Dreamscape 4 – Proof Of The Pudding – LTJ Bukem & DJ Phantasy – 1992
Dreamscape 4 (Proof Of The Pudding) is a live recording from the 1992 Dreamscape 4 rave held at The Sanctuary in Milton Keys.
For the purposes of this review, I’ll be listening back to the original tape version which features DJ Phantasy and LTJ Bukem on the decks joined by MC Longjohn and the late, great MC Conrad on mic duties.
Following the passing of MC Conrad, I wanted to take the opportunity revisit this recording, one of my most treasured tapes which essentially blew the bloody doors of dance music from my own perspective. I was never the same afterwards.
My entry points to “rave” music came via the radio, through groups like 808 State, KLF, The Prodigy and Altern 8. I then learned about the world of DJing when I discovered the Hit The Decks series and then started swapping tapes with kids in school, which is how I discovered this one. This was the next level for me, a real actual rave where ravers went.
Back then I wasn’t even sure how this music was made or how the performances worked. Were they using turntables like rap guys did or were they playing keyboards like I’d seen on Top Of The Pops?
Yes seriously, I was that green and it would be another of couple years before I’d experience the real thing. Until then, Dreamscape IV was my first proper “rave” experience.
As a consequence, I imprinted on this instantly, along with other mixtapes like the Vengeance raves in the north, or local hero turned US-based dnb legend DJ Dara, these all existed in my head long before I ever got my first pair of decks. And when I listen back now, I realise how much they influenced my approach to mixing.
Phantastic
Side A, and it’s time for DJ Phantasy, who is initially joined by MC Conrad (more on him in a moment) before there’s a changing of the guards with MC Longjohn. Phantasy’s set starts out with three of his own tunes (with partner DJ Gemini) before we get 4 Hero’s Cooking Up Yah Brain (Sonz Of A Loop Da Loop Era Remix).
Worth mentioning both of these guys tbh, let’s start with 4 Hero, London rave pioneers turned original jungalists turned jazz experimentalists. These are also the dynamic duo behind Reinforced Records. Hugely influential.
Then there’s Sonz Of A Loop Da Loop Era, who I was surprised to later learn was just one guy. But then that’s the 90s for you. Omnio Trio’s also just one guy, 4 Hero were two guys. Yeah, ecstasy worked well with lots of things back in the 90s, but mathematics wasn’t one of them.
Anyways, Sonz Of A Loop Da Loop Era is another big name from back in the day, mainly because of his classic rave anthems Far Out and Peace And Lovism, both released on Suburban Base records.
Another huge name from back in the day is NRG, whose biggest track is the rave anthem I Need Your Lovin, a perennial favourite at old skool events to this day.
His tracks appear twice on this DJ Phantasy mix, most notably his tune We Are The Music Makers which features the same Gene Wilder (as Willie Wonka) sample Aphex Twin used on Ambient Works 1.
We also get two from Cosmo & Dibs. That wasn’t their real names, incidentally, but rather the names of puppets from a British kids TV show which the producers commandeered.
The real duo behind this were Steve Thrower along with Moving Shadow label boss Rob Playford who, among other things, was the guy who produced Goldie’s 1995 debut album Timeless.
So my next pick from this mix is their track Bodywork, absolutely love this tune, especially the drop.
My next pick is Really Livin’ from Structural Damage which came out on Symphony Sound records. It consists of a hefty, flanged breakbeat that comes blasting out the speakers, oodles of sub bass, some frantic riffs which I just adore and, to top it all off, a sample of Baloo the Bear from Jungle Book, a childhood favourite of mine.
After many years of scouring I finally found a copy on vinyl, it’s definitely one of my more prized possessions. Absolute belter of a tune.
Next up another big name from the hardcore scene, DJ Seduction. This guy’s another pioneer from back in the day. He also teamed up with DJ Phantasy around the same time to record the classic DJ’s Unite Vol.1 (another one of my absolute all time fav tunes.)
