Bukem & Conrad Essential Mix - 30 years on
Reflections around a classic set with two of my heroes
30 years ago as I write this, I stayed up until the early hours to record one of the most influential DJ & MC mixes of all time off the radio. To me at least. On a 120 minute cassette tape.
Check out Gary Scott’s upload on Soundcloud here with a decent tracklisting.
I was 17, and had already started my journey through self and music exploration. Escaping the pop music that you listen to as a kid, through various grunge, indie and metal curiosities including Nirvana and Rage Against The Machine, then onto some electronic/dance like Future Sound of London (Lifeforms being one of my first orgasmic headphone moments) and The Shamen. Thanks to a recent Billy Bunter and Mr C interview, I am feeling more ok to admit that. Before transitioning into The Prodigy, early 90s hardcore rave, jungle and early ‘intelligent’ (now labelled more ‘Atmospheric’) drum and bass.
Friday lunchtime Soundclash
Every Friday while doing my A-Levels, I’d slope off from school and pick up my mate Oli to drive down to Soundclash in Norwich in my Mini. Timing it like we did, we would get access to the freshest Drum and Bass promos before many of the East Coast’s finest djs. A huge thanks to Kal and Spenny (actually the owner Paul in the pic, who I didn’t interact with much) for always sorting the young boys out. We’d then drive back to Oli’s to listen to our latest haul and be amazed at the new sounds being created in this incredibly creative and explorative era of electronic music.
Finding Bukem
Through all the rave mix tapes, Dance Paradise and Dreamscape events and a few local events in Norwich, Oli and I had landed on LTJ Bukem as one of our key dj heros, with his partner in crime, MC Conrad. A mixture of melodic and atmospheric soundscapes against ‘rugged and raw’ syncopated breaks. Sometimes with a hