Love Island as Outpost of the Nuum

Another series of Love Island  reaches its finale - and finally it's time to unfurl my "Love Island as Mainstream Outpost of the Hardcore Continuum" thesis. 

For starters, there is the theme tune.

An instrumental that lies somewhere between UKG and Deep Tech - it sounds a bit like if an Eski-era grime producer decided to make a house track. 

Then there's some of the musical guests on the show, who have either been pure Nuum - Craig David - or Nuum-adjacent (Katy B, Tinie Tempah). 

The guests chosen often seem to come from around that 2010-2011 moment - which must be when the typical contestant on the show would have been 9 or 10. Perhaps there's a sort of nostalgia appeal for the contestants, a flashback to watching Channel U or listening to your older brother or sister's music. Although quite a few of these artists would have been on the Top of the Pops. 

And then there is the fact that Chris & Kem, from the third season of  Love Island, revealed an ability to rap in the Talent Show episode of that 2017 season. 

This resulted in their recording a not-bad-at-all grime-ish single that incorporates Love Island-slang and which reached #15 in the charts. 

"Little Bit Leave It"  came out on Relentless, the UK garage label. Nuumtastic!

Stormzy also made a non-musical appearance in the 2017 season, with a video clip apologizing for a tweet about one of the prominent female contestants. He also gave tips to Kem & Chris about their MC-ing technique: "I can give you advice about the raps - you can't use the phones".

Certain contestants over the years have actually been performers in "urban"  bands as singers or backing dancers (e.g. Cach, from the winning couple this year). 

Well, Marcel - who's been in it twice, through being in an All Stars season - was in Blazin' Squad, a British rap group who scored a bunch of hits. They started out as a garage rap group: their debut release "Standard Flow" came with remixes from DND and Ras Kwarme and Horsepower, on the label Weighty Plates.  You can't get much more Nuum Nuum Nuummy than that. 

And how about this with rrrrrrrginal junglists Origin Unknown?

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

How about that season finale then? 

They should really have bent the rules and allowed two girls to count as a couple, given that Toni and Shakira were clearly the stars of the season and theirs is the true love story here. 

Toni has the best tone and cadence since Liza Minelli.

In another era, some impresario would have spotted Shakira's incandescence and whisked her off to Elstree - or more likely, given her gumption, she'd have made her own way to Hollywood, like Cary Grant and other Brits did did. There she'd have been screen-tested and put through the studio system finishing school (what a shame though for elocution to override that delicious accent) and emerged as a star. 

If she can half-way act, it could still happen. 

More likely, in this day and age, she'll be famous for being herself, a public personality. 

With any luck, she'll drift from entertainment into politics and sort out all our problems.

deep deep inside (Hardrive Continuum)

 

Barbara Tucker diva loop - brilliantly stuttered and ghostified - is taken from what might well be my favorite house track that isn't by Todds Terry or Edwards

sourced deeper 

top ranking two-step

 

Lover's jungle!

Yeah yeah I know "Uptown Ranking'" is not Lovers 

It's more like Swaggers

Why on earth would you wanna dirge this out?  What a silly man he is

The True Oasis (Hertscore Continuum)

Unfortunately they are the Shed Seven of ambient jungle, but below is something of a classic

Oaysis - from St Albans!

Part of the Hertscore Continuum!

Outposts in Stevenage, Hertford itself, Hitchin ... 

Labels like Moving Shadow, Candidate and PM Records....  

Photek, Source Direct... 

Omni Trio obviously

2 Bad Mice / Kaotic Chemistry....

Gappa G and Hypa Hypa, from Luton

Who played on a pirate called Perception FM, out of Luton / Hitchin area

As did DJ Concrete 

And to my surprise there were other pirate radio stations in Hertfordshire

Via RollDaBeats forum, ancient post

Mad FM

freq: 90.6

area: Hertfordshire

broadcast out of Hertford town centre

known years running: 1990/1-1993

basic style genre: Oldskool

known dj's: 2 Stoned crew (2 bad mice in disguise), dj lucky, dj active, dj duffy

 

Frequency FM

freq: 101.4fm

area: Hertfordshire

known years running: 1991-1993

basic style genre: Oldskool

known dj's: DJ Legacy (myself), DJ Twist, DJ Nitemare, DJ Donny P, DJ Shiva

Got bust when the aerial got blown down in high winds.

(and this one, shrouded a bit in non-knowledge)

Unknown FM

freq: 108.0 fm

area: Hertfordshire (not 100% though)

known years running : no idea

basic style genre: no idea

known dj's: no idea

And what do you know, just this morning Droid alerts me to this release by Justice and Metro, a mini-LP  titled PRESSURE 101.5 FM-Luton Pirate Memories. 