This one I’m picking is another huge tune of his called Hardcore Heaven (The Hardcore Mix). Naturally its sped up to buggery on the mix here because that was the way the scene was going.
In fact, it’s interesting to note how from 1990 to 1991 the tempo pretty much stayed at a standard 120-ish house tempo but from 1991 to 1992 the tempo jumped by as much as 50bpm to something closer to what we now consider to be jungle/dnb speed.
So yeah, really love the early Seduction stuff but later output not so much as he veered off more into happy hardcore territory which never really was my bag.
My next pick, Ride The Rhythm by Hi-Ryze, is also sped up to bejayzis.
I really gotta mention this one too. Insane how far ahead of its time it is, coming out on Brainiak Records all the way back in 1990. It’s a UK track but has distinct Detroit influences.
The rest of the EP is even more exotic and still sounds fresh and inventive 34-years-and-counting later. Including the full remastered Bandcamp release of this EP right below here so you can check out what I mean.
Ride The Rhythm – Hi-Ryze
And the classics just keep on coming… on Warp Records this time, with Kid Unknown’s 1992 choon Nightmare, with the vocal hook courtesy of Ice T.
Finally picked up a copy of this in Manchester not too long ago along with a bunch of other 90s gems, resulting in the inevitable don’t pull me over Mister Ryanair, please please moment in the departure lounge.
But all went well in the end, another record haul brought home with nare a luggage fee so all I had to contend with was a planeload of drunken Man U fans.
And sp we get another one of my all-time favourites. Thus far this one eludes me, reckon I’ll give it one more year of digging before I finally crack and buy it on Discogs.
I love this track, I will get a copy soon, it will be mine.
Anyways, if the BDP-inspired name doesn’t it away already, these guys started off as a hiphop crew before making the surprise transition to hardcore rave – and man what a transition that proved to be.
Furious Urban Shakedown-style breakbeats in a full-on collision with hardcore electro skank and that infectious chipmunk hook, “can’t beat the system, go with the flow!”
This tune, alongside others by groups like Shut Up & Dance and The Ragga Twins, were instrumental in the genesis of jungle and, subsequently, drum’n’ bass.
So if you ever wondered how did we get from house to jungle in just a few years, it was via tracks like this.
We finish, then, with another of DJ Phantasy’s own productions, in this case it’s Sorted – Pigbag (Phantasy Mix).
Lots of popular sounds of the time in here, like those organs used on Prodigy’s Your Love being the most obvious example.
But that’s the way tracks were made at the time, they were far more like cut and paste collage pieces than the more consistent grooves we’ve got now.
In some cases, you’d get a track that felt like five different tracks all glued together, like a ransom note made of cut out letters from newspapers in some cheesy police drama.
You’d get different sections with alternating riffs using different popular rave sounds, you might get an angry bit in a minor key, followed by a strings and hands in the air bit, or maybe a cheesy bit with pianos and chipmunk vocals in a major key, or an ‘arcore bit with Belgian influences, then a bit that sounds like that other popular hit that’s doing the rounds, only slightly different.
So yeah, there was def a copycat thing going on, but it still felt far more inventive and adventurous than most of the Beatport bollocks you get today – and WAY more energetic.
Like the track says, sorted.
So yeah, those are my picks from the first half of the mix, we still got another half left. But see how you get on with that first half first and you’ll still have another half for later.
Trust me on this.
“You Ain’t Heard Fuck All Like This Before”
Next up it’s time for the man like LTJ Bukem on the ones and twos, and the late, great MC Conrad, “you ain’t fuck all like this before, so be prepared for war.”
Man… I’m so excited.
And just in case you can’t tell, this is a mix I can essentially recite from start to finish, every word from Conrad, every flick of the fader from Bukem…
I don’t need to play it back to write this but I love it so I’m playing it now with a big cheesy grin on my face.
The mix begins with MC Conrad doing a nifty voice-scratch effect before LTJ Bukem brings the first track in – the two match up perfectly. But then these guys always were in perfect sync.
