Oxford Ardkore

Amused to stumble upon this obscure hardcore release titled Oxford Ardkore.  Two releases in fact - there was a follow up. 

"Oxford Ardkore" almost seems like a concept someone came up with to take the piss out of me, what with being a product of the university.

But it's for real and it's the work of a character who recorded as Doctor G (which again makes you imagine a professor who caught the raving bug and operates a pirate station from the eyrie of his chambers in Balliol or Magdalen)

Of course, Oxford is not only the university - it's a large town with an industrial element (Cowley) and a lot of regular people leading lives unconnected to academia or the ancillary employment that the colleges support. 

Still, it's not inconceivable that some students were sufficiently clued in - and drugged up - to be actually into rave and the first stirrings of jungle. 

Now I think of it, there was a post a few years back about ardkore junglizm emanating from the Oxford area  -Wots My Code, Invisible Man, Spinback, Q Project, Gwange, Total Science etc . 

Specifically the Blackbird Leys Estate (a place rife with joyriding in '91, incidentally).  

Good building to set up a transmitter from the top of... 

Wots My Code namechecking their hometown. 

Back to Doctor G, who ran a label called, haha, G-Spot Records. (Love the little joke of "Est 92")

Now I wonder what the 'Scratchapella' sounded like... 

Most of this stuff is not really first-rank work of the era, let's be honest 

next four from SubLogic 2010 offering The Unreleased History of Doctor G 

update 1/29

YT in comments points out that Doctor G = Graham Mew = The Invisible Man, a better known name in ardkore 'scenti circles. He notes the similarity with the hand-drawn labels. Another giveaway is the reference to Bangin B-Line as the production entity. And indeed it says "all tracks written, produced, engineered, mixed and sorted by Doctor 'G'". Sorted!

Ah, look he had a lot of aliases in those day

An entire mix of Invisible Man tuneage courtesy of Law 

Eventually he graduated to Good Looking 

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

Now what's this then - a completely different, much later, Oxford 'Ardkore - some kind of hardcore punk thrash band!

That's a reference to the iconic debut album cover by Bad Brains but instead of the White House it's the Bodleian library getting zapped with lightning (my college Brasenose, unscathed, is in the background)