It's actually from a few years ago and is woven out of old pirate adverts and jingles - info about long-lost record shops and club nights in the Luton and Dunstable area.

"J and M takes us on a journey back to the 90's and compile Pirate radio adverts from their local station Pressure FM. The flip is a track inspired by the sounds being broadcast around the rave era."

Hark at the well spoken voices in the adverts...  big up the bourgeoisie! big shout going out to the  middle class massive!

"Right of admission is reserved - and this is a drug-free zone" - yeah pull the other one, luv!

1. Pressure EZ 03:41

2. 101.5 Skit 01:04

3. Last track from me..... 00:32

4. Soul Sense 00:26

5. Mad Dog Birthday Rave 00:49

6. Soundz Wicked 00:37

7. Gatsby's Hair Dressing 00:32

8. Pressure Zone 00:43

9. Ozone 2 01:15

10. 33 studio 00:38

https://modernurbanjazz.bandcamp.com/album/pressure-1015-fm-luton-pirate-memories

Got No Room for Ravers

Samples Small Faces's "Lazy Sunday"! 

The bit about his grumpy next-doors objecting to the noise of loud fun - "wouldn't it be nice to get on wiv' me neighbours? / but they make it very clear they've got no room for ravers"

Features the phrase "mustn't grumble" - the soul of Englishness (pre-ravers, at any rate) quintessenced

There is also a blink-and-you'll-miss-it  comb-and-paper quotation of a Stones song - "Satisfaction" it says at Wikipedia, although it sounds almost more like "Let's Spend the Night Together" to me

I should have put "Lazy Sunday" in my list of Greatest Number Twos 

The album as a whole I've never quite clicked with except for the opening title track with its amazing colorized bass and phased drums and keyboards.

And of course enjoy the Stanley Unwin element

Got this album 

"Lazy Sunday" is very much rooted in the same oh-so-English world as Carry On

A-wouldn't it be nice to get on with me neighbors?

But they make it very clear they've got no room for ravers

They stop me from groovin', they bang on me wall (what's going on in there?)

They doing me crust in, it's no good at all, ah

Lazy Sunday afternoon

I've got no mind to worry

I close my eyes and drift away

Here we all are sittin' in a rainbow

Gorblimey, hello, Mrs. Jones

How's old Bert's lumbago? ("He mustn't grumble")

I'll sing you a song with no words and no tune

(Tweedle-dee bite) to sing in the khazi while you suss out the moon, oh yeah

Lazy Sunday afternoon, ah

I've got no mind to worry, ah

Close my eyes and drift away, ah

A-roo-dee-doo-dee-doo

A-roo-dee-doo-dee-die-day

A-roo-dee-doo-dee-dum

A-roo-dee-doo-dee-doo-dee

There's no one to hear me

There's nothing to say

And no one can stop me from feeling this way, yeah

Lazy Sunday afternoon

I've got no mind to worry

Close my eyes and drift away

Lazy Sunday afternoon

I've got no mind to worry

Close my eyes and drift

Close my mind and drift away

Close my eyes and drift away

 You could probably essay an, er, essay that claimed for Ogden's Nut Gone Flake what Greil M claims for The Band, i.e. the ravers (Sixties version of) generation mending the breach with the parent generation....

Which (despite "She's Leaving Home") already started happening on Sgt. Pepper's, to some extent. "Penny Lane", certainly.

Or perhaps simply that for all the trips and the dabbles with Eastern spirituality and all the other Sixties neophiliac adventures breaking loose from tradition.... you still wake up in England, embedded in centuries of history... 

Tale "Itchycoo Park" 

Spiritually hungering Ronnie Lane got into Sufism by 1968, but he lifted the melody or part of it from a 16th Century hymn, "God Be In My Head"   while "the theme to the words" came from "a hotel in Bath or Bristol. There was a magazine in the room with a rambling account of some place in the country and it was about ‘dreaming spires’ and a ‘bridge of sighs’ – there was a write-up on this town – and I just thought they were nice lines.”

Steve Marriott meanwhile said lyrical inspirations come from stinging nettles and an actual park in Ilford:

"Ronnie Lane and I used to go to a park called Itchycoo Park... We used to bunk off school and groove there. We got high, but we didn’t smoke. We just got high from not going to school. Itchycoo Park is the nickname of Little Ilford Park in London. An “Itchycoo” is slang for a flower found in the park called a Stinging Nettle, which can burn the skin if touched.”

"Life is just a bowl of All Bran"

Talk about Englishness - Marriott as the Artful Dodger for the album-of-the-original-stage-musical Oliver! He was in the original stage production playing various boys roles.

