"we are in the throes of a hardcore rave renaissance"

says Ian McQuaid at Bandcamp, citing a bunch of labels reissuing the stuff including Stay On Target,  Underground Music, Force Mass Motion, and Jedi Recordings

"For most ravers, the hardcore scene was documented via tape packs; live recordings of an event from start to finish, divided over anything from four to 12 cassettes, and sold by the thousand in boxes covered with the garish rave scene packaging ... Particularly strong DJ sets were copied and passed from person to person. There were never any tracklists (and this is way before the days of seeking out IDs online); the best a fan could hope for was the names of the DJ, the MC, and the rave itself. The tape pack system meant that a 12” could be a self-released white label with a print run of 500, sold from a tiny specialist record shop, yet still go on to underground immortality if it was played by the right DJ on the right tape—as is the case with Alex Reece and Jack Smooth’s 20 Hertz EP, a militant darkside classic with a tiny press run. It will currently set you back nearly $200 for a copy."

200 quid for that? Praps the other two tunes on the EP are better.

Back to McQuaid's story

"Over a quarter-century later, there’s a huge thirst from both old school ravers and new fans to find those obscure recordings. A host of reissue labels have sprung up, searching out original DATs (the digital studio format tracks were recorded onto before being pressed to vinyl), and producing high quality vinyl and digital represses, making available ultra-rare records that would otherwise fetch ridiculous prices."

a renaissance, strictly speaking though, would be new people doing stuff informed by the old principles and parameters

who are out there of course - just not the subject of this piece


This looks to be a very useful collection of DJ Seduction's works - 39 tracks + 2 remixes for a tenner