Showing posts with label Jungle. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Jungle. Show all posts

Monday, 19 September 2016

Mumdance x Riko

Following up another excellent showing from Lewisham youngsters Vision Crew on Rinse this Saturday, Mumdance chimed in with a one-hour Hardcore and Jungle special, featuring the veteran MC Riko Dan on mic duties. The set is all kinds of nostalgia, with lots of great moments, including Riko getting excited on Rude Bwoy Monty's Warp 10, the faces/hand gestures I was pulling on my own to Original Ses (particularly the John Holt sample), and the great speech from Riko just after (49:48 to be precise). There are some great references and shouts in there as well, some you probably wouldn't have heard back in the day, like references to Pressure FM, and Eastman (leading Kool FM 'guvnor') who would have been a direct competitor against Rinse in the 90s, who didn't let Riko on the station for having "too many gun lyrics". Albeit only an hour long, this is a decent little set, and made me realise how much I still love old school, despite not being from that time. (sidenote: did anyone stay locked to the 'dark techno' set afterwards? Probably the first and last time I'll ever hear Faithless' Insomnia on the station, although we all know there's a far better mix.)


"If you don't know about this music, you should be ashamed of yourself"




I wish I had the same knowledge of the Hardcore/Jungle eras as I do Grime, even Acid to some extent. There's so much golden music from that period, but little means of identifying it, a lot of records I've accumulated from that branch of this massive tree of Dance music that we continue to grow have been guess work, with probably 90 percent of them being belters, thankfully. Buying compilations to pick out tunes from was one of the better methods of building any sort of collection, then I'd check the remixes, spam-buy like 3 or 4 records from the artist and end up with a good portion of quality tunes. Using Discogs to look-up artists and then listen to the embedded YouTube videos is cheating in my book - the feeling of flicking through crates is still a thrill to this day.


A photo posted by Frankie Mines (@frankos9191) on


A photo posted by Frankie Mines (@frankos9191) on



Some other bits played that I particularity like:





Talking of which, if you've listened to Jammz' Underdog Season download earlier in the year, then you'd remember him taking on Remarc's Jungle classic from above, and it's gun-fingers-galore when Mumdance drops it in the above set.

Looking for some of the classic ragga-jungle samples recently, Discogs pointed me in the direction of a 1994 soundclash in Bermuda between King Addies of Brooklyn, and legends from my manor, Saxon. I can't find the sample Remarc used specifically, but this is definitely worth a listen, if not only for the amazing dubs but also BabyFace's blistering commentary - click here for the Soundcloud. I'll hope my interest in sound clashing is reinvigorated long enough for me to check out the 1994 world cup which gets a (bitter) mention at the start of the clash, after Saxon took victory at Sanctuary, Milton Keynes - later this club became the home of Sidewinder: one of Grime's biggest raves.

Riko also shouts a couple of names that you should know if you're one of the #RunComeFollowFriday crew. For all the reading massive out there, both Uncle Dugs and Billy Bunter have books available for pre-order over on the Music Mondays website, Billy's entitled 'The Love Dove Generation' and Dugs' 'Rave Diaries and Tower Block Tales, both of which essential reading for anyone with an ounce of interest in those scenes - try and jump on the orders quick-time for Dugs' book as you get an 8GB memory stick with all of the #RCFF interviews on there, pretty much pivotal listening for everyone with interests similar to mine.

More old-school and vinyl themed posts due very soon.

Friday, 10 June 2016

June Vinyls (3)

Well that's the domestic Football season done with for a couple or months or so! 

Considering I won't be making the journey to France this summer, keeping my bank balance in the black and my criminal record (slightly) more honourable than of late, there's only one certain way of keeping my brain ticking over at the rate it desperately requires - my second love - records.


A photo posted by Frankie Mines (@frankos9191) on


I wouldn't like to estimate the amount of records that have came and left my bedroom over the years, particularly where Grime is concerned. My personal collection (i.e records I've bought, not second hand) started back in 2003, but as I've never been any form of DJ, I've only ever bought records I really like. I see many perfectionists striving to complete entire label discographies, and there's a few Acid/Hardcore labels where I've opted to trawl back and obtain every promo and white label where possible; in modern Grime labels, probably only Butterz, Oil Gang and No Hats No Hoods clock up multiple numbers for me.


A video posted by Frankie Mines (@frankos9191) on

June see's the release of three exceptional records, most particularly the second all-star release from the Boxed label, with Logos, Spooky, Iglew, Boylan and Jawside contributing to this hard-hitting joyride of unrelenting, uncompromising and unapologetically authentic Grime. The Logos effort, Marked 4 Death Gunman, throws me back in to two separate eras: old-school Grime and 90s Jungle. I'm no production specialist, so it could be the same bass from that Waifer record or just a tribute, but the opening dialogue samples can also be found in Plasmic Life's incredible Death Trip,  another incredible record I own. Spooky and Boylan's colossus collaboration on Peckham To Hackney is my personal pick from an EP that's so heavy, even DJs with Hurclean strength will struggle to carry it around, expect to hear all of it in clubs everywhere this year - grab it from this link.

If you follow my sporadic posting you'd know all about AJ Tracey and Last Japan's brilliant Ascend, read my original post on it here, containing words from Japan himself as well as Coyote Records man behind the scenes. Just some further comment: that Impey remix is fucking worth it, I'm telling you. The build-up imposing a dream-state atmosphere in the listeners ears before a flurry of clicking and jabbing bass that brings out AJ's flow brilliantly. Purchase here.




Coming up in a couple of weeks you have Amy Becker's remix EP which offers four different takes on popular tracks, with Logos' name popping up again, this time he's reworking the much revered Apple classic De Siegalizer. Installing some traditional breaks and small spoonfuls of bass, it's a decent take on a Funky classic, you'll never forget the first time you heard it! The Grime offering is provided by the young up and coming YGG crew who jump on Sir Spyro's Side By Side - as per the tweet above, if I hear this in a rave, I will lose my mind. Gun-finger Grime epitomised by the youngsters on one of the year's best beats. EP available for pre-order now. 



Grab these records immediately!!