Oliver! creator Lionel Bart appears in this delightful Georgia Brown (Nancy in the original stage version  - did she share scenes with Marriott?) conceived and presented investigation of the Jewish East End and the question of what makes you a Cockney

I was just thinking that Georgia looks the spitting image of Marc Bolan, another famous Jewish East London singer, and then at 19.28 she says "that's a gas" 

Another amazing time travel capsule, a BBC report on Cockney idiom from 1976

"The First Worldwide Big Beat Newspaper"

 No, not a shortlived end o' 90s publication devoted to all things Skinty and Wall of Soundy...  at home with Monkey Mafia profiles... Portrait of the Propellerheads as Consumers.... an advice column from Lindy of Hardknox

No, we are talking much, much earlier than that... 

Based out of San Francisco 

World Countdown was the creation of a fellow called Charles Royal  - and his brother Mark.

"Big Beat" being a phrase, a concept, a vibe, that harked back to the 1960s 

As was the term "beat group", meaning an imposing drum beat rather than "beat" as in poet or beatnik.

The magazine dropped the "big beat" bit from its frontal boasts, perhaps reflecting the shift from beat-y energy to a more "heads" oriented sound, especially in San Francisco, which I would never have thought of as a hotspot for big beats in the Dave Clark Five sense. 

It ran for 29 issues and at the end was simply billing itself as This Earth's Leading Music Newspaper.

Before that it claimed, absurdly, to be the World's First Music Newspaper

It was only 40 years behind Melody Maker, which I doubt was the first weekly periodical about music anyway. 

"The Voice of Music" my English arse

Yes, there was a certain grandiosity to the World Countdown operation, as with the incorporation of the surname Royal in the title  on the front cover - Royal's World Countdown. 

If your surname is Royal, does that mean you end up with a "King of All I Survey" complex?

Also - what is with this repeated sales pitch of it being a "souvenir" issue? 

Or "collectors edition"

"You will cherish our magazine forever!"

Now I have been obsessively following music for decades, with a particular interest in the history of music magazines, the underground press, and especially the early days of rock criticism - and I'd never heard of this publication until a few days ago. 

It's been pulled together as a compendium. 

Back to the other Big Beat... I am surprised in that late '90s Boom for Dance, when publications were springing up all over the shop, there wasn't a Big Beat dedicated magazine. Perhaps there didn't need to be since it was well covered in the big three dance monthlies, Mixmag, Muzik and DJ. 

I seem to remember that at the absolute peak glut of dance and dance mags, someone tried to launch a dance-dedicated weekly music paper. But then the bubble burst... 

Special Request (Labello pt 2 - the samplige)

Ooh Macka Brown sampling the Pirates Anthem

4 Meg Soundboy with some nifty usage of "Can't turn me away" by Sylvia Striplin

Then there's Smokey Joe with a famous vocal lick

The "Special Request" vocal licks are sampled from Shut Up and Dance's "Rest In Peace" - but where did they get them from? 

Another iteration of that vocals lick - as well as another, different "special request" -  in this Reinforced tune 

Those reggae vocal licks from Smokey Joe's "Special Request" et al recur -  alongside JVC Force "Strong Island" riffs - in DJ Double G's UKG classic "Special Request" 

Ah (bit nuum nummy this) DJ Double G turns out to be DJ Gunshot as in No U Turn, making the same shift as No U Turn becoming Turn U On, but not sticking with the label

Real name Gordon Gummer, a veteran deejay on Don FM and Flex FM

a different "special request" occurs in this track - and the "special" recurs passim

A title-becomes-artist-name homage 

More Smokey Joe

Posse and crew

Two of my most cherished 'Mystery Tunes' - 'Do the Right Ting' identified a while ago by a knowledgeable reader, and 'Honey Love' I only just spotted myself

Artist name comes from a Queen Latifah album

But who is Princess of the Posse? Answer to come in a minute 

Now Labello Blanco did some fun things

Also the tune I insist on calling "Sexual Feeling Is Mutual" - as 'slow jam' lyrics go that is some clunky writing

And Labello put out some great things - mostly those involving Rogue Unit

Like this unofficial, only-released-on-a-Jungle-Massive-comp Steve Gurley rmx of  UK R&B micro-star Princess

And this gorgeous dreamy wistful remix

Labello Blanco - wouldyabelieve I only just twigged it's a play on "white label"!

Labello had a bunch of sub-labels including Urban Gorilla, who did this beauty

Did not realize that  Labello was the precursor label to UK Garage stalwart Public Demand (as in Artful Dodger, Steve Gurley, Sticky feat Ms Dynamite etc)

Some serious Nuumy Nuum stuff there, history fans!

