Here Come The Drums Podcast

GFT here. This blog is about 6 months old. To celebrate, I’m breaking the rules. Throw the boat out!

Labels with a loooong release history are always going to be difficult for me to do, and as Ram is now coming up on 200-ish releases, that would have resulted in an unmanageably long mix… a long dark tunnel, you could say?

Luckily, there is a handy dividing line available to us. When Ram turned its direction towards the straight-up DnB sound of the late ’90s it also updated its label logo to the familiar horns logo still in use today. Prior to that, the logo consisted of this fairly quaint little goat’s head design, hence, ‘the sheep years’. This month, as I stand here in my Ram sheep’s head t-shirt drinking a cup of tea from my Ram mug, surrounded by stacks of Ram wax, Nightlife CDs, posters, keyrings and other assorted Ram detritus (all of which you can buy from the Ram shop!), we delve deep into that now-brief period of history when Ram’s bread and butter was hardcore jungle tekno – the first 23 12″s from the Ram back catalogue, plus the 4 x 12″s from the Speed of Sound LP. 64 tunes in 78 minutes… not too shabby, and all vinyl just like it was back in the day.

Ram Records needs no introduction, but that won’t stop me from giving it one anyway. In a statement that always makes me question my own validity as a human being, Ram was founded in 1992 by a 15 (!) year old Andy C along with Ant Miles. As Desired State, the pair had already released several underground hits, including the hardcore anthem ‘Dance the Dream‘ which was remixed several times. As Origin Unknown, the duo hit it big (#understatement) with the fourth release on Ram, The Touch/Valley of the Shadows. Valley of the Shadows became an all time classic in the scene and in 2014, some 200 releases later, Ram is still going strong as the undisputed biggest label in DnB. Whatever anyone wants to say about how the Ram sound has changed and evolved over the years, you must respect that journey. Ram Records has released countless classics since then and shows no signs of slowing down. There are loads of all–Ram mixes on the internet if you need history lessons that confirm this fact.

Also, I can’t let this go by without mentioning the demonstrably insane skills of Andy C, the DJ. This has without doubt been one the key ingredients to the success of Ram. As anyone who has ever seen the man in session will know, Andy C cannot be tested on the decks. Even if you’re not necessarily a fan of the tunes, his skill and speed is obvious. Andy C is my go-to DJ when responding to the ‘beatmatching is dead easy’ statement. If that were true then everyone would be as on-point as Andy C, right? (Edit: here is a really great interview with the man himself)

For this mix, I’ve gone with the first 23 releases on Ram, ending with their last true jungle release and coincidentally the last 12″ featuring the sheep logo, Nighflight/Quest. From RAMM18 onwards, roughly around the time of the first LP (see below), the Ram sound changed dramatically as it followed, and in many ways led, the rest of the DnB scene towards a more stripped back, minimal 2-step style with lush, futuristic arrangements. You can hear this sound start coming through on the Speed of Sound LP.

As far as getting hold of these tunes, most of them are fairly available, although the further back you go the more in-demand the records are. Many of the older tunes have not yet been released digitally which, along with natural age/scarcity, probably explains things. Even so, there are no super-hard-to-find records here. The Eastern Promise EP (RAMM02) did not make it past promo, so expect to pay top dollar for a genuine copy. If you’re not bothered by the ethics then a bootleg pressing does exist to mitigate the issue.

> = teased

Andy C – Outer Limits

This was probably the most fun I’ve had yet doing mixes for this site. With so many amazing tunes to get through I was forced to go in Andy C-style and tear through tracks rapidly. This resulted in loads of teases and double drops. In all fairness, most of these old Ram tunes are not the kind you want to roll out for 6 minutes anyway, so it worked out fine.

Lastly, what were my favourite tunes? It may be too obvious, but the original Valley of the Shadows is untouchable, and always fun to mix… one of those rare tunes that goes well with almost anything. Quest and Night Flight are incredible tunes that everyone plays. Danger Zone is a great track noone plays. Goes Around remix is another personal fave. Within Reason original mix is another one I can’t put down.

So there you go, all the early Ram vinyls with the sheep’s head logo (plus bonuses), mixed up for your pleasure. Get involved!

Download MP3 320kbps 78mins

Less jungle. More screwface neuro dnb. Have it.

