Ashley Brown (aka DJ Pulse, owner of Creative Wax and 1/3 of the hardcore act Dance Conspiracy alongside Adrian Shortman and James Hoyte) and Jamie Giltrap (aka Tango), both regular artists of the Creative Wax collective, joined forces in 1995 for the one-off project The Committee.

The duo reunited after the label’s hibernation, forming the second incarnation of Initial Research focusing on breakbeat projects (the members of the first incarnation have been DJ Pulse and Justice).

Tango’s remix of Final Conflict is also referred to as We Are At War ’95, a direct reference to Sister Souljah’s proclamation (the vocal sample appears in her second personal single entitled The Final Solution: Slavery’s Back In Effect released in 1991 and was the tagline of her famous speech at Cheyney State University in Pennsylvania in 1994).

The track is dominated by the desolate saxophone riff sampled from the song Darkest Light by the funk/soul group Lafayette Afro Rock Band. This particular sample had been heavily used before by several artists, including the likes of Public Enemy (for the track Show ‘Em Whatcha Got featuring in their album It Takes A Nation Of Millions To Hold Us Back, 1988), Dance Conspiracy (for the seminal hardcore anthem Dub War, XL Recordings/Metamorphosis, 1992), Badman (aka Marvellous Cain), James Hoyte (aka Sponge and founder of IQ Records) and Tango himself for various versions of the track War for ’94 released on IQ Records.

Adrian Shortman (aka Professor Stretch) has been credited on the info side of the record for his contribution to Dub War; however both Final Conflict and Profound Love (on the flipside) have been written and produced by Pulse & Tango.

The additional eerie, female vocal snippets are sampled from the techno track (Yeah You!, Occasions mix, WARP Records, 1991) by The Step with Sarah Jay on vocal duties. Haunting strings accompany the sax riff until the introduction of the “We are at war!” vocal hook, followed by a cascade of trademark Tango amen edits and a deep sub-bass underpinning the bass line.

Frequently overlooked, due to the plethora of classics in Creative Wax’s back catalogue, the particular release is a fine bridge between the label’s earlier outputs and the ones that followed, until the suspension of the label’s activities in 1998.

The post The Committee – Final Conflict (Tango remix) appeared first on Drumtrip - Hardcore / Oldskool Jungle Blog.

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]

The post Drumtrip Sessions #06 – Tim Reaper appeared first on Drumtrip - Hardcore / Oldskool Jungle Blog.

This happened

“There was a period (roughly) between 1993 to 96 where jungle was not only atmospheric or dark, but it had an other worldly, sci-fi feel. Labels like Deejay, Lucky Spin, Legend, Timeless, Rugged Vinyl and others captured this spacey, blissed-out vibe. A quality that now seems more or less extinct within the contemporary drum and bass scene.

I tried to select tunes for this mix that represent the broad spectrum of this sound. With brooding, dark tracks like ‘Fury’ and ‘Genesis Project’ to the more calming, deep sounds of ‘Intalect’ and ‘Traveling Pt 2’.

There is a feeling of nervous mystery and wonder to these tunes, as if they could be the soundtrack to that part of a sci-fi film where the human protagonists discover a new world, a mystery accelerated by the fact that these sounds now only exist in the past.”

01. Lucida – Tunnel Vision – Production House
02. Chuck E – Fantasy – White House
03. Mysteron – U Don’t Know – Timeless
04. D.O.P.E. – Travelling Pt 2 – Good Looking
05. DJ Monita – The Party (Remix) – Skeleton Recordings
06. Skanna – Greatest Thing – Skanna
07. DJ Pulse – Stay Calm (Foul Play Remix) – Moving Shadow
08. Rufige Kru – Fury – Moving Shadow
09. DJ Fokus – Trigger Happy – Lucky Spin
10. DJ Fokus – Pulse – Lucky Spin
11. Intense – The Genesis Project – Rugged Vinyl
12. Orca – Intalect – Lucky Spin
13. Sounds Of Life – Don’t Resist The Beat – Certificate 18
14. System X – Move Yourself – 3rd Eye
15. The Invisible Man – The Beginning – Timeless

The post Law mix for Two Hungry Ghosts appeared first on Drumtrip - Hardcore / Oldskool Jungle Blog.