There was a 2steppy sublabel called Absolute Corruption

Add that to this long list of Erik Satie "Trois Gymnopedies" rifling tunes

For a second there - in a feat of absolute nuumtinuity - I thought this might be a cover of Goldie's "Kemistry" / "You and Me" - but it seems more inspiration / homage

Labello / Public Demand / etc is-was a tightknit operation clustered around the Low family 

Key figure is Jimmy Low,  who set up Labello in 1990.

Also known as Macka Brown and MC Kann aka Bug Kann (as in Bug Kann & The Plastic Jam, Labello's most successful act with "Made In Two Minutes") (although Macka's "Go Down Baby" was a big tune too)

But there's also younger brother Dave Low and sister Patti Low

Patti is Princess of the Posse - at least it says that "all tracks created by" her, but "all tracks produced by the Plastic Jam"

Which is Grant Bowden, the key non-family member of the operation. 

An interesting distinction - what is the difference between "created" and "produced", in this sort of music? 

Nuum nuuumy alert -  Bowden became the UKG artist Gass,. Named after the UK garage club I  assume. 

Back to Princess of the Posse

The other two tracks on the Pun Project EP are solid ruffige with squeakified raggavox

One of  Grant Bowden's aliases is Payback, as in "Eastenders' and "Dope" 

Huge bass on this tune and nice clangy beat

Monster tectonic rumblizm on this 

I'm guessing Bowden's got the lion share of responsibility for the label's early classic "Made In Two Minutes"

1990 and this is almost ambient jungle ahead of schedule - the main lick is a dreamy, chilled version of the 'rave signal' melody-riff

But it also came out as Reel To Reel?

Now is this the same as the Original Bleep version or slightly different?

The famous incarnation of "Made In Two Minutes" is very UKrappy in the Criminal Minds / Genaside II / Rebel MC mode.  And presumably that's sister Patti cooing over the top. 

And there's raggamuffin bizness at the start (ALLCRU - mouth-mangled it sounds more like ARDKORE) and at points throughout....

Many remixes

Foul Play - a remix by them I missed

And many other versions, including second go's by Gachet and others

And keeping it nuum nuum nuumy here's a coupla UKG remixes from 97

Talking of the UKG era....

It says at Discogss that the younger scion of the Low clan  -  Dave Low - is "the DJ in Artful Dodger"

But this was achieved in an unusual way

In 2001, Hill and Devereux parted ways due to creative differences and the trademark, name and usage rights of Artful Dodger was purchased by Blessed Records.

Capitalising on the significant live demand for the group, the owner of Blessed Records DJ Dave Low accompanied by MC Alistair adopted the name, in essence creating a cover band. They continue to tour under the name Artful Dodger to this day, performing the music of Hill and Devereux frequently in their sets.

Hill and Devereux reunited in 2017 but were unable to release new music or perform under their own name so formed Original Dodger.

I wonder what the market value of the Artful Dodger brand was in 2001-ish?  

They had had a run of Top 10 singles - five of them - and two of those were #2 smashes. 

And they must have done a million remixes.

But as a performance outfit...  how much would someone pay them for that, as the UKG-goes-pop bubble bursts? 

As for Princess of the Posse, it says at Discogs that Patti Low is a

"session singer from Essex, England based in Marbella, Spain.

Now works as a vocal coach and songwriter and performs in an ABBA tribute act."

So both of them ended up in nostalgia acts.... 

A snippet on Labello at 18.30 in this doc

Radio Utopia

People remember the Sixties pirate radio heyday, when the pirates were literally boats at sea.... and they remember the Eighties terrestial tower-block resurgence of reggae and soul and jazz and funk and early rap stations.... and of course they remember the Nineties onwards rave hardcore jungle UK garage grime etc explosion of piracy...

But what about the in-between bits? 

Even after the Labour government (Tony Benn specifically) squashed the pop-crazed offshore pirates in '67, and the big buccaneers accepted "pardons" and joined Radio One as its first roster of deejays.... some people carried on broadcasting outside the law. Via pirate radio scholar Rob Chapman, here's a roundup from May 1971, from an enthusiast's zine called Newsbeat Newsletter. 

Love the fact that a bunch of these are broadcasting from the Home Counties - Hertfordshire, Sussex, Surrey, Berkshire (where the intriguingly named Radio Utopia transmits from, or at least can be picked up in)

(Echo here of my repeated and enormous delight in the fact that Herts was something of a bastion for the Hardcore Continuum. Indeed there was a jungle pirate out of Luton  - Perception FM. Gappa G and Hypa Hypa were involved)

Radio Free Rhubarb feels more like a Home Counties type name than Radio Utopia... I'd like to imagine it was some kind of renegade counterpart to Gardeners Question Time, eccentric views on herbaceous borders and composting, the kind of horticultural heresy that Radio 4 wouldn't allow on the airwaves... but I imagine the name is goofy, perhaps a little Goonsy or Pythonesque. Or just the old slang meaning...