The first track is Have A Good Time by DJ Clarkee, the extra E being for obvious reasons. Interesting to see how these various DJs evolved over the years, starting off more or less in the same rave/hardcore scene before going their separate ways.
LTJ Bukem, of course, going on to form Good Looking Records, one of the most influential drum and bass labels. He also became synonymous with the rather asinine term, “intelligent drum and bass” due to his deep, often jazzy productions.
DJ Clarkee, on the other hand, went off in a very different direction, embracing more hardcore techno sounds and gabber adjacent hardcore acid. Whereas this track is very much in the breakbeat camp with some deliciously deep sub bass.
All the while MC Conrad is making the crowd go hyper with occasional nods to Xenophobia’s Rushin’ the House (“e come alive”), Hijack (“badboy come again”), Slick Rick (“lody dady, we like to party”) and LL Kool J (“LTJ is hard as hell”).
Another big tune for my next pick, I’m So High by EQ. Soon as I heard this the first time I instantly recognised this as an Evap-or-8 variant, though foolishly I thought it was just a “rave preset” rather than a sample.
As mentioned in my Full On Mask Hysteria review, I wasn’t aware of Strings of Life or Derrick May just yet, but well, we all gotta start somewhere eh??
Another big track I wanna mention is Spectral Bass from Aurora, which appeared on the duo’s first ever release which came out on Adrenalin Records in 1992.
It features Spectral Bass on the A side and Voice Of Buddha on the flipside.
Revamped versions were added shortly after to the Sunshine EP, also on Adrenalin Records, which featured heavily on Hit The Decks III with Sunshine, Spectral Bass and Voice Of Buddha all appearing in the various mixes.
Hence the reason it’s been on my hitlist for years and likely another eventual Discogs splurge once I stop being broke.
Next up, Hedgehog Affair with We Told You. Nothing much to report here other than I really like this tune, a perfect fusion of UK breaks and Chicago house vibes.
The group itself consists of Spencer Thomas alongside Ron Wells, also of the aforementioned Structural Damage.
Incidentally I know a girl who had an affair with a hedgehog once, apparently he was a right prick.
And finally, another one of the best tunes from the era, Dub War by Dance Conspiracy, released on XL Recordings back in 1992.
This one still sounds amazing today, the deep sub bass, furious Amen breaks, a nice bitta Bomb the Bass and, of course, the epic saxophone break.
That sample, incidentally, comes via the 1972 funk track Darkest Light by the Lafayette Afro Rock Band. A track which has also been sampled countless times, most notably by Public Enemy and Ice Cube.
And that’s what I love so much about this era of UK dance music, the freewheeling approach to production with smorgasboard of samples used from multiple sources, borrowing from their piers, from older house choons and, of course, from hiphop.
But in addition to hiphop DJ culture, the UK’s Caribbean influences meant a strong connection to soundsystem culture too, which always had a frivolous approach to borrowing and stealing bits of tracks way before scratching and sampling was even invented.
This legacy also ensured that, even as the breakbeat tempos increased threefold in many cases, there remained a strong emphasis on riddims, percussion and bass, or, as the Dub War puts it, all that “ragamuffin bizniss ahn ting.”
6’O Clock Inna Morning And We’re Still Jumpin and Bumpin
This tape man, this fucking tape – wow!
Like I said, I could have written this entire review from memory, but what fun would that have been? Any ole excuse to fire on Dreamscape IV is one I’ll take, though you don’t need one really.
This killer one-two of Phantasy and Bukem features some of the most iconic tracks and producers of the early UK rave scene, including many of my personal favourites. Listen back and you can literally hear jungle and drum and bass music crystalising in real time.
Plus you get to hear rave MCs as they’re meant to be heard, not drowning out the music with innane chatter like some (i.e. most) MCs I could mention, but augmenting it, reacting symbiotically with it and enhancing the overall experience.
The LTJ Bukem/MC Conrad combo in particular is a masterclass in how to create energy and this mix gives you a chance to go back to the beginning of one of the best partnerships in electronic music.
So look a bit, look a bit lively and check out the full mix below. MC Conrad RIP.