The oldskool rave music (early 90s) thread

Pawnless Endgame

Pawnless Endgame

Pawnless Endgame

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Sunny Stafford
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.
 
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 :)

 
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).

 
enkoda said:
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.
Click to expand...

Thanks. That does make sense :-)

darkgen said:
Click to expand...

What a tune!! I'm glad I've made this thread now as I'm learning a lot too. Can see how this genre bridged to jungle with the breakbeat from this track being an example.
 
Relating to this topic, have anyone here been to an event called Amnesia House? I was too young in its original years, but they have started back up again and do 2 or 3 gigs a year at the Kasbah nightclub in Coventry. I went last October and I'm booked again for this October. They do early 90s rave with live MC-ing and sing-overs. Lots of horns and whistles with an older crowd. There is also a robot on the stage (obviously with someone inside it) making some moves and firing laser pointers everywhere. The production in the Kasbah club is decent with all of the walls including the ceiling covered with LED squares that interact with the music. It's a big venue as it used to be a cinema.
 
Thanks for the heads up @GSXRMovistar ! Please can you name some of the other franchises alongside Clockwork Orange? I know there's Flashback, as I was young enough to remember that in the late 90s and they've been holding an annual day/evening rave every June. I went last year at The Mill in Birmingham and it's on again this year next month at the same venue, except it's now called XOYO. Just a name change. Amnesia which I previously mentioned is a day rave as well.
 
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