To the best of my knowledge DJ Mayhem started out in 1992 on the influential Basement Records, a label that bridged the gap nicely between the hardcore sound of the time, and the more european techno styles.
The label eventually moved into the more uniformed, deep drum and bass sounds from 1994 onwards, with label owner Phil Wells (of Vinyl Distribution and Nu-Urban) launching sub-labels like Street Beats and Precious Material as an outlet for the new drum and bass style.

Inesse appeared in late 1993 on Sponge and Pascal’s ‘Face Records‘ label. In my opinion, late 1993 was a peak time in the hardcore / jungle scene.
The year before, Darkcore was in full effect, but by this point new ‘drum and bass’ style was already infiltrating the scene as an alternative to the all out ragga-jungle tracks which would become so popular in 1994. As such, you often got a kind of crossover track with a more regimented jungle / D&B style of beats, but with dark and often uplifting hardcore elements. Inesse straddles this line perfectly.

The track starts off with some real sinister sounding strings before the bass and chopped amens come rolling in after the one minute mark. The track rolls out with machine gun amen snares in full effect before a wonderful breakdown arrives.
The breakdown samples both the vocals and strings from a 1990 downtempo soul track by Innocence, entitled ‘Natural Thing‘. The vocals and strings are really uplifting, and as the sample is pitched up a bit, it gives that classic hardcore ‘chipmunk’ quality to the vocal. The drums return and the sample rolls out for a few bars. It’s incredibly simple, but hugely effective, a bit of a hands in the air moment.

Ray Keith along with Nookie produced an excellent remix in 1994 with a beefed up bassline, but it doesn’t quite reach the euphoric heights of the original mix in my eyes.

The second half of 1993 really produced some stunning hardcore / jungle tracks; a sound pioneered by the links of DJ Crystl, Q-Project, Invisible Man, Skanna, Gwange et al. It really didn’t last too long, but for me it was the true golden age – An amazing sound that never really did return in the same way.

The post TOTD: DJ Mayhem – Inesse appeared first on Drumtrip - Hardcore / Oldskool Jungle Blog.

I was first introduced to pirate radio in 1991, and it played a huge role in shaping my musical tastes.
Being a kid too young at the time to go out raving, I would spend hours at home or at friends’ houses listening to stations like Kool, Weekend Rush, Defection, Eruption and Pulse, and record them to tape on a Musical Fidelity “music centre” similar to the one pictured below – not much to look at but it had an excellent pause button (anyone who used to record off radio will know how important this is).

I was also buying vinyl and playing it on this thing. It received the FM signal through a piano string instead of an aerial, which actually worked quite well!

After I went through a couple more questionable “Hi-Fi’s” (and I use that term very loosely), by 1994 I eventually moved on to a decent NAD amp and tape deck, Technics tuner and an old pair of Celestion Ditton 15 speakers. A year later I also picked up an SL1510 and a Pro 150 (hold tight DJ Jamie, I feel your pain) which was a barely useable combo, so went on to buy my SL1200s not long afterwards, that I still have to this day.

Unfortunately I would often re-record over sets or shows after I got bored of after listening to them over and over on the way to/from/in school or whatever, unaware of how much I’d want to have them back to listen to a few years down the line. I do still have a couple of my favourite ones left though.

The Mix…. 

So this set is based around tunes from the 93-94 era (with one from 92 thrown in that was way ahead of its time) that were big pirate radio favourites of mine, tunes that instantly make me think of a particular station, DJ/MC, tape, time or place the second I hear that breakdown. Basically tunes that had a positive impact on me, that I went out and bought because of pirate radio.

I have spliced in little sections of some of my old recordings (mainly Kool FM ones) that I happen to have ripped and saved on my computer – I tried not to go overboard with this, but did include some slightly longer memorable clips, like the infamous “Duffer Paul” reload, Kool FM NYE 94 into 95, which friends and me creased up over many times.

A lot of these tunes are not heard so much these days compared to the bigger anthems (many of which owe their success to stations like Kool and Rush), some are a bit rough around the edges and some were overshadowed by a monster of an anthem on the flipside (Renegade’s Something I Feel for example).

I purposefully didn’t play tracks by the same artist or on the same label more than once to try and get a nice cross-section of music in there, but it was very tough to leave some out, especially when flicking through the Reinforced back cat from this era. Also, I didn’t want to repeat tunes that already feature in previous mixes of mine such as “Just About Jungle”, which is packed with a lot of my old pirate favourites.

Shouts/credits for the clips used: 
Demolition Crew, DJ Kane, MC Det, Cogee, DJ Ash, Eastman, Trace, Rymetyme, Navigator, Mampi Swift, Kool FM, Eruption FM, and all producers in the tracklisting.

01: DJ Kane – Lost [No U-Turn]
02: Sound Of The Future – The Warning (Remix) [Formation]
03: DJ Mayhem – M-Power [Basement]
04: DJ LD – Parazone Part 3 [Planet Earth]
05: Gappa G & Hypa Hyper – Roach Is Burning [Ruff Kut]
06: B.V. – Vision [World Bass]
07: 4 horsemen Of The Apocalypse – We Are The Future [Tone Def]
08: The Whitehouse Crew – Anonymous [Subliminal]
09: The Quiet Storm – Everybody Over There [Emphasis]
10: Dopeski & Jakes – Mutant Ideology [Face]
11: Ment 4 Bass – Strings Free [Liquid Wax]
12: Double H Productions – Ultra Jungle [Hard Disk]
13: Body Snatch – The Strength (Mental Rapids) [Big City]
14: Majistrate – Big Tings [Intalektive]
15: On Remand – Controllin’ (Tango Remix) [Underworld Vinyl]
16: Underground Software – He’s Gone! [Reinforced]
17: The Joker – The Joker [Skanna]
18: DJ Nut Nut – Forbidden Planet [Virtual Motion]
19: Renegade – Something I Feel [Moving Shadow]
20: Roni Size & DJ Die – The Calling
21: Pugwash & Probe – Army Of Darkness [i-d]
22: DJ Crystl – Deep Space [Dee Jay]
23: Smith Inc – Palomino (Give It To Me) [Absolute Zero]
24: FBD Project – Breakin Up [Bang-in Tunes]
25: The J.B. – Simpin [Back 2 Basics]

* Get the ‘clean’ unedited version of the mix here

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This is a mix I did yesterday – March 18th. Deep darkside jungle. Every track played is the original vinyl or dubplate, except for the track marked * – which was given to me by the producer as a .wav. I don’t cut dubplates anymore so I played it off CDJ. Mixed on three Technics 1200s, a Pioneer CDJ-800 and a Rane Empath mixer.

Intense – Journey to the Unknown – Rugged Vinyl
Imposter & Lewi – The Shining – II Strong
DJ Ruffkut – Dub White – No U Turn
DJ D-Lux – Iron Plate – Brain Progression
DJ Ruffkut – Dangerous – No U Turn
Commando Alan Jamming Nam & Lieutenant A. J. Cracker – Bat 21 – Untold
Digital Pressure – Strictly Drug-Related – Juice Box
The Man With No Name – Painted Man – Hard Disk
Spinback & Windmill – Divine Inspiration – Legend
Wriggler Bascombe – Final Battle – One Nation
DJ D-Lux – Annihilation – Brain Progression
DJ Mayhem – Let Me Tell You Something – Face
Remarc – Mayhem – Dollar
Jim Polo & Neil Vass – Underground Feeling – Dark Horse
Wax Doctor & Jack Smooth – Unfriendly – Basement
Steve C & Monita – Smart Kid – Skeleton
Whitehouse Crew – Where the Sun Don’t Shine – Subliminal
Tango – Future Followers VIP – dubplate
Dillinja – Majestic B-Line EP – track A1 – Deadly Vinyl
Bay B Kane – Wickedest Man *
Area 39 – Clint – Vision
Intense – The Genesis Project – Rugged Vinyl

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