Here Come The Drums Podcast is made with Jetpack Podcast. Full show notes and every episode at https://herecomethedrums.com/

It’s me, it’s me… GFT, and I’m only slightly late.

In semi-relevant news this month I went down to Fire here in London to check the Metalheadz History Sessions party and it was absolutely amazing. Trepidation about the event being oversold leading to potential overcrowding proved to be unfounded, at least for me. I had plenty of room to bust a move throughout. Doc Scott b2b DJ Lee was my favourite set of the night but all of the DJs smashed it. Goldie dropped Satin Storm – Let’s Get Together for his first tune and it just destroyed the place. It was also really cool to hear Dillinja playing out his old tunes. Apparently Metalheadz had all of the sets professionally recorded straight from the desk? Can’t wait to have a listen to those, if only to confirm whether or not my addled recollections match reality, and to check the Room 2 sets I missed. I also got a Metalheadz History Session t-shirt. What a nerd, but they are pretty sick-looking.

Notable: Suburban Base is back, and in the Guardian.

Also notable:  Hardcore Junglism drama.

On to this month’s mix / self-OCD-medication.

Future Vinyl, like many other labels of the time, is best known for a single tune – the classic jungle track ‘Scottie’, or ‘Scottie’s Sub’ if you want to get all trainspotty. Scottie is so immense that it overshadows almost everything else on the label. This is one that every true junglist should know, with its Evil Dead samples and crazy reversed breaks. A truly groundbreaking track. Scottie aside, the Future Vinyl back catalogue is bone-deep with big jungle tunes. The purpose of this blog is to give exposure to some of the lesser known ones, so go in with an open mind and you might come across something you really like.

Future Vinyl put out 10 releases from ’93-’96. The first few, Scottie included, veer towards the atmospheric darkside jungle popular at the time, before dropping the scary samples and taking a more direct jungle approach. I have a particular fondness for ‘Terror In The Jungle’ and the two Stereo tracks. After no releases in ’95, Future Vinyl put out two 12″s by Special K in ’96 which are noticeably different – they wouldn’t have sounded out of place in a Blue Note set. ‘Final Conflict’ in particular is a monster No U-Turn-style techstep banger.

If you’re looking to pick up the Future Vinyl back catalogue, they shouldn’t be too difficult to find. There are only a few that regularly fetch high prices – The Subnation 4 Track EP (FUTURE2) is probably the most in-demand, but the yellow Scottie 12″ (FUTURE3) and FUTURE5 seem to be creeping up.

Subnation – Somebody Always Dies

This was a fun mix to mix. All vinyl straight through, no Serato or digi tricks. There were two main issues I had during the process. The first issue was how to incorporate all of the various versions of Scottie without it getting repetitive. To address this I chose to only really roll out my favourite two versions – the OG and the first remix. The two Ray Keith Jungle mixes are just teased in and all four of the ’98 remixes are jammed up together at the end of the mix, mixing through them as quickly as possible. I reckon the result turned out ok, and the dnb remixes are quite dissimilar to each other in the first place. The effect throughout the mix is that Scottie periodically weaves its way in and and out, like that mashed up friend you keep losing in the rave, who somehow manages to show up again just before the lights come back on and the tired bouncers march you out together.

The second issue was that there were a few tunes with significantly less BPM than the rest. In fact, I completed the mix and had these three tunes left over – I could not figure out what to do with them. So, in the end, I mixed the three together and stuck them in at the start. There is and abrupt fade/edit when the BPM changes. If I had more patience I’d probably have done some kind of tricky effects transition, but by that point I was completely Future Vinyl-ed out, so it remains in the mix as I originally had it. Shrug. At least I didn’t trainwreck them across. It worked out anyway as the mix now starts with the Sharon Stone-sampling ‘Somebody Always Dies’, which is a really cool tune with a skanking bassline.

So there you have it. Here’s the mix – every tune ever put out on Future Vinyl + bonus beats! Enjoy.

Download MP3 320kbps 92mins

Here Come The Drums Podcast is made with Jetpack Podcast. Full show notes and every episode at https://herecomethedrums.com/

Hi peeps! Happy new year from me, GFT.

