"Contemporary and futuristic"

 

After the graphic and some of the titles ("Lost World", "Black Mist", "Dank") the actual music is fearfully uninteresting - fearfully lacking in fearfulness.

smackman crackman crackman crackman crackman crackman

the most famous iteration of this theme - or iterations plural

the version I remember best - "crackman on the line freaking out - don't do that - crackman on the line freaking out - dangerous!"

more Smack-ing tunes

more Crack-ing tunes 

Story behind "Autobiography" / "Green Man" via Class of 88 website

SMILEY: The Shacklewell Arms used to be called The Green Man. And basically The Green Man pub was where all the local guys used to go and buy their crack cocaine. That’s where it was sold, in that pub, so you know that pub is responsible for smashing so many lives. I mean, tearing families apart.

Seriously, that was like the devil was there. And I mean, we’ve seen from ages of, like, fourteen year olds to fifty year olds coming out of that pub, and they’ll be stealing from mums and brothers and dads, and robbing old ladies. Doing aggravated burglaries so they could get money to go into that bloody pub, The Green Man.

I mean, that’s a significant piece of history that place is, but a lot of people don’t know this.

But we was here from the beginning. So, we made a song called The Green Man. It was about people going in there buying crack.

And also on the flipside of Green Man, where it was more PJ’s idea, we had a song called Autobiography Of A Crackhead, and that was sort of like one of our deepest songs we’ve ever done really.

PJ: Basically it was a rap tune, and it was us both doing a verse each about living the life of a crackhead.

SMILEY: It’s not, like, bigging up crack…

Another Crack-in tune, suggested by YT in comments

The Darkside

 

Darkside before "darkside"...  

Writing about this next Derrick May tune in early '88 - in the middle of a piece on acid house - I was reminded of Joy Division, indeed describing as one of those "lost Joy Division B-sides". What can I have meant? The compelled-sounding feel of "She's Lost Control"? It certainly doesn't sound like "These Days", the great lost B-side of "Love Will Tear Us Apart". 

Listening to it again now, I can't really hear why it made me flash on Joy Division. If anything, it's closer to an incredibly reduced, emaciated take on "Everything's Gone Green".

Hearing postpunk echoes in postfunk sounds outta Detroit... this brings up the strangeness and drifty unfixability of temporality in music. For as much as these records seem "ahead of their time today" (they did in fact blueprint much of '90s techno), at the actual time of writing I said it reminded me of early '80s avant-funk. I even used the phrase "lost future" to describe these vibe-echoes of DAF and Liaisons Dangereuses audible in acid house and the darker side of Detroit (in particular Reese "Just Want Another Chance" and Phuture's "Your Only Friend")

Probably what I should have said is "interrupted future" - with the guitar-y main body of the Eighties representing a deliberate abstention from technology - sequencers, drum machines, MIDI. By main body, I really refer to the alternative rock sphere - the future carried on unfurling in  mainstream rock to some extent, as digital took over in studios. And I suppose there were corners of the alternative - industrial and Electronic Body Music - that embraced the latest tech. Still, with indie, the return of guitars, and the wistful casting-backwards-glances to the 1960s dominant, outright futurism dropped away in alternative music sufficiently for me to wield this trope of "the lost future" - referring to something that went into abeyance only five years earlier. 

Returning our ears to the May heyday, the thing that gets me in his tunes are those egg-whisk sounds - hi-hats, I think - whose scything rustle creates that distinctive nervous propulsion. Heard at their most sibilantly nagging here:

And to lesser degree here:

Also the melodies with their indefinable alloy of serene euphoria and lonely desolation.  

Also the basslines

Okay, the whole thing is consummate - but I do love the egg-whisk sounds. 

It's kind of ASMR-y, a delicious itch in the ear.

"Confusion!"

 

'Confusing Times" - the title of a slice of brand nu-darkcore by a veteran demi-legend of the original era, Jack Smooth, caught my attention - in part because the concept of confusion - druggy disoriented delirium, but also the con-fusion of disparate elements into manic collages (fissile rather than fusional) is at the heart of the dark moment - the sense that no one knew exactly what they were doing or where they were going, a collective plunge into the unknown, a kind of chaotic multi-tentacled organism birthing itself blindly, a Lovecraftian entity

And isn't the word "CONFUSION" shouted in archetypal darkcore classic "Here Come the Drumz", sampled from Public Enemy?

