I’m a massive DJ Crystl fan and loved pretty much everything he put his hand to, so I always wonder what could have become of him if his album project on Payday would have been realised.

Anyway this is a great interview, and although I’m sure he might cringe reading it back today, it’s great to see the passion and his early attitudes to rave music (being a Hip Hop head originally).

Taken from the October 1995 issue of Generator magazine. All credit goes to Stringz @ DOA.

The post DJ Crystl Interview – Generator Mag 1995 appeared first on Drumtrip - Hardcore / Oldskool Jungle Blog.

Until a few years ago, the mystery of Source Direct and what happened to the duo was far from clear. All we knew is Phil Aslett left departed sometime around 1998, and Jim Baker continued to produce under the Source Direct moniker until about 2000.

If you are a regular reader of Drumtrip may be familiar with this interview Phil, who now goes by “Phil Source”, gave Knowledge mag back in 2010. The interview, which is curiously no longer online, was mostly focussed on Phil’s new label “Vampire Records“. However, at that time he did touch on what happened to Source Direct…..

Would you ever get back together with Jim as Source Direct?
Because we started out so young we kind of eventually grew apart. When we signed the big deal with Virgin there was a lot of pressure on us and it drove us apart really and we almost began to hate each other which was a real shame.

We had musical differences and it all just fell apart. A lot of it was to do with the pressure and stress of having a major deal. I don’t think it will ever happen to be honest with you. We don’t really speak any more and a lot has happened in the past which no one will ever know.

It’s personal stuff and I don’t really want to go into it but what’s done is done, my new baby is Vampire, that’s what I’m pushing now. Source Direct is part of my past, a great past as we made a lot of great music but I’ve got to move forward. I’ve always been forward thinking and that’s what Source Direct was about.

Why did you have a break after Source Direct?
I had four or five years completely away from music. I went to the odd club but it was more techno. I just wanted to get away from drum & bass. I was heavily involved with it for eight years so it was a long time.

I wasn’t sick of the music but I was sick of the scene. When you get really amongst it and get to know all the people and the way that the scene ticks it can swallow you up. I just needed a complete break and it was good for me to learn about the world and real life as well.

Fast forward to 2014 and a lot has changed. Excitingly, Jim Baker has returned! Jim now exclusively DJ’s under the original Source Direct name, with a promise of new productions for 2014 and beyond.

In one of his first interviews since returning to the fold, the excellent Gotham City blog inevitably moves onto the issue of the Source Direct split. Jim is a little more forthcoming in his explanation.

GCB … You’re working solo now under the SD name, but obviously that hasn’t always been the case. I set up #GCB to ask the difficult questions, so with that in mind. What happened with the original SD partnership, why did you guys part ways and will we ever see you work together again in the future ?

SD … They say you should never say never but I will never work with him again. There’s no point as his contribution to the music was negligible and simply more of a mate (from school days) who ended up helping to buy a few items for the studio with his family support so it was more of a extra pair of hands to help do the mundane things.

All music creation, programming, mixing, production, engineering and mastering has solely been myself from day one. He used to make a good cup of tea to be fair… lol!

S.D. has always been my baby and always will be, it cost me a lot emotionally and financially to keep it as well as blood sweat and tears but S.D. and its trademark are by law & contractually owned and vested solely by me.

If you honestly had created and genuinely contributed to the S.D. body of work would you really happily agree to sign over all ownership, publishing, copyright etc. for a little pay-off cash? I know I certainly wouldn’t! S.D. is mine and tattooed on the inside of my head for life…lol!

Phil then moves on explain what happened around the time of the Virgin album deal for Exorcise The Demons, and their fateful tour of America.

It all became a serious business when the major players got involved and by this time Phil was up his own arse thinking he’d made the “big time” (have a laugh!) when in fact the “door of opportunity” had only just been knocked on and the hard work was just about to begin as far as I was concerned.

He didn’t put in the studio time to assist in the process of making the tracks and it was a constant battle with him moaning about the work schedule. Virgin/Astralwerks organised a US Tour with a couple of dozen bookings & “press” interviews over 3 weeks and Phil pulled out just 48hrs before … didn’t want to go or be part of SD any more, he was off to do his own thing…

I don’t think you could even begin to imagine how I felt, this was my baby and I had built it up with him only to be let down by him. I did the gigs alone and my manager Graham Bell came along with me.

