Come Fly With Me Remixes - 1991

I can probably count the number of vocal tracks I like on both hands and still have fingers to spare: like Graham Massey of 808 State, I just don't need some wailing slag to tell me what a tune is about. Obviously there are some good songs out there, mostly by Inner City, but Alison Limerick, Jimi Polo, Ce Ce Rogers and Joe Smooth would also get a guernsey.

DJ Pierre's Phantasia project gets a look in too with this house anthem presented in two superb but contrasting mixes. The Graeme Park mix is predictably on the garage tip, quite spartan and leisurely in its delivery. Jesse Saunders pumps the mix up to become a massive rush suitable for a peaking main room, hitting you with the chorus first and then taking the energy (but not the vibe) down a tad as he lets the song proper play through.

Beats the shit out of all those moody progressive numbers by the likes of Way Out West and iiO.

Discogs

A1 Come Fly With Me (Graeme Park's Fly High Mix)
B1 Come Fly With Me (Jesse's Hype Instrumental Mix)

Vinyl Rip _ 320kbps MP3 ...mediafire

Sonic Rave 1992 - Russell's 4 Hours Of Power

This was Jeff Tyler's first event, and around 200-300 punters turned up to find that he had managed to cram in two or three times the required light and sound into the room - a not uncommon newbie mistake - he wasn't the first to make it and wouldn't be the last.
Unfortunately, too much sound would be his undoing...

Jeff was good mates with Russell 'Hardcore' Hancorne, who found later fame as elegant trance artist 'Mystic Force'. Jeff and Russell were both avid collectors of vinyl - and extremely competitive with each other. It's a pretty safe bet that Russell had one of the country's best collection of deep techno, but Jeffy's wasn't too far behind. If either of them found a special release, the other would do their best to prise it off them.
One time Jeffy traded a record off Russell for the following: a Technics SL1200 turntable, a crate of (good) records and a few hundred in cash. That's right folks - Russell got about $1200-1500 worth for one piece of vinyl. Jeff wanted Russell to play at his party, but internal politics put a stop to that; somehow I got my first gig - not sure if I even knew how to mix yet.

Obviously, I was opening the night and played a full 2 hour set; then the other guys (Jeff, Will and Richie) were going to play an hour each on rotation until the party ended - it wasn't licensed to sell booze so theoretically it could go on into the next day if we wanted. Unfortunately, unbeknownst to us, the masses of bass coming out from Jeffy's superb sound system was travelling out across the adjoining Albert Park Lake and hitting the houses on the other side like some kind of sonic boom. Needless to say, the residents of such houses were not impressed and had notified the police (repeatedly). Well, bass sounds are quite difficult to locate - parties in warehouse complexes can easily go undiscovered even though you can hear them well enough because you just can't get a fix on where the sound is coming from. This wasn't a problem for the police here though; the Powerhouse was one of the only suitable venues in the area, and about the only one on the lake itself. Jeff's lighting extravagance meant the place was flashing like a beacon for the police find.
They shut the party down quick smart; I was the only one who got to play a proper set.

Thing is, everyone came out to party well stocked and we were all on our way to being truly off our faces; this was ably assisted because a certain good fellow had also brought a large bag of magic mushies that most of us had dipped in to (some more than once). When the police arrived to shut the party down, there was a bit of a panic and, fearing it was a bust, many ate their night's stash in one quick go. It could've been a disaster, but everyone made it home or to another venue safely before they completely lost the plot ... just about.

But let's get back to Russell.

As compensation for not getting to DJ, Jeff asked Russell to make a mix to play in the chill out area; the result was a 4 hour long video tape of some of Russell's finest choons from the finest artists and labels of the day: Joey Beltram, Mundo Musique, Leftfield, Nu Groove, Strictly Rhythm....

Russell was never the greatest mixer, but the tracks more than make up for it. Enjoy!

Alas, the tracklisting is woefully incomplete. I've filled in all I can, but anyone who wants to help fill in the blanks can find a .rar of the unknown segments to go through here. So far:

1. Eclips 21 - Nebula (1st Soul Mix) (Indisc)
2. Dance 2 Trance - We Came In Peace (Suck Me Plasma)
3. Ramin - Reality (Dance Ecstacy 2001)
4. Kenny Larkin - Manik Man (Plus8)
5. -
6. Noise Control - Tehniska Musika (Neo Ego)
7. Cosmic Enterprises - Tao Nonstop (White Label)
8. -
9. Logic - Celebrate Life (Soundshaft Mix) (Strictly Rhythm)
10. -
11. -
12. -
13. Audio Clash - Electro Rhythm (Electropitch Mix) (Strictly Rhythm)
14. Urban Rhythm - Luv Will Make It Right (As It Grooves Mix) (Strictly Rhythm)
15. -
16. After Hours - Waterfalls (3 A.M. Mix) (Strictly Rhythm)
17. -
18. Ramin - (Where Is My) Ecstacy (Dance Ecstacy 2001)
19. Revelation - Odyssey (Atmosphere Records)
20. 
    
