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Fugitive is Dave Wallace, who started producing in 1991 as Rave Doctor. But as the hardcore sound started to take shape, he shifted to his alias Mad Dog for Underdog Recordings, where he created numerous anthems. 
As the jungle sound swept through the UK, Dave switched up yet again and formed Fugitive with Shaun O'Hara, also on Underdog Recordings. And a year later, he formed Aquasky with Brent & Kieron. 
This EP is Dave's return to the early 90's jungle sound of 1994, as the harder vibes merged with the musicality of the Bukem era that was sweeping through the scene at this time. It is also the first Fugitive release for 25 years, so a very special moment for fans of this era of UK music.

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3. Fugitive -  Feel It  - AB-VFS005 - 192mp3 clip

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‘Free Your Mind’ is an iconic track made and released in 1991 by the Cowan brothers – Mark and Andy. They had previously put out a couple of records beforehand, but the release that got them forever known is the ‘Psychology’ EP, which the original version of ‘Free Your Mind’ appears on. It was also an all-time favourite tune for Amen Brother boss, Brent Aquasky. So much so, that when he started his repress label, Vinyl Fanatiks, he hunted down the brothers in order to re-release it.

But in 1990 Mark released an EP under the name of Dik Fozbee, inspired by the US house and techno scene. An EP that is highly collectable and was also sampled by 2 Bad Mice on ‘No Respect’. After that EP was released, Mark was tracked down by a young Ron Wells AKA Jack Smooth. Ron was about to make his musical debut as Smooth and Simmonds, but they needed someone who had an Akai 950 and knew how to use it. In steps Mark Fozbee, who lent them the bit of kit and gave them pointers on how to operate it. This is where this EP’s name originated from.

Forward time by 31 years to the buoyant world of the rave repress era. Remixes needed to be done of ‘Free Your Mind’ and both Fozbee & Cooz as well as Ron Wells were big inspirations for Brent Aquasky, so bringing them together for the first time was an idea that thankfully both parties were into. The outcome is this EP… two smoking remixes by Jack Smooth; one in his Ron Wells techno fused direction, the other in his Jack Smooth proper Jungle Techno vibe, which is hugely relevant as Jack Smooth was the creator of that sound in the early 1990’s. 

But on top of that, the guys decided to write a brand new track together… ‘Redress’, taking things back to the 90’s London  techno era.

These guys are the core of what would become rave in this country and in turn hardcore, then jungle. If you want to learn the history of drum and bass, these are the guys to research. Pioneers!

2 Fozbee, Cooz & Smooth - Free Your Mind (Jack Smooth 2.0 Mix)- AB-VFS008 - 192mp3 clip

ELshus x Vantage - Give it Up

Utomica ‘Rok A Bye’ – its one of those holy grails that people were always asking me for. “It would be great if you could make this one happen” the emails and messages would say, and these messages were regular, not just from one super keen person, but from many people. It became a quest for me to track down the creators of this 12″ and a bloody long quest it turned out to be. But good things do come to those that wait and this is one of those times that patience paid off.

So its a Sunday night, February 2020 and three middle aged men are trying to work out how to do a 3-way Whatsapp call. Well, its not the technological side of it all that’s the struggle, all 3 are aufait with that side of things, its getting us all free at the same time to make it happen! Previous arranged dates had been and gone. Its not like a quick 10 minute call, these interviews are over an hour, sometimes two hours, as we drill down into how things came about, so for everyone to have that much time set aside from the family and other responsibilities takes some organising… and for Whatsapp to be able to retain the channels open, well, that’s just pot luck. The drop outs were frequent, but the perseverance was second to none… and so we chatted.

I have Martin Lee-Stephenson and David Salvi both on the phone at once, both of the members of Utomica and artists on the Pro-One label through various guises. My first question ‘Where did the name come from?’ “It was a bit improvised, we needed a new name for a more jungle sounding project, we were always wanting to stay ahead of the curve and try new musical styles. At the time I was into weird and wonderful stuff”. Martin kicks things off, adding “We were working on weird physics names at the time and we felt that we were sound scientists”. “We would have endless conversations about science and synths and always wanted to stay in touch with the musical advent garde” David continues “So the name Utomica just sounded right for this new project”.

Martin (who was living just behind the soon to be opened Blue Note in Hoxton – “Law and Auder and the Rising High Studios were a five minute walk from my flat. Howie B lived two doors away and Jarvis Cocker was upstairs for a while!) is from a rock background but caught onto the acid house scene that was kicking off in London in the late 80’s and decided that was where he wanted to go musically. David was more from the soul and jazz scenes that London had to offer and was already moving around in the early hardcore scene – “My main connection to the scene was through De Underground Records/Reel to Reel Productions (John Aymer/Flex/Mike) who I met when Hopa recommended me for some engineering work, they then approached me to engineer a remix of “We Are E”. It was in fact through these guys that I met Mike (Michael Whittaker) who had originally formed Pro One. We met, got on brilliantly and within a few days decided to combine forces and keep the label name Pro One. This was in late 1991. The studio was then reformed and renamed as Pro One Recordings”.

They first linked together in 1992 as they both had a mutual friends, but the main linchpin was a guy called Bobbi Style who was a singer and had a band called The Love Junkies, signed to Pro One for an album. Bobbi’s Dynamic Studios was based in Hoxton and David had been drafted in to engineer the project whilst Martin had been asked to play bass guitar and during the downtime, David and Martin bonded over their mutual love of the growing hardcore scene. It was from this chance encounter that they decided to start making music together, their first collaboration being this release, ‘Rok-A-Bye’. Utomica had been born.

