You can find all of these tracks on YouTube, often with direct links to the label websites should you care to purchase high resolution copies. Do the right thing. Support independent record labels and their artists!
Building these pages properly and with integrity is going to take time. Please keep popping back to see how we’re doing. We’re hoping for a collection of 30 to tell the story. If there isn’t 30, we ain’t done yet!
Now we’ve heard the original source of many of those analogue, hand crafted, studio recorded drum breaks we’ve come to know and love, let’s deep dive into the real history of drum and bass, starting with the very first mutations in 1988 and moving forward until the present day. As you will see, there really wasn’t a breakbeat genre to speak of in ’88, so we’re trying to take a look at records that either provided sounds that were later incorporated in the emerging UK sound, or that were big tunes in their own right across acid raves and the M25 orbital illegals.
Disclaimer: This is just our interpretation of the chain of events. During this and subsequent sections we’re simply trying to tell the story of how the music evolved by actually focusing on and listening to the music itself. Shoehorning so much music into a list of 15 or 20 or 30 tracks is a challenge, but we will do our best to pick key tunes with key elements that provide as accurate a story as we feel is possible within the constraints of lists per year. If you want to know more, deep dive for yourself. This whole project is meant to be a springboard for the curious mind, and not a debate on those who think they know more, or better. The whole thing is open to interpretation, and this is just ours. More than anything, start at the start and enjoy!
Disclaimer 2: This whole project from 1988 up to 1995 has its focus mostly on the use of the breakbeat within hardcore, jungle and very early drum and bass. We have provided separate sections for key years so that the listener can also build a picture of what else was happening alongside the breakbeat movement. After that we will look at the other drum and bass mutations from 1996 onwards.
Disclaimer 3: While a lot of this project has been/will be completed from memory, it must be stated that there is absolutely no way that it could be finished without the information that the users of Discogs have imparted. The sheer scale of knowledge on that platform is unbelievable and very, very helpful.
Disclaimer 4: I’m not trying to re-write history here. This is for the people who don’t know. Not the people who do. However! If you DO know, and you have a better version or some suggestions that I’ve missed, PLEASE get in touch.