It all went really well but on my return I had to go through loads of shit dealing with the split and loosing the Virgin deal because of this. It was a nightmare and it went on for months and months taking its toll on me.

This is why I will never work with him again. If he had come along for the ride who knows where it would have taken us but its water under the bridge now, his input has never been missed and many S.D. tracks where created since he was bought out. Only recently have I been playing them out and getting a good reaction to music I made 10 years ago. They will get released all in good time together with the new projects.

This is just a part of an excellent and quite epic interview conducted by the guys at Gotham City blog, much respect to them. Check out the full interview here.

Personally I think it’s a great shame how it all panned out, as even putting all the fantastic music to one side for a moment, the end result of this fruitful partnership was a complete falling out between two friends. But, whatever happened, it does not detract from what an impact Source Direct had on the drum and bass scene, and continues to do so today.

Drumtrip wishes Jim and Phil all the best with their new projects. I’m really looking forward to hearing some new beats… especially from Jim!

Catch Source Direct (Jim) online at….
Twitter @Source_Direct
Soundcloud @source_direct_official
Facebook @Source.Direct.Recordings

The post Whatever happened to Source Direct? Part 2 : Jim Baker interview appeared first on Drumtrip - Hardcore / Oldskool Jungle Blog.

Don’t miss his excellent Drumtrip Sessions mix at the end of the interview!

DJ Trax Interview

Hello DJ Trax, where are you from and where are you at now?
I’m originally from Harlow in Essex. These days I am still based in Essex but I moved to Hutton.

How did you first get involved with the Hardcore scene? Were you a raver first?
I was always a Hip Hop head. I use to Break in a crew with Nucleus and others called ‘The Electro Breakers’

I had been collecting breaks for years and started off as a drummer (age 7) so to me it was all about the beats.

When I first heard House music I really didn’t like it, I couldn’t stand the 4/4 kick drum. This was until 86/87 when I heard tracks like Mr Fingers ‘Can U feel it’ and T-Coy ‘Carino’.
Although still heavily into Funk and Hip Hop, I was now also influenced by Detroit Techno and Chicago House.

In 88/9 I got some work experience at a studio in Roydon. They use to put on acid house events there. As local DJ`s, myself and Nucleus were asked to play. We had a few house records, but not enough for the whole night so we played a lot of hip hop instrumentals on 45. I loved the frantic sped up breaks.

Shortly after, myself and Dev recorded our first track in a `proper` studio there (engineered by Plastic Jam.) It was essentially a sped up Hip Hop tune with bleeps and sub bass (around 140bpm) with Dev rapping and my scratches.

After this, I started playing on various pirate stations and out at events.
I was going out raving every weekend in large convoys up and down the country.

What were some of the early raves that got you hooked?
The first big thing (20,000+) I played at was World Party. I scratched for Bug Kann + the Plastic Jam. I was still working at the studio with Plastic Jam and sat in whilst they recorded tracks like ‘Made In Two Minutes’ + ‘Beware of the Bassline.’

One of the first things I went to was in 88 called Total Confusion. It was one of those.. phone this number at a certain time illegal (they were pretty much all illegal back then) events. I went with Dev and Leke (who now runs Aerosoul.) I remember us carrying beers in and going through underground tunnels to get to in. I can still see it now We got chatting to some girls and soon realised they were on drugs!! ha ha..We were really young and naive to it. From that night I was hooked!

Other stand out events I remember include Sunrise, Genesis, Vision, World Dance, Dance 91/2, Evolution and many other events at The Roller Express.

What was Trax listening to before Acid / Hardcore?
Electro, Hip Hop, Funk, Reggae/Dub and Soul

How did you first get into production? Were you DJing first?
I started DJing when I was 11. I say DJing but it was more scratching, a lot! Trying to imitate DJ`s like Whiz Kid, Jazzy Jeff, DJ Cheese, Cash Money and many more.

I had two (sort of) decks. They were stereo systems with tape and radio and a belt drive deck. They had no pitch control so i could only mix records that were the same bpm.

I use to make mix tapes using two tape decks. I would record a break… Pause, wind back the tape, and record the same break again etc… to make loops. I would then over dub scratches and samples. Soon after this I brought a four track which was next level!!

