Evening! Here’s a new feature I’ll be doing from now on (hopefully) … the Tuesday Time Machine!
Every Tuesday I will reach into my record shelves and pull out one vintage tune from yester-year to share with you, and briefly rabbit on about.
To kick things off, here’s ‘Energy’ by The Two G’s, a 1995 collaboration from two of the absolute pioneers of drum n’ bass music, Goldie and A Guy Called Gerald. Originally released on Gerald’s Juice Box label, this tune was also later released in an extended form on Gerald’s trailblazing album Black Secret Technology, which was one of the first serious drum n’ bass artist albums – I can’t quite remember if it was literally the first, or whether that honor goes to 4 Hero’s Parallel Universe or not, but in any case it was well ahead of its time!
Lesser-known than Goldie’s own Timeless, I’ve always had a soft spot for Black Secret Technology, since it was one of the first drum n’ bass cd’s I ever bought – as well as for the obvious reason that it is absolutely brilliant! The album has sadly become a bit of an obscurity over the years, so if you’re a new school drum n’ bass fan who wants to learn more about the roots of the sound, I seriously cannot recommend highly enough picking it up if you chance across it. Wonderful album.
Every album has it’s standouts, though, and ‘Energy’, for me, was and is the highlight of Black Secret Technology. To my knowledge this tune (and its flipside ‘The Reno’) represent the only tunes that Goldie and Gerald made together, which is a shame, because this track is an absolutely gorgeous hybrid of their two distinct styles, with intricate drum programming and solid bass thumps offset by swirling pads and a lovely little vocal snippet.
This is music equally at home on the dancefloor and in your headphones.