Poker Flat Recordings - surely one of the most essential and influential labels of the past couple of decades, treat us to something a little different - and very, very special. 

Classic Jams reaches back to the roots, pulling out long lost, forgotten gems – the music that first inspired and invigorated a generation of electronic producers and dancers including Steve Bug.

Take a trip into the deep, jacking, acidic house and raw Techno expressions that had a profound impact on the current Poker Flat roster - from the late 80s up until the present.  

Most of these tracks are long since out of print on vinyl, and fetch considerable amounts on the 2nd hand market. Likewise, some have never been available digitally. Selected and complied by label boss Steve Bug, these are secret weapons for open-minded DJs, and a valuable document of house music’s enduring legacy for the home listeners. 

Aquarius’ warehouse anthem, Jam To It Again, originally out on City Limits in 1990, still sounds like a jolt of adrenaline to the system. Likewise the obscure but stunning Transcendence by Magique Noir will do doubt ignite dance-floors in exactly the same way it did the first time around. Going even further back, Classic Jams also shines a light on Larry Heard’s sublime Never No More Lonely under his Fingers Inc moniker, as well as the 1988 deep house bomb Musiq by Myoshi-Morris which appears in a brand new exclusive Steve Bug edit. 	

Other highlights include Swing City from 1992 with the pure NY house groove of Make You Mine. Hundreds of contemporary producers are desperately trying to emulate this effortlessly pure house moment - none come close. 

Yet it’s not all from our US cousins - tracks that helped kick start a movement in Europe also feature – see VDT’s It’s Just a Dream featuring MC Valium – essential Techno from 1991 out of the soon-to-be-rave-homeland of Germany. 

Throw in other out-and-out lost classics from the likes of Big Baby, Springboard, and Vice, and you have a compilation that stands both as a testament to the enduring genius of house, and as a essential tool for rocking any party. 

Digital customers will also benefit from three bonus tracks - Nick Holder’s 2001 smash Erotic Illusions, Foremost Poets’ Reasons to be Dismal, and DHS’s epic deep jam House of God ($50 mix) which are also available on Poker Flat 12"es. 

Fingers, Inc. - Never No More Lonely

Two D.j S - Tone Zone !

1.	Wax doctor: atmospheric funk
2.	Optical…grey odyssey
3.	Adam F…circles
4.	Barcode…new dance
5.	Aphrodite…king of the beats
6.	Alex Reece…. pulp fiction
7.	Dj Hype….. peace love and unity
8.	Dj Zinc…..no diggidy
9.	Aphrodite…twilight
10.	Deekay…..babylon
11.	M.I.S.T.….outtaspace 
12.	D-Bridge vs. Commix….providence
13.	X-plorer…can’t stop
14.	Ill Logic….forever
15.	Aphrodite…bm funkster
16.	Calibre…drop it down
17.	Wildstyle promo?

Drum&Bass Classics 1995-2005: Vinyl set

Out now, Mother Tongue's 'Message is Love'.

Vinyl: https://www.rushhour.nl/record/vinyl/message-love
Bandcamp: https://rushhourmusic.bandcamp.com/album/message-is-love

The United Kingdom has long been an ardent supporter and consumer of African-American music. Dating back to the electrifying earliest performances of blues artists like Big Bill Broonzy during the early 1950s – an influence on Eric Clapton and John Lennon – right through to the dawn of Chicago house and onwards. In fan clubs, like the Tamla Motown Appreciation Society, started by soul writer Dave Godin, to the numerous fan magazines that have documented dance music culture from Blues & Soul to Mixmag, there has been an extended obsession with black music culture.

This lineage continued into the house era, our generation’s defining dance genre, and one with which British producers were swift to adopt. This record is a prime example of this. Although Mother Tongue was a one-off project, its history is rooted in this long-standing culture stretching back decades. The main man behind Mother Tongue was a drummer and record producer named Richie Stevens. Stevens was steeped in music and the industry, thanks to his father, John Stevens, also a professional drummer. Stevens senior played in numerous jazz ensembles during the 1960s and onwards, including performing with Tubby Hayes, Ronnie Scott, Evan Parker, Derek Bailey and was a session player with John Martyn (among numerous others) during Martyn’s finest period (it’s John’s drumming you can hear on ‘Big Muff’).

