Why does your lifestyle give you such a big smile??????

Okay, okay, okay, okay, OKAY!

If there's one question I get asked more than any other, it's "when are you going to do the Spellbound tapes?"  And, I guess no true Sydney DJ Tape Archive would really be complete without them.

I've not bothered with them til now because I had thought they were all posted online elsewhere, but with the ageing of the tape lists on the Inthemix and Oldskool forums, the links are all more or less dead so I think it's time for a refresh!

I can't understate how big a part these tapes played in my raving life.  Dancing as the sun rose to Volume 6 on top of a mega dirt mound at Sydney Park with a posse of randoms after Space Cadet 33 1/3 got shut down; first hearing Volume 7 on the packed bus on the way to and from Sunrise (Freedom 3) - wherever on Earth that party was held.

Most poignantly, though, it was listening endlessly to my pick of the bunch, Spellbound 8, recorded at Prodigy 7.  To this day I kick myself for missing that party, and the opportunity to hear that set live.  It's probably the ultimate set of 1995 Happy Hardcore tracks and Maestro D's awesome MCing spawned so many oft-repeated lines, such as the one from which this post title derives.

The collection below was not ripped by the archive.  I'm merely reposting the hard work of others.  (But I was able to provide the cover art for some of them!)  There's more to come, but I'll have to rip those ones myself.  Look out!

Download Spellbound 5 Side A + B

Download Spellbound 6 Side A
Download Spellbound 6 Side B

Download Spellbound 7 Side A
Download Spellbound 7 Side B

Download Spellbound 8 Side A
Download Spellbound 8 Side B

Download Spellbound 9 Side A + B

(The above tapes were not ripped by the Sydney DJ Tape Archive)

We're back, and we're slamming!

 

After a small hiatus following some technical issues, we're back with plenty more mixtapes and memories!  What better way to start off than with Jumpin Jack's slamming Mix CD "New NRG".  I'm not 100% sure whether this CD is from '96 or '97, but I'm putting it at '97 'cause that's when I bought it and hammered it.

This was the sound of some of the predominant clubs of the day - Friday nights at Sublime on Pitt Street (no Rewind Bunnies in those days!), early Plastic at the Palladium and Transmission.  The set is heavy on anthems like X-Cabs "Neuro" and the fantastic Jon the Dentist remix of "Stuck on a Space Trip".  Excellent!

Download Jumpin Jack - New NRG

Back soon!

After a few months technology-enforced hiatus the Archive will be back on deck soon.  Watch out!

More Pleasuredome goodness...

I was a huge fan of Pleasuredome '94 and have been eager for quite some time to track down as many sets from the night as possible.  Thanks to Rob RadioDog for posting a link to DJ Angus' set from the night in the comments on my previous Pleasuredome post, which I've not heard before.  It's a great set which contains many of the great anthems of the day and skits effortlessly between happy hardcore, more Italian stuff and even a little house.  Pretty darn good!  Also below is the DJ Vic set from the night which, while a little harder, is just as good.

I have the full Pleasuredome video floating about my house somewhere.  I'll have to work out a way of posting it to the archive as well.  It would be great to get a full archive of available sets from the night.

Do you have any of the other Pleasuredome tapes?  Hit us up in the comments or on Facebook!

On the Archive's Facebook page, there's a bit of chatter on the wall from others who have tapes squirreled away, just waiting to be ripped and uploaded.  From my standpoint I'm particularly interested in "official" tapes that were put up for sale (you know, with covers 'n' shit) and live sets from legendary parties.  Hit us up in the comments or on Facebook and let us know what you've got!

At the moment I'm trying to upload tapes I haven't caught online elsewhere, so if you're looking for something in particular that isn't on here, there are hundreds of tapes in the forums on Inthemix or the Oldskool page on Facebook.

Click here to download DJ Angus live at Pleasuredome '94 Side A

Click here to download DJ Angus live at Pleasuredome '94 Side B

Click here to download DJ Vic live at Pleasuredome '94 Side A

Click here to download DJ Vic live at Pleasuredome '94 Side B

(These tapes were not ripped by the Sydney DJ Tape Archive)

Or click here to read our post featuring Slipmatt's set from the party

Definition of a hardcore tape

This is the last proper hardcore tape I bought before moving on from the world of insane gabber kicks.  And as far as a hardcore tape goes, it's pretty darn good.  Side A is my pick.  To me it's the classic Geoff Da Chef sound - hard ass beats at around 180-190 bpms that make you wanna move.  Classic samples abound, referencing oldskool hip-hop, acid house, Dutch gabber, English jungle, movies, reggae, rare groove and more.  Side A is yet another chapter in the sound Geoff brought in "The Second Serve" and "Just Desserts".  It may be hard, but ultimately it's party music.

Things take a harder twist on Side B, where the beats slip over the 200 bpm mark and well into nosebleed territory, including some, erm, classics like "Shaftman", "Necronomicon" and the one that goes "Sex, sex, sex is the law, law, law when a guy gets a girl on the floor, floor, floor".  Without the benefit of nostalgia it's all too easy to pass the whole side off as aggressive noise.  It's a challenging listen without question, but the reward comes in realising 200 bpm hardcore is less about "aggression" and more about "release".  It's the style that takes the antiestablishmentarianism of rave to its logical (and final) conclusion.  The ultimate "fuck you" to society.

Download Geoff Da Chef "666 - Definition of a Hardcore Tape" Side A
Download Geoff Da Chef "666 - Definition of a Hardcore Tape" Side B

Happy Hi NRG at it's BEST!

"Happy Hi NRG at it's BEST!"  Yup, that's what the tape cover says.  Nothing like a rave-related tape cover, flyer or 3D World article for a bevy of wayward apostrophes, spelling mistakes and grammatical errors.  To be fair it never was about the spelling...

I never made it to Free Love '95.  It was somewhere like Blackmarket off memory.  Being (and very much looking) underage at the time, I was just a little too paranoid I wouldn't be let in to a 'real' nightclub.  Given 15-year old Anna Wood disastrously made it into Apache at The Phoenician a few months later I probably would have been fine, but how was I to know?

The Free Love parties just grew from there.  I missed Free Love '96 as well, due to being struck by a nasty flu post-FOD4, which had occurred a week earlier.   I did make it to Free Love '97 but by then I'd lost most of my raving mojo and don't remember being particularly impressed.  That party was one of those massive Minto raves and, being free, was packed to the rafters and seemed to attract all sorts of bogans, bombers and general weirdos.  I imagine Free Love '95 would have been the goods though - smallish, inner city and a little more underground than the juggernaut sequels that followed.

Download Free Love '95 Side A (Budds'n'Stoo)
Download Free Love '95 Side B (Dynamix)

Ethereal beats: DJ Popeye part II

Hot on the heels of JMA Volume I comes the shit-hot JMA Volume II: "This is Jungle".  No explanation required.  Just download, headphones, volume and kick back.  Ethereal bliss awaits...  This~this is jungle!

Download DJ Popeye "This is Jungle" Side A
Download DJ Popeye "This is Jungle" Side B