“The More Nose Bleed The Better”

Remixes of "Hardcore You Know the Score" by Oliver Chesler & John Selway (as Disintegrator) and others to arrive soon.

The original



I always forget about Rising High

It's one of the great label names

And they always had a way with a title - "Night of the Livin' E Heads", "God of the Universe" (you can see why Man like Horrorist liked 'em), "A Modern Prometheus", "Death In Frankfurt", "Death by Dub"

Caspar Pound is also a really good name for a hardcore label CEO.

Mr Pound gave good quote too: "Hard as fuck! It's the rock of the future". "The best thing about hardcore is all the soul's been taken out. We've had 200 years of human element in music and it's about time for a change".

Still, the tracks - bangin, slammin, kickin, and shovellin though they indubitably were - have never quite lodged in my heart and memory like others from that era.

Very much like Kickin Records in that respect - although they did put out a few true faves of mine.

Indeed those two labels go together in my mind, in terms of their sonic and historical location in the UK Rave Story.

Their reign came at that moment just before the breakbeat thing really takes off... when Britcore is still in thrall to the Belgian Sound



This one is very Cubic 22 frinstance



Although there are breaks in quite a few the Rising High and The Hypnotist tracks, the overall feel is still bludgeoning and pummelling and pell-mell.







Then at the critical fork in the road, Rising High veered in the trance / nu-acid direction



Now this is a good tune



I have a lot of their stuff, as 12 inches, and on CD comps and such like... but I'm struggling to dredge specific highpoints from memory.

Well, okay, there was these two





And not forgetting this triffic Top Buzz rmx



Oh and then there was the Project One stuff - proper jungle techno







But this one - despite the promising title - is a bit clumpy and lumpen



Audio Assault, Earth Linkage Trip, Interface, Friends Lovers & Family, Knight Phantom... it all becomes a bit of a crude and chugging blur - the aim is anthem-hood but it rarely gets there.

Although I do remember liking something by C of E (short of Church of Extacy - our pals Lee Newman and Michael Wells again)

Not sure if it was this, or a different mix of same.



Later on, Rising High get much kudos for releasing Wagon Christ and the Plug EPs (well, significantly less kudos for those, although they were great fun at the time - but Throbbing Pouch is the eternal classic). Not forgetting Bedouin Ascent. Or indeed the Irresistible Force aka Mixmaster Morris.



Caspar Pound died tragically young, but the labels appear to be carrying on in some form - perhaps mainly archival - in the hands of his daughter Sapho (who had a sub-label or side-division imprint named after her - dedicated to more experimental releases).