A year or two later Commodore brought out a program where you could sample and could change the pitch of the samples. At the time this was amazing!! The next and critical stage was OctaMed on the Amiga (which Dev still uses (my Amiga I should add! ;))

Where did used to get your records from back then?
Parliament Records in Hertford, ran by Rob Omni Trio, Boogie Times, Solid Base in Harlow, Music Power, Ilford, Black Market and other shops around Soho.

How did you hook up with Dev (Paradox) and form Mixrace?
I was around 13 and was seeing Dev`s sister. One day I went to meet her at the station and she said my brother wants to meet you. I thought…Shit! I walked round to a lake where Dev was sitting. He had a huge high-top and Air Jordans and had that young moody rapper thing going on ha ha.
At first we didn’t really get on, I would go round to see his sister and his door would be shut blasting out Public Enemy or I would hear him rapping over instrumentals. One day he phoned me up and said he had heard one of my mixtapes and wanted to come round lay some raps down. From that day Mixrace was born. Soon after, Leke joined the crew. Both Dev and Leke rapped and I produced the tracks and scratched.

Was “The Future Is Before Your Eyes” the first Mixrace release on wax? How did you get involved with Moving Shadow?
My first release was with DJ Raw on Brain Records under RawTrax. ‘The Future Is Before Your Eyes/Two Bad for ya’ was the first Mixrace release.

The whole Shadow thing came about as Dev sent a tape to Moving Shadow. It had a version of ‘TFIBYE’, ‘Too Bad for Ya’ and other tracks on it. Rob called up and asked us to come in for a meeting so we went to his place in Stevenage.
He loved the tracks and every Tuesday and Thursday we went there to re-create them in Rob`s Studio. I remember at that first meeting I saw a tape with Hyper on Experience handwritten on it. I asked Rob what it was and he said he had just signed these guys. The tape was mind-blowing!

Who is behind the mic on “The Future Is Before Your Eyes”?
The Brown Assassin AKA Brown AKA Dev Paradox

The EP also featured a tune called “Too Bad For Ya (Is 180 Too Fast For Ya)“, what’s the story behind this track? as its pretty out there and fast in tempo for a ’92 release. Did you ever anticipate back then that the genre would eventually speed up to near 180bpm?
Originally ‘Too Bad for Ya’ was 188bpm and TFIBYE was 180bpm. We were young and had a lot of energy and we wanted the tracks to be hype! The tracks were originally written on MED. As the early versions of MED did not have a BPM counter we didn’t really know how fast they were until we came to re-record them at MS.

We had an argument with Rob about the speed. Most of the tracks at that time (91) were in the 140`s, after a lot of debating we agreed that ‘TFIBYE’ would be 160 (as i remember) and ‘Too Bad for Ya’ would be 180, hence the tag line Is 180 Too Fast For Ya?

We were not really thinking about where the music would go speed wise. We just knew that we wanted our tracks to be hype. Although I heard the tracks played out by a few brave DJ`s we didn`t really do ourselves any favours by making them so fast. But f*ck it, it wasn’t about conforming, it was about writing what we wanted to write.

At this point what sort of production gear were you using for the Mixrace and DJ Trax releases (around 1992/1993)?
At my place we used MED on the Amiga with a £30 Techno Sound Turbo 8 bit sampler. Around 93 I brought a Yamaha SY85 shortly followed by an Akai S01. From that point on we were 16 bit

At Moving Shadow we used Q-Bass a Akai S950 and 1000 sampler, a Korg M1, Juno 106 (I love that synth!), Yamaha DX7, Vintage Keys Rack (another favourite of mine), various Alesis FX and other outboard bits.

High Time is a huge favourite of mine today, as someone on Discogs put it it’s “packed with synths and melodies without sounding cheesy”. It was released in late 1993 in the midst of a lot of dark sounding tunes, how was it received?
It was written late 92/early 93 but as with most labels, releases were backed up a bit. As I remember we were also waiting on Nookie to complete the remix. It was well received, although there were a lot of dark tunes at that time, there was still a fair amount of more uplifting ones.

Another alias of yours and Dev’s was Dangerman and Brown? What’s the story behind the alias? And who was behind Stronghold Records?
Stronghold was run by Scott Rhymeside and a guy called Gary (Where are you Gary??) They were friends of ours who we use to go to AWOL, Bluenote, Logical Progression and Speed with. They were great to work with as they really supported what we were doing and allowed us to get creative and to release tracks with heavily programmed drums.

