The oldskool rave music (early 90s) thread

[Pawnless Endgame]

What are your early 90s rave faves? We could get a list going like in the threads that we have for house, trance, d'n'b and a few others. I don't think that we have a thread for early 90s rave yet?

So anyway, I'm away atm with some ravers. We're reminiscing a bit and building a Spotify playlist on this laptop. They're older than me (I was 13 in 1991) and it was a wee bit before my time. I loved the more mainstream stuff though like:

Altern8 - Activ8 (and the album Full Mask Hysteria).. and they're from Stafford!!
The Prodigy - Out of Space (and the Experience album)
Manix - Feel Real Good, Hardcore Junglism, Oblivion
Liquid - Sweet Harmony
Awesome 3 - Don't Go
Shades of Rhythm - Extacy
SL2 - DJ's Take Control, On a Ragga Tip

Wikipedia refers to the above as breakbeat hardcore, so I added some more tracks from the Wikipedia entry under where it says "notable releases". Spotify then found some more tracks that I wasn't aware of in the "recommended songs" bit underneath the playlist:

Kicks like a Mule - The Bouncer
Golden Girls - Kinetic
Origin Unknown - Valley of the Shadows
Ratpack - Searchin' for my Rizla
Slipmatt - Breaking Free
Dance Conspiracy - Dub War
The House Crew - Keep the Fire Burning
Aphex Twin - Polynomial-C
Urban Hype - Relapsed, A Trip to Trumpton
Sonz of a Loop - Far Out
Shup up and Dance - The Green Man
Nookie Feat. Cloud Nine - Music is so Special
Nebula II - X-Plore H Core, Athema
DJ Seduction - Hardcore Heaven
DJ Red Alert - In Effect
DJ Krome - The Slammer
Acen - Trip to the Moon Pt.2

When I looked up Fire (not Firestarter) by the Prodigy, it sounded totally different to how I've always known it from the Experience album. Turns out that it the single version that I discovered... in 2017! Prodigy did this for Charly as well - single version different from the album version. Fire is well different though as it's not remotely the same melody.

Special mention btw goes to Baby D. They were a later band (1994-6) but they did keep the rave scene going a bit longer before it died off. If you've only heard the singles (Let me be your Fantasy etc), then I highly recommend listening to the album-fillers too. I think it's a solid album throughout. A shame it's not on Spotify though but I do have the 2 x CD version and you can probably take a gander on Youtube for them.

 

[Chojin]

I really like this era of electronic music and have been listening to it a lot lately.

A few favourites:

 

[McGray]

How odd I was thinking about Fire this morning, easily my favourite Prodigy track. I'll check out the single version.

Loads of classics in here.

 

[enkoda]

It all started for me with Cubic 22 'Night In Motion' then progressed through labels such as Rising High, Reinforced, R&S, Moving Shadow, Lucky Spin, Suburban Base, Production House, Strictly Underground, Slammin' Vinyl, etc, etc. Here's a few tracks that stand out and typify the scene for me:

Went to a few raves, but I preferred the harder stuff that normally got overlooked.

I ended up selling all my vinyl and turntables due to storage issues, but *cough* 'backed up' *cough* most of them.

 

[lokiss]

Not the original, but close enough.

Waaay back.

 

[Pawnless Endgame]

Nice one guys... let's try and keep this going!

I remember Bizarre Inc's Playing with Knives, should have posted that one myself. I remember a double-cassette album called Spirit of Ecstasy, and Altern8 Activate was the 1st track and Playing with Knives was the 2nd track.

McGray - yes you'll be surprised with Fire. I bought the Experience album in 1996 and that was the only version of Fire I knew, then I found the single version on Spotify just a few weeks ago and it's totally different. The only similarity is the samples e.g. I'm the god of Hellfire.

I found out today that searching for "Production House" (record label) is a good search query to use for rave. E.g. found this just now Nino - The Gun. LOTS of variety in the melodies throughout this track

 

[hyperseven]

Saw The Prodigy live, they did a set at my local club, 'The Pleasure Drome'.

I'll throw one out there....

 

[Stormster]

A timeless sound and era, I was only a kid but I loved all things 91-94 rave and hardcore wise, awesome time even as a kid!

