The End Drug

 Love this YouTube poster's typo - "The End Drug (induced psychosis mix)

"The End"  -  sequel to "The Beginning"

Heard that so many times on the pirates in early '93

"Bonus Turbo Cut" is a cool title - but a bit of an unfinished track

As is this the lead cut on the EP

"A big shout out to all the Oxford Massive"

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)

 

aowuu wowu wowu woww owu-wu

this Carns Hill production



reminds me of this



the yearning mystic diva-moan

the latter uses the same female vocal sample as this jungle tune



whose source is this




or - possibly - mediated by this sampling of same




it also got used by the Orb of course



and by this lot  - who I liked for a moment there, until they went all progressive housey



and also this one too - by the for-a-while promising, but ultimately petering out and being a bit boring (as on this tune) Depth Charge



and the Sister Aisha lick appeared in various other tunes (there's a hard trance example out of Germany for instance)

think that this is actually my favorite use of it, although at the time i confess I didn't care much for the tune when it dropped into the pirate mix  - perhaps because it did have a little bit of sedated "ambient dub" meets Leftfield / Guerrilla Records vibe about it which I was getting frustrated with and not wanting to intrude itself upon the frenzy of the ardkore




another tune in the, ah, lineage, that does the mystic yearning woman rippling in the echo chamber thing is this dubsteppa




back in a loop to the start with another Carns Hill production with a wavery female vocal, but more ghostly-eerie than mystic St Theresa-y



and ooer missus - that title, it is well nuum-y innit

[via WebEschatology]