We use to go to a lot of events, sometimes going from one to the next, to drop of test pressing to DJ`s. A lot of DJ`s did not really support our stuff as the drums were not straight enough. But we refused to conform to what would have been more current at that time and Stonghold, Mobhanded, Offset and Nautilus (all labels set up with the same guys) supported that.

Regarding the name, Dev had always been Brown or The Brown Assassin, so he wanted to go back under that alias. I remixed one of his tracks and put this sample saying Dangerman in it. I found the name quite ridiculous and funny as it didn’t really suit me but then again that`s why it was an alias.

The relationship between Mixrace and Moving Shadow was short and sweet. Am I right in saying you didn’t release on Shadow beyond 1993?
We were with Shadow from 91 although it took time to recreate the first tracks so they were released in 92. We parted ways in 1994.
We almost released a 3rd Mixrace 12″ with MS, but it only made it to test press stage. There were only ever 10-15 TP`s. Dev doesn`t even have a copy!
It remains one of the most sort after and expensive oldschool records.

In the mid 90s you seemed to take a step back from D&B and produced downtempo / leftfield music for labels like Nautilus and Beats & Pieces. Was this a conscious decision to move on from the scene?
As Hip Hop was my first love, I’ve always written down-tempo music. It wasn’t that I consciously thought I’m not going to write D+B anymore; It was more that I loved the freedom you get from working with different tempos. I went to so many hardcore/jungle/drum and bass nights from 88-97 and in 97/98 I was hearing less and less drum and bass that was really inspiring me.
I`m not saying there wasn’t some great music out there, but I just found those early days, where the music was constantly changing and adapting, more exciting and inspirational.

I know you’re a fan of crate digging and sampling. Sampling in general has been on the decline, especially in D&B, why do you think there aren’t as many producers digging the crates like they used to? Is there even an (unfair) stigma attached to it now?
Hmmmmm.. I still think there are a fair few artists who dig deeper to find interesting samples. It’s just that there are more lazy ones

Making music has become a lot easier and more freely available. In order to make a studio quality record, back in the days you had to be signed to one of a number of labels, who had worked hard to build up their studios. I feel this ensured more quality control and you had to REALLY want it.

These days it’s possible to download a studio which is more powerful than you could have dreamed of back then. You can set your own label up and release your music in no time. On one hand this is amazing, on the other it means that some people want everything instantly and so may not spend the time and energy hunting for samples as some did back in the day.

But as I said, there are still plenty of diggers out there

Post 2000 you have been fairly prolific with releases on Paradox labels Outsider and Paradox Music as well as full length albums on your own label Audio Buffet. What have you been working on recently and what have you got planned?
Over the next two months I have a three track 12″ which will be released on Tempo Records (www.t3mpo.com) a Mixrace 12″ which features two unreleased gems from 93/94. I can`t say anymore than that yet ;)) A track with Naibu which will be on a double 12″/CD album on Subtle Audio, a track on a compilation on Phil Source Directs – Vampire Records (with a Source Direct Remix!)

In the summer I have another track with Naibu coming out IM:LTD, two new Audio Buffet releases and a Hip Hop album with Assorted Anonymous.
Also in the pipeline is another release on Omni Music and collaborations with Nucleus, Okee, Acid Lab and Enjoy. And finally, I have a remix of IASI coming out on Berlins Superb recordings.

Can you tell us a bit about your selection for your Drumtrip Session mix?
I never plan my sets so I treated it like playing any set really. I got load of records off the shelves, usually about 3 times what I need! I choose the first tune and I guess have a general idea of the mood, but then I just run with it and see where it goes.

There are a few tunes that are long-term favourites of mine and that I feel were ahead of their time.
Tracks like ‘Nice and Slow’ by SLM. I first remember hearing this in a night we use to go to in Basildon Festival Hall in 92. It really stood out as it was so much more rolling and hypnotic than most of what was getting played. Also the Ruff Justice and ‘Hoppa’ tracks were drum and bass, before drum and bass!
I also included Tekniq`s Forbidden Reality. Myself and Dev loved this tune as the breaks were proper funky and lively! The On-remand 12” was and still is one of my favourite dark 93 tracks.