Utomica - 'Rok A Bye' - VFS020 - 192mp3 clip

Peter Zinovieff & Lucy Railton - Inventions For Cello And Computer

4-Smallsong

Cody Chiasson's Album

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Rob Real - Eraser (Lectro cOd_E remix)

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Myself and L-Double have known each other since the 90’s but neither of us could remember exactly how we got to be friends. That was until we sat down and had this chat and the memories started to flood back. It was around 1997 when Lee had his radio show ‘The Flex Connextion’ on Kiss 105 and he was also on the mailing list of Main Source, an old PR company which we used once we signed to Polydor and later still when we brought them with us to Moving Shadow. It was run by Rachel H, alongside her team Anton (The Duke as we nicknamed him), Vikas and Klaus (‘Heavyweight’ Hill as he later became know when he started producing great tech breaks tunes around the same time that we as Aquasky started to make breaks). Lee was one of the Main Source key tastemakers for the North as he had a well-respected radio show as well as a much loved D&B label, Flex Records, and of course an accomplished artist and DJ to boot. He was the stalwart of the North, a guy who had been involved with the scene since day dot. So when we as Aquasky were getting great reviews and feedback from Lee, we reached out to him. Again, this was before the internet and AIM was a thing and waaaayyyyy before Whatsapp and Messenger. We didn’t even have a mobile phone until late 1996 and that was just a single phone that we use to share between the three of us! I am pretty sure we must have just started sending him records and DATs directly. Who knows!!! The 90’s are a bit of a haze at times!

But this project isn’t an L-Double project, this was under an alias that he had, The Dubster. I am always curious how aliases come about. Some have a significant meaning, others were throwaway names. I remember myself and Kieron (Aquasky) did a project with Ben Blackshore (Appaloosa) around 1996 and we didn’t have a name for it. Ben had some Top Trump cards or something in his studio. We were probably a bit red-eyed and decided to find our artist name from this pack of cards. We saw one answer written on a card – Skin Divers – and thought ‘Yeah, that’ll do’. And that was it, we rolled with it. But Lee’s alias is far more interesting than one of ours – “The first time I was called The Dubster was by old mates of mine who were part of the  rap crew Deighton Task Force or DTF for short. Around this time the rapper Chubb Rock (he of ‘Treat Em Right’ fame) was calling himself The Chubster. We were massively into hip hop during the 80’s and we were hugely inspired by Marley Marl and how he put together the Juice Crew, a talented team of rappers, and we had our own crew of rappers, producers and DJ’s. So the guys started calling me The Dubster, a play on my original artist name L-Double”. Now I was even more curious about how he got his original name, L-Double. Once he explained to me it became obvious and I was surprised I hadn’t worked it out myself. It’s a great play on words, but Ill let Lee explain himself “When we started in the rap game, I was using ‘L Double E’ as my name is Lee. It wasn’t long before the E part of it was dropped and I became known as L-Double. And the name stuck from my youth in hip hop and throughout my career in drum and bass and jungle”. See what I mean? It makes perfect sense now.

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2. The Dubster 'Body, Mind & Soul' - VFS024 - 192mp3 clip

Taken from RZON007 Various - Re-Mastered (2020)

Remastered by Rob Gordon.

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Various - Re-Mastered

Trak 1 II (Re-Mastered)

RZON007 Trak 1 - For This II (Re-Mastered)

Live looped performance with Buchla Music Easel and TC Electronics Ditto x4 Looper.

Reverse Etude 1

The label was established in 2018 as a means to release the back catalogue of renowned Jungle Techno label Underdog Recordings, which ran from 1993-1995. It quickly expanded from beyond the original goal and now reissues sought after, rare and classic records from the Jungle, Rave, Bleep House, Techno and Jungle Techno genres.

The Vinyl Fanatiks aim is to track down and work with the original artists from the early 1990’s, to reissue their music on vinyl only, and to support the record hunters and vinyl diggers from around the world with quality pressings and superb mastering; a way to show respect and share the story of those that created these incredible records.

The vision is not to focus on the obvious artists of that time but to dig a little deeper and find those that came and went but their legacy still holds true to this day. Some of these producers only released one record and vanished soon after but their music still resonates into the 21st century, accumulating new audiences across the globe, far beyond the catchment of the UK pirate radios and muddy fields of 25 years ago. What happened to these artists? Its Vinyl Fanatik’s mission to find out!

Each record captures a moment in time, a vibe that was true and innocent from a period when music was far more synonymous with rebellion and anarchy than today’s finely polished productions and conformist club pop. This music itself bred on the outskirts of society, fuelled by the passion of the rave, its lineage stemming from the Acid House era of 1988. Often produced on minimal equipment, with minimal skills and knowledge, its audio blueprint transcends to new generations, a rawness that no expensive audio plug in could ever create in this present day.

Vinyl Fanatiks wants to pay homage to these young producers who forged the foundations of the multi-million pound EDM scene we have now. Each of these artists has their own tale to tell, their own memories to share. Limited by their own geographical status within the UK, they somehow still all managed to connect and influence each other, years before the internet, mobile phones and social media that we have today. But the music knew no limits and had no boundaries, transcending generations to this day.

Bringing The Experience Back To Music