21. Mundo Muzique - Andromeda (Easy Street Records)
22. Phenix - Revelations Reprise (Atmosphere Records)
23. -
24. -
25. Leftfield - Not Forgotten (Outer Rhythm)
26. D-Shake - Technotranced (Feel The Space) (Go!Bang Records)
27. Westworld - Techno Cop (West)
28. The Hypnotist - Pioneers Of The Warped Groove (Rising High Records)
29. -
30. N-r-gee Posse - The Final Word (D-Zone Records)
31. -
32. Groove Sector - Release The Energy (Hi Bias)
33. -
34. -
35. -
36. -
37. -
38. Code 6 - C.O.D.E.S (Nu Groove)
39. -
40. Lost Entity - 2 Minute Madness (Nu Groove)
41. R.S.H. – Laughing While Intoxicated (Dopewax)
42. Code 6 - Beyond The Bassline (Nu Groove)
43. -
44. Lost Entity - Annihilate (L.E.S Mix) (Nu Groove)
45. Code 6 - Forgotten Moments (Nu Groove)
46. -
47. Code 6 - Quad 1 (Nu Groove)
48. Jam & Spoon - Stella (R&S)
49. -

Thanks to Brewster for making a copy all those years ago, and doing the audio clean up and artwork to let me post it. Very much appreciated mate.

Videotape Transfer _ 192kbps MP3 ... mediafire part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4

Classic Pure Closers By Steve Robbins

Pure was my home; every Friday I was there - I can't remember how many nights I missed, but it wasn't many. Did miss the final night at Dream nightclub because I thought nobody would go and it'd be too much of a downer, but Will-E rang me as soon as he got home to let me know what a great night I'd just missed. Apparently the floors were shaking because there were so many people rocking till the last track. Oh well.

It started out in the rear room of St. Kilda's Palace nightclub, I think in May 1991 - but it's all a bit hazy. It was Melbourne's first straight up rave techno night, although Maze @ Commerce had previously championed techno alongside underground house. Run by DJ Mark James, this was the club that made Will-E-Tell a star, yet what I remember 20 odd years later are the end of night sets of DJ Steve Robbins (later of techno group FSOM). He was older than the rest of us, and, shall we say, more learned in the art of getting off your head, but he'd been DJing since the first days of electro and had a fantastic record collection that leant heavily towards the 303 acid end of the spectrum. Steve didn't like to mix his records too much, so you got to hear great tracks in their entirety, and he always brought the night gently down towards close (none of this banging to the end and then tell the punters to fuck off nonsense).

Steve in the box at Pure after it moved to Dream Niteclub in late '91.
(Scotty working the lights)

So, with that I present two of his best closing tracks, both house, and both out of New York: Chapter 1's "Unleash The Groove (E-Funk Mix)" on Strictly Rhythm and The Sound Vandals' "On Your Way (Deep Mix)" off Nu Groove. Really fantastic tracks that deserve to be played in their entirety to the munted at 6am.
And they still sound great two decades later.

Discogs

A1 Unleash The Groove (E-Funk Mix)
A2 Unleash The Groove (Love In Sheffield Mix)
A3 Unleash The Groove (Blips In Heat)
B1 Unleash The Groove (125th & Lenox Mix)
B2 Unleash The Groove (Screamin' Pipes)

Vinyl Rip _ 320kbps MP3 ...mediafire




Discogs

A1 Tonight's The Night (Club Mix)
A2 Tonight's The Night (Bonus Beat)
B1 On Your Way (Deep Mix)
B2 On Your Way (Bonus Beat)

Vinyl Rip _ 320kbps MP3 ...mediafire





1990's "Unleash The Groove" is a particularly strong release; "Blips In Heat" is a piece of blissful beatless bleep, and the b-sides are completely insane organ workouts. "Tonight's The Night" on The Sound Vandals' 1991 release is a quite annoying bit of New York sample house, but the bonus beats are good.

Crash Course

Fookn H A R D C O R E.

Maybe the first thing I bought on Nu Groove. It's a product of its day, and there are many greater tracks than this on the label. It did represent the beginnings of that harder Brooklyn sound championed by Lenny Dee, Frankie Bones and the rest - but hardcore wasn't for me for very long.