There’s also a Brown and Dangerman track from the first Stronghold release. I remember writing this in one night (until 7/8am) at Dev`s tiny flat in 93 we used to program a bar or two each and kind of play off each other’s programming. We were jumping around like idiots haha.
The mix ends with ‘Feel It’ which was overshadowed by the flipside. I only heard it out a couple of times but always loved it

Finally, can you confirm that I once saw you in a cheesy bar in Hertfordshire getting your groove on to Usher (or some sort of terrible “R&B”)?
Haha… I remember seeing you there. You were dancing to ‘Careless whisper’ with some huge old lady.
*Lies I tell you, lies! – Law

Catch DJ Trax online at…
djtrax.org
soundcloud.com/djtrax
vimeo.com/djtrax
djtrax.bandcamp.com
aerosoul.co.uk

Drumtrip Sessions #10 – DJ Trax

Tracklist:
A Guy Called Gerald – Anything
Biology – Sundown
SLM – Nice + Slow
Jody Wisternoff – Untitled X-iting
Dark + Moody – Volume One
Tekniq – Forbidden Reality
Jack Horner + DJ Pulse – No Gunshots
On Remand – Blacksteel Part 2
DA Intalex – What Ya Gonna Do
Heard – Like This Like That
Mind At Large – Rough Justice
Brown + Dangerman – Ideas For The Ear To Fear
Subnation – Untitled
Hopa + Bay B Kane – Hoppa
Randall + Andy C – Feel It

A huge thanks goes out to DJ Trax for taking the time to talk to Drumtrip!

The post Drumtrip Sessions #10 – DJ Trax appeared first on Drumtrip - Hardcore / Oldskool Jungle Blog.

When was Foul Play formed?
Foul Play was formed two and half years ago, we all met whilst DJing for various clubs such as Helter Skelter at Milwaukees.

Foul Play consists of three people; Stephen Bradshaw (Brad), John Morrow and Steve Gurley.

What have been your biggest tracks?
The biggest tracks we’ve had to date are our remixes of ‘Renegade Snares’ and ‘Lord Of The Null Lines, but our own tracks, probably ‘Open You Mind Remix’ and ‘Finest Illusion Remix’

What do you think of playing live?
We don’t really like doing live PA’s because its impossible to do everything live, but they’re a good way of earning money. IN the future we would like to work on doing more live work in our PA’s.

What are you inspired by?
Our style was inspired by a wide range of musical backgrounds, we were all DJ’s before and you can hear the hip hop, soul, rare groove and reggae influences in our music.

How do you promote your music?
We use a lot of DJ’s to promote our music on dubplate, but LTJ Bukem and Top Buzz always get our music first because they’ve supported us from day one.

At the moment we’re putting the vinishing touches to Vol 4 which will include a full vocal track, and some tracks that have been on dubplate since last year.

For a much more in-depth interview and history lesson on Foul Play, be sure to catch Uncle Dugs’ Rinse FM interview with John Morrow here.

The post Foul Play Interview – Atmosphere Mag [May 1994] appeared first on Drumtrip - Hardcore / Oldskool Jungle Blog.

World Dance – Access All Areas, a VHS that will no doubt bring home a million memories of sitting in front of the television in amazement. Trying to spot your mates looking wasted in the crowd or even attempting to piece back memories of events………

In a similar stance to early Fantazia recordings, the promoters of World Dance released a video compilation of their events in 1996 which featured a whole host of footage from events such as the Monty Python themed ‘And Now For Something Completely Different’ to the ‘Fireworks Spectacular’ in ‘95.

From memory, the girl that everyone at school thought was AMAZING was actually a friend of Tobie (Tera) of Serial Killaz. For those that want to now attempt to spot her, she’s the one in the pink nightie alongside matey with the moobs doing the helicopter spin in his swimwear around 14 minutes in, not that I have been looking for her ; )

For those who remember the amazing effort Fantazia went to in respect of production at their events, it will come as no surprise that it’s pretty much a direct comparison to World Dance and in some respects, they probably picked up where Fantazia briefly left.

What you get here is an insight into what went into putting on these large scale events, with footage from the initial set up to plenty of behind the decks action. If you’re reading this and promoting events in 2014 then please make some notes when watching the video, the production really was spot on at every World Dance rave.

Access All Areas was exactly that, interviews with the artists and crowd by none other than Drum & Bass’ answer to Dennis Pennis – MC GQ and a wicked set taken from the 4th November ‘95 event by none other than Mickey Finn & MC Fearless. Strange maybe to some that GQ wasn’t the MC featured on the mix, mainly because prior to ‘93 he was usually the only MC to grace the flyer, let alone in the venue.

