Law – All Hidden Agenda Mix

Yet another in my series of all artist mixes, this one takes you through the work of a pair of seriously underrated producers; Hidden Agenda.

The jungle revival is in full swing right now –  Source Direct and Photek tunes are changing hands for eye watering sums of money, and similar producers of the era being lorded as genre defining visionaries… rightly so in most cases. But for some reason you don’t quite hear as much praise for Hidden Agenda, and for me personally, these two brothers (Mark and Jason Goodings) were every bit as talented.

I won’t launch into a huge article on Hidden Agenda, because my mate Spyros over at God Is No Longer a DJ already did, and did it way better than I probably could. Check out his piece on “Whatever happened to Hidden Agenda“.

However, from a personal perspective I will say; I cannot think of another artist in the history of the drum and bass scene who could work a sample like these guys. They’d take samples, often dozens, from all over the musical landscape, and somehow fit them into a track and make them sound like they were made for each other.

From their jazzy / rare-groove twinged early efforts on Metalheadz, their deep and soulful Creative Source sound, or the paranoid noir jazz of their 1996/97 outings, Hidden Agenda could do it all. They even turned their hand to some pretty nasty tech step (see their remix of Sirens for evidence).

This mix takes you through the majority of their work from 1995 to 1999, including a couple of remixes.

It has to be said, when producing I don’t think making  their tunes “DJ friendly” was really top of their, err, agenda (and why should it be?). So blending these tracks was a bit of a challenge, especially as it was in one take with no planning, but generally it turned out OK, and as ever with these “all artist” mixes, it’s more about music.

Tracklist:
01. Hidden Agenda – The Flute Tune – Metalheadz
02. Hidden Agenda – Pressin’ On – Metalheadz
03. Hidden Agenda – On The Roof – Metalheadz
04. Hidden Agenda – Get Carter – Metalheadz
05. Hidden Agenda – Is It Love – Metalheadz
06. Hidden Agenda – The Slide – Creative Source
07. Hidden Agenda – The Wedge – Metalheadz
08. Hidden Agenda – Rogue Soul – Creative Source
09. Hidden Agenda – Swing Time – Creative Source
10. King Kooba – Kloke (Hidden Agenda Remix) – Second Skin
11. Hidden Agenda – Dispatches #2 – Metalheadz
12. Spring Heel Jack – Sirens (Hidden Agenda Rehash) – Trade 2
13. Hidden Agenda – Dispatches #1 – Metalheadz
14. Hidden Agenda – No Guard (Dispatch #3) – Metalheadz
15. Hidden Agenda ?– Channel – Metalheadz
16. Hidden Agenda ?– Redress – Reinforced
17. Hidden Agenda – 12 Seconds – Creative Source
18. Reflection – The Wall With Paintings (Hidden Agenda Mix) – Clear
19. Hidden Agenda – The Sun – Creative Source

 

About Law

Main author and creator of Drumtrip. I have been listening to and mixing drum and bass in its various forms since 1998. Drumtrip was designed to celebrate the glory years between 1991 and 1997.