

Ah, they put out a whole EP on Reflective in '93, the techno-phile sub-label of Reinforced

this one is nice

4 Hero's true Detroit-homaging alter-ego was Nu-Era  - whose '94 album was reissued last year... 

A latter effort that is mutating into broken beat

 

Now I got that first The Deepest Shade of Techno compilation on Reflective back in the day

Don't remember much about it, though

Both the first comp and Deepest II are playable here. 

There's a Gerald track on it (he could do some very Mayday-ish tunes)

"LISTEN & LEARN"

The not unwarranted superiority complex of the Reinforced cru!

What was it Rob Playford said? That Reinforced were the scene's research lab 

Operating just that little ahead of everybody else.... 

The vanguard

Ever so slightly forbidding and coldblooded as a result

At times, anyway - for sure they had their manic nutty moments and sent-E-mental anthems, later on  lush 'n 'sexy souljazzual

Recently been listening to this beaut a lot...

(Listening to the original Scarface version as I did for the first time recently was weird - just sounded wrong because the 4 Hero reframing is so sensitively done, it feels like he rapped over it in the studio, as opposed to having the rhythm scaffolding built around his lines - so snugly does his flow fit the groove) 

Here's a different 4 Hero remix of "Seen A Man" -  starker and ruffer - not quite as wondrous as the above.

But there's also an overly mellow Talkin Loud-vibed version of the tune by 4 Hero, a warning sign - perhaps where the "LISTEN & LEARN" attitude can ultimately lead ("proper music")

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

[Some earlier thoughts on Reinforced's eminence]

Surely the greatest label of the first half of the Nineties.

Not just in jungle, but on all fronts.

The militant commitment to a vision-quest.... the sheer sustained strike rate combined with the relentless forward drive....

But what about Reinforced during the second half of the '90s?

I carried on loyally buying a lot of their stuff - not loyally, really, just genuinely excited by things heard in the store (by that point usually Breakbeat Science the NYC hub for the city's junglists)

However very little of it has stuck with me - in the sense that I literally can't remember it.

Part of it is that tracks by Arcon 2 or Sonar Circle or whoever, the tracks get so convoluted and dense with editing and processing, they actually defy memory.

Also they weren't things you'd hear played out, like, ever - so no memories got attached to them.

So the last thing from that camp that really stuck with me is actually not technically on Reinforced - it's the Jacob's Optical Stairway album, which came out on Crammed or something like that.

Reinforced proper, would probably be the Cold Mission stuff.

 

ghosts isn't about disco

 

WHY DO THEY WANNA SOUND GRYMEY

listening to this talisman touchstone of an EP again, noticed at Discogs that inscribed into the vinyl there is an early sighting of the word / concept "grimy" 

• Matrix / Runout (side A, etched): RIVET 1249 - A ∗ - J.T.S. - ∗ "WHY DO THEY WANNA SOUND GRYMEY"

(Onyx were also using the term around this time on the other side of the pond)

I don't know if I'd call the sound on Enforcers 4 "grimy" though - if anything it's reaching for a kind of psychotic slickness 

the beats and the bass on the flipside tracks blew my mind then, and still now 

follow follow follow

 

only you slow down (donut is a feeling)

this lovely slice of smoov-jungle



has the same gorgeous mellow house-infused vibe as this even lovelier tune - one of my all-time absolute faves of the era  - so slinky



And as if recognising the vibe-ual affinity, YouTube segued straight into it before I even made the selection myself

Met Gavin Cheung aka Nookie early in '94 -  round at Goldie's England's Lane tower block flat

Immortal for this tune above all  - another all-time fave



"you know House is a feeling"

Keeping the house ancestry alive within the hardcore and the junglizm - that was his thing, Nookie / Cloud 9



But he also did tunes like this - whence the "hardcoouooor" whimper-vocal as used in Mark Leckey's Fiorrucci Made Me Hardcore - although he might have got from another track that used it, I think there were several....





And this goofy one



Never noticed before that the daft vocal lick is human beatboxing



Man like Gavin could do that bliss-2-dark distraught-diva ecstasy-edging-dysphoria hectic-histrionic fever rather well

But lover's jungle (perhaps that's why he chose the alter-ego Nookie) was his forte

Did a lot of very nice piano-based tunes that are just a little bit too uplifting maybe



That one is faultless though.

Remodelled for 94



These are a bit too bright 'n bouncy






Ooh but this next one is a classic - and gets the balance just right



And he weren't just about the pianos - the breaks on this are awesome



I suppose he's only a notch or two behind Omni Trio when it comes to the piano-uplift style of jungle.

Rob Haigh's vamps are just a little more bittersweet, more fleeting and spare. Nookie's a little too florid at times.

Here's a great mindmeld of the two piano-core gods - fabulous Nookie remix of Omni's "Soul Promenade", with a great push-me, pull-you swaying rhythm




Of course he actually done a tune called "A Drum A Bass A Piano"  - shades of the Red Crayola tracklisting for Coconut Hotel, demystifying their means of production or something

I like the fact that an early Nookie alter-ego was Windy Milla




Also like the way the bpm actually written after the track titles on this one - DJ friendly!

Ooh some very early indeed Cloud 9



sampled from Scientist / Jackie Mittoo?

bedside manners

Not exactly the Lord of Darkness you imagine when listening to his tunes!