Interview with MC Fearless

How did the connection with World Dance happen?
“Working with Chris and Jay in the original AWOL days meant that performing at World Dance was achievable, although I still remember the day the phone call came in and I thought someone was winding me up!

Their policy regarding mcs was always strict and having myself and GQ on the line up was what people would come to expect. Gary and I would usually split the night in half with AWOL as these events would coincide with each other”

World Dance were renowned for their huge production and massive following, was ‘the brand’ as important as the event?
“Without a doubt man! From the World Dance MA2 bomber jackets, to the slipmats, to the lighters – they had the branding locked down. When the new clothing lines were released I remember either Chris or Jay coming backstage with massive boxes and handing out products to the artists. They understood all aspects of the promotions game, at the end of the day these guys were proper businessmen”

The Access all Areas VHS was certainly a favourite for many, were you aware the camera crew were filming for a documentary?
“Both GQ and I knew about the video, that’s how World Dance was run – the artists were always kept up to date with what was going on and when it was happening. One thing I didn’t know though was how many fireworks they were going to use at the event in ‘94!”

“That night was insane and to this date I don’t think I have seen any other fireworks event in the UK go to the levels of production and pyrotechnics World Dance did. I remember one of the production staff shouting at me to get out of the way and then… BOOM all kinds of things were set loose”

What were your favourite memories from World Dance?
“The first event I was booked for was held at Lydd airport and I had never ever expected it to be on the scale that it was. Thousands of people, the huge fairground rides and boy…. the hanger! The whole World Dance vibe was something else so when I eventually got to the front and did my thing the crowd response and the sea of heads was on another level”

What’s forthcoming in 2014 for Fearless?
“Next up I’m filming a fly on the wall documentary about my weekend on the road as an mc. This won’t be your standard type of video but one where people can really see what it’s like at raves post millenium. I’m also working on a clothing line and will be putting out a free EP with some of my previous work and possibly an album at some point in 2014”

Rewind the video, it’s going back in..

‘96 was probably the highlight of Mickey Finn’s DJ career and certainly an era where his preferred style of Drum & Bass was literally blowing up all over the shop. Combine this with Fearless’ utterly unique style at the time and it really was the soundtrack to top all rave event videos.

For those expecting a VHS filmed on a mate of the promoter’s Sony Handycam with the sound to boot you are certainly in for one massive treat. Real Jungle ravers with buttoned up shirts, MA2’s and none of this ‘heart shapes with our hands’ malarkey.

Add it to your wants list via Discogs here

Download the full video here

The Mix

To pay homage to World Dance, Mickey Finn and obviously the top notch VHS check the tribute mix I put together which features all of the tunes from the video (apart from the dubplate version of Space Dust which I will never own!)

1 Apollo 13 – Space Dust
2 Dred Bass – World Of Music
3 B-Jam – Dont Play
4 Asend & The Assailant – Africa
5 Smokey Joe – Smokin Hornz
6 Rude Bwoy Monty Warp Ten (Heavyweight Mix)
7 Murphy’s Law & Asend – 20 Seconds
8 DJ Hype – We Must Unite
9 Dope Skillz – Yo’ Son
10 DJ Zinc – Super Sharp Shooter (Remix)
11 B-Jam – Show Me (Remix)
12 Deadly D – Listen Dis (L Double Remix)
13 DJ Rap & Da Boss – I’m So
14 Sound Of The Future – The Lighter (Rollers Remix)
15 L Double & Shy FX – The Shit

The post World Dance – Access All Areas (A Dedication) appeared first on Drumtrip - Hardcore / Oldskool Jungle Blog.

Serum of Dread and V Recordings (among many others) speaks to us about his love for jungle, before laying down a serious selection for his  Drumtrip Session mix.

Tell us a bit about yourself
I was born in Lincoln but moved around a lot with my parents when I was young. I’ve lived in London for the last 8 years or so.

When did you first fall in love with Jungle? Am I right to say your first vinyl release was 2004? I imagine it goes way back before then?
I got into jungle around 1994-5. I’d heard rave music before and quite liked it but I was more into hip hop and heavy metal and didn’t really respect music that didn’t have that element of live performance. Things changed when I came across a program called Protracker on the Amiga which was a basic sample based sequencer. Through messing with production, I realised that dance music was actually a lot more complicated than I thought.

