Your Heart Out 42 - Chrome Extra

HOLY NOISE – FATHER FORGIVE THEM Now that’s pretty neat isn’t it? Following The Rappin’ Reverend with a track called Father Forgive Them by Holy Noise: it almost seems as if I knew what I was doing! This is abruptly different though: a blast of mad-eyed breakbeats of the Lowlands. It’s the sound of Rotterdam, but it could easily be a contemporaneous Shut Up and Dance or Kickin release made in east London.

This Holy Noise single was written by Peter Slaghuis, who was also the man behind Hithouse who had a big, ahem, house hit in 1988 with Jack to the Sound of the Underground. After this the guiding force behind Holy Noise seems to have been Paul Elstak, who is credited with having adopted the ‘gabber’ label as the music became harder and faster. I have to confess to not being a fan of the gabber style, and I have to say it reminds me of that period after punk where groups like Discharge, Blitz, G.B.H., Abrasive Wheels, and the English Dogs became popular.

The Holy Noise tracks I’ve heard, though, are fantastic. One of their songs, The Noise, featured on the 1991 XL compilation, The Second Chapter - Hardcore European Dance Music. The same compilation featured Anasthasia by T99, a big hit in the UK for XL in the spring of 1991, around the same time (more madeyed breakbeats of the Lowlands by) Quodrophonia hit the charts: a wonderful moment in the history of pop music when it seemed anything could crash into the Top 30.

PANIC – VOICES OF ENERGY So to the end of the tape, and another song that may be more of a suggested spectral presence than actually featured on the tape. But this is perfect 1990’s pop: a bit of bleep, some mad speeding breakbeats, shuddering bass, an array of eerily familiar synth effects, some bells, a hint of choral plainsong, and a veil of anonymity. Wonderful stuff!

This Panic track was out as a 12” on the Sheffield record company Ozone and on the King Meat label. It was the work of Aubrey or Allen Saei from I think Portsmouth. There was a second volume of Voices of Energy in 1991 on Ozone, and another 12” featuring the tracks Dialated Rhythms and Last Injection for Wax Factory Productions, the label set up by the duo Smooth & Simmonds, who seemed wonderfully in the habit of calling one side of their releases the Warehouse side and the other the Factory side.

There appears to have been a steady stream of Aubrey related underground techno/house releases throughout the ‘90s and beyond. And even a brisk rummage on YouTube will be enough to persuade anyone with an interest in electronic sounds that this is music of quality and distinction. But I’m not familiar with it at all, any of it. And that’s an alarming thought. It’s not as though I can immediately pop down to the local shops to rectify this situation.

A few things have really struck me, finding this cassette all over anew: one is that surprisingly I must have been pretty fond of deep house sounds at this point in 1990, the second is that the day-glo D.A.I.S.Y. chain gang created enduringly fantastic and incredibly complex pop music which now as then sounds like a lot of fun, but above all it’s the vivid realisation that the unique blasts of energy and inventiveness from the great unknowns like The Scientist, Bassix, Break The Limits and Panic still sound so exhilarating yet seem so strangely elusive. That’s pretty attractive in a way. But simultaneously it’s