Various – Brit Hop And Amyl House

This mix, in no way, reflects anything remotly close to 'Brit Hop'. If you're interested in real British Hip-hop look at 'Gunshot', Hijack', 'Blade', Silver bULLET', 'London Possie', 'Rodney P', 'Roots Manuver' etc etc....

Cassette seems to be recorded from a CD version with delays between each track. Frustrating to listen to.

Very good mix. Played it to death back in the 90’s - particularly cycling through Spain of all things … h 🤔 💭

⛰⛰⛰ 🚴 💨 === … … sigh 😌

The final flourish with Emmanuel top degenerating into Renegade Soundwave and Bomb the Bass is wicked. Girlfriend won’t have any of it. Says it’s too blokey… allegedly mixed by one half of the Chemical brothers - uncredited on sleeve

Couldn’t ever dance to stuff this slow though - tripped myself up. Maybe that’s why it’s called trip hop 🤭😆

Is the 2x12” mixed or unmixed? It’s probably mixed - of course - apologies in advance.

What's that sound? It's the sound of the death of an Attacking Mutant Camel seeking Revenge!

Uncredited DJ mix by the Chemical Brothers from 1996, containing some of the track combinations they were using in their DJ sets "Live At The Social" mix from the same year is a more sophisticated and eclectic affair, it lacks the big beat thunder of the present mix.

The first half is strong, some tough instrumental hip hop (Sam Sever, Norman Cook) followed by the cream of the nascent big beat scene: Death In Vegas's "Dirt", Lionrock's "Don't Die Foolish", Depth Charge's "Shaolin Buddah Finger", and the Chemicals own funk-rock take on the genre ("Voodoo People" and "Leave Home"), all played at a higher tempo than usual to add to the energy.

Often disparaged for having limited turntable skills, the Chemicals do however show imagination and creativity in their mixing to turn this into more than just a compilation of songs: "The Real Shit" is judiciously rearranged, the Lionrock bassline cleverly matches the riff of the preceding Death In Vegas track, and "Voodoo People" elegantly emerges from "Shaolin Buddah Finger" before disappearing into "Leave Home".

The second half is patchier, with monotonous big beat from Fatboy Slim and Monkey Mafia, tedious acid breaks from Jedi Knights and Josh Winx, and repetitive acid house from Emmanuel Top all devoid of melody. However, the dark dub-house of Leftfield's Renegade Soundwave remix and the Chemicals' own bollock-rocking mix of Bomb The Bass restore the quality towards the end. All in all, a fine distillation of the early big beat scene that the Chemicals did much to create. (8)

A genuine classic Live At The Social Vol 1 mix. Worth checking that out to.

Whilst it has never been officially confirmed, this is of course a DJ mix by Tom Rowlands, one half of The Chemical Brothers. He mixed it for the record label (Concrete, an imprint of Vanessa Rand, was the label manager of ;-)

What a cool mix CD this is. From 1995, and introduced people to the world of the love-it-or-hate-it genre, known as Big Beat, pioneered by the likes of The Chemical Brothers, Norman Cook (Fatboy Slim) and The Prodigy.

This CD dosen't just contain what became later known as "Big Beat", but also some Trip-Hop (The first two tracks, and the last two tracks), Acid (Tracks 11 and 12) and even an early Trance record (Track 13), that also shows the eclectic nature of the Big Beat era.

Unlike the later 1998-2001 Big Beat recordings, where a lot of the sample sources came from 60's Rock and Roll, Soul, Kitsch with 80's Rap, the earlier Big Beat had a very much a BritPop/Indie Rock meets Hip-Hop style, as heard in a lot of the Chemical Brothers and Prodigy's mid 90's work, and also on this CD contains the classic "Dust" Brothers remix of The Prodigy's "Voodoo People", and the Chemical's "Leave Home", Fatboy Slim's first single ("Santa Cruz"), and stuff by Lionrock, Death In Vegas, Wink, Monkey Mafia, Bomb The Bass, Leftfield and more.

It is Mostly well mixed, except for a small hiccup during Track 11, where you can hear Wink being cue-d up, but other than that, it is a very good CD, and great for those who Big Beat.

When this album came out I allready was into chemicalbeats music (that's how we called this kind of acid based breakbeatmusic in Netherlands). I gatherd a fair bit of chemicalbeats records but most of the tunes on this album blew them all away and I felt ashamed that I didn't know most of them allready. The album was constantly in my recordbag and I played songs from it wherever I could. I was so crazy about it that I now have almost all of them on original 12"... and they still do the job well! Timeless!

This was THE beginning of Big Beat.

Allegedly mixed by Tom Chemical himself.

The sleeve notes by Robin Turner sum it all up superbly:

"The late '80s. The country is caught up in the evil grip of Acid House. E's are good, E's are good, "pump up London", it's an age of love, you know the score. There's football hoolies & goate'ed beatniks & mad queens all dancing under the same roof to the same beat. One nation under a groove, labelled "dance music".

Back then, all it took was four four beat & a 303; a smiley face shirt & a sweat soaked warehouse; a bag of decent doves & a pair of white gloves. Cut to now, how things have changed. Spiralling and warping faster, dance music twists itself into all manner of weirdness, eventually becoming the mainstream.

The underground gets more far out with names & styles changing weekly. Breakbeat & hardcore becomes jungle, progressive house becomes "intelligent" techno. Everything starts to get thoerosied and dissected by dull intellectuals. Suddenly, even the hippies are accepted again.

You can fuck that right off for a start...

What about music for all the party people who don't want to go home and get stoned and listen to "abstract head music"? Music for people who don't think, they just dance?

We're talking nitrates on wax, music made up of big fuck off freakbeat breaks, dirty great riffs from mad old '70s synths that are bust up and sellotaped back together, records that sounds like grown men clanging on petrol tanks, all lo-fi poses with hi-fi noises...

Music that gets played in backrooms of clubs and basements of pubs, at all night sessions back at someone's house after the boozer has shut, in speeding cars shooting up the motorway towards some daft Mecca ballroom up North...

The scene - the first time you got slaughtered, all spinning rooms, pissing youself laughing for hours. your first blast of amyl in the back of a chemistry class or in youth club after school? jumping up & down like a lunatic, losing 5 stone just from dancing? Ever found yourself in a sweatbox while pummelling hip hop beats, fat as fuck techno and anthemic rock & roll blare out of a crappy sound system. You're popping away, climbing onto the bar, piggy back races up & down the stage wobbling & shaking to the bass as you get supid.

Maybe you just saw the boy or girl of your dreams. Maybe you just proposed to them. Maybe you just heard Craig Mack or "Chemical Beats" then you felt the holy shiver down your spine when someone dropped "Live Forever" or "La Tristesse Durera". Maybe you just heard the most exciting DJs in the country, stuck in a dive of a pub. You're listening to people, to chancers, who can't mix records together & no one gives a flying fuck. The DJs are doing amyl behind the decks, there's a couple having it away in the corner, someone's just got in a car to drive to Devon to go cow pushing for the weekend.

A NIGHT IN FRONT OF THE BIG SPEAKERS

This is music that began underground (literally) and has bust out big style - you've got "Leave Home" on the Top 40 show & that geezer with the daft white dreads has just done Top Of The Pops.

It's not about electronic easy listening music or ambient trip hop by numbers, it's not about chin stroking stoner music. This is dance music, music that makes you jump around until you can't jump no more... maybe it's a generation thing, but to me this about feeling good, getting high. It's a rush.