 

[Pawnless Endgame]

Nice one Stormster! That Nookie track sounds kinda Baby D-esque

 

[darkgen]

Goodness gracious me.
Far too many to mention but these are two which stand out for for numerous reasons.
Wait for the break on this one ...

Pretty tough to chew on but demonstrates numerous break types.

 

[darkgen]

A few more:
The first 12" LP I ever bought in '84 - the precursor in my mind to what would come from '91 onwards ...

Back on topic ;the second 12" LP I purchased was in '91

 

[Pawnless Endgame]

Darkgen - Rockit's gotta be one of the craziest pop videos I've ever seen!

Still on the topic of Production House, I've got a query for you guys! I've found a track called "Euphoria", which I've always known as being from Baby D's album, called Deliverance. Yet on Youtube (below), it's down as being by The House Crew. Was The House Crew a former alias of Baby D. The track btw isn't identical but very similar, and probably classed more as jungle than rave or at least crossover.

I realised in my OP that I mentioned another song by The House Crew called Keep the Fire Burning. The lyrics on that track were also included on the Baby D album, on two tracks - one called Daydreaming (quote: keep the fire burning) and the other called Take Me To Heaven (quote: cut the mid-range drop the bass).

 

[darkgen]

It was sample city back in the day. But the crews (aka samplers) were what I would call today, interchangeable.
I associate the House crew with:

Which I associate very much with the "happy hardcore" genre:

 

[darkgen]

On a proper rewind after seeing this thread: a few more by The Criminal Minds and Mickey Finn (Essex jokers the lot of them )

 

[snapdragon]

The Rockit vid kicked me off into looking back at my own interest and involvement in electronic music, I was a b'boy at 13, small northern town with chuff all else to do.

My elder brothers had all been into dance / funk from the likes of Earth Wind and Fire, Stevie Wonder through to Wigan casino and the whole Northern soul scene, think my musical lineage lead to the inevitable love of hip hop / electro and on to house / rave as the years progressed.

I submit some of my personal pick's from my formative years.

The Lino, crew, Sergio Tacchini / Nike Wind runner years.

Then onto to college, chinos, blazer and women ( the glory years )

Then there's the years I'll just refer to as my chemical romance

By no means exhaustive, too many to mention, my love of electronica hasn't ever left me blinkered, Arctics, Blur, Roses, Smiths, Foo's get blared out as loud and lively as any of the above.

 

[enkoda]

Darkgen - Rockit's gotta be one of the craziest pop videos I've ever seen!

Still on the topic of Production House, I've got a query for you guys! I've found a track called "Euphoria", which I've always known as being from Baby D's album, called Deliverance. Yet on Youtube (below), it's down as being by The House Crew. Was The House Crew a former alias of Baby D. The track btw isn't identical but very similar, and probably classed more as jungle than rave or at least crossover.

I realised in my OP that I mentioned another song by The House Crew called Keep the Fire Burning. The lyrics on that track were also included on the Baby D album, on two tracks - one called Daydreaming (quote: keep the fire burning) and the other called Take Me To Heaven (quote: cut the mid-range drop the bass).

Floyd Dyce was the main force behind Production House releases (being the man behind Baby D and The House Crew) so it's reasonable to assume there's more than a similarity, using vocals, samples, etc in each others' tracks.

 

[darkgen]

Snapdragon has spun up a few that had utterly slipped my mind. I'll end up down a memory lane rat-hole at this rate!

 

[darkgen]

Darkgen - Rockit's gotta be one of the craziest pop videos I've ever seen!

So between '79 and '84, during the 6-week summer break I attended Coram's Fields park and every year we put on a show/theatre for the local hospital, Great Ormond Street Children's hospital. In '83 we presented "The great Spurge Story", A Bugsy Malone spoof. The next year it was a body popping act to the Rockit! Oh, to be a child again, fancy free and literally foot loose.

 

[hyperseven]

A fave in 'the 5th man' (basement of the Hac)

a couple of other tooons

could probably go on all night have oodles of tracks bookmarked.

 

[enkoda]

Here's a few more:

And I make no apologies for this one, I still love it (in small doses! ):