Also intriguing - The Voice of Freedom. A rare example of the political pirate in Britain? I believe there was some kind of right-wing pirate, opposed to the unions - I think this comes up in the Andy Beckett book. And then there were a few short-lived pirates from the other side of the struggle, started during strikes... This is all hazy memory, though. 

Check out Rob Chapman's pirate radio archive - he has recordings of 1960s pirates but also some prime 90s hardcore rave junglism action via a Manchester radio station (not actually a pirate, I'm repeatedly told by someone - it was somehow legal). 

A whole thesis - beautifully illustrated and designed, more like a book - on London Pirate Radio of the Nummy Nuum Nuum era, by Frederik Birket-Smith. Although as this blog post shows, the title should really be Not Just 4 U London.... 

Pirate radio zines and newsletters via Offshore Radio Museum

RIP Max Romeo

 

Romeo reaches rave through this unlikely conduit 

While we're paying tribute to Max, this tune is oddly topical - reusing the "War Inna Babylon" rhythm 

Would love to read something really probing on the Anti-Papacy subcurrents in Rasta 'n' roots culture. 

Given that Rasta is essentially Afro-Protestant - a  Caribbean cousin of the born-again, fundamentalist, Scripture-is-literal-truth offshoots of Calvinism in America - one explanation would be that it is simply sourced in the anti-Catholic paranoia that impregnates Protestantism from the start: the idea that the Church of Rome is an ungodly perversion of true Christianity.  It taps into the same wellsprings that led to the anti-Catholic secret societies in 19th Century and early 20th Century America, the nativist newspapers with their fears of an influx of Catholic immigrants from Ireland, Italy, Poland, changing the fundamental make-up of the country. At its extreme edge, there were fevered fears of the Pope arriving at the head of a new Armada to conquer the USA. 

But perhaps there are some uniquely Jamaican ingredients involved.... 

I seem to remember reading that at dancehall events to this day (or at least whenever it was I read the piece) you would get anti-Pope shout-outs from the deejay

Here's another Vatican-themed tune - Lee Perry, no Max - about the Conclave itself

Here's a really sharp piece of writing about Lee Perry - specifically his way with a kick drum, but also his whole sono-spiritual project - by Nick Coleman at his Substack. There's also some great outlandish quotes from Scratch from an interview Nick did some time ago. 

A Number of Names, A Trove of Titles

Talking about futuromania, about phases when the chase to get to tomorrow ahead of the pack is the fiercest... oooh that first half of the '90s. 

Looking back, it feels like not just the music and the  beats but everything that surrounded them and was attached to them - the names and the titles, the record artwork and typography, the flyers, promo videos - all of it, the sonics and the para-sonix constituted a massive surge of urge-to-newness

A kind of concerted front of cultural patricide - an across-the-board push by the young to make an adventure out of their own time.  

A will to junk as much of the old still-lingering pop culture and to innovate, often gauchely, on all fronts simultaneously: sound, dance moves, fashion, graphics, slang...

Here are some of my favorite titles trawled from that fast-forward era: 

"Noise Bleed"

Set Up System - Fairy Dust (Blastomania Mix)

100HZ - LOW FEQUENCY OVERLOAD (HEBREPHENIC MIX)

"Ooh Aah…Just A Little Bit (Hysteric Ego Dub)"

Lory D – "Allucinazioneacustica"

"Techno Cat (Dance Like Your Dad)"

"God Shave the Queen"

Generator - Belgium Calling (Clash Mix)

C-Tank "House Hallucination"

Brain Cycl - Mind Darts (1994)

Spira - Disturbulance (1994)

Babies from Gong

(Oink Oink Version)

Hardware - Heavy Metal (Doing! Doing! Doing!) (1994)

Zoomroom - "Black Fumes"

"Straight Up (Wris Spec)"

"The Mad One"

"Brutal Deluxe"

Two Terrorists - "Welcome to Jurassick Park"

Amethyst - Krakatoa

(Dharma Bums Mix)

The Bionaut - Octopus

Dee Rex - Gaia's Revenge

"Drum Fire"

Skinnybumblebee (Stingin Dub)

Flying Forest - Cyberlove

Amorph - Sunflow

The Paingang

Flange Squad - "Justice Juice (The Justice Jam)"

"Warriors of Mind"

Dos Deviants - "Sharkbyte"

