R-Hawk Label Showcase #1
As I’ve gone along collecting records, whenever a new Jungle D&B label has started up I’ve often found that I enjoy the first 3 releases as a standard. Not sure if labels curate their releases this way to make sure they kick the label off with quality, or if it is a coincidence, or if I just subconsciously will myself to enjoy it that way! Anyway, I’ve been wanting to catalogue some of this aspect of my collection on social media somehow, but I didn’t know quite where to start, as I didn’t necessarily want to do it in a chronological or alphabetical order. The other day I was reminded of a particular label when I was playing Trainspottle and that has determined where I am going to start. (I will elaborate on that in a footnote to this post, as it is a bit of a tangent, but worthy of inclusion!)
So the first label release trio is on Piranha Records, a label belonging to Jonny L that he began in 1999. Jonny L is one of my favourite producers, from very early on (1992 to be precise) but from the mid to late 90s, his output always struck a chord for me as it felt that he stood out from the crowd. So I always got excited when I saw new material from him. After his last 2 albums on XL Recordings, Sawtooth in 1997 and Magnetic in 1998 - both of which got critical acclaim and didn’t leave my record bag for months, it was hard to guess in which direction he would go next. But when Piranha appeared, with The Bells and Raise I wasn’t disappointed.
I’m not great at describing music, unlike some of my peers who do an excellent job of music journalism, but I’ll do my best! I think that he manages to to stamp his own sound on anything he does, even when his sound takes a different direction and these tunes definitely felt different to Sawtooth and Magnetic. With the first 3 releases on Piranha, there is an other worldly feel to them, quite minimal in some respects, lots of strange chord structures, subtle electronic melodies, vocals and fx and moody atmospherics, but always with a hard edge to them; the breaks are hard stepping, nearly 2 step, but with a bit more swing. These tunes are designed for the dance floor. When I bought them, I would combine them with stuff on 31, Virus, V, Dread, Ram, Dropping Science, Higher Education, Metalheadz - the kind of Drum & Bass that was prevalent at the time; but even amongst all of those label titans they felt like they stood out from the crowd and still do.
I’ve done a little mini-mix of these 3 records, 6 tunes in total so that you can hear them in all their glory. T/L Raise / Running / Change / The Bells / Selecta / Spike
So, as I said earlier, the tangential genesis of this label choice was Trainspottle. For those of you who are not familiar, it is like Heardle, but for Jungle D&B - every day there is a new tune to guess. And pretty much, in my experience, you either guess it after 1 second, or not at all. Frustratingly, the site seems to have glitched in recent times and it plays the same songs over and over again. It has become a running joke in my family that at least once a week, the tune will be Billion Dollar Gravy by London Elektricity (incidentally I only know this tune from this stupid game…). The other annoying glitch is that it will only let you select the tune from a list, that appears as you gradually type in the artist or track name; but quite often the tune that is playing is not one that appears so you cannot choose it and therefore you lose! On this one occasion, after the first drum hit, I said “It’s Jonny L - Selecta” but the list only offered Piper, or Hurt You So. Very frustrating, when you have to skip through to be told it is exactly what you have said it is from the first go. So you don’t get the little computer generated message telling you how great you are for guessing after one second. It is like being cheated out of dopamine. Anyway, that’s what made me think of choosing Piranha.
Further footnote, I went on to collect quite a few more of his Piranha releases, but not the 27 Hours a Day release. Then a lot from his subsequent labels Mr L. and 23:22 and also an album on Spearhead Records. There is some absolute gold in there!
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