Part of the Moving Shadow management, Shaun O’Keefe AKA Deep Blue teams up with original Shadow artist, Blame on this release from 1996.

Transitions starts with a cold string that almost sounds like its breathing before a simple metallic beat moves the track along. Gentle percussion gives the track more rhythm and a cold horn section add to the atmospherics as the beats just keep on rolling.

Re-Transitions is a pure blue note. The simple metallic beat from Transitions is expanded for more dance floor appeal, Superb edits on the beats and an acidic hook keep your attention locked on the groove. As the track nears its completion an uplifting chord section that sounds like it could have come straight from the Motor city itself puts some ice cold soul into the proceedings.

Two rolling tracks from Rob Playfords label showing that sometimes the simplest of ideas often work the best.

As with a lot of the Shadow releases from this time, there are plenty available online to buy, and a steal on Discogs from under £2.00.

The post Deep Blue & Blame – Transitions / Re-Transitions appeared first on Drumtrip - Hardcore / Oldskool Jungle Blog.

My set was bang either side of Moving Shadow artists DJ Trax and Hopa; so fittingly, I went with an early Moving Shadow selection.

Frontline operates the first and third weekend of every month, so stay tuned to the website and mixlr account for full the schedule.

01. Kaotic Chemistry – Drumtrip
02. Cosmo & Dibs – Oh So Nice
03. 2 Bad Mice – Hold It Down
04. Kaotic Chemistry – Strip Search
05. Kaotic Chemistry – Space Cakes
06. Blame – This Piano Track
07. Cloud 9 – You Got Me Burnin’
08. DJ Trax – High Time
09. Omni Trio – Mainline
10. Omni Trio – Step Off (Gold Blend Mix)
11. JMJ & Richie – Case Closed
12. JMJ & Richie – Hall Of Mirrors (Omni Trio Remix)
13. Omni Trio – I’ll Be There
14. Foul Play – Open Your Mind (Nookie Remix)
15. Deep Blue – Fantasy #2
16. 2 Bad Mice – Pitch black (Boom Boom Version)
17. Omni Trio – Thru The Vibe (2 One 1 Mix)

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By the first half of the 90s, UB40’s constant touring had taken its toll and the band was ready for a well-earned rest. During their sabbatical, several of the band’s members worked on their own musical projects. Earl Falconer, the group’s bassist, would follow his passion outside UB40, engaging in jungle/drum and bass production and promotion activities with remarkable success.

In 1992, alongside sound engineer Gerry Parchment and reggae trumpet player Patrick Tenyue, Falconer formed the music act E.Q.P., launching Rough Tone Recordings as a platform to release their own outputs and develop young local artists. The label’s operations were suspended after three years, coinciding with the time UB40 reconvened to record new material. Furthermore, in 2000, Falconer and long-time friend DJ Swan-E, set up Maximum Boost Recordings, a Dope Ammo Records offshoot, in an effort to introduce professional artists, across a wide array of other music genres, in the drum and bass scene.

Back in 1996, in an era when drum and bass was already attracting media attention and many artists were signing to major record labels, Falconer commissioned a limited edition series with drum and bass mixes of UB40’s tracks. Acclaimed artists, including the likes of Grooverider, Deep Blue, Dj Ron, Blame & Justice, Swan-E and Ellis Dee, have been involved into remixing duties for some of UB40’s early classics (One In Ten, an explicit reference to UK’s record number of unemployed in the early 80s, King and Burden Of Shame) as well as later singles (Where Did I Go Wrong and Until My Dying Day).

All remixes were released on UB40’s own imprint Dep International. Dep International was set up after UB40’s contract with Graduate Records expired, with all eight members owning an equal share, effectively enabling the band to exercise total control of their production outputs. Soon, the label signed a word-wide distribution deal with Virgin Records, operating since under Virgin Records’ wing.

Today’s Tune Of The Day is the Icons remix of Until My Dying Day…

Icons

One of the recording aliases of Tony Bowes (aka Justice) and Conrad Shafie (aka Blame). The two met while studying media at college in Dunstable, and went into the studio in 1991 to try their hand at producing hip-hop tracks. Instead, they emerged with Death Row – one of the earliest examples of hardcore breakbeat – on Chill Records, a UK bass, bleeps and breakbeat label which was based in Tony’s home town of Luton.