Why yes it is... at 30 seconds in, for the first iteration

But here in the present  day, there is no confusion about what darkcore is... it's a settled genre. The ingredients and constituents are very much known, this is terra cognita, mapped and plotted...  a formula even, as can be seen in the preciseness with which Mr Smooth descibes his modus operandi. 

Back-in-the-day darkness from Smooth and Wax Doctor, it grinding riff nastiness could be PCP cru 

Talking of titles, I like the one for this back-in-the-day Jack trak - "Happy Nonsense"!

An earlier track with another cool title - "Sweat Attack" (not as it says on the label, "Take Some E's"! which is also excellent in its blunt 'this is what this music is for' instruction)

from the Crowd Control EP  (yet another clever title).

What other hardcore / darkcore songs reference the concept of "Confusion"?

Adding these suggestions from Spiro in comments.... 

The latter as Spiro notes doesn't have "confusion" in the sample but is there in a vocal sample 

Ed in comments mentions New Order's "Confusion", which is a bit outside the era. Never liked this tune much (too Freez "I.O.U.") but I love this video with its snapshot of Manhattan clubland in the early '80s, the Funhouse etc etc

Here's a fairly orrible mid-90s techno-trance refix of "Confusion"

"Various Rushed-Up Nutters"

Ardkore is so utterly canonized now, so thoroughly written into history, that it can be understandably hard for people today to imagine how demeaned and even demonized it was back in the day. 

A colleague of mine at Melody Maker - who later would co-found a dance music monthly - once declared indignantly: "jungle's just not music!" 

Here's someone at the other paper with a page-full of vintage UKdance discourse circa May 1993.

Kris Needs pens a round-up of recent house, techno, progressive, garage, trance compilations,  pretty much uniformly laudatory, and then squeezes in some swipes at the ardkore:  

He is slightly less condescending to a dark side compilation. 

That joke with the twists on Various Artists is continued all through the page, with compilations being attributed to Various Switched-On Clubbers, Various Future Foragers and Trance-Trousered Supermodels, Various Techno Warriors and Acid Scientists, etc, complimentary for the most part.  

Tracklisting on the first of those comps:

Jungle House Crew– King Of The Jungle (Bamboo Mix)

Cool Hand Flex– Lock Me Up

Noise Factory– Behold The Jungle

Ellis Dee & Swan-E– Roughneck Business

Macka Brown– Go Down Baby

Satin Storm– I Think I'm Going Out Of My Head

DJ SS– OH! Master

Naz A.K.A. Naz– Organised Crime

Acen– Trip To The Moon Pt III

Killerhertz – Distant Dream

Noise Factory– We Can

Four classsics there I think... an era-characterful funny one (the first tune) and the rest is solid stuff. 

 

Tracklist on the Darkside comp

Doc Scott– Here Comes The Drumz

Mega City 2– Darker Side Of Evil

Babylon Timewarp– Durban Poison

D Force– Original Bad Boy

Kaotic Chemistry– Illegal Subs

Metalheads– Terminator

DMS– SOS (Unreleased Baby D Mix)

Edge Of Darkness– Come Together (Original Mix)

DJ Seduction– Sub Dub

Darkman*– String Of Darkness

Noise Factory – Survival

NRG*– I Need Your Lovin' (Real Hardcore Mix)

Seven absolute classics of the era plus five solid second-rank tunes = a classic comp. A swathe across the greatest and the most near-future predictive music of the era.

So basically the Rushed-Up Nutters and especially the Gothic Nutters are spot-on about what's hot and where the cutting edge is

Now funnily enough I reviewed the second of these compilations for Melody Maker, but the bloody reviews ed never ran it. (Possibly an indication in itself that this kind of music wasn't taken seriously - or perhaps they were just tired of me banging on and on about it! ). Here's the paper print out of the review as faxed from NYC to IPC Towers (the disk file itself long corrupted and gone)

The odd markings across the page are from when I later went through it looking for lines to use in Energy Flash. 