London Tranceport - "Argon"

Genetic Waste - "Palace of Wisdom"

"Throw the Madness" 

Members of Mayday - "Endspurt"

Braincell - "Time Is Suspended"

"Sunburst" 

"Innerstream of Consciousness"

Public Art 

"Transpulsation"

The Dentist - "Arena of the Gods"

"Burning Trash Floor"

"Starkissed"

"Possessed By Fire"

"Stealth Sonic Soul"

Disgraced Rolemodel

Z-Plane - "Hopium"

"Under City Rave"

"The Devil's Dandruff"

Holocube - "Noizology"

"Uncle Bob's Burly House"

"Angel-Headed Hipster"

"Nude Restaurant"

Energyflow - "Thunderstorm"

"I Could Be Him, I Could Be Her"

Annexia  - "Escalation Fantasy"

"King of Death Posture (Attack Version)"

"Plasma Flights, Pt 1"

"The Trancequilizer" 

"Mantra of X-Tremism"

Force Mass Motion - "The Pressor"

Phrenetic System - "Concrete Box"

"Nut Haus"

"Drying the Tears of the Forest"

"A Sonic Fairy Tale"

(Puddle Mix)

The Desintegrators - "Perfumes of the Deep"

Dancing Dolphins

"Bad Moog Rising"

Syncrotron II

"Tekno Bangelang"

"Sunhump"

Encephaloid Disturbance - Magnetic Neurosis

Encephaloid Disturbance  - Renegade Ectoplasm

Encephaloid Disturbance - Spasmodic Fusion 

"Moments of Inertia"

(Exterminated in 3D Mix)

"Infinite Climax"

Stardate 1973 - Planetfall (1992)

Ramirez - El Ritmo Barbaro (El Flagelo Mix) (1992)

Tracid Posse - Vivarium (1992)

The Saucer Crew - "Ghost Star (Long Drum Mix)"

Edge of Motion - "Overvolt"

Jambo - "Drumattack"

Spirit of Adventure - "L'Hysterie"

"Monotone Sickness"

"Waiting 4 My Shell 2 Crack"

"Xabrax (Drill Mix)"

"Outermind (Glide Mix)"

"Percussion Overdose"

Dry Throats - "Acid Speed"

Cyberpsychose – You Will Die 

Generator - Narcomaniac (Adrenochrome Mix)

D.B. Hazard - Detro Mental

Mental & Dangerous - Xtrosy (Mary Poppins Hardcore Mix)

The Dead Kirks - "Mr. Kirk (Death Mix)"

Dry Throats - Acid Speed (1992)

DJ Dick - The Iron Raver (Part I) (1993)

Vauvenage - Flange Stereo (1993)

Nasty Django - Ey Loco! (Kinky Muthaship) (1992)

Phenomania - Phenothememia (1992)

i - Percussion Overdose (1992)

"Acid Eiffel"

Bi-Face - "Flota (Two)"

"Cyclotron"

"Lost and Intellect"

"The Realm of Spoo"

Aquastep - "Oempa Loempa"

Pot Cycl

"Franthic Thigh"

Sulfurex

"I Still Want Ya (the Nooshty Mix)"

Severe Damage - "Red Alert (Tremble Mix)"

"Afro Compressor"

 "Sugar Robots" 

"Megadrôme D'Yore"

"Jungle (Flappy Ears Version)"

Techno Trash Volume II - "Noise!"

"Mastercore (Brain Mix)"

Phase Phorce

"Industrial Metal"

"Face the Mastermind"

"Turntable Tribal"

4-Nu-Tek

"Locked in Madness"

Exoterrorist

"Microillusions (Day-Mix)"

"Illegal Consume"

"Hatt Flash"

"Victim of Hardware"

"Bash Your Brains In"

"Night of the Neon Maniacs"

Pultec

"Drugtrash"

"Psycho Drums"

Dutch Department of Techno

"Original Mix with Bats"

Force Mass Motion

"Feef Logic"

The Brotherhood of Structure EP

"First Fright (Video Mix)"

"Space Paranoia"

"Psycho Fly"

"Cosmonoise"

E-Rection - Colonisation Of Space (1995)

Gigi Galaxy - Interview with An Alien

Gigi Galaxy - Spores from Outer Space

Gigi Galaxy - Cosmic Forces As They Were Taught In Mu

Ilsa Gold

Emmanuel Top

"Moby Tits" 

Koenig Cylinders

Spastic Egg

"Entropy Step"

Public Energy

"Chronoclasm"

"Nightmares Are Reality"

Labworks

"Reptilian Tank"

Egma

"Stomach Basher"

"Korrekte Atmosphere"

"Trip to E-Land"