While the rave scene progressed into a self-parodic fluff, Blame and Justice continued producing, both together and on their own. Pushed into new directions by the emergence of a mellower, atmospheric sound in the drum and bass spectrum, the duo released a string of seminal singles on the legendary Moving Shadow and on Basement Records’ sub-label Precious Materials. In late ‘95 the duo formed Modern Urban Jazz Records (rebranded and re-launched as MJAZZ by Justice 12 years later). On Modern Urban Jazz, Blame and Justice released the label’s first two singles, under the Glider-State sobriquet, as well as the critically acclaimed Icons LP Emotions With Intellect, that is still highly praised to this day.

Tony Bowes’ recollection of events

“We met Earl from the group through our friend Terry Wilson, who ran the Funk 21 label and there was talk of some remixes that they wanted to do. So between Earl and Terry the re-mixers were gathered. Our Icons project was blowing up at the same time, so they asked us to do one. Until My Dying Day was a tune they had done, which was touted to be the theme for the latest Bond film at the time*. Anyway this was the track we were given, which was great because it had the great sax bit and nice bits of vocal work, that we used with a nice reversed reverb effect on them. We added a nice break, some guitar licks and stabs along with an 808 bass. We gave the track to Danny Bukem and he used to hammer it at Speed nights. I think Fabio had it as well, which propelled it into being a bit of a Speed anthem, which still gets interest to this day.”

*that would be GoldenEye, 1995 – Tina Turner’s eponymous song was used as the main theme eventually.

Stripped from Ali Campbell’s unique vocals, apart from the snippets “If you’re looking for a war” and “I’ll be leaving”, which are present throughout the track, the remix is dominated by Brian Travers’ original captivating sax riff, gorgeous synth stabs, chopped beats and a sweeping 808 bass, in full accordance with the sound Icons were representing; keeping the basic components intact, giving a modern urban jazz feel to the mix.

The interest in the particular track has revived the last few years, due to an obscure cassette tape rip of a Speed session with Bukem & Fabio (which took place ca 1995 at the Crime Club, in the town of Lampertheim, Germany), that has surfaced on the internet. The Icons remix features in Bukem’s playlist of that night.

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Plenty of classics like Acen’s Trip II The Moon, The 2 Bad Mice classic remix of The Music Takes You and Lets Get Together. Recorded live @ Amnesia House – Book Of Love on 23rd Junge 1992. The mixing ain’t too shabby either.

Download

Tracklist:

Acen – Trip II The Moon Pt.1 – Obsessed [Production House]
Rhythm For Reasons – Grand National (Tango Remix) [Formation]
DJ Clarkee – Have A Good Time [RZ002]
Formula 7 – Its Just Not Ragga [Brain]
Blame – 2 Bad Mice Take You [Moving Shadow]
Project 1 – Come My Selector [Rising High]
Asmo – Rushamuffin EP – Run Come Follow Me [Amass]
Windy Milla – Ruff & Massive [Daddy Armshouse]
2 Bad Mice – Drumscare [Moving Shadow]
Jonny L – Hurt You So (The Full Mix) [YoYo/Tuchwood]
DJ Blatant – The Blatant EP Vol 2 – Blatant’s Return [Spare Beat]
Nookie – The Love Is EP – Give A Little Love [Absolute 2]
Metalheadz – Terminator [Synthetic Hardcore Phonography]
Doc Scott – NHS EP Vol 2: The 2nd Chapter Remix – NHS (Grooverider Inter Natty Remix) [Absolute 2]
Mystery man – Everybody EEEee
Satin Storm – Let’s Get Together [Satin Storm]
Sonz Of A Loop Da Loop Era – Higher [Suburban Base]
Liquid – Sweet Harmony [XL]
2 Da Core – Faith & Hope

Grooverider Amnesia House ‘Book of Love’ 23rd June 1992 by Old Skool Rave Tape Ar©Hive on Mixcloud

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When Law first approached me to do a mix for the Drumtrip Sessions, I knew that it would have to be a themed mix & not a theme that’s been widely done. I had a few potential ideas for themes, including a mix of D&B tunes on non D&B labels/compilations (Trace – The Beacon, Dillinja – In The Mood etc), a mix based around the various musicians and producers from other scenes who have had a brief flirtation with D&B (David Bowie – Little Wonder, Todd Terry – Blackout) but after giving it a lot of thought I decided that the best theme to go with in the end would be a mix of some lesser known D&B remixes commissioned by various labels for non D&B artists.

