dc house grooves

london, mid ’90s…..the warm glow of the second summer of love has long since faded and repetitive beats have been banished from the fields once and for all, retreating to dark, moody clubs in the city’s back streets. the sounds of bad boy pirate radio stations ring out from boom boxes across town; the dial is locked to girls fm, with legendary shows from the likes of kenny hawkes, princess julia and the wonderfully named dj fellatio. house dj’s across the city look to the usa for inspiration, but the post-rave house crowd’s feet are tapping to a chemical beat, needing more than the 120bpms of the classic strictlys, emotives and nu grooves…..back in chicago the pitch may have been wild, but in london it’s firmly on +8. a new genre is born – speed garage. it’s not long before bedroom producers armed with affordable new technology start sampling, looping, slicing & dicing us house classics of old, pitching ‘em up and beefing up the beats. we’ve got an acapella and we’re gonna use it. every week at records stores across the city the moody geezers show up with unmarked white labels tucked under their jackets…sell ‘em for 3 quid, retail for 5…the latest mashup of a house classic on speed, pressing plant id meticulously scratched out of the runout groove.  the new uk tracks sell like hot cakes; why pay import prices when you can buy domestic? soon labels are springing up across the city,  putting out the new home-spun garage sound: nice’n'ripe, deep trouble, ice cream , G.O.D., each week a new label with a new release. dj’s and crowds are lapping them up, ‘avin it in clubs, railway arches and warehouses across the city. soon enough the sound evolves; increasingly influenced by r & b, drum and bass and  hardcore, it moves away from its us house roots, mashing up genres to become firmly rooted as the sound of urban london.

this mix is my trip back to that time in london, before armand time stretched tori; before kelly g two-stepped tina; before rosie got closer than close; before “UK garage”….and in keeping with the pirate radio mix tapes of the day, there ain’t no tracklist for this one

download:

andy grant – once upon a time in london (249 mb / 108 mins / 320kbps)