What a sweet, amiable, cuddly fellow - that Doc Scott






















and the last truly immortal d&b tune?

sample trails

this



came out of this



(who knew seals & croft had some use?)


this



came out of this



but that (or a speck of it anyway) also reappears in this

the core of the core

fab pair of mixes by Selectabwoy collating the sample-sources for classic Reinforced and Tom+Jerry tunes and contrasting them with what the Dollis Hill crew did with them





mix rationale over here at Two Hungry Ghosts blog


more Selectabwoy mixes here

retrorave - Living In the Past by Manix

news that Manix are releasing an album of "new-old" hardcore entitled Living In the Past has got me all confused

as the author of Retromania, I deplore it

as the author of Energy Flash, I adore it

blurb from the website: "A return to the original sound of Hardcore/Jungle Rave from one of the leading artist at Reinforced Records. Produced by Marc Mac of 4hero, this stunning 10 track album is full of the same energy and style that made Manix so crucial to DJs and Ravers of the era.   Packed with all new original fresh tunes but still sounding like a lost recording from 1993, anthemic pianos, big bass lines and breaks." 



sounds sweet 'n' ruff though doesn't it?

(via Blog to the Old Skool)

tom and jerry, and nothing but tom and jerry



an oldie but goodie by dj extreme of Hardcore you Know the Score bloggg

via Drum Trip


track list

01 The One Reason [SHELL001]
02 Physics [SHELL002]
03 The Second Reason [SHELL001]
04 Baby Don’t Shout [SHELL002]
05 Papillon Love Song [SHELL003]
06 We can be Free [SHELL002]
07 A patch of Blue [SHELL003]
08 For the Gold Teeth (F.N.T) [SHELL002]
09 B.O.S. Realting [SHELL003]
10 Let your spirit Rise [SHELL004]
11 Cat got your Tongue [SHELL003]
12 Programme 205 [SHELL004]
13 Scooby’s Dreaming [SHELL005]
14 Strings & Me [SHELL004]
15 Nine Lives (mind out tube mice) [SHELL005]
16 All alone with Dog Face [SHELL006]
17 Yamming snacks like Shaggy [SHELL005]
18 Sun on my Head [SHELL006]
19 Mousetrap (dangerous) [SHELL004]


a few things missing  - this first one is a bit of a major omission in my humble

so i guess Tom and Jerry was 4 Hero's crowdpleaser alter-ego...   the outlet for tunes that were rinsing and pretty, not experimental or out-there - low-pressure output, maybe, knocked out quicker, without that self-imposed self-daunting expectation of surpassing themselves, breaking new ground each time  (which would explain why T&J was shunted out, in great volume, via a different label, Shell, not through Reinforced itself) 

then again - this one is pretty weird and abstract - so maybe not - maybe the lines got blurred

  Lee Gamble 'Diversions 1994-1996' (PAN 33) from PAN on Vimeo.

"LEE GAMBLE 'Diversions 1994–1996' (PAN 33)

'Diversions 1994-1996' is made up entirely from samples from the collection of Lee Gamble's Jungle cassette mixtapes. The audio has been subjected to analog and digital deformations, whilst trying to extract, expand upon and convey particular qualities emblematic of the original music. The effect is that of a musical body scan, all that is solid melts into air. Sounds are unearthed, dissected on the operating table, melted and unlocked, evoking sonics not unlike the heavy dub processes of Jah Shaka and Scion in a INA GRM frame of mind or bearing  a similar  methodological approach with what explored Mark Leckey in his piece "Fiorucci Made me Hardcore". It can be heard as a ‘memory’ of a period of music and for some could work as a ‘cued recall', which is a form of memory retrieval.    

Lee Gamble started out as a teenager dj-ing on pirate radio and on the emerging Jungle scene, however his own approach to music has taken a more experimental direction. Exploring the outer realms of abstraction through digital synthesis/resynthesis, Lee has described his current compositional process as: “…The configuration of material (ex nihilo) via various digital synthesis methods, prompts further disfigurations and reconfigurations. What you then have left is often the detritus or debris of an idea. Phantasms of both previous and current musical, pseudo-scientific and sculptural influences are manifest as new material abstractions, created from the digital blank canvas. This abstraction allows several interests to appear in the works simultaneously…”.  

 

 

  

who knew Suburban Base made promos for some of their early singles? (See the earlier post on Sonz of A Loop Da Loop Era)

in my mind i always connect the Rachel Wallace tune with this Manix tune "Reach Out" featuring "Marie Antoinette"

and here's a "rude dub" from the US House  Remixes EP that followed the Heading to the Light EP proper

And there's a Bump Mix too, a preview flicker of 1997's bump n' flex, complete with unctuous saxual healing.  If they weren't so intent on following the pallid NY/NJ template so exactly-- that after hours, Mark Kinchen vybe -- if they'd ruffed it up a bit...  who knows, Reinforced Cru could have invented speed garage four years ahead of schedule.

oh and here's a here's a happy hardcore rmx -- "the Huffy Extended Bounce" version!

but wait a minute, on the label (of the original EP) it's not feat. Marie Antoinette, it's feat. Mark Douglas....

"too much speed and we see nothing"--Virilio



"I was born with a sense that my time was running out. Not long ago, I too began blaming the speed of the internet and its corresponding mobile, digital technologies. But then I realized that the problem wasn't being able to do more, faster; it was that, faster and faster, I was spending more of my own precious time doing more of less.... We need to slow the internet down, and should probably hurry up about it"

from "Slow Media, & The Occupation Of Online Time", an essay by Ryan Alexander Diduck, at the Quietus