Around the 95-98 era, when Jungle was starting to fade away and was slowly evolving into D&B, it caused a lot of ears to prick up with interest. Artists like Goldie, Photek, 4hero, Grooverider, Peshay, Source Direct, Roni Size, Wax Doctor and many more were all putting out full albums on major labels and D&B was seen as the freshest, most exciting thing around and everybody wanted a piece of the action. Back when CD/12” singles were still selling healthy amounts you’d usually buy a tune and get the radio edit and a longer club mix as well as maybe a remixes of the original track as extras.

As soon as D&B began to get noticed, labels would hit up the bigger artists of the time for remixes to go on these singles, both to cash in on the then-current D&B hype as well as to market the original artist to a new audience. It would soon be pretty normal to go down to the record shop, browse through the CDs in the Pop/Rock/Electronic sections and see artists like Optical, Roni Size, Alex Reece, Boymerang and Krust doing remixes for a surprising wide range of artists from different scenes. Often the pairings that you never dreamed could work well (Krust remixing Korn, The Ganja Kru remixing Natalie Imbruglia) were where you’d get some of the interesting results.

I’ve become an avid CD collector over the past year or two, browsing Discogs hunting for obscure tracks that not too many heads might have heard before, and now that I’m starting to run out of official compilations and artist albums to buy, I’ve started to make a move to buying up remix albums and CD singles which have D&B remixes on them. Many of these are available at absolute bargain prices; very few of them turn up in mixes or tracklistings elsewhere and some of them are pretty bloody obscure. It took me a long while to gather up enough material for this mix, so I hope you enjoy listening to it as much as I enjoyed compiling it.

(PS – Thanks to Executive Steve for the editing!)
(PPS – Apologies for bad mixing at times, think it was about 2am when I done this mix.)

Kenny Larkin – Loop 2 (Alex Reece Remix) [R & S]
David Holmes – Gone (PFM Remix) [Go! Discs]
Friends From Rio – Maracatudo (Wax Doctor Remix) [Far Out]
Espiritu – Baby I Wanna Live (DJ Pulse Mix) [Heavenly]
Project 23 – Pleasure & The Pain (Peshay Remix) [Dorado]
Peter Andre – Flava (Jungle Mix) [Mushroom]
Palm Skin Productions – Evolution Of The Beast (Part 1) [Mo Wax]
Flora Purim – What You See (Ghost Of Flora’s Dream) [B&W Music]
Grace – If I Could Fly (LTJ Bukem’s Roll It Mix) [Perfecto]
Hunch – Visible From Space (Aquasky Mix) [Clean Up]
Blue Amazon – And The The Rain Falls (Blame Remix) [Jackpot]
The Art Of Noise – Camilla The Old Old Story (J Majik Remix) [China]
Max Reich & Johannes Foufas – Alchemy (Seba Remix) [SVEK]
Q-Tex – Do You Want Me (Funky Technicians Remix) [23rd Precinct]
Deepika – History (Crystl Clear) [RCA]
Ken Ishii – Overlap (Lemon D Remix) [R & S]
Garbage – Milk (Goldie’s VIP Trash Your Sh*t Mix) [Mushroom]
N.G.O. – Windermere (Dillinja Roll Out Mix) [JVC]
Empirion – B.E.T.A. (Doc Scott Remix) [XL]
?? – Shinobi X (Remarc & Lewi Cifer Remix) [Breakdown]
Sugizo – Michael In The Cage (Source Direct Remix) [Invader]
Wink – Simple Man (ft. The Interpreters) (Optical Remix) [Sony Soho Square]
Project 23 – Sugarize ‘Lost Inna Dream’ (Boymerang Remix) [Dorado]
David Bowie – I’m Afraid Of Americans (V5) [Virgin]
Dub War – Million Dollar Love (DJ Rap Remix) [Earache]
Turntable Terranova – Precipice (DJ Krust Remix) [Hypnotic]

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