At that time there was just a couple of record shops in New York you could find these CD comps as imports, I think I found these two in a store in Greenwich Village. Because of the neighbourhood and its population, a lot of the record stores there had a kind of reflexive Anglophilia and would stock a few of anything from the U.K.

This incidentally is Needs's pick of the season, a Tresor comp, which is good-to-great stuff for sure (mostly for the Detroit inclusions). 

Couldn't resist another swipe at the 'core cru - "squeezed under techno's abused umbrella, the dozen tunes on show here display a depth and diversity light years removed from both hardcore and the handbag-jiggle so often passed off as dance music in our charts and media". 

Personally I preferred the previous Tresor comp

Terminators

Well who knew there was an early "Terminator"?

(Well, I didn't)

Seems like there must be other ardkore / darkcore / jungle tekno songs titled "Terminator" or that sample from one or other of the film?

Or indeed some gabber cases

Beyond Belief

 

This record came out in 1993!!!

Things like this I would listen to in disbelief  - first, that music like this could even exist, and second, that no one seemed to have noticed (I mean outside the core scene, which was completely cut off, media-banished, cognoscenti-scorned, and accordingly inward looking, out of necessity) 

I had a completely clear run at it for around 18 months. There was me and there was Kodwo, who would put some hardcore 12's in his monthly club trax column at the Wire - and that was it, in terms of serious-minded outside-scene coverage. 

Yes it was my Lester Bangs right side of History moment - you'll forgive me for being attached to it. 

(And in truth Lester had more company in his clairvoyance -  other crits-wise - than I did)

Ian McShane in the membrane

Mark Fisher on Dark Side (New Statesman, 1994)

 

"music to be murdered by"

 

"storey"! -

Yet this tune did not make the recent Selectabwoy the Typo Mix  - droll concept, excellent selection/execution 

mix rationale: 

Well this is possibly the dumbest idea I've had yet: collating thirty of the most heinous spelling & grammatical errors in jungle/hardcore history and putting them in a mix.

Typos are one of many endearingly genuine hallmarks of homegrown, DIY scenes like hardcore and jungle, and I've always had a strange fascination with them. For the selection process, one very simple rule applied: a blatant mistake in the artist or track name had to be present on the original label or sleeve artwork. (Not really fair to shoot fish in a barrel, so 90s jungle compilations were deemed off-limits, the only exception being compilation exclusives).

Arguably the tracklist is the main event here, and I’ve included bonus details verbatim from the label/sleeve wherever I could find them, but as it turned out the mix itself was a joy to put together. Obscure research briefs like this usually throw up a few tunes I've never heard before, and as is often the case they're great ... some are phenomenal.

Shouts out and big <3 to the featured artists and labels; for the music of course, but also the casual oversight, wanton misuse of apostrophes, utterly inexplicable brainfarts, bad handwriting transcriptions by stoned artworkers, and anything else that made this selection possible.

A special thanks to Robbie @r-hawk for his creative assitance and the LLBCJ group for hosting the original typo thread ;)

Enjoy the mix.

Hopa-Bone's - O'K Coral [In Touch Records]

Cool Hand Flex - Rythm Flow (Assitant: MC Fats Carlton) [In Touch Records]

Cool Hand Flex - Melody Madnes (Re-Mix prod by Ronie Size) [In Touch Records]

Family Of Intelligence - Bonus (Dud Plate Mix) [Kemet]

Dillinger - Tear Down (da whole place) (produced by Dillinga) [Conqueror]

Underground - Weel And Come Again (Ing by Flex) [De Underground]

Ray Kieth - The Terroist Mixes - The Final Licks - Dub Plate (Part 2) [Ruff Kut!]

