Manix - Alright Wid Me

Ozomatli's Return, Pt. 2

Euphoria (Nino's Dream) (2022 Remaster)

Nookie - Give A Little Love

Released in 2003 on Tom & Jerry, Tom and Jerry's Maximum Style.

Tom and Jerry - Maximum Style (2003)

The House Crew /  Euphoria (Nino's Dream) / 1993

The House Crew - Euphoria (Nino's Dream)

Sonz of A Loop Da Loop Era / Peace & Loveism (4 Hero Remix) / 1992

Sonz Of A Loop Da Loop Era - Peace & Loveism (4 Hero Remix)

You're Not Alone

JOSH B - You're Not Alone

Wicked (Classic) Album

Booyaka

This is a project I am very excited to be doing and one that’s taken a good while to get sorted. I didn’t have a direct in-road to DJ Phantasy but a good friend of mine, MC Spyda, did and he put the call in for me. Spyda warned me beforehand though ‘You need to have your business plan sorted before you speak to Phantasy, he likes to work with organised people’. Thankfully, that’s one thing I am, organised. When it comes to running a record label and dealing with people, I have a wealth of experience and knowledge to fall back upon. So around March 2019 I jumped in my car, drove up the M3 and met up with Steve aka DJ Phantasy. We had a coffee and we chatted, discussing many things and we got on well. I took heed of Spyda’s advice and had a full plan of action ready which worked well with Steve. But at that time we couldn’t proceed, as Steve was getting ready to launch his book ‘Three Generations Deep’ which follows his career in music that stretches back to the late 80’s. We put the project on hold for a year, reconvening in March 2020 to kick things off… then Coronavirus hit! We pressed pause again.

It’s now June 2020 and I am chatting on the phone with Steve about his highly sought after release ‘The Start of Things to Come’ and wondered why he titled the release that? “You see, at that time, when I was writing that release, the scene was shifting and it was becoming more about the drums. I was just moving with the times and I felt this was release was a kind of statement, a shift in the music I made”. It was around this time that Steve had done his tracks with Aphrodite (recently released on Vinyl Fanatiks for the very first time) and Ron AKA Jack Smooth, who had been Steve’s engineer up to this point, was moving more into the business side of things. “He asked me if I would work with a new guy he was training up at that time, a guy called Alex Reece. I was the first person to work with Alex up at Ron’s. Ron knew I was easy going and would make Alex feel comfortable on his first engineering job. Alex only lived down the road from me anyway back then, so we connected. He was well nervous though as he was still learning all of Ron’s gear. Alex wasn’t very good on the MPC so Ron would have to come in now and again to help him out. He was still learning, but you know, I’m still learning now. You’re always learning in this business as there are always new things to learn”.

“I have to say though, Alex took to it all like a duck to water” Steve continues “Alex was very much into that Basement 4/4 sound, he had that techno vibe. We worked well together, me as the producer, him as the engineer. I have to give massive credit to him. But when you have a teacher like Jack Smooth, you are going to know how to do things and how to do them right. So I went in with this massive pile of records. I had already decided upon the vocal sample ‘The Atmosphere’ so I wanted to make something that was a bit atmospheric. We took out the Rolands, as Ron had loads of these. And I just played around on them and the riff just came naturally. I had worked a lot with Gemini in the past and he liked to do his musical parts before laying down a bassline, so back then I always had that in my head, the music came first”.

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JOSH B - You're Not Alone

OLD IS KOOL

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