His son, Richie, was playing professionally while still a teenager for the Dennis Bovell Dub Band and has subsequently backed everyone from Tina Turner and Simply Red to Hugh Masekela and George Clinton. He is also a long-term collaborator with Boy George. But the story of Mother Tongue begins with a band called Well Red. This group, effectively a studio creation by Richie and his then manager Martin Poole, recruited vocalist Lorenzo Hall, a fixture on the London reggae scene and sold the concept to Virgin Records. Well Red yielded two albums – Motion and Respect Due – but never really got the crossover success their songs perhaps deserved. “Virgin were very supportive of us,” recalls Poole, today. “They gave us a lot of money. They pumped money into it, and it never quite paid off, but we did okay. We recouped and got to make a second album with George Clinton. It was a good move, recording with him. It did us a lot of good here and in America. We did pretty well in the US. We were very well-supported over there.”

This same team, working in a tiny studio near Richie’s house in Wood Green, north London, called The Watershed, produced ‘Message Is Love’. It features the vocals of Syn-Dee (Sindy Finn) and Lovebase (Louise Porter), who co-wrote the track with Richie and Alan Lane, another Stevens collaborator, and Ian ‘Spy’ Austin, who’d previously played in the same reggae band, The Instigators, as Lorenzo Hall from Well Red. “Remember it well,” says Martin Poole. “We were just writing it there and then in the studio. It was me, Richie, Spy, and I think Syn-Dee was there as well. When I got home later, Richie played it to me over the phone and I said, ‘That just sounds brilliant,’ from how we'd started it off, you know?” Thanks to their experience in the studio with Well Red, they managed to produce a song that has the timeless feel of all good music.

Mother Tongue was the opening track on a compilation called On The Loose Volume 1 on their own Furious Fish Records. Every track on the album, despite having different artist credits, was done by Stevens and Poole, often using a rotating cast of characters that had also appeared on ‘Message Of Love’. Although it did not sell especially well at the time, it’s become a collector’s item over the years. This is the first time Mother Tongue has appeared as a 12-inch single, a long overdue (but very welcome) happening.

(Notes by Bill Brewster)

Mother Tongue - Message Is Love

this track is so underrated
[Turntable Orchestra members are in cover image]

You're Gonna Miss Me by Turntable Orchestra (Original '88 Mix) Slight Bass Boost

Working from Home

DnB 2022 - Magnets

House Vinyl Mix Middlehour -- Bass

Liquid Is Liquid

Bass House tunes from Shadow Child; Eats Everything; Gorgan City; Maya Jane Coles; Justin Martin; Kry Wolf; Breach; George Fitzgerald. Labels:  Dirty Bird; Food Music......


Run with the wild- Maya Jane Coles
Pick n Roll- Greymatter
Ghettos&Gardens- justin martin
23(feat Tymer)- Shadow Child
Creep-Hostage
The Only One- Shadow Child
Baiya(Shadow Child remix)- Delphic
Feather Fight- Justin Martin & Eats Everything
So High- Shadow Child
Things I didn't mean- Urulu & Steve Huerta
Mountain drop-INXEC/DROOG
Thor- Gorgon City
Not listening- Maya Jane Coles
For the very first time-HNNY
Unilateral-George Fitzgerald
Halcyon (Tom Middleton mix)- Orbital
Plastic Dreams- Audiojack
Follow the step (Justin MArtin mix)- Rachel Row
Entrance song- Eats Everything
You won't love again-Breach
Hostage- Kaiden gray
The Flood- Kry Wolf
Ghettos and Gardens(Bachelos of Science mix)- Justin Martin



BASS hOUSE Mix

a drummer by trade but have recently started making the whole lot :)

Working from Home

Jalbobble (Jess Blake)

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