Check the technique, see if you can follow it...

Rae and Christian lovingly re-roll Nightmares On Wax's "What I'm Feelin'" from 1996, served on a bed of funk and garnished with a hint of turntable.

Then, it's back to 1990 and one time fastest rapper in the world MC JC-001 does his thing all over Al Green, leaving us with the lesser heard curiosity "Alone" by PartE Unknown (which I'm assuming was just JC001 and D-Zire being bored with their names).

Splendid.

Drippin' Dope

Wow, almost forgot about this one!

Reel Deal with "Drippin' Dope", a 1989 12" on B-Boy Records... really nice to hear this again....

It's what Westwood would have described as a smoking jammie back in the day (before he became a sad parody of himself... don't get me started).

Earthling

Back to the UK hip hop for the moment and something a little less typical.

Earthling released Nefisa in 1995, a downtempo and dense production that I re-listened to this morning for the first time in years. Still sounds nice to me...

As a compare and contrast exercise, this is the Portishead remix from the B side of the 12".

B-Side wins again?

Chemicals

I don't recall seeing this on any other Chemical Bros. albums or compilations, so this may be of interest to some... "Buzz Tracks" was the B-side to the Setting Sun 12" in 1996.

All good clean fun, especially the comically nauseating tape loop effect at 3 mins-ish...

And I can't help but love you so...

1991 and here come High Authority with "I'm The Man", a nice bit of heavyweight production created by slowing down The Spencer Davies Group.

Never heard anything more from High Authority, unsurprisingly, low key UK hip hop releases in 1991 probably didn't do too much to pay the bills, which is a shame.

Enjoy.

PM Dawn? I'd rather have PMT...

Now, when I were a young whippersnapper, you only ever heard the occasional hip hop track on radio (bear in mind that this was years ago, outside London) and it was only ever the weakest, commercial nonsense masquerading as the real deal..

Nowadays of course, you hear hip hop everywhere, unfortunately, it's mainly still boll*cks commercial nonsense... even the stuff that is regarded as true hip hop (ahem, just my opinion, feel free to criticise, ultimately, I AM right).

Going back to 1992, we have J Blast and 100% Proof and their PM Dawn diss "2 Break the Dawn". No punches pulled and a heartfelt attack on idiots besmirching the good name of hip hop.

I hadn't realised just how rare this was until I had a gander at discogs and saw a copy for sale at £39.99.

I'm open to offers haha!

Karate!

Between the release of their two albums, 1989's Recognition and 1992's Original Guidance, the Demon Boyz released "International Karate" in 1990.

This is ripped from a promo 12" and is vastly different from "Outernational Karate" the re-working that appears on their second album.

Enjoy...

Bring back summer...

So, the weather has been surprisingly pleasant of late, until today when it actually feels like April... The sun has got his hat on, but also appears to have buggered off to the pub...

A couple of happy bits and bobs now to keep the mood up...

The first of todays tracks is kind of sunshine related, being the B side of Alex Reece's "Feel the Sunshine" from 1996.
Austrian knob-twiddlers, Kruder and Dorfmeister, work their magic over "Jazz Master" and justify adding an umbrella to your pint.

The second is one of my favourite breaks of all time and just an outstanding song in it's own right, from 1972 it's Al Green with "I'm Glad You're Mine".

Uncommon Covers

As requested offline, two covers of well known tracks from less well known artists..

Billie Jean/Mama Used To Say by Shinehead, 1986

and

Under The Boardwalk by Howie B, 2001.

Enjoy, comments welcome as always.

And breaks too...

Oh, and I'll post some breaks also from time to time.

Here's two for starters, one obvious (probably sampled more than The Funky Drummer or Apache?) and one obscure(ish).... but both from 1969 and therefore 40 years old...


The Winstons - Amen Brother

and

Les Baxter's "Hot Wind"

A minute to midnight

11:59 - Killing Time, From the 1990 "Killing Time" E.P

"If cocaine's a lady then freebasing's a bitch"

Well, according to the front cover of Ceasefire's Trickshot it is ... released on 12" in 1995, nice tight drums with a smattering of Tony Montana and lashings of geeetar.

Nice.

Black Radical and Bongo Beats

Sign of the Beast, album track from Black Radical MkII's "The undiluted truth" and, continuing the uneasy listening, "Searching For Records With Bongo Beats", the B side of Depth Charge's "Queen Of The Scorpion" 10" from 1995.

Enjoy...

Oh yeah, Hip Hop

That first link wasn't entirely indicative of the bulk of posts to come, so here are two gems from way back. As already stated elsewhere, I'm concentrating on posting individual tracks that don't appear to be commonplace on the web as far as I can tell.

Firstly, Hardnoise with "Serve Tea Then Murder", an undisputed heavyweight classic piece of UK hardcore hip hop from 1991. Ripped from the promo 12" on Music Of Life. Sampling both Lalo Schifrin's Dirty Harry score and the noise a ZX Spectrum made whilst loading... class.

Secondly, Black Sheep's "Strobelite Honey" from 1992. It's the No We Didn't mix from the 12" release. Love those horns.....

Enjoy.

Hello. Good Afternoon. Welcome

It's Easter Monday and what better way to celebrate than by hearing something good for the first time?

I'm starting off with a track from Howie B's "Another Late Night" compilation. It's ripped from vinyl, so apologies to our younger viewers who may notice additional snap, crackle and pop.

The crates contain some other Spacer stuff which is pretty nice (and may well appear here in time), but this track is probably more of a curiosity for Goldfrapp fans. Alison Goldfrapp lends her voice to proceedings here with not unpleasant results. The tune was originally released on Howie B's
Pussyfoot Records in 2000.

More stuff to come soon, enjoy, and comments very welcome...

Download HERE