Long lost treasures.

I recently found 2 tracks on youtube that I have been looking for since the early nineties.

The first one is this little gem from Italian producer/DJ Lory D.



Back in 89-91, when I was discovering House and techno while i was attending the European School in Brussels, my friend Lorenzo was my main source for this kind of music and information about it. This was before the internet was everywhere, so it was pretty hard to get any info on any of this stuff. I would go out to parties and hear tracks, maybe ask the DJ for the title, and hopefully remember it the next day. If I was really lucky I would find the vinyl record or some CD-compilation with the track later on. Back then the whole thing was still really small as well. Tiny recordlabels with limited pressings, artists that constantly changed names, white labels and an insistance on it being all about the music, instead of faces, places and image.
Anyway, this track showed up on one of the mixtapes Lorenzo regularly made for our crew of partymonsters, and that was THE ONLY PLACE I ever heard it. The tape got lost and I haven't heard it since, 'til I found it on youtube last week, despite searching for it for all these years. I never forgot about it, though. Damn, I love that song.


Next track was another mystery to me. Still no idea who Urban Jungle is.



When I moved to London back in '94, I quickly began listening to Jungle on the pirate radio stations over there, and occasionally recording some of the sets on tape. On one of these tapes, this track showed up. The DJ or MC would occasionally announce what songs were being played, but of course that wasn't the case here, so I had absolutely no idea what this was, and I was too shy and lazy to go around record shops and try and sing the vocal hook to shop assistants, in the hope of finding out more about it. For many years all I had was this one tape with the track. This was also the only tape I would still listen to, if I got near a functioning tape deck.
Next thing that happened was me attending some party about 4-5 years ago, where my man 2000F was billed to play an old school Jungle set. To my immense surprise he dropped this in the middle of his set and I actually cried with joy! Afterwards I obviously asked what the hell it was called, but all he could show me was another white label. Argh!
Finally, Kode9 did a mix for FACT magazine and there it was! Artist, track title and everything!


I'm obviously happy that I finally found these two, but at the same time there's a weird sense of loss. For so many years these songs almost only existed in my head, and there was something mystic, almost magical about them. Especially the Lory D track, since I hadn't heard it at all since about '92. Sometimes i wondered if it really existed, or if it was my drug addled brain playing tricks on me: it could have been a mix of 2 or more tracks or just too much LSD warping my hearing.
Now that I can hear those tracks whenever I want, it doesn't make them bad. They're both amazing tunes that have stood the test of time really well, but the mystery has been lost.

Ignorance will always be bliss.

NOM NOM NOM NOM NOM

As promised, here's a bunch of mixes that have been hyping me up lately.

To set things off with a blast, a bit of Dubstep heavyweight championship bidnizz. Magnetic Man, AKA Benga, Skream & Artwork, on the legendary BBC Essential Mix. 2 hours of proof that these guys are the masters of contemporary raving. Sometimes it sounds like something straight out of 1992, until I listen closer and notice the different rythms, basslines and production values. The overall feeling of full-on euphoria and 'avin' it is the same, though.

Tracklist:

01. Essential Mix – Intro
02. Track ID
03. Track ID
04. Track ID
05. Magnetic Man feat Ms. Dynamite – Fire
06. Benga – 808
07. Redlight – Stupid
08. DJ Zinc – Killa Sound (Skream Remix)
09. Nero – Welcome Reality
10. Track ID
11. Benga – Smack Your Bitch Up
12. Nero – Innocence
13. Drumsound & Bassline Smith – Fu Man Chu (Dubstep Mix)
14. Redlight feat. Ms. Dynamite – What You Talkin’ About
15. Magnetic Man – Track ID
16. Track ID
17. Track ID
18. Joker & TC – It Ain’t Got A Name
19. Magnetic Man – The Bug
20. Track ID
21. Skream – Rollin’ Kicks VIP
22. Magnetic Man feat. Angela Hunte – I Need Air
23. Magnetic Man – MAD
24. Skream – Raw Dogz
25. Skream – Wibbler
26. Crissy Criss – Kick Snare VIP
27. Sub Focus – Last Jungle
28. Skream – Stand Up
29. Mr Bratt – Selecta
30. Heist – I’m A Killer
31. F-Money – Left The Room (Skreamix)
32. James Blake – CMYK
33. Estelle – I Can Be A Freak (ID Bootleg)
34. ID – I Warned Ya
35. Trolley Snatcha – Pass Me By
36. TC & Jakes – Real Talk VIP
37. Track ID
38. Skream – WTF?
39. Benga & Youngman – Ho!
40. Benga – Mini Motor Cross
41. Track ID
42. Track ID
43. Toddla T – Sky Surfing (Benga Remix)
44. Subscape – Just Because
45. Benga – Who Remembers
46. Track ID
47. Skream feat Sam Frank – Where You Should Be
48. Track ID
49. Magnetic Man feat. Katy B – Perfect Stranger

Download the whole mix here. Thanks to Tim Driver for alerting me to this one.

Also includes their brand new single: "I Need Air"




Second course is a bit of Grime, which has been seriously left in the dust by it's once shy cousin Dubstep. For years grime has tried to get out of the underground, but the only people who have crossed overr, like Dizzee rascal and Lady S.O.V., have basically stopped making Grime and done more of a Hip Hop/Pop thing. Not that there's anything wrong with them doing that, but it's very rare to hear them doing any Grime tracks. People like Wiley, who are apparently impossible to work with, aren't really doing the genre any favours either. Wiley also flooded the internet recently by uploading more than 200(!) of his own unreleased tracks, which can be downloaded here.
Anyway, back to the mixes. DTALDN is a nice Grime blog, and DJ Magic has put together an extremely nice mix for them, which you can grab here. Tempa T, Ghetto, Killa P, Badness, Faction G and a whole gang of top notch MCs are on this, spitting over mad beats. I'm amazed that this thing is free, it's THAT good. Thanks to AJ for the tip!

If you feel like chilling out a little tiny bit after that, I don't blame you, so here's some softer, R'n'B flavoured grime from top producer Terror Danjah. He just decided to put his 2007 album/compilation "Shock to the System" up for free download. Get it here. Lots of good stuff on there. Thanks to AJ again!


This last thing I'm having a bit of trouble with. It's by 2000F & JKAMATA, who have been on fire for quite some time now. Together they've been producing and remixing up a storm with their unique blend of sleazy 80's Funk/Soul and dubstep. Their latest remix of Low Pressure: "Babylon Big Time" is a monster. 2000F is also a part of the invincible OHOI!, who together with some others put on the yearly RAW event here in Copenhagen. This year, the people behind Raw have decided to promote the event with a series of mixes put together by some of the DJs playing on the night, called The RAW Tapes. 2KF and Kamata somehow decided that they had to contribute a NINE HOUR LONG MIX, taking in most of their influences, favourite tunes and some of their own tracks along the way. Nine. Fucking. Hours. The tracklist for this musical Leviathan is just stupidly long, but contains nothing but straight up goodness. Soul, Funk, Jazz, Electro, Hip Hop, Techno, Ghetto Bass, Jungle, House, Dubstep, R'n'B, etc.... It's all right here.
I repeat: nine hours. What's wrong with these people? Make sure you free up about 800MB on your iPod.
If you're wondering how they did it, they first recorded tunes from vinyl into Ableton Live for 4 days. After that they spent another week piecing it all together: freezing it down from 173(!) tracks, rendering for 2 nights into 4 different .wav files, since they can max. be 2GB each, then splicing those together, converting to mp3, and finally lots of trial and error trying to find a place to upload and host it all. Labour of love!

Happy listening!