Showing posts with label 'ardcore. Show all posts
Showing posts with label 'ardcore. Show all posts

Sunday 4 July 2021

The Assembled Minds - Dirty Workshop Magick


Mathew 'Patterned Air' Saunders released a bunch of stuff recently under his fabulous moniker The Assembled Minds onto bandcamp. I've known for a while that he's had a stack of unreleased material waiting around have I? I think I even told some people to sign him up or was that Position Normal? Perhaps both*. My influence can't be that far reaching though as Mathew has released these himself. Hey I gave it a go! Anyway after purchasing all the everything which is both old & new, I'm just stuck on the first digital album I put through the bluetooth speakers. 

That's this terrific compilation DIRTY WORKSHOP MAGICK. First of all: Best album title in the haunty-logic game since Mordant Music's Dead Air. This compilation contains tracks that The Assembled Minds contributed to other compilations over the last seven years. So we get six trax from 2015 to 2020. Assembled Minds came to CardroosManiac2 prominence in 2016 with their brilliant LP Creaking Haze & Other Rave Ghosts which was a Top 10 LP in my end of year list. The brilliant second track The Face In The Mirror Is Not Mine made my 2016 Top 5 tunes list. So if you're across the goodness of this fine music you're in luck here.

"...a half remembered misty rural rave among blurry faced dancers with only their teeth shining bright in a marsh that might not have even existed, where you never belonged. Suddenly your brain connected 'ardcore to the sinister/anodyne conjured by the brown British world of 70s homemade telly where Radiophonica was surreptitiously squished in. In this moment library theme tunes mutated into hardcore rave trax that weren't in this dimension but a possible world of parallels between raves. Seven buttered english muffin people hunted you until you arrived back in an urban town planning nightmare as the suburban lights glowed in the early AMs, comforted by the cars splashing by in the night rain. Feeling good that all this never happened except did it? It's all a dilapidated sound and vision but weren't your parents synthesiser robots? Who've now rusted into squeaky regressed babies. Now including the super soundz of helium voices incorporated with vague slowed down distressed monSTer tones? Were you ever anywhere? Is your brain just an experiment inside a chipped tea cup within a room where the windows have no outside? So wrap yourself up in a beautifully patterned 70s curtain, but hang on, it's just withering satanic wallpaper turning into the ashes of that fireman's suit you'd stolen from an unknown village's station. Weren't you going to wear that to a rural rave at a misty marsh as you couldn't find an actual train driver's outfit in time. There was a whistle in your pocket though... I'll come to you... " 
[This is an excerpt from Tim's Haunted Bollocks Fiction] 

Dirty Workshop Magick is a 6 piece sonic jigsaw. A transmission of shadows of music's former self from this dimension, I think.
  

*Unfortunately amnesia has crept into some of my memory zones so I'm not sure anymore what I thought I knew or whether I even did the things I thought I did. The scans are fine but that's about what it rules in now as opposed to what it rules out! As many less sinister things have recently been ruled out. Now that I think about it, that's very Haunty-Logical although it's definately (sic) not fun or awesome. It's frightening.   

Friday 1 February 2019

UKG VI



Darqwan - Said The Spider
What is this? Apart from being a wobbly racket, I guess it's proto-dubstep. Is it even garage anymore? More like a drum n bass//bleep/hardcore hybrid. In 2002 this sounded pretty unhinged. Now that the bro-step era has gone by perhaps a tune like this might get a reappraisal or maybe not quite yet. I couldn't find Darqwan's more garage-y tune Pipe Dreams anywhere.



Active Minds - Hobsons Choice
Another terrible project name. Maybe that's why some white labels just say Hobsons Choice. We're back to pure speed garage gold here.



The Dub Monsters - Waiting
Waiting is the flip of Scott Garcia's bona fide speed garage classic A London ThingDub Monsters were a project for Garcia and another bloke. Waiting's all about the sugar rush of the vocal science. This was an odd little double A 12" of the best variety! 

Thursday 18 January 2018

'ardcore Smokey Joe



Gotta love hearing some early 90s rave-y hardcore that has never crossed my eardrums before. Thanks to Simon via Energy Flash for alerting me to this Red Bull article on ridiculously overpriced rave records. Some of these tunes I'd not heard until today.
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I love me a bit of kitchen sink hardcore: Breaks, scratching, Italo piano riffs, more breaks, synth riffology, chipmunks, hoovers, cheesy 80s synth samples, pitch-shifted divas, squelches, references to rushes etc. Kiss My Neck has got the lot.



Then there's this, a stone cold 'ardcore classic! Boomzabang, which is less cluttered than Kiss My Neck, has got fabulous beat science, riffs built on rhythms, time-stretching and melodic beats then the hardcore hoovers move in at 3.40 and by 4.20 it's mentastic. Next the track delves into dark lulls with a sampled diva, closing out on a classic break that could go on forever. How I've not come across this before is astounding because this is superior 92 into 93 hardcore slipping into darkside.

Smokey Joe is bringing the joy to my fuckered back and this sweltering heatwave.

Saturday 17 January 2015

Steve Gurley/Foul Play


This one's is from 93. An all time classic no doubt. 4 horsemen was a Foul Play pseudonym. There's an unmistakable 4 Hero sample in there from Mr Kirk's Nightmare. The flipside We Are The Future is just as stunning.



This one from 92 co written and produced by Gurley and 2 High. Actually the other version Dub In U might even be better than this, might dig that out to compare.



Steve Gurley had a lot to do with 'ardcore and Jungle before he went Garridge. I'm pretty sure this was just him on the remix of Omni Trio's Renegade Snares (Foul Play remix). God I love Omni Trio. I never tire of them. They are a gift. What was it Kodwo Eshun said about Omni Trio? Something about them 'being so kind'. He's right they have been kind to me for creating such great music and giving me so much pleasure through the years.

Wednesday 31 December 2014

The Chainsaw - Rhythm Section


Was listening to this tune today on me computer and thought 'gee whizz that's a beauty'. This is from 93 and it's gold that rocks da house. It kind of predates Basement Jaxx don't you think? "Are Rhythm Section and The Rhythm Section one and the same?" I thought, and no they're not. The Rhythm Section were Belgian and had a tune I know called Can You Feel which I always thought was the British Rhythm Section who had sold out because it was like happy house. The Belgian group were doing more like nu beat/acid house in a happy stylee, whereas Rhythm Section were more yer UK 'ardcore because they were from the UK and did hardcore. You can check out these geezers below. Loving the guy with the cap, sunnies and mo combo. This tune's a bit darker and dirtier than their other tunes. Anyway The Chainsaw is a choice cut. It might have been their last tune, I dunno. I've seen a comp of theirs and it only goes up to 1992 so maybe they don't rate it.

"What are you lookin at? We're not Belgian you twat!"