 Hypp & Krimson,

"Tibetan Jazz"

"Are Am Eye"

 Aldrin Buzz

Edge of Motion

 "The Glitch Relapse"

"Zombies in the Mist"

 "Sick (Dominator Is Dead)"

"Space Luxury"

 "Faces of the Moon"

Meng Syndicate

"(Heinous Scream Version)"

"Ravedrug"

"Rush Bubble Mix"

Pneumatic Distress

"Fulminic"

Tones Energy

"Tone Exploitation"

"(Fratty Energy Version)"

Master Techno

"Time Problem"

Problem House

 "Rhyde the Rithum"

"Twin Freaks"

80 AUM

E-Dancer

"My First Fantastic F.F."

"Tunnel Inspection

"Mindcontroller (The Obscure Mix)"

"The Kraken"

"Fairy Dust"

"Chiswick Days"

"Air Bounce"

"Cybernatic Noisefly"

"God's Percussion Dream"

"The Dove (Coloured Dream)"

"Planet Jupiter (Raggae Dream)"

"Acid Heartcore"

"Mutation Step"

"Technoblast"

"Biolunch"

"Single Minded People"

"Acid Creak"

"Trac-X"

Numbers & Feelings

"(Sexx Ambient Mix)"

Charlie Lownoise

Syncope

"Explosion of a Dancemode"

"X-Plosion of a Dancemode"

"Stronger Than Steel"

"Trance? Never Heard Before"

Xylem Tube

"Space Metal (Pt 1 and Pt 2)"

"Sulphur Stories"

"The Ravesignal"

"Demonomania"

"Walk on Base"

Spiritual Combat

"Lake of Dreams (Bay of Rainbow Mix)"

"Lake of Dreams (Dream of Drums)"

DJ Edge, "Bass Trnce"

Boscanese Hedgehogs Fall To Earth

Madame Xerox, "Fluxpod"

Cyberchrist

Sons of Aliens

(Sadcore Mix)

"Ooh Aah…Just A Little Bit (Hysteric Ego Dub)"

"Techno Cat (Dance Like Your Dad)"

"God Shave the Queen"

Generator - Belgium Calling (Clash Mix)

C-Tank "House Hallucination"

Spira - Disturbulance

Brain Cycl - Mind Darts (1994)

Babies from Gong

(Oink Oink Version)

Hardware - Heavy Metal (Doing! Doing! Doing!) (1994)

Zoomroom - "Black Fumes"

"Straight Up (Wris Spec)"

"The Mad One"

"Brutal Deluxe"

Two Terrorists - "Welcome to Jurassick Park"

Generator - Narcomaniac (Adrenochrome Mix)

D.B. Hazard - Detro Mental

Mental & Dangerous - Xtrosy (Mary Poppins Hardcore Mix)

The Dead Kirks - "Mr. Kirk (Death Mix)"

Dry Throats - Acid Speed (1992)

DJ Dick - The Iron Raver (Part I) (1993)

Vauvenage - Flange Stereo (1993)

Nasty Django - Ey Loco! (Kinky Muthaship) (1992)

Phenomania - Phenothememia (1992)

i - Percussion Overdose (1992)

"Acid Eiffel"

Bi-Face - "Flota (Two)"

"Cyclotron"

"Lost and Intellect"

"The Realm of Spoo"

Aquastep - "Oempa Loempa"

Pot Cycl

"Franthic Thigh"

Sulfurex

"I Still Want Ya (the Nooshty Mix)"

Severe Damage - "Red Alert (Tremble Mix)"

"Afro Compressor"

 "Sugar Robots" 

"Megadrôme D'Yore"

"Jungle (Flappy Ears Version)"

Techno Trash Volume II - "Noise!"

"Mastercore (Brain Mix)"

Phase Phorce

"Industrial Metal"

"Face the Mastermind"

"Turntable Tribal"

4-Nu-Tek

"Locked in Madness"

Exoterrorist

"Microillusions (Day-Mix)"

"Illegal Consume"

"Hatt Flash"

"Victim of Hardware"

"Bash Your Brains In"

"Night of the Neon Maniacs"

Pultec

"Drugtrash"

"Psycho Drums"

Dutch Department of Techno

"Original Mix with Bats"

Force Mass Motion

"Feef Logic"

The Brotherhood of Structure EP

"First Fright (Video Mix)"

"Space Paranoia"

"Psycho Fly"

"Cosmonoise"

Ilsa Gold

Emmanuel Top

"Moby Tits" 

Koenig Cylinders

Spastic Egg

"Entropy Step"

Public Energy

"Chronoclasm"

"Nightmares Are Reality"

Labworks

"Reptilian Tank"