Ragu & Stalker - Love Comes 'N' Go's [Vinyl Addiction]

Brian Killers - Screw Face Part 3 (Mellow Mix) [Kemet/3rd Party]

Intelligent Jungalist - Barehedd One (Shout to all Intelligent Jungalists's) [Ruff Guidance]

88.3 feat. Lisa May - Wishing On A Star (Rouge Unit Dub Mix) [Urban Gorilla]

Wax Doctor - Kid Capprice [Metalheadz]

Protential Bad Boy - Murder Jumppan Sound [Redskin]

Kemet Crew (Briankillers/Schwarznegger) - For Real [Kemet]

Tom & Jerry - Shoaling Style (Vip Mix) [Riddim Track]

Asylum - Stepin'Hard [Metalheadz]

City Connection - Loosing My Mind [Labello Blanco]

Family Of Intelligence - Bounus Beat #1 [Kemet/3rd Party]

Brian Records Presents Bizzy B & Equinox - 7 Minutes of Maddness [Brain Records]

Dream Team - Survival Of There Fit [Joker]

Interrorogator - Break War (written by DJ Interrorogator, Simon Martin & Ant Mles) [Liftin' Spirit]

2.2 - Frist Klass [Blu Inc]

Kaos Theory - Sooth My Soul [Intalex]

Bab. B. Kane - Paradise (Bab. B. Kane & Ash Remix) [Kikman]

TDK - Illusion Of Ballance [Kemet]

Ratty - Source Of All Evil (DJ SS Remix) (A Tatse Of Things To Come EP) [Formation]

C. Biz - The Croud Says Rewind [Brain Records]

Leviticus - Cronic 1. Burial (Madamoselle Mix) [Philly Blunt]

The Good, 2 Bad & Hugly - A Fist Full Of Dollors [Ruff Kut!]

Subject 13 - The Uniqe Beatz EP Intense Remixes - Carear Come 1st (Widgy Grub Remix) [ULR]

"boy that stuff can give you a brain damage"

 

"Wake up, indie-kids" (Metalheads et al in MM )

 

January 30 1993 - and I made "Terminator" one of the singles of the week - the first time Metalheads / Goldie get single of the week, but not the last time... 

What leaps out now is that assessment "not especially innovative" which is of course dead wrong, but I was still getting to grips with the scene / sound, had yet to formulate the concept of rhythmic psychedelia (copyright me, yes that's right me) (Still I can't complain about "sampling" really can I now, since "chaste, hideous rapture" is stolen from Lautreamont and was probably the fourth - and far from last time -  I borrowed the phrase.)

Also notable about this singles column is the rave review for Satin Storm, which I believe I've mistitled (based on what was scrawled on the white label  I bought) and is better known now as "Think I'm Going Out of My Head"

I wish I had made Satin Storm single of the week instead of The Drum Club tune which is not that great - certainly not as good as their previous 'U Make Me Feel So Good".

And then Metalheads score again in August of '93 with "Angel" - and this time we have a picture of Goldie. It's even worse than the photo of me I think! That strange perpendicular finger... 

Also notable about this August '93 column - see below -  I make Foul Play "Open Your Mind (Foul Play Remix") Single of the Week (or rather, say I would have, but we didn't have a photo of the group. Not that this stopped us with "Terminator", mind) . 

Origin Unknown "Long Dark Tunnel" - better known as "Valley of Shadows" - is reviewed off of hearing it on pirate radio. (Or was it on a CD compilation? I don't think so). I'm not sure how I knew the name of the label, but I know I didn't own the vinyl at that point - bought it much, much later. Also worthy of Single of the Week status.

Aha - and then there's reviews for Omni Trio (yet another SOTW contender surely) while Goldie gets another review with the Rufige Cru "Ghosts". Well now I wish I had made that the second single of the week (or third, or fourth, or fifth)  and mentioned the remix of "Terminator" - "Terminator 2".

                                  The very tune that germinated the concept of rhythmic psychedelia in my brain? It has backwards                                                                      drums and phased breaks, see... 

Ray Keith is misattributed as the author of the Wot's My Code tune rather than remixer  - easy mistake to make as his name was massive on the front record sleeve.

Also this large claim on the label kinda invites confusion

Who's this Knookie chappie then? 

more brilliant than the sun

slightly more than seven minutes in...

never understood why they didn't title it "Long Dark Tunnel", as opposed to "Valley of the Shadows"








tee hee

"j'ai peur" ( transmissions du côté obscur)

at least i think that's what she's saying

darkside en Francais

this one is a beaut - ruff yet smooth



less smooth prototype



smoother alternate mix



somehow the works of D.O.P.E. have bypassed me until this point








excellent stuff


postscript 4/15

according to Original Chills in comment, the "j'ai peur" sample is sourced in this Belgian techno track



from 1991 so that's proto-darkside that's very proto then

(although a lot of acid house was proto-darkside, so perhaps more accurate to say that darkside is a flavour, a strand, running right through the stick of Brighton rock that is housetechnorave)

nostril + nostril

prefer the left one

This pair done a lot of good stuff under various joint names and separately (and with different collaborators too).

