No Fearon

Tuff little unit of a tune at the intersection of bleep, hardcore and UK tekno 

"To The Core" - you gotta like that title 

"Drums Of Peace" rounds out this tasty 3-tracker

Uncle 22 = Desmond Fearon - co-founder of  De Underground Records, Forest Gate hardcore label of renown. 

Any relative of Phil Fearon, one of the founders of Production House? 

Uncle 22  did an album very early on in the UK acieeed-and-after story - 1989. 

On Alex Paterson & Youth's label Wau! Mr Modo

Of course, junglists know the name Uncle 22 mostly for this 

Is this some kind of prototype version? 

With Navigator

This remix is the more famous version of "6 Million",  I guess

version galore

computer eyes

 

fade aways

fading backwards through time












different fade away chain

hype the funk

Pearsall · Gimme The Funk Gimme the Funk (DJ Hype 1993-1998)

Pearsall mix of DJ Hype that traces a year-by-year (four tunes from each annum) chronology of pre-jungle to post-jungle - from nuttE on-1 darkcore to the Enshitenment aka 1000 Year Reich of Linear Fastplod

Or so I assume (my ears have only got to "Shot in the Dark"). Looking at the tracklist, the last 12 tunes (96-97-98) don't ring any bells at all, not even as titles. Maybe they're good? I doubt it though, the power of scenius tends to push all but the most resilient auteurs into the Shitezone.

1993

01. DJ Hype - The Chopper (Suburban Base)
02. DJ Hype - The Trooper (Scratch-A-Snare Mix) (Suburban Base)
03. Gappa G & Hyper Hype - Information Centre (DJ Hype Remix) (Ruff Kut)
04. DJ Hype - Shot In The Dark (Gunshot Mix) (Suburban Base)

1994

05. Fallen Angels - Hello Lover (DJ Hype Remix) (iQ Records)
06. DJ Hype - Roll The Beats feat. MC GQ (Inject the Bass Mix) (Suburban Base)
07. Dopestyle - Fade Away (Ganja)
08. DJ Hype - Tiger Style (Ganja)

1995

09. DJ Hype - Doomed To Fail (Breakdown)
10. DJ Hype - Going Out for da Loot (Ganja)
11. Marvellous Cain - The Hitman (DJ Hype Remix) (iQ Records)
12. Remarc - RIP (DJ Hype Remix) (Suburban Base)

1996

13. DJ Hype - Freestyles of Bass (G-Line)
14. Dr. Octagon - Blue Flowers (DJ Hype Remix) (Mo'Wax)
15. Bally Sagoo - Chura Liya (DJ Hype Remix) (Higher Ground)
16. DJ Hype - True Playa'z Anthem (Parousia)

1997

17. DJ Hype - Peace, Love & Unity Remix (True Playaz)
18. Armand van Helden - Ultrafunkula (Ganja Kru Remix) (ffRR)
19. Ganja Kru - Plague That Never Ends (Parousia)
20. Freestyles - Attack (True Playaz)

1998

21. DJ Hype - Barking Bass (Global Thang)
22. Freestyles - Musically Dope (Ganja Kru Remix) (True Playaz)
23. DJ Hype - The Big 3Oh (True Playaz)
24. DJ Hype - Closer to God (True Playaz)

peace of mind piece of memory

one of those early 94, back in the UK (after living in NYC for 18 months) tracks that blew my mind - sounded so fragrant, so spring breezy on the pirates in January, February, March - listening in the kitchen in the Belsize Park flat

"Music Box" = my kind of jazz jungle - sparing

never thought til now to wonder where the sample is from




this one, from the same sort of time, another favorite with a similar vibe, but less chilled - more disjointed - a panicky bliss



but no one seems to know the sample sources

once, after we'd moved back to America,  so later into the Nineties, I was calling up some doctor's office or official building of some sort or other, and got put on hold - and then I heard it, as muzak - the original sample-source as used by Gappa G and Hyper Hypa!!!!  it got played over and over (they kept me waiting a long time)

but there was no way to find out then  - no Shazam

I think the Ron version was the mix that got the play and that I particularly loved but there were many others

Some rate the Bizzy B highly





Hyper Hyper getting remixed by Hype - could be confusing



Think there was some kind of double-pack, two 10-inches in a gatefold job maybe

ah i was right 

i have it but i'm not sure with the pic sleeve

now is this the original or the Ray Keith? (the labels got mixed up apparently)




This (people seem to agree) is the actual original original mix



it's great - only a notch behind the Ron version

And then this...



