UK Hardcore charts

Review: Double B is Barry from 2-X-Treme and is surely the most famous rave producer to have come out of Portsmouth. The dance floor don wrote this one at the same time as his celebrated 2-X-Treme EP so brings back plenty of the scone pleasures of that ear. Now pressed up once more it blends breakbeats and UK hardcore across five unrelenting cuts that very much chime with the current leanings of the underground scene towards harder, faster sounds.

Review: It was way back in 1994 when original rave hero and genuinely foundational DJ Ellis Dee (real name Roy Collins) offered up his one and only 12" as Norty But Nice. 31 years on, that two-tracker returns to stores in remastered form via this coloured vinyl reissue from Vinyl Fanatiks. Lead cut 'Do You Want It' is spacey, intoxicating and - as you'd expect - breathlessly energetic, with Collins placing piano riffs, vocal samples and intergalactic electronics atop a jungle-style hardcore breakbeat and booming bass. On flip-side 'Give It To Me Baby' he opts for more deep space synths, rolling bass, deeply layered breakbeats and more rushing piano motifs. Both tracks are, of course, genuine breakbeat hardcore classics.

Review: Trust us: we know when a reissue has been done lovingly and not in a meritless way. Vinyl Fanatiks fall into the former category, evidencing their ability to turn us to fanatical vinyl proselytes in turn, with this new edition of Nexus & Blowback's 'The Cat's Whiskas'. First released on the UK label Stranger Recordings in 1992, this 12" was just one of two records to ever grace the outlet's decked-out halls; label owner Sam Tierney was also behind the short-lived fixator alias, Obsession, the other releasee on the imprint. As if to put into words the emotions and affects attached to certain lingo native to the early breakbeat hardcore scene, track titles like 'Totally Cabbaged', 'Dinosaurus' and 'Law Of The Jungle' suggest a viviparous vive, their brisk breaks, colic choirs and explosive pianos making explicit the aliveness of a ravebound youth. Also pairing the music with allusions to animalia and the jungle wilderness, the EP grows increasingly experimental as it progresses both through the thicket and back in time, with 'Dinosaurus' serving up a triassic extinction event by the hand of catastrophic synth-struments, such as buzzing square waves and nuclear breaks.

Review: Certain names in dance music do well to predict the future - and Digital Pressure is one such name. Originally released on A Guy Called Gerald's label Juice Box in 1993, this phonkout beast of an EP came via the joint efforts of producers SDR and Subsonic aka Adrian Lloyd and Kelly Bowers. The twizzling melody and tunefully sawing breaks delays that kick this one off reflect the "digital pressures" of today perhaps more so than it did back then; 'Watch Dis Space' and 'Strictly Drug Related' make unique use (for jungle) of glitching phone chip stinger sounds, reminiscent of the twinkly "coin get" sound effects one might hear on carting about an old Watara games unit. If only handheld games consoles and uncommonly sighted mobile phones were the extent of our digital woes; now we've a heck of a lot more to worry about, and doesn't the further ironically named 'Back 2 Da Future' know it with its Twilight Zone topline and clunky robo-vox! Limited run of 350.

Review: Vinyl Fanatiks latest deep dive into British dance music's rave-era past takes us back to 1993 and an early EP from Dave 'Aquasky' Wallace under the Rave Doctor alias. All four tracks were originally released - minus titles - on Stu J's influential Adrenalin Records imprint via the 'I' EP, which in recent years has become something of an in-demand item amongst collectors. Now fully remastered, the tracks sound as rushing and energetic as ever, with Wallace flitting between sub-heavy 4/4 breakbeat hardcore (the thumping 'Live With The Hardcore'), blistering breakbeat hardcore ('Shake Your Rump', which features a typical-for-the-period chords-and-sped-up-vocals breakdown), proto-jungle insanity from the 'jungle-tekno' period ('Annihilating Rhythm') and an 'Apache' break-driven slab of sub-heavy breathlessness ('Ruff In The Jungle', with its jangling pianos and hands-aloft approach).