Supertronic Co. - Sunrise (1992)

"The ultimate opening record for the morning set (especially if it's on the beach). A gorgeous intro, full of birdsong and throat singers. Sounds a bit like portions of KLF "Chill Out". Perfect build up of percussion... then second bass drum hits with a nasty breakbeat and it's all over... arms in the air business. Wonderful arrangement; layers of twinkling keys and comp'd chords fade in and out like waves. Better have another serious record to follow and be ready to mix out; this slice of heaven ends too soon!" (Shalako, Discogs 2005)

Couldn't put it much better if I tried; this is another outing by Jeff Hype (Transformer 2, Liquid Empire, Ravebusters - fuck he basically did most of those early 90s rave classics didn't he?!). It does sample the same throat singers (or frog calls?) as The KLF's Chill Out, and once it kicks off it really does end too soon.
Up there with the best breakbeat of all time. The rush inducing snares are up there too.

Glorious.

Discogs
Sunrise

Vinyl Rip _ 320kbps MP3 ...mediafire

[Thanks to Tricky for the rip]

I'm also putting up the mediafire link to my mate Davros's 2010 reinterpretation here, performed live at the last Arm In Arm Old Skool Party. It's not too radical a shift, but does add a nice break and grooves it out a bit at the end. Not bad.

Selected tracks by The KLF

A little while ago I posited that Jimmy Cauty and Bill Drummond might rightly be considered as true pioneers of electronic trance. For the most part, The KLF owned all the rights to their own music, publishing it through their label KLF Communications. According to Discogs, in May 1992, they officially ended their music careers to pursue new artistic endeavours; they also deleted their entire catalogue of releases. I've checked Beatport and Juno and there was no KLF to purchase, so it seems that the two remain committed to art over profit.

I thought I would post a few select tracks only - there are extensive tribute site here and here and both have plenty of downloads available if you want to delve further...

First of all, "What Time Is Love?" in its two best forms - "Original Pure Trance" (1988) and "Live At Trancentral" (1990). I've said it before, but the Pure Trance mix is just so way ahead of its time that I can only think of one other track to compare it with, Humanoid's "Stakker" - both from England, both released in '88, both completely rewriting the dance floor template, both glorious mind fuck inducers.

The original mix of "What Time Is Love?" is very bare, has a slow tempo and a haunting sci-fi bassline fusing its melody and subtle kick drum. A Dr Who-like 'ooooooohhh' runs throughout to massive effect.

In 1990, the boys updated their tune (with a bit of help from others such as New York's Lenny Dee), totally transforming it into a high energy rave monster that pioneered the transfer of stadium rock excess to dance music. Everyone from The Prodigy to Underworld and 2 Unlimited took notice.

Discogs

What Time Is Love?
(Pure Trance Version)

CD Rip _ 320kbps MP3 ...mediafire

Discogs

What Time Is Love?
(Live At Trancentral)

Vinyl Rip _ 320kbps MP3 ...mediafire

"3am Eternal (Pure Trance Version)" (1989) is taken from the excellent Warehouse Raves 4 compilation - it's also got the Pure Trance Original of "What Time Is Love?" and a heap of other hard to find goodies (I'll probably post that too at some point). It's quite blissful, with a laid back vocal and a hypnotic groove. A few years later, it too got a stadium update leading to commercial chart success - The KLF had embraced cheese once more.

Discogs

3am Eternal 
(Pure Trance Version)

CD Rip _ 320kbps MP3 ...mediafire

Cauty and Drummond didn't leave the underground altogether though, at the end of 1990 they reverted to a previous moniker, The Justified Ancients Of Mu Mu, and put out the apocalyptic techno of "It's Grim Up North" in a limited release of 350 single-sided 12 inches on grey vinyl. No label text, no obvious artist identification - just a plain grey inner label.

In Melbourne, only one person had it - Mr Terry "H2O" Ho, and he DJed at the massively influential Maze underground night at The Commerce Club.

People waited all night to hear The Grey Record and embrace it's locomotive techno as it stormed out of the speakers and through the smoke machine across the dancefloor and into our shattered minds. It too got remixed and re-released (with new vocal and an awful guitar break), but the original was by far the best.

Discogs
A1 It's Grim Up North
(Original Club Mix)

Vinyl Rip _ 320kbps 

MP3 ...mediafire

The Timelords - The Manual (How to Have a Number One the Easy Way) (1988)

Recently I found a html version of this classic text online. I've saved it as a text file (so as to delete all those embedded adverts) and encourage you to take a look. It's not exactly a magnum opus - only 36 pages when printed out onto A4 paper, and it took en easy 3 lunch breaks to read.
Regardless, I thoroughly enjoyed. Very well written, intelligent, humorous and enlightening.


For those not in the know, The Timelords are King Boy D and Rockman Rock, also known as Bill Drummond and Jimmy Cauty - but you might know them better as The KLF. Cauty was also half of The Orb (with Dr Alex Patterson). They produced one of the greatest ever rave techno tracks in "What Time Is Love? (Live At Trancentral)", and also some of the worst pop dance ever with "Kylie Said To Jason" and "Justified & Ancient" featuring Tammy Wynette. These guys are geniuses - of real artistic merit, and not afraid to take the piss - hence "Justified & Ancient" I suspect.
Apart from their pop sensibilities, the KLF probably launched the ambient dance movement with the "Chill Out" album - which even 20 years on is still fucking brilliant; I also submit that they helped define what proper trance music is with their original pure trance mix of "What Time Is Love?". Released in 1988, it is a serious piece of blissed out mind fuck - way ahead of any of the Belgium/German New Beat of the time.
I don't think any of their catalogue is still commercially available so I might post a few of their choice cuts later.


Anyway, in 1988 Drummond and Cauty got a #1 in the UK pop charts with "Doctoring The Tardis", which basically laid parts of the Dr Who theme over the rhythm and beats of "Blockbuster" by Sweet and "Rock & Roll, Part 2" by Gary Glitter - both glam-rock hits.
I would never rate this as anything more than a lager friendly mashup (I remember getting down to it at an underage nightclub when it was released; yes, it's a sad memory), but it was one of the first success stories of blatant audio sampling as creative endeavour. The duo claimed it had been a conscious effort to make a pop hit, and wrote a manual on how they did it - with a money back guarantee that anyone else could do it too. At least one band claimed to have made a #1 following it - Edelweiss' "Bring Me Edelweiss" - it is a truly dire piece of turd, and it sold 5,000,000 units. Go figure.


How did they do it?
How can you do it?
Read the book - even now it's still relevant, and a great insight into the act of musical creation and of the music business in general.

Wikipedia

text file ...mediafire