Firstly, apologies for being late as I know I’m trying to get these posts out monthly, but honestly they are a lot of work, especially this one – it’s an epic. To make matters worse I lost a bunch of records on the London Underground and it took me a while to replace them. Do not fall asleep on the tube, people! Happily, the lost records did eventually turn up in TFL lost property, perhaps proving that humanity is worth saving after all. Thank you nice person for not taking/selling my crusty jungle records. So now I have doubles of these.

Secondly, it has been pointed out to me that for a blog supposedly dedicated to hardcore, jungle, and drum n bass music, there has been a distinct lack of actual dnb posts so far. Am I some crusty old skool dnb-ist whose view is that the music died in 1995? Far from it – I’m actually working on something special to address this, but all in due course.

In the meantime, on with this bombaclaart show.

Soapbar records! Surely one of the greatest record label logos ever?

From Discogs: Early 1990’s UK Hardcore/Jungle breakbeat label, set up by the Total Music record shop in Bethnal Green, East London. The label was part ran by Dj Spice who was the A&R guy.

Total Music ran its own record label which was more on the house tip, and Soapbar was its hardcore/jungle arm. The releases, to me, can be divided into three distinct eras – firstly. the Joint Project / DJ Spice era of bouncier hardcore tunes, the T Power middling period, leading lastly into the jungle period. If I had to pick favourites I’d probably go with the earlier tunes although there are merits to each.

Soapbar put out a grand total of 16 releases during its run… 14 x 12″ and 2 x 10″ as well as one release on Soapbar Reloaded, the short-lived remix label (see below). This month’s mix contains all of these tunes and then some.

If you’re looking to pick these records up yourself it should not be too difficult. Aside from SBR001 all of the releases are cheap as chips. Get thee to Discogs!

Personal highlights… My favourite release out of the entire run is T Power’s Shape of Things To Come EP. Buy this on sight. As well as that the first 3 releases on Soapbar are really strong and I find all four of the DJ A.K.A tunes to be seriously under-rated – very intricate productions. 2 Much – Give You All is a big hands-in-the-air anthem which never fails to destroy the dance. Give it a spin!

Joint Project – Total Feeling

Boom!

Download MP3 320kbps 1hour 57mins

Here Come The Drums Podcast is made with Jetpack Podcast. Full show notes and every episode at https://herecomethedrums.com/

GFT here. Serious ’93 darkside business this month from Dark Horse Records.

Dark Horse is somewhat of a legendary label for me. When I started collecting oldschool hardcore tunes it was one of the very first labels I set my sights on – I’m not sure why… maybe I liked the logo. The first release I picked up was ‘The Night Rider Part One’ 12″, on beautiful blue marbled vinyl, as those were tracks I had been hearing most frequently on mix sets. The rest followed suit eventually. If you’re looking to nab your own collection then DHR001 and 004 are definitely the chase records. DHR002 seems to be getting harder to come by as well.

As per Discogs “The Dark Horse label was owned by Jim Polo and Neil Vass and began in early 1993. The label only had 7 releases and closed at the end of 1994. The first 5 tunes released were all classics of the dark hardcore period of 1993 and included the Baby D sampling anthem Rolling Energy.” Not much more I can add to that as trivia is thin on the ground out in the Google-sphere, suffice to say that this is a classic label of the ’93 darkside period, with all of the tunes in that distinctive grimdark grimy style.

(Almost) All of the tunes are by Jim Polo or his aliases. The only downer was that quite a few of the 12″s suffer from poor mastering/pressing, including ‘The Night Rider Pt. 1’ and ‘Dark Horse In Full Effect’, although in their case we can probably put it down to the coloured vinyl. I wish I had the black! DHR006 and 007 are particularly affected by lo-fi buzz, I even picked up multiple copies to make sure it wasn’t just my plates – they just sound rinsed. I don’t think I’m the first to have noticed this. That shouldn’t take anything away from the tunes though… they are all fantastic.

I actually had to record this mix twice. Embarrassingly, I hadn’t properly set my anti skate, tone-arm counterweight, or had my decks levelled. The less said about this the better

Jim Polo and Neil Vass – Underground Feeling

So, anyway… check out the mix of every track Dark Horse Records ever put out!

Download MP3 320kbps 57mins

Here Come The Drums Podcast is made with Jetpack Podcast. Full show notes and every episode at https://herecomethedrums.com/

GFT here. Another post, another mix.