Still, Crash Course is a classic piece of banging tek. Like many rave tracks of the period it gets an energy boost by adding new elements every 8 bars (instead of the more leisurely 16 or 32 commonplace today), so the track crams a lot into a short duration. Industrial edged sounds make it feel like it was recorded in a Depression-era iron foundry - the major break is particularly evocative with its chanting and whirring noises - John Lennon's "I get high with a little help from my friends" doesn't hurt either.

The B-sides are a bit of a disappointment, being just simple rhythm tracks with minimal usability. A bit of a let down after the A-side. The English license dispenses with the rhythm tracks in favour of a an even more hardcore remix of Crash Course - but it loses the industrial simplicity of the original.

Discogs

A1   Crash Course
B1   N.Y. Jungle
B2   Crash Rhythms
B3   Free Style Groove

Vinyl Rip _ 320kbps MP3 ...mediafire

2 great mixes from the turn of the century

First of all, one from Mr Dave Angel, who I've had the pleasure of seeing live a couple of times and is a damn fine DJ. From 1998, we have him in fine form over 2 cds. What I like most about Dave is that he plays his records fast, changing a groovy house tune into a pumping bit of tech funk [It's always been my opinion that a DJ's record box is full of tunes to be worked together - the DJ is their boss, not the other way around. All this nonsense about respecting the purity of the author's intent and playing a track at or near the original tempo and only blending in with other tunes a little bit at the start and end is a load of crap. Play the bits you want to play, save the bits that don't work now for another time. Play the fucking record at whatever the speed you want to work the dancefloor (within reason of course - don't want to go all chipmunk gabba). And, obviously, if you get too smart and fuck with your tracks too much and get your dancefloor pissed off you should rightly expect to cop a very public glassing, kicking, beating, or similar].

But I digress.

"39 Flavours Of Tech Funk" is just that - 39 tracks of different structure and feel, but combined to form a singular energy; he doesn't play too deep or too banging. It's party music to dance your arse off to.
Each CD has a different personality (I prefer the second mix). Of all the flavours of tech funk you can imagine, the only types missing here are those of the TB303 acid variety. It's one of the few techno mixes I can think of that is pretty much acid free. Not that it makes the release any weaker.

Discogs

Dave Angel: 39 Flavours Of Tech Funk (1998)

CD 1 _ 256kbps MP3 ...mediafire
CD 2 _ 256kbps MP3 ...mediafire







Next up, something from the very well dressed Mr Justin Robertson. Have only heard him DJ once, and he wasn't very impressive (but in his defence he had just come off a 22 hour flight and was jet lagged as all fuck). I was never really that into any of his artist projects - do really like "Packet Of Peace" though - and wasn't really aware that he was a good techno DJ until I heard this mix. Frankly, it's one of the best of the period and probably up there with the best there is. Valentino Kanzyani did a similar styled mix around the same time in "Rock The Discotheque", featuring some of the same tracks as Justin Robertson's "Imprint". But where Imprint is a superbly crafted piece of blinding-techno-dance-floor-heaven, Valentino's mix is not very well programmed and sloppy in its execution (even featuring wildly drifting mixes). If I had made that mix I wouldn't have given it out to my mates let alone press up a few thousand copies and put it into shops with my name on the cover.

Discogs

Justin Robertson: Imprint (2001)

CD Rip _ 256kbps MP3 ...mediafire

Fuck It - Here's some more vintage R & S

I think it was outside of the Harmony rave in mid 1992 (or 1993?) that I was wandering around the carpark by myself - I think I had just seen off some friends and waiting for the next phase of the evening to begin. It was late in the night and I was quietly tripping off my little head, probably 50 to 100 metres away from the party. You could still hear the music though, loud and clear. I have a feeling it may have been raining a little, but if not there was definitely the feel of a storm brewing. Perfect atmosphere for a walk on acid.
Anyway, in the distance I could hear the track playing being allowed to fade out to nothing by the DJ before the next one began. I knew it well - I'd been hearing it out constantly for 2 years - but now it was like a call to arms; massive pads and then "Turn it UP!"
I was energized beyond doubt, the coming storm and D-Shake's phenomenal peak time mix made sure of it. I ran like the wiry little fucker that I was and got inside the room just in time for the big kick off of "Are you READY?"

Discogs

A1   Space 3001 (The D-Shake Trance Mix)
A2   Space 3001 (The Team Mix)
B1   Space 3001 (UK Mix)
B2   Space 3001 (Out Of Control Mix)

Vinyl Rip _ 320kbps MP3 ...mediafire