DJ Fokus

DJ Fokus is without a doubt one of my favorite lesser known 93-95 artists. Originally releasing on the label Blueprint Records, his first release "The Theme" bw "Disengaged" is an in-demand amen smasher, fetching high prices these days. He followed this EP up with a solo outing on the same label, before releasing 2 EPs on his own label Suicide Records. All of these EPs featured heavily cut up beats and deep atmospherics, as well as the engineering talent of the amazing Pete Parsons. Following the Suicide Records releases, he did several more EPs on Dee Jay and Lucky Spin, also engineered by Pete Parsons (who engineered many of those tunes), before disappearing from the dnb world.




DJ Fokus - Vexxed



DJ Fokus - Watch Out
DJ Fokus - Media




DJ Fokus - Get a Bearing


Probably my favorite tracks by DJ Fokus is "Brave New World", off one of his later EPs on Lucky Spin. The other side of this release is probably more well known, having been featured on the popular Promised Land Vol 1 compilation. However, "Brave New World" has some of the sickest drum programming I've heard in any tracks from that time.



DJ Fokus - Brave New World

Mind Therapy pt 2

I already did an entry on Mind Therapy, but only scratched the surface w/ the one EP mentioned there (admittedly a great record). Here's several more bits of their stuff.

Their first EP was on the Jack In The Box label. This label was more of a distributor (I've definitely seen a sticker from them on some old records I own).

This EP precedes any of their E3 EPs by 2 years, and is thus a lot slower. However, the production is quality and it's a decent tune for sure.

Mind Therapy - Pushing Pot

Their next record was E3001, a 6 tracker with less-than-stellar production but some excellent tunes. The breaks are really nicely chopped but, because there's 3 tracks a side and the production is a bit thin to begin with, some of these don't hold up so well. However, there's a nice 4/4 version of the "ecstacy is safe" tune off E3005, already posted in a previous entry.


Mind Therapy - Ecstacey is safe - techno mix
Mind Therapy - Drum Beats Go Like This

The next EP was a bit of an improvement.... especially of note is the B side, which features a pretty wicked cut up drum-solo in lieu of a regular funk break. Because of this + the really sparse nature of the tune, it could almost be considered "proto-choppage", alongside the brown + dangerman tracks of the time.


Mind Therapy - Run Reel
Mind Therapy - Ruffneck Bizzness

Moonwalk EP

Here's a great 92 white label which is reasonably well known, but I figured I'd post it anyway.

I'd heard a rumor that Aphrodite was involved with this, and confirmed today that it is indeed by Aphrodite & Claudio from Urban Shakedown... this makes sense because of some of the sounds in the track, not to mention the overall awesomely choppy amiga production. Specifically, the pitch down effect is one of my favorite sounds in a lot of Urban Shakedown / early Aphrodite Recordings tracks. Because of the low bitrate of the original sample, pitching it down ends up having an unintended bit-degrading effect at the same time which has yet to be reproduced in any new sequencer/vst effects I've heard... just hearing that tiny fraction of a sound instantly brings me back to the good old days of screamtracker / 8 bit samples / mod files.



Moonwalk - A1


The A1 and B1 tracks on this EP are the standouts, In particular A1 (posted below) has a great intro section with the beats and melody massively chopped up together before the track stabilizes. According to Aphrodite, he actually threw out a box or two of these EPs a couple years ago, not realizing that they were be in demand... Thankfully they still aren't TOO expensive as far as obscure white labels go (currently 10-20 pounds on discogs), but I'm sure it'll continue to go up in price over time.

Edit on Sept 25, 08:Here's another track from the EP - some samples from the first tune, but combined with a crazy gated zipper/laser sound. Dope stuff. This track isn't from a personal rip, so it probably sounds better than my rip of the first tune (my needles suck right now)

Moonwalk - B1

Mind Therapy - Boss EP

I'm always on the hunt for old tracks with THE most mashed up, choppy, interesting break patterns, especially ones that don't fall back on an amen/think combo but instead layer up a bunch of lesser known breaks into tasty polyrhythm lasagna.

Probably my favorite record in this style is Mind Therapy "The Boss EP". I remember finding this EP for $2 or so in the bargain bin of a Boston DNB store (4 Front / Knowname - RIP). I was having an uneventful day record buying-wise, asked the store owner about it and he said "oh, that's just some old stuff". I put it on the turntable and my head promptly exploded SCANNERS style. Super chopped and layered breaks, really fast for the time, nice familiar samples, an all around excellent record. The first track on the EP is my favorite, great super choppy drums and an awesome breakdown using a sample from "Harder They Come". The second track is also top notch. B side doesn't hold up quite as well but has some nice reggae sampling on the first tune.



Mind Therapy - Boss Song

Mind Therapy - Ecstacy is Safe

HMS & Fineart (Raveology)

One of my favorite things in 92-95 tunes is the variety of rhythmic patterns. In the transition from more standard drum machine programmed beats to using looped breakbeats (largely from hiphop records), some producers got seriously inventive when it came to chopping up and rearranging these breaks / layering them with other sounds. Case in point: this track by HMS & Fineart under the single-release alias "Raveology".


Raveology - Who's The Cymbol

DJ HMS was much more well known for his hardcore/gabber live sets and his productions, which he released on his own Boscaland Recordings label. In spite of this, he did numerous other more jungle oriented releases on Little Giant under various aliases, including the highly sought after Ben From Del Bosca - El-Bland-E EP. Sadly, he passed away earlier this year.

HMS & Fineart also released a single on Scott Brown's Twisted Vinyl label in 1995. This EP was much more 4/4 hardcore oriented, but still had some breaks alongside the distorted kicks.
2 Men, 2 White Coats and an Asylum - 4 3 2 1

As an added bonus, here's the DR. S Gachet set where I first heard that "raveology" tune:
DR S Gachet - Live At Home Studio