The first record I had on Gyroscope was the classic ‘Defender – Feel It’, but it took me a while before I felt the urge to explore the rest of the catalogue. ‘Feel It’ is such a classic it overshadows almost everything else on the label, but make no mistake there are some definite gems in the list, you just need to dig. Hopefully this mix will expose a few and spur people to hunt them down for themselves. There aren’t too many hard to find releases amongst this bunch, but Nicky Blackmarket’s ‘D’Bounce Vol 2’ EP is probably the most scarce. The rest are still reasonably cheap although the original mix of ‘Feel It’ is always in high demand. The remixes not so much.

I love the Gyroscope Records green and black 12″ sleeves. They always stand out in the record bag!

Gyroscope Records was a hardcore/jungle label set up in 1992 by Nicky Blackmarket and Dave Piccioni. Nicky Blackmarket is not only an old school jungle don in his own right, but also ran the world famous Blackmarket Records in Soho, London, now called BM Soho. All dnb heads should make the pilgrimage if they’re in town.

Gyroscope put out 7 releases before winding up at the end of 1993. It was around about this time that Nicky took a step back as far as production goes, to focus on DJ’ing. Here’s a great interview with the man himself.

This mix is 100% vinyl, crackles and all, on 2x 1210s. Suffice to say, this was quite difficult to put together as the production standards on the tunes is, frankly, all over the place. There are a few parts of the mix that sound out of time due to poorly looped samples. Not atypical for 1992-93 though, and that is part of what makes these tunes so much fun. Hopefully the end result is not too bad but I disavow any screw ups in advance

Some great tunage in here. My picks – any/all of the Richie Covers productions, ‘Feel It’ of course, Nicky Blackmarket’s ‘Keep It Warm’ and the Trace track ‘Inside Information’.

A few pieces of trivia to note…

Known Chic – Atutu (OD Mix)

Enjoy the mix!

Download MP3 320kbps 90mins

Here Come The Drums Podcast is made with Jetpack Podcast. Full show notes and every episode at https://herecomethedrums.com/

It’s me, it’s me… it’s GFT.

I first came across this label via represses I picked up at my local record store in the early/mid 2000s. Being a pure DnB DJ at the time, the 12″s sat gathering dust for a few years before my focus shifted, but once I really listened to the tunes I came to love them. As such, Boombastic Plastic was the first old school record label I ever completed a run of. Makes sense for this to be the first mix I roll out on the blog.

Boombastic Plastic put out just six vinyl releases from 1992-94. The label was run by Jan Salisbury and Jason Cambridge aka Citadel Of Kaos (which I presume must have been taken from the Fighting Fantasy book of the same name? Nerd creds yo…). Salisbury continued to release under the Citadel of Kaos moniker after he and Cambridge eventually parted ways. Jason Cambridge is now very well-known as DnB stalwart A-Sides, running his own prolific label, East Side.

No gimmicks here, all mixed from vinyl on a pair of 1210s. The style is standard 92-93 hardcore breaks business but nothing ever gets too crazy or out of control – not too dark, not too happy. The production is definitely of a high quality. The breaks are tightly arranged and everything sounds bright and clear in the mix. There is a welcome absence of the common ‘relatively-shit-earlier-releases’ syndrome – every release is a solid one. Best of all, the 12″s are cheap to pick up as most have been repressed – there aren’t any hard-to-find chasers in there.

I really enjoyed doing this mix! Almost every tune is a banger that I would recommend to anyone. The highlights:

All tracks by Citadel of Kaos except * by Ruff and Tumble Crew and ** by A-Sides.

Shut Up and Listen

There is a mispress of BP005 (Ceasefire/Passion) which, given my OCD about shit like this, I also have. This pressing replaced the intended b-side, ‘Passion’, with the two Ruff & Tumble Crew tracks included in the tracklist above. These tunes were properly released as the b-side to ‘Innocence’ on Bizzy B’s Brain Progression label. Fortunately, they fit in seamlessly with the rest of the  Boombastic Plastic tunes so no reason not to include them.

So, kick back and enjoy the mix of every tune ever put out on Boombastic Plastic.

Download MP3 320kbps 68mins

Here Come The Drums Podcast is made with Jetpack Podcast. Full show notes and every episode at https://herecomethedrums.com/