Here's just one early alias



Pascal Redpath is actually his real name, would you believe?

Before deciding whether to release a track or not, do you think James Hoyte thought to himself, "Is this Sponge-worthy?" *






* obscure and strained joke

never trust your fantasies

classic darkcore "I can't believe these feelings" rave-dream-as-lie paranoia title to this Essence of Aura EP that's weirdly eluded my ears to until this very moment





Lord of Darkness himself Doc Scott on the remix tip here



"Intruder", from the Pure Essence EP also very much on that vybe (cf.  Luna C Project's "Edge of Madness"- "There's an invisible intruder / That's got inside your mind / Invading your sense of right and wrong / Making your conscience blind")





original of "Can I Dream"




love the label graphic on this 93 collab with Distortion Crew





unreleased cut issued by ardkore archival label sublogic



transitioning from dark into intelligence like so many others

history rEpEats

Dance explosion, fueled by euphoriant drug, is followed by messy phase when the drug is cut with adulterants and surrogates, leading to bad reactions and deaths.... confusion, excess, paranoia, recklessness and wrecked-ness.

Mixmag with a report on how MDMA powder aka Molly, the cult of which was based on its purity and reliability compared to Ecstasy in pressed pill form, is nowadays, almost inevitably, increasingly turning out to be adulterated or bogus, with thje substitute substances in most cases being the MDMA analogue Methylone.

"The Miami Herald reported that in just 12 months there had been a staggering 16-fold increase in seizures of methylone, while MDMA seizures had dropped off a cliff. In 2011, Miami police reports show drugs sold as Molly were seized and submitted for testing 207 times. The overwhelming majority – 190 – contained MDMA, while just 17 contained methylone. But in 2012... testing proved that 278 samples contained methylone, and just 59 contained MDMA"

Echoing the hardcore-era not-quite-E surrogate MDA, famously encountered in the notoriously intense "snowball" pills of the early 90s, Methylone offers a speedier, harsher buzz:


“Methylone is fun, but I’d rather have MDMA for sure,” [Mark, a London-based DJ] says. “Methylone makes me sweat like hell, and gives me a tight jaw. The high isn’t as deep and is a shorter buzz. It can make you quite touchy-feely and even horny – it’s pretty good for sex, though most guys can’t come on it. But the thing I least like about it is that it leaves me wanting more, like coke. Also, methylone is a little more harsh on the comedown and leaves your heart beating quite hard, whereas MDMA doesn’t,” he says. “I wouldn’t be totally pissed off if I got some methylone for a night out, but I’d want to know what I had – and I’d want to pay less for it.” 

As an adulterant, it’s among the least bad things it could be, nowadays. Luckily, it’s not massively toxic and the dose range isn’t that different to MDMA – a standard dose is around 100mg, or a tenth of a gramme, much like ecstasy.

Other common adulterants in US pills and capsules include TFMPP, a vile drug that will make you feel wakeful, hot and restless, and 5-MEO-DipT, a powerful drug that should never be mixed with other substances as it can react badly and cause spasms.

The report is by Mike Power whose book Drugs 2.0 – The Web Revolution That’s Changing How The World Gets High is an in-depth exploration of modern drug culture and the rise of analogues bought and sold through the internet. More info here.


 More stories about drug induced badness and EDM  -- deaths at Electric Zoo in NYC; Australian festival plagued by overdoses

More about Methylone's "tweekier high" at EDM Tunes

Big question about how all this will affect EDM: is the music going to get darker, more twisted and febrile, more interesting?

darkside EDM?

EDM gets messy, heads into the darkside?

feature on why MDMA is destroying EDM at Consequence of Sound

and Billboard with the coldblooded business angle -- Will Electric Zoo's Drug-Related Deaths Impact SFX's IPO?

the question, I ask, with the coldblooded aesthete / genreologist's perspective, is will there be EDM tunes as radically dark-blissed as this?

and this?

and this and this?