GFT here. This is a big post for me. Legend Records is my number one favourite jungle label of all time, so it is a somewhat daunting task to do justice to it. And so the mix has proven! It took me literally months of effort, chipping away at it week after week. Is this how GRRM feels slogging through new chapters of A Song of Ice and Fire? Call it the Legend Records Knot, or some such. Fuck me I’m nerdy…

Legend Records was founded in 1993 by the Oxfordshire trio of DJ Gwange, Spinback and Q Project, and continued to release until 1996. Legend is one of the defining labels of the so-called ‘intelligent jungle’ sound of the mid-90s, although I can’t be the only one who has always hated that term. In effect (lol), the bulk of the label’s output can be summarised as deep, rolling jungle tunes, predominantly featuring that classic and simple combination of big subs, hypnotising breaks, and spacey, ethereal pads and strings.

If LTJ Bukem perfected the formula on masterpieces like Music, or Horizons, then the Legend crew can certainly lay claim to their own defining classics in the same space with the likes of Airtight, Motionless, or Deep Concentration. Add to that several more hard-edged, but no less impactful darkside excursions like In Effect, Champion Sound, and Adrenalin and you can see why Legend is just plain sex for jungle lovers.

Legend wound up shortly after DJ Gwange quit the label in ’94/’95. Spinback and Q Project went on to even greater success as Total Science with too many releases to possibly list on Timeless, Metalheadz, their own label C.I.A, and many others, and are still putting out tracks to this day. Here’s a short excerpt from a RollDaBeats thread, with jungle old-skooler The Invisible Man chiming in on his associations with the running of Legend, and engineering many of its notable tracks:

“With Legend Records it was often Gwange and myself who would do a lot of the general running around to distro’s and cutting houses as I already knew the industry from having several releases under my belt, and besides we were ones with transport.. however sometime during 94 both myself and Simon had to go AWOL for a while – him for personal reasons, and me ’cause I had quite literally burnt myself out.. no, not too many drugs.. – more from doing too many tunes and not sleeping or eating properly etc. mind you, working with Quiff and Smithy is quite possibly enough to give anyone a nervous breakdown… the speech from my tune “The End” seemed to have become a freaky prophecy.. very spooky. It was at that point that I let Brillo (who used to work at Vinyl Distribution in Reading) take over my Timeless label and DJ Hood went on to finance a small studio setup for Quiff and Smithy so they could continue Legend Records without me, the last track I did with them was LEG-013 – by this point they had both spent a lot of time with me and had a pretty good idea of how to go about things, so after a short stop gap to re-assess the situation and learn the equipment they continued Legend for a few releases and finally wound it up at release number 16.”

There are so many great tunes on here it’s difficult to know where to start. Some of the early standouts are the aforementioned darkside efforts In Effect, and Champion Sound. Champion Sound in particular is a classic that has been remixed many times through the years although the Alliance Remix is probably the most famous. Adrenalin is a huge, pulsing monster of a tune. It has an ominous-sounding synth breakdown near the end that gets me every time. Deep Concentration is another standout with its spine-tingling intro into the drop. And Airtight, again, is an atmospheric classic – an epic tune that builds and builds towards a blissed-out pads breakdown before dropping back in with booming subs. Too many to choose from.

If you’re looking to track these records down on wax you had better hurry as a lot of the early releases on Legend are seemingly becoming hard to come by/expensive. Not surprising given the quality of the tuneage, but still.

Q Project & Spinback – Sinister Connection

So let’s go… every single tune ever released on Legend, plus its sub-label Code-001, and some other relevant bits and pieces. 100% crusty vinyls, if that’s something anyone still cares about. Enjoy!

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