Photek – Say It [Prototype Recordings]

This ‘tune of the day’ is one of the great unreleased tracks of the 90s, from one of the biggest labels and one of the scene’s biggest producers.

Grooverider’s seminal label ‘Prototype’ had a huge influence on the progression of D&B in the mid 90s; from its humble beginnings in 1994 and Rider’s early work as Codename John, up until the turn of the millenium when Bad Company released the anthemic ‘Planet Dust’. But it was also as elusive as it was influential.

Unreleased Photek

If you look down the catalogue numbers for Prototype releases, you’ll notice a few are missing, in this case “PRO006”.

In 1994/1995 Photek was churning out razor sharp, amen fueled D&B by the bucket load. Around this time it looks as if the great ‘Rider signed several tracks to Prototype. The tracks in question were Feeling Up, Flavour Of A Sound, One Nation and Say It. There has been much internet discussion in the years since, but according to rumour (and rumour only) the releases might have been like so..

• PRO003 – Flavour Of A Sound / Feeling Up
• PRO006 – One Nation / Say It

If you are reading this, you probably know that neither of these release ended up in the shops for whatever reason. PRO003 never even got as far as test presses so it seems, but there are some lucky blighters out there with a few early copies of PR006.

The tune in question, Say It, is not to be confused with the Photek tune of the same name (under his System X alias) on Entity Records from 1994. Whilst I have read that some people seem to think the version on the video below is actually a 1995 mix, I can’t quite see the similarities that make this a remix – to me it seems like a stand alone tune.

One Nation did eventually see a release on Photek’s Form & Function Vol 2 LP in 2007 along with another unreleased track entitled ‘Saturated Hip Hop. But of the four tracks I listed, to this day, One Nation remains the only one ever officially released.

Sadly, it remains highly unlikely any of these will ever see the light of day as presumably the DATs are long gone. Bukem can still be caught spinning his dubs of Flavour Of A Sound / Feeling Up on occasion, but unfortunately that might be the closest we ever get to them. However, not all is lost as some generous individual, lucky enough to own a test press of PRO006, has shared WAVs of his recordings, get it while you can!