(there were also a bunch of later remixes i discover, from after the enshitenment of d&b, so with useless skitter beats underneath)

I don't know anything about Gappa G and Hyper Hypa

How interesting!

"DJ/Producers from Luton, UK. Played on Herts pirate radio station Perception FM." 


Luton - not far from where I grew up. Another Hertforshire/hardcorecontinuum connection (Omni in Hatfield, Moving Shadow in Stevenage, Source Direct / Photek in St Albans, others too I think)

Perception FM! Had no idea there was ever a Herts pirate -  I would have stayed up all night secretly at my parents, on visits back to Berko, to tape it, if I had known. 


They did loads of other tunes, Gappa and Hyper

This is the next best after "Information Centre"




But I came in with "Music Box"

What about its remixes?



Is that the only one? It's very subtle. I suppose how could you improve on perfection? (not that this has stopped umpteen remixers in any number of genres I suppose).

I must have got it only on CD (the last track on Drum & Bass Selection 1, that Breakdown comp)  because I have no recollection of its vinyl incarnation with this Krust tune on the flip

a sample in the dark

what are the songs sampled in this? cos there's a lot of soundbites and good vocal licks

- "ain't it wild?"
- "legal-shun" (that's what it sounds like to me)
- "but criminal" or "buck criminal" (sounds like Public Enemy to me)
- "wrath of the psychopath" (presumably from Lords of the Underground "Psycho"?)
- "wake up" or "waco"

the top one is my favorite mix but these remixes good too








Two other killer tunes on the same EP makes this Hype's counterpart to Rufige Cru Darkrider EP

These tunes forever associated for me with this electrifying life-shaking moment of pirate madness, where both appear with the Ras Project "Walking in the Air" Aled Jones sampling tune in the  middle




Now, what's that track about 20 minutes in with the "why don't you give a little love" lover's rock entreaty sample?

The Trooper EP and Remixes are good enuff i spose -  remember feeling slightly disappointed when I heard them (after "Shot"/Weird Energy"/Can't Understand" )...

So this is my other fave Hypechoon of around this time



And perhaps even more so in the Johnny Jungle remix version off of The Joint.



The Joint might actually be my favorite ever jungle compilation -  partly to do with it coming out just as I was getting to grips with the landscape of the scene, not long after I made contact with both Moving Shadow and Suburban Base

I like the strength-in-numbers idea of pooling resources to do a compilation together:  the scene still very much the underdog and outcast, banished to the shadows, trying to get attention

The Joint II wasn't nearly as good, or as special a moment, and around that time, or a little earlier maybe,  Moving Shadow had done its own far superior comp Renegade Selector Series 1, on its Re-Animate sublabel.

Now that actually might be the best jungle comp ever, track for track

Even better than superb Drum and Bass, Selection 1 - Suburban Base's equivalent go-it-alone-again move (and on their own compilation sub-label Breakdown) although it's a close run thing

But back to Hype... there was much more greatness to come .... "Roll the Beatz"... "Computerise"...
"You Must Think First"... ...  "Rinse Out"... the "RIP" remix

this is from 2009, but it could be from now or it could be from 1999

weirdest thing ever -- how D&B went from ever-mutating force to this flatlined changeless same

the above is cut from DJ Hype's 20th Anniversary radio show, with bits of chat from him, about upcoming gigs,  Norwich one night, Fabric the next, Montpelier the one after that

and i'm thinking, imagine living this music, day in and day out, week after week, for the past ten years (2009 to 1999) *

but also all the while knowing, from the inside, from your experience deep in the innermost core of it scenius-ly and creativitly, what it was back when it was

or indeed

 also how do you keep the faith, i wonder, when you can remember when the world was paying utmost attention to  your scene/sound and then it's gone to where nobody but the believers give a monkeys....

still that may change -- apparently J Magik & Wickaman have a got a new project called Mosquito that's got  rocktronica crossover bigtime potential  (Skrillex meets Pendulum meets Daft Punk meets Prodigy, I'm told) so that's something (expand yr audience if not yr sound dimensions)


bonus flashback