Google Drive Link to the 1996-2002 UKG/grime Rave sets I've been recording from my friend's minidisc collection. All in WAVFLAC format, slightly 'remastered' for clarity and loudness by yours truly. (mostly just a sub boost, slight vocal saturation, and a de-esser)
Includes:
DJ EZ w/ MC B-Live, Pay as You Go, So Solid Crew, Roll Deep Crew, Eastside Connection, Raw Mission FM tapes, Ramsey&Fen, AND MORE! (full list under the cut)
These are available elsewhere, like youtube and such, but the quality is shit so I thought I would share the link I am using to give my friend his recordings with you all.
FULL SET LIST UNDER THE CUT
Set List Now Includes:
DJ EZ w/ MC B-Live @ Sidewinder Awards 2002
Pay as You Go B2B So Solid Crew, 2001
Roll Deep vs. Eastside Connection
DJ EZ w/ MC’s B-Live & Viper @ Sidewinder Valentines Showcase 2002
Viper B2B So Solid Crew
Heartless Crew vs. Pay as You Go(With the infamous show-stopping fight)
Heartless Crew vs. Clowns(??)
Wiley(DJ) w/ MC Dizzee Rascal Sidewinder Awards Live Set 2002
DJ Slimzee w/ MC Dizzee Rascal Sidewinder Studio Session 2001
RAW FM 2001 DJ Rapid, MC’s 2ZA & Peck
RAW FM 2000 Pro’s Crew - DJ Rapid, MC’s 2ZA, Peck, Ultra, Dilemma, and Jiggy Juvenile
RAW FM 2001 DJ Rapid w/ MC Peck, Live Callers w/Clashes&Matchmaking
DJ Apex 10/10/2000 UK Garage Set
DJ Apex w/ MC’s Tasty, Alpha C, MJP
DJ Lombardo Velocity 1997 Party Cassette Rip UK Garage&House Set
A random collection of UK Garage songs recorded mostly from DJ EZ sets, labelled ‘22/5/2000’
A copy of Ramsey & Fen's Locked on Vol. 3 (unfortunately mp3 as I have not sourced a higher rip)
The one song off of Plasticman Remastered, available to public is Cha VIP. Now considering how this song went out, I kind of like it. Apparently, it's a "VIP" meaning that there is a separate song called "Cha" which is the original mix. This song was produced in 2003. The previously unreleased VIP edit of Cha, featured on the Cha VIP was originally released on TerrorRhythm in 2004.
Now this song in particular, is pretty good. I would even go out of my way to say that its impressive. It's not very dynamic but it has a catchy beat. It is worth the 5 minutes. It has this sick hip-hop beat that turns into this trip hop, drums and bass-like electronic drum pattern that sounds intense and fast without being so. The vocal pattern intensifies the song, the "Cha", (at which I thought said "Jump"), either way is pretty cool. I like the song and if the songs on the remastered album are just as impressive on this, I will recommend the buy.
Don't know if it's just the cruellest of hangovers talking here, but it's sad rewinding back to 2005 and listening to this. Hearing Slix and co rap about a revolution that never quite arrived for them or for the legions of grime artists who weren't as good or as lucky as the Dylan Mills' and Patrick Okogwu's (and there's a reason I put them in that order) of this world. Sad because some of the pioneers- and they really were pioneers- are barely known now, outside of their core fanbases and critical circles, and because their revolution did of course arrive, but not in the ways they envisaged. Certainly not in ways they could control. Listening to this you can almost see them, waiting in an abandoned children's playground, somewhere in Bow, peering out from under their hoods and gazing into the future like lost prophets of a secret order. Guardians of some sacred fount of knowledge they couldn't fully comprehend. Or maybe did understand but knew we weren't ready for, and which, by holding onto, left them frozen in time.
But then they weren't really of their time, were they? Grime wasn't so much contemporary as light-years ahead of the mainstream, a meteor-shower from the future that crashed somewhat clumsily into British pop culture and lost most of itself in the process.
Maybe we're the ones stuck in the past. E3 a tiny colony from the near future, still thinking forward. The rest of the universe still slowly catching up.