Egma

"Stomach Basher"

"Korrekte Atmosphere"

"Trip to E-Land"

 Hypp & Krimson,

"Tibetan Jazz"

"Are Am Eye"

 Aldrin Buzz

Edge of Motion

 "The Glitch Relapse"

"Zombies in the Mist"

 "Sick (Dominator Is Dead)"

"Space Luxury"

 "Faces of the Moon"

Meng Syndicate

"(Heinous Scream Version)"

"Ravedrug"

"Rush Bubble Mix"

Pneumatic Distress

"Fulminic"

Tones Energy

"Tone Exploitation"

"(Fratty Energy Version)"

Master Techno

"Time Problem"

Problem House

 "Rhyde the Rithum"

"Twin Freaks"

80 AUM

E-Dancer

"My First Fantastic F.F."

"Tunnel Inspection

"Mindcontroller (The Obscure Mix)"

"The Kraken"

"Fairy Dust"

"Chiswick Days"

"Air Bounce"

"Cybernatic Noisefly"

"God's Percussion Dream"

"The Dove (Coloured Dream)"

"Planet Jupiter (Raggae Dream)"

"Acid Heartcore"

"Mutation Step"

"Technoblast"

"Biolunch"

"Single Minded People"

"Acid Creak"

"Trac-X"

Numbers & Feelings

"(Sexx Ambient Mix)"

Charlie Lownoise

Syncope

"Explosion of a Dancemode"

"X-Plosion of a Dancemode"

"Stronger Than Steel"

"Trance? Never Heard Before"

Xylem Tube

"Space Metal (Pt 1 and Pt 2)"

"Sulphur Stories"

"The Ravesignal"

"Demonomania"

"Walk on Base"

Spiritual Combat

"Lake of Dreams (Bay of Rainbow Mix)"

"Lake of Dreams (Dream of Drums)"

DJ Edge, "Bass Trnce"

Boscanese Hedgehogs Fall To Earth

Madame Xerox, "Fluxpod"

Cyberchrist

Sons of Aliens

(Sadcore Mix)

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

Other neophiliac fever phases

The original "neophiliac" era, the 1960s - that would be the real rival. But it had older sonic forms embedded within it - blues, soul, folk, country....  Although FX, electrification, amplification, and studio tricknology increasingly come into play, the instrumental line-up is largely shared with earlier forms of popular music like jazz: drums, guitars, horns, bass.  So not quite as a big a break as the digital 90s.

New Wave is another rival (especially with all the  inorganic fabrics and hair-dyes... the angular graphic language and dance-moves... the quirky vocal styles and herky-jerky rhythms and melodies). But New Wave was largely based in rock's well-established instrumental template (gtr-bs-drms)  and it had echoes and deliberate reach-backs to the Sixties in much of it. Rather than synths, New Wavers tended to use keyboards - 60s-style organs, Farfisa etc. So overall it doesn't match the tekno-rave era for full-bore futurism . The first half of the '90s had all these newness-enabling tools to work with (samplers, digital audio workstations). 

Eighties synthpop, yes - but it is still tied to the Song, and to the impassioned human voice - to the idea of  "soul"  and to actual influences from soul music (think of all those fire-and-ice singer + synthesist duos). 

Electro... yes, especially with the clothes and the dancing. But it was over a bit too quick. Perhaps it is like a preliminary stage, a dry run, for the '90s eruption (so many ravers had electro childhoods). Mantronix and Nitro Deluxe in particular seem like bridges between electro and the house-techno-rave moment. 

Theory of Names, aka Nameology. 

I've mooted this before, based on ample empirical evidence that the shitness /  non-shitness of a genre is in direct relation to the shitness / non-shitness of its artist names and track titles. (Same applies to the decline of a once-great genre - the canary in the coalmine is the enshittification of names, titles, graphics).  

To me it makes sense - the names and titles would be a textual efflorescence of the music, reflecting and revealing its inner essence. 

The milquetoast mildness of most postdubstep is given away at the pre-auditory stage from the aroma wafting off  the artist aliases and the opaque titles they come up for their tunes.... Ditto broken beat, ditto downtempo, ditto all the other tasteful, "good music society", cosmopolitan / cosmigroovy sounds.  

The you-won't-like-this-steer-clear of most contemporary music (not just dance, across the genrescape) alerts my antennae through the advance warning system of  names (the album artwork is also a fairly reliable giveaway - has it ever been shitter than the present era?).  

But that corny-yet-awesome spirit of the '90s survived in pockets into the 21st Century...  flickering in bassline, in donk, in brostep, a little bit in deeptech....   UK drill too...  and I daresay it is out there to be found even now.