I started going to nightclubs with a bunch of slightly older kids and it all fell into place. I pretty much fell in love with all forms of dance music around that time and there was a lot of good stuff out there. I started buying records and got a set of cheap decks but I had very little money so I’m still catching up on tunes I missed out on from back then.

There weren’t any decent raves where I lived (either that or I didn’t know where to find them) so I listened to a lot of tapes from The Edge and Helter Skelter. I’d also listen to Pete Tong, John Peel and One In the Jungle on the radio.

Your tunes always have that rugged 90s jungle sound but with more contemporary production styles. How do you get that across in your tracks?
Up until a few years ago my setup was software based but I’ve bought quite a lot of hardware lately and that features in my newer material. When I used software I still tried to do the same things people did with hardware back in the day. I used to set the channels up so each track had similar features to a channel on an old mixing desk.

The main rules I live by are to keep things simple and sample anything I can get my hands on.

Before you arrived on the scene, and others like Vapour and Bladerunner, did you feel dancefloor D&B was missing the breaks and bass and general feeling from a lot of the stuff from back in the day? What is it you like about that sound?
There have been times where I’ve felt that but I’ve also made a lot more modern sounding stuff too. It just depends on what I’m interested in at the time. I never really have much of a plan.

You have remixed some huge tracks like Papa Lover (a personal favourite remix of mine), The Way and The Execution – But which producer from back in they day would you like to remix one of your tunes?
I’d like to have Dillinja have a crack at something of mine. I’m surprised Ray Keith hasn’t had a go yet either to be honest, that would be good to hear.

What else is new for Serum? What have you got forthcoming?
I’ve got 12s and individual tracks coming on V, Playaz, Dread, Co-Lab, Chronic and Drum & Bass Arena. There are also a few bigger scale things I’m doing like a mix album for Philly Blunt album which is going to have a combination of oldies, remixes and new material.

I’m working on a collection of more soulful vocal tracks but that’s in the early stages. It’s a new thing for me though so I’m really enjoying it.

The oldskool / jungle sound seems to be making a bit of a comeback again, have you got any big remixes in the pipeline? I did hear a remix of Gangsta about a while ago, any chance of a release there?
Gangsta will be on the Philly Blunt album sampler along with my remix of Bass Switch that’s been floating around for a while. There will be a few more remixes from me and a bunch of other artists. I also just put the finishing touches to a remix for Ruffneck Ting which just relaunched and I’m really happy with that.

Tell us a bit about your mix for Drumtrip, the idea behind the selection?
With this mix I’ve tried to dig a lot deeper and avoid the usual stompers. There’s not really any jump up on there which is fairly rare for me. There are some real classics in there but also a few lesser known bits that featured on some of the sets that got me into the music in the early years. Hopefully this mix will get people hunting on discogs.

Any big ups / shouts?
Anyone bought my music, came to see me play or booked me for a show, and all the DJs and labels that have supported me. Also my girlfriend and daughter for putting up with the constant noise.

And finally…  On your Twitter profile you state you are a “DJ, Producer and Pie maker”; what is your favourite pie?
Chilli beef pie from Goddards in Greenwich with a good serving of liquor and chilli vinegar.

Catch Serum online at..

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Drumtrip Sessions #09 – Serum

01. Adam F – Circles – Section 5
02. Daz – Identity – Splash
03. Lemon D – Manhattan Melody – Conqueror
04. Timebase – Funky – Tearin Vinyl
05. Swift – Gang Related – Intalektive
06. Ed Rush & Nico – What’s Up – No U Turn
07. DJ Biggs – Sunrize – Back 2 Basics
08. Adam F – Aromatherapy – Section 5
09. Basic Influence – Still Waters – Hardleaders
10. Trace – Haze – Emotif
11. Roni Size – Step Up – V
12. Tango – Understanding – Creative Wax
13. Renegade – Eastern Promise – Dread
14. Chris Energy – Zalongo – Reinforced
15. Roni Size – Daylight – Full Cycle
16. Andy C – Roll On – Ram
17. Lemon D – This is LA – Metalheadz
18. Gappa G & Hyper Hyper – River Nijer (Nookie Remix) – Ruff Kut
19. Hidden Agenda – Get Carter – Metalheadz
20. Dillinja – Sovereign Melody – Deadly Vinyl

Huge thanks for Serum for the interview and a great mix, much appreciated!

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