It was a whirlwind year for the underground UK rave scene. Music was pouring into the country’s record shops on import, and this meant there was a heady mix of Italo house, American house and garage, Belgian new beat and techno and of course, everything UK producers were coming up with at the same time.
This mix of material in the shops was obviously reflected in the raves and it was perfectly normal for most DJs to play all of those styles in a single set, and pack out dancefloors. It was the year of UK RAVE, a bubbling mixture of everything the year had to offer.
But as the year progressed, British producers started to define the UK hardcore breakbeat sound and moving into 1991, there was enough material for DJs to play sets that were almost exclusively breakbeat led (though many still chose a lot of the incredible music coming from across the channel).
This is just a snapshot of the first 12 months of this scene defining decade, and this is mostly a focus on breakbeat tracks (because ultimately we’re trying to chart the history of jungle and drum and bass) and NOT the other incredible music that was also on heavy rotation that year.
The UK and Europe had a strong techno game in 1990 and there’s no way we would have missed this out of the equation, so you can check what else was going on in ’91 in our other drop down sections, as well as the stylistic offshoots mentioned above.
The history and influence of these two ultra important DJs is difficult to quantify. This cut from 1990 was more house and techno than breakbeat, but we’ve included it purely as a mark of respect. Imagine drum and bass without these two. Exactly. You can’t. The first and foremost authorities in the music we call home.
There are a few differing opinions about the first track to use the Winstons Amen, Brother break. Some of them state that NYC born Frankie Bones was the first to frame it in a dancefloor setting, and we’d say there’s a massive chance they could be right. Holy Noise seems to be another popular choice, and you can hear that in our 1990 Belgian Techno section.
As release date information is so scarce, it’s never going to be easy to make an exact judegment call on the topic, but rest assured, as stated previously in our 1989 section, Frankie Bones was an ABSOLUTE GAME CHANGER and PROBABLY THE MOST INFLUENTIAL producer to feed their ideas into the UK rave scene in its infancy. Our research is telling us he was the one!
Wow. Both Shut Up And Dance records and The Ragga Twins were at the absolute forefront of the movement during the infancy years and when you listen to the blend of beats and vocals on this, you surely have one of the very first jungle tunes, EVER.
The Ragga Twins were already 5 years deep into recording as credible artists by this point and it shows. This coupled with SUAD’s completely unique and instantly recognisable sound bought something to the rave that NOBODY else was bringing. The fact that these incredible MCs are still touring the Globe says it all. PIONEER BUSINESS.
Yikes. Deep, dark, scary breakbeat music. Imagine this being dropped at 4AM in 1990. Totally kick ass in every way. The flip ain’t half bad either.
Interesting because of the use of the break in this. It’s crisp, clean and includes the last 4 beats in the second bar that weren’t widely used at all as far as we can see. This thing has a serious case of the funk. Epic.
