Sonicrampage

… make sure you listen to this incredible Congo Natty tribute by Uncle Dugs. All junglist crew!

Tracklisting:

01. Rebel MC Feat Tenor Fly – Comin On Strong
02. Rebel MC Feat Tenor Fly – The Wickedest Sound (Don Gorgon Mix)
03. Rebel MC Feat Little T – Rich Ah Getting Richer (B-Line Ruffneck Mix)
04. Rebel MC Feat Tenor Fly & Barrington Levy – Tribal Base (Foundation Mix)
05. Rebel MC + Prince Lincoln Thompson – Humanity (Bass Till Your Head Buss Mix)
06. Rebel MC + Prince Lincoln Thompson – I Can’t Get No Sleep (Jungle Fever Mix)
07. X Project – Walking In The Air (Mix A1)
08. X Project – Inah Sound
09. Conquering Lion – Phenomenon 1 (Catch The Fever Mix)
10. X Project – Dub Plate Special (Ruff Cut)
11. Conquering Lion – Code Red (Wild Apache Mix)
12. Blackstar – Kunte Kinte
13. Blackstar Feat Top Cat – Champion Dj (Blueprint Mix)
14. Conquering Lion – Stamina
15. Rebel MC Feat Junior Reid – Banana Boat Man (Original Mix)
16. X Project – Jah Sunshine
17. Barrington Levy & Beenie Man – Under Me Sensi (Jungle Spliff) (X Project Remix)
18. Conquering Lion Feat Beenie Man – Rastaman (Original Dubplate Version)
19. Blackstar Feat Sweetie Irie – Get Wild (Knowledge & Wisdom Mix)
20. Tribe Of Issachar Feat Peter Bouncer – Junglist Pt2
21. Conquering Lion Feat Beenie Man – Code Black (Remix)
22. Tribe Of Issachar Feat Peter Bouncer – Fever (The Revolution Has Now Begun)
23. Lion Of Judah Feat Bounty Hunter – Emporer Selassie I (King Of Kings)
24. Tribe Of Issachar – Wardance Millennium (Original Dubplate)
25. Tribe Of Issachar Feat Top Cat – His Imperial Majesty (Original Dubplate)
26. Congo Natty Feat Top Cat – Original Sess (Police In Helicopter)

Today the Tuesday Time Machine is headed back to 1997 with The Shining, a vintage slice of techstep from the legendary Optical!

Best known for his long-running partnership with Ed Rush, Optical (known to his mom as Matt Quinn) was originally a solo producer, responsible for many excellent releases like this one, which appeared in 1997 on Metro Recordings, a label owned by his brother, Matrix. It’s not a particularly complicated tune, but a highly effective one. For the first minute and twenty seconds there are no beats, just deep, atmospheric chords, with the first hints of percussion percolating through at about the one minute mark. When the beat finally drops, it is a crisp two-stepper undergirded by a grimily distorted bassline, the legendary Reece bass tortured into a new shape. And that’s … about it. A simple and hypnotic tune – if you’re listening to this on headphones you can’t help but move, and if you are on the dancefloor you find yourself swept away without being really conscious of it.

This is hardly one of his most famous tunes, but it is one that I have always really liked. If you like this, you should definitely make a point to check out the Ed Rush and Optical albums Wormhole and The Creeps, which are both fantastically produced slabs of that minimal neurofunk sound (which they, of course, pioneered).

An occasional feature where I grab a record from my collection … and write about it

On today’s edition of the Tuesday Time Machine, we are going to look back at a vintage, yet relatively unknown, Dillinja remix – his 1995 remake of Alex Reece’s Basic Principles on Metalheadz. Unlike a lot of Dillinja’s most famous tunes from that era, this is not a tear-your-face-off Amen smasher designed to completely annihilate the dancefloor. Something like that wouldn’t really make sense, given the fact that the original, in true Alex Reece style, was a mellow, jazzy roller designed for the dreamier floors (and for top-down summer driving). So, instead of going completely berserk, the Dilli-man reaches a nice compromise, draping Reece’s summery chords and vocal vamps over some properly iron-plated drums and stomach-punching bass that hint at the total madness that Dillinja so often unleashed. However, by practicing some restraint, this tune retains a versatility that it might not have if it really went balls to the wall. As such, it can work either as a tougher moment in a mellower set, or as a lighter moment in a harder set, or just as a nice vibing tune in the midst of a rollers selection.

Plus, because it is not one of his better known tunes, it is available really cheap on Discogs.

Want more Dillinja? Check out the History of Dillinja mixes by The Law.

If you want more drum n’ bass/jungle, here are my three most recent mixes:

King of the Rollerz – My DJ Zinc tribute
Dark Side of the Nuum – Vintage ragga jungle
Urban Takedown – Classic mid-90′s jump-up

What are you doing right now?

Well, whatever it is, stop it. Right. This. Second.

And go listen to the new Lab 4 tribute by Girdler Synthetic, the Soundcloud player of which I have helpfully embedded above. It’s two hours of wall-to-wall amazing tunes from Lab 4, who were pretty much my favorite hard trance act of all time. I first encountered Lab 4, aged 17, at the Pendragon Summer Solstice rave in Brixton Academy, and I was absolutely blown away by the power of tunes like ‘XL6′, ‘Genetik Response’, and ‘Reformation’ (to be fair, there was a little, um, assistance in the process ), and I must have seen them at least a dozen more times over the years after that, at places like The Drome, Heaven, The Astoria, The Fridge, Camden Palace, etc, and every single time they rocked it good, and they rocked it hard, the intensity and the tempo building and building into a crescendo of fist-pumping, teeth-clenching madness. Somehow their genius transcended normal scene boundaries, with their sets destroying crusties, Antipodeans, and northern furry-booted donkmeisters with equal efficiency.

Damn, they were good.

In fact, I love them so much I was planning on doing my own tribute, but I suppose I don’t have to now!

I’ve also made a cue file, for anyone else who wants to split up this mix, which you can grab here.

Enjoy the rest of your weekend!

See the original image

Tomorrow on the Freeformaniacs show … Jerome and Endemic! Make sure to tune in at KraftyRadio.com …

Oh, and let me know which of my 2013 mix concepts you want to hear!

Here is a selection of some of the recent episodes:

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Just a little post for today, but I wanted to let you know that I’ve now updated my XLR8R Podcasts cue file frenzy post with cue files for XLR8R magazine podcasts from techno hero Ben Sims, UK Funky maestro Champion, deep beats wizard Om Unit, and Detroit electro mainstay DJ Stingray. Check it out!

It’s Saturday! Here are a few mixes that I’ve enjoyed recently on Soundcloud (imo, Soundcloud is now hands-down the best music service on the net):

First up, is Fact Mix 362, Special Request’s mix for the Fact mix series, which charts a course through rave sounds, from old to new. Special Request is a new(ish) alias of long-time house producer Paul Woolford, covering some fresh house interpretations of the old skool hardcore sound. Good fun!

Next up is ‘Amenarchy’, an absolutely blazing new skool jungle mix from San Diego’s DJ Rebellion; I found this on the always excellent RaggaJungle.biz site. Some absolutely murderous breaks and basslines on this – I really really enjoyed this mix, and you will too.

Elijah and Skilliam from Butterz have been enthusiastically driving the grime renaissance over the last few years through their label, blogs, radio shows, and club gigs, and, of course, their mixes. Their latest one, a Valentines special for the Special Request mix series, showcases the more romantic side of grime (well, everything is relative) … featuring tracks from Ruff Sqwad, Wiley, Dizzee Rascal, and many more. I thought it was great – an excellent selection of quality tunes, both old and new. If you liked my Drop The Hammer 8 then you’ll dig this.

Staying on a grimey tip, off the back of a recommendation from Mark Jenkins of Fried My Little Brain I discovered this excellent mix by Slackk. Slackk has a unique style, mashing together grime sounds with house rhythms to make a unique London dance sound, all clicks, squawks, and icy cold blasts of Eskibass.

Last but very much not least is this live recording of Luke Vibert’s set at Vinyl Pimp’s Hackney shop last Saturday night in conjunction with Discogs. I’ve been good friends with Man Hon Luk, the Vinyl Pimp himself, for over ten years and it’s really really cool to see his business doing new and exciting things. Sadly I wasn’t able to make it to the party last weekend because my little girl was sick, but just listen to this set – listen to it! A thing of true beauty. If you’re on Facebook you can see an album of photos of the night right here.

Oh yeah, and if you’re a vinyl junkie and you have a Discogs wants list, click here to see what the Vinyl Pimp has in stock for you!

About one year ago, in my Morally Diminished 3 post, I said:

Every mix I do starts with an idea. Not a big idea, not a complicated idea, but a simple idea, one that can generally can be boiled down to a sentence or less … At any given moment I have a whole bunch of these little mix ideas floating around my head – some of them are quite fleshed out in terms of what kind of tracks I want to feature, while others are much vaguer, just a basic concept and a fuzzy feeling that, hey, it would be nice to put that mix together at some point.

Nothing has changed …

I still have lots of ideas for mixes! So, I thought it would be fun to share some of the concepts with you and get your feedback, as it would be really good to hear what people want to hear. Having borrowed some CDJ’s from my good buddy Jamie, I can also do some different mixes than before, it being a lot cheaper to pick up 15-20 tracks digitally than on vinyl!

At this point I should point out that I already have two fresh mixes in the bag and ready to be posted to Sonicrampage. Rampage Turbo 15 is already available to stream, but I’ve not had a chance to split it into separate tracks yet, due to my desktop pc being on its deathbed; I’ve got a new one on the way, so that mix should be available to grab sometime next week. Also coming later this month is Slaves to the Silver Box, an old skool acid mix that I have done for DI.fm’s Old School Mix Marathon V (check out the mixes from volume four) – I’m quite excited for that project, because besides the mix being another 303 journey along the lines of The Waveform Cult and Beyond The Valley Of The Acid Vixens, featuring tracks from the likes of Hardfloor, DJ Misjah, Nostrum, Josh Wink, and more, but it’s also having a cover made up by an old high school friend who has very handily turned into an awesome artist, plus I have a pretty cool idea for the accompanying essay – I just need to make that a reality!

So, without further ado, genre by genre, here are some of the mix ideas I had in mind for 2013:

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Om nom nom nom … my wife is doing a Cordon Bleu course at the moment, and these are the kinds of goodies I am getting. Life is tough!

On another note, here’s a streamable version of Rampage Turbo 15; proper post and download link coming next week, but for now wrap your ears around this:

Freeformaniacs Round 8 – Pearsall presents Rampage Turbo 15 (31/01/2013) by Freeformaniacs on Mixcloud

Of course, I would be remiss to not include in this post the two other great mixes that have already been done for Round 8 of Freeformaniacs:

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Absolutely, utterly banging. No more needs to be said.

(Oh, and don’t forget to download Yoko’s mix from last year’s Old School Mix Marathon IV)