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Pearsall presents The Bristol Rollers Appreciation Society 2
right-click, save as to download this free mp3 mix
Mixed in Berlin, February 2026
100% Vinyl
(62:38, 151 MB, 320 kbps mp3)
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Direct link to the mix:
https://sonicrampage.org/mixes/brap/Pearsall-TheBristolRollersAppreciationSociety2(BassScoopsSpecial).mp3
Tracklisting:
- DJ Krust – Maintain [V Recordings]
- DJ Krust – Going Nowhere [Full Cycle]
- DJ Krust – B-Boy Culture [V Recordings]
- Alex Reece – Jazz Master (DJ Krust Remix) [4th & Broadway]
- DJ Krust – I Believe [OKBRON]
- Roni Size – Saturday [Independent Dealers]
- DJ Cam – Innervisions (DJ Die Remix) [Inflammable]
- Scorpio – Mellow Song [Full Cycle]
- Wings – Wings [Reinforced]
- Nuyorican Soul – It’s Alright, I Feel It (Roni Size Remix) [Talkin’ Loud]
- Bill Riley – The Edge [Full Cycle]
- DJ Shadow – What Does Your Soul Look Like? (DJ Die Remix) [Mo’Wax]
- United Future Organization – The Planet Plan (DJ Die Remix) [Talkin’ Loud]
- Nicolette – We Never Know Except (Roni Size Remix) [Mercury]
- Secret Weapon – Strange Dayz [Protocol]
- Roni Size & Reprazent – Electricks [Talkin’ Loud]
- DJ Die – Clear Skyz [Full Cycle]
- DJ Die – Clear Skyz (1996 VIP) [Gutterfunk]
- Roni Size – Brut Force [Full Cycle]
- Turntable Terranova – Precipice (DJ Krust Remix) [Compost]
- Flynn & Flora – Bizniz [Independent Dealers]
- Firefox & Suvivor – Back Out of Dis [Philly Blunt]
- Trinity – Gangsta (Glamour Gold Remix) [Philly Blunt]
- Gang Related & Mask – Death Blow [Dope Dragon]
- Glamour Gold – The Only One [Rap]
I’m back with another old skool drum n’ bass mix, this time for the Bass Scoops show on Toxic Sickness Radio.
John Bass Scoops (above on the left, with me on the right) is a guy I met online a few years back after he reached out. I promised him a mix a long time ago (gulp) but it took me forever to get around to doing it. Hopefully this is a nice treat now that it’s actually done!
We actually met for a few drinks a while back when he was in Berlin – great guy! As he is from Bristol, the theme of the mix was super obvious (to me at least) – I had to do a mix of some of tracks from some of my favourite 90’s Bristol drum n’ bass artists!
In case you’ve been living under a rock, you might be unaware that Bristol has been one of Britain’s most consistently musically fertile city over the past thirty years. From trip-hop to jungle to drum n’ bass to dubstep to grime to all kinds of weird and interesting things, Bristol has consistently punched way above its weight (I don’t even think it’s in the top 10 largest cities in the UK). It must be something in the water … or the weed!
In terms of drum n’ bass in particular, Bristol has been probably the second most important city in the evolution of the music, after London. And credit for that mostly goes to the Full Cycle crew: Roni Size, DJ Krust, DJ Die, DJ Suv, as well as associates like Bill Riley, Flynn and Flora, and Smith & Mighty.
These guys were and are insanely prolific, putting out tons of stuff on their own labels Full Cycle and Dope Dragon, making regular appearances on Bryan Gee’s labels V Recordings, Chronic, and Philly Blunt, as well as contributing to other labels with singles and remixes, they were also (especially Roni Size) regularly tapped by major labels to provide drum n’ bass remixes of artists in other styles. Their group project Roni Size & Reprazent was a new standard in ambition for live drum n’ bass and even won the prestigious Mercury Prize in 1997, the first drum n’ bass artists to do so. These guys were not sitting on their butts!
Given all this, it’s basically a fool’s errand to try to put together a definitive ‘best of Bristol 90’s drum n’ bass mix’ so … I didn’t try!
Instead what I’ve done is to put together a 30 track mix that starts in 1996 and runs through some of their lesser-known releases over subsequent years – I deliberately left out big anthems like ‘It’s Jazzy’, ‘Warhead’, ‘Play It For Me’, and ‘Li-Li’ because, even though they are amazing, they’ve been played to death over the years. This mix is therefore a mix of b-sides, remixes, and lesser known tunes, with a few of the big tunes sprinkled in. It’s a pretty sick mix, to be honest, and I hope you enjoy it!
Let me tell you a bit about some particularly interesting tracks on this mix.
- DJ Krust – Maintain [V Recordings]
This is actually a quite famous tune, appearing on the legendary Planet V compilation. This is classic DJ Krust – a perfect intro that starts with a beatless section that combines sweeping melodies with a soulful vocal before exploding into an experimental deep space journey. Militant breaks, heavy bass, and weird sound effects that fly in and out of the mix. Powerful music! I’ve used the album version – there was a version released previously on V as a b-side to ‘Guess’ that didn’t have the epic intro.
- Nuyorican Soul – It’s Alright, I Feel It (Roni Size Remix) [Talkin’ Loud]
Nuyorican Soul was a side project of house legends Masters at Work, aka Lil’ Louie Vega and Kenny ‘Dope’ Gonzalez, where the New York duo explored their Puerto Rican roots in an epic album that combined the Latin music of their childhood with American soul and funk. It’s an incredible, life-affirming album, and if you’ve never heard it before, you really have to. For this remix, Roni Size took the massive tune ‘It’s Alright, I Feel It’ and give it a super sharp drum n’ bass reinterpretation. When those pianos start rolling in, you know you’re in for a treat! I love how when he drops the bass, it’s a proper jazz-funk live bass. Just a delicious tune!
- DJ Shadow – What Does Your Soul Look Like? (DJ Die Remix) [Mo’Wax]
DJ Die, king of the rollers, remixing DJ Shadow, the West Coast trip-hop pioneer? Come on, you already know this is going to be incredible. Mo’Wax was a simply amazing label that was huge at the time but weirdly doesn’t seem to be talked about much now. I’ve never really understood why – is it because of James Lavelle, the label boss and London man about town? Lots of people seemed to dislike him as a kind of proto-hipster figure, but I never really knew or understood anything about that. Who cares? The music is great, the man had impeccable taste, and the label consistently put out fantastic music, and he had an knack for picking great remixers to put their own spin on the label’s output.
- Roni Size & Reprazent – Electricks [Talkin’ Loud]
Roni Size / Reprazent was the Full Cycle crew’s flagship project that brought together the key four figures – Roni Size, DJ Krust, DJ Die, and DJ Suv – with a whole host of musicians and vocalists to create a new experience in drum n’ bass, leading to their now classic album, New Forms, which won the prestigious Mercury Music Prize in 1997. Roni Size / Reprazent was part of a wave of ambitious projects to take drum n’ bass beyond the dancefloor – to the radio, to the festival big stages, to the BBC, and into the living room. The album itself showcased this creativity and artistic diversity and still sounds great today. This particular track was a b-side on one of the single releases and is very much a dancefloor tune. Me personally, I’ve always loved this one, and it’s shamefully underplayed.
Here’s a quote from Dynamite MC about winning the prize:
I’d grown up with fast music: house, rave and jungle. We took all that energy and put it into a melting pot on New Forms. The collective was just the right amount of chefs: DJ Krust was strings-oriented, DJ Suv brought science-fiction type soundscapes, DJ Die was good at cut-ups, scratches and bass lines, while Onallee was a wonderful singer and songwriter.
I feature on Railing and Brown Paper Bag, which was just a working title until I went: “Step to the rhythm made out of brown paper!” It built from there. If it had been called anything else, the rap would have been totally different. The album title was about saying who we were and what we represented, but we had no idea it would have such impact.
My strongest memories of the Mercury are the meal – monkfish – and meeting TV hypnotist Paul McKenna. I went: “Wow, I love your show!” And he went: “Never mind my show, tell me about your album!” It felt like we were flying the flag for the entire drum’n’bass scene. The Mercury statue is still in Roni’s front room. We went in as 100-1 outsider kids from the West Country and came out as champions. I wish I’d put a tenner on us.
- DJ Die – Clear Skyz [Full Cycle]
- DJ Die – Clear Skyz (1996 VIP) [Gutterfunk]
DJ Die is the king of the rollers, and Clear Skyz is one of his most beloved tunes. It’s one of those tunes that is almost brutally simple, but hypnotically compelling. It’s really drum n’ bass stripped to the essence – urgent, rolling percussion laid over a hypnotic bassline. In this case, I’ve also mixed in the 1996 VIP mix which was released a few years back after decades on dubplate. It’s not particularly different from the original, but it was fun to cut up between the two of them.
- Flynn & Flora – Bizniz [Independent Dealers]
Flynn and Flora were a duo of J. Thompson (Krust’s brother) & Florentia Fiakkas, who sadly died of cancer in 2014. I think they were a married couple, but I’m not 100% sure. What I do know is that they put out tons of great drum n’ bass via their own Independent Dealers label, and that they have been criminally underrated … even by me! I don’t have anywhere near as much of their stuff as I could or should. Like this release, this is an actual banger, a rugged bassline that pounds away inside your skull and just doesn’t let go. I’ve never heard this one on a large sound system, but I imagine it must be incredible.
- Glamour Gold – The Only One [Rap]
Glamour Gold was a Krust alias for more dancefloor material, and this was apparently due to be the 10th release on the V sub-label Philly Blunt, but it was moved to a bootleg due to the fact that this is built on a very obvious sample from the song ‘Touch Me, Tease Me’ by the American R&B artist Case. They obviously decided that it could not be cleared, so they simply stuck it out as a bootleg on ‘Rap Records’ with no identifying information. I’m very glad I have a copy of this, because it’s an absolute killer. The vocal sample works perfectly over the stepping breaks and pulsing bass. In the mix it combines incredibly with the insane bassline from ‘Death Blow’ – the R&B vocal over the mad bassline is a potent combination!