WOEBOT

Brick Door Mix.

OK enough thrashing around in the dark! (ahem) Time to produce something I actually have a bit of knowledge about and affinity with. 90% of these tunes I picked up back in 1993 and 1994. Same method as usual, if I liked 'em I bought 'em. I've avoided well-known tracks like Marvellous Caine's "The Hitman", Dead Dred's "Dread Bass", Roni Size's "Warning", Goldie's "Jah" and his remixes of Shabba and Cutty which would have slipped in here a treat, but are just too familiar. The brief was "Ragga-Jungle" though many of these owe as much to Reggae and are frequently more "evolved" and riddimic than your average Jump-Up tracks.

If I say so myself it's an absolutely towering muthafu**a of a mix, straight-ahead *NO EDITS*, thoroughly enjoyed putting this together.

00:00 Foul Play: Murder Most Foul (Moving Shadow)
Intro a bit mashed up. I'm not even sure if this is the correct name of the track. It's off a blacked-out Moving Shadow Dubplate. That bass leaps out in your face, much more rubbery production than most Ragga Jungle. What's there to say? it's effing magic! (Mix a teensy bit wonky here, hang in there!)

02: 46 Underground Software: Total Niceness (Reinforced)
I reckon this tidy crew are underrated auteurs. The acid on this will drive the nuts round at Rephlex mad. (Hi Marcus!)

04:32 Exude: Common Sensi (Boogie Times)
Boogie Times the ruffer less self-conciously "classy" snotty sibling of Suburban Base. Named after the shop Boogie Times in Romford which was Sub Base's home. I like to think of these as records they thought could shift units.

07:09 CMC: Bad Girl (Ibiza)
Ibiza records! What a daft name! Hardly balearic is it!

10:34 Roni Size: Det-strumental (V)
Slipping into Jungle proper with this one. Off "The Size of things to come EP" This was once impossible to find. I think V have reissued it. Interesting the way that the "Jazz-Funk" piano is hypercellerated into some trilling helicule.

13:43 Tom & Jerry: Follow Da Massive (Shell)
Absolutely tearin' tune with a typically knicker-wetting sample from The Cutter. Those skidding cymbals! That cavernous Bass! Of course this is the Reinforced crew in Urban guise.

16:04 Pure: Anything Test (Suburban Base)
A lost classic to my mind. Swift and Zinc deliver monstrous amen.

19:19 Tek 9: The Tek 9 Reinterpretation of Code 071's 'A London Sumtin' 1991 Some Original Urban Jungle Music. (Reinforced)
That's what it says on the label of this Tek 9 doublepack. A feeling that they're trying to claw back some of the cred they were due when Jungle suddenly blew up on the Black/Urban scene in 1994. Though rather flying-in-the-wind of Jump-up's reduced artistic ambitions (let's face it!); sporting an insanely convolouted, infolding, galloping, whirring, clockwork riddim. Yet still it rolls as Tim was recently discussing.

21:47 D'Cruze: Want You Now (DJ SS & EQ Remix) (Suburban Base)
A step back in time to this thrilling bit of Ardkore, possibly the most famous track here, owing in part to it's inclusion on the second Joint LP in which Moving Shadow and Sub Base when head-to-head. The original is pants incidentally.

23:58 Underground Software: Music Maker Possee (Reinforced)
Included here for it's gourgeous textureology. It's not a choon per se (like the other selections). What's enticing is it's liquid drums, somehow urgent, dread, martial, spilling and aqueous at once.

21:49 A Guy Called Gerald: Anything V.2.1 (Juice Box)
Something satisfyingly nasty and low-slung about this. Gerald packing the canvas with details, less rollidge here with the track twisting to and fro.

31:25 Smokey Joe: Shining Remix (Labello Blanco)
Surprising for it's 4D production, almost Deep Dish does Jungle, but look at the label! It's Labello Blanco, spelling R.E.A.L. innit!

35:17 Prizna: No Man No Bad Feat Junior Demus Grooverider Remix (KUS)
A likkle track off the Prizna LP I always liked.

38:10 More Rockers: In The Beginning (More Rockers)
Don't be put off by the Smith & Mighty connection, this is a one-off epic riddim.

41:18 DJ Solo & DJ Rossie: Sure Shot (FX)
Somewhere on the Hollow Earth site too. Kodwo Eshun hipped me to this in his column in The Wire. He was "on" all of this at the time.

46:27 L Double: The Rider (Flex)
Jump-Up Prog innit.

51:03 Rhytm For Reasons DJ SS Remixes: The Smokers Rhythm (Formation)
Always wanted MORE DJ SS stuff attractive for it's no-nonsense approach (sorta like Boogie Times in this way), though found often it didn't live up to expectations. This a lot of fun, and what a dreamy intro.

54:27 A Guy Called Gerald: Finley's Rainbow (Juice Box)
Impossible to find again. The 4Hero remix everywhere but vastely inferior. Forget the Finlay Quaye debacle after and concentrate on the loveliness of it. Made a neat match with Maxinquaye at the time.

Posted by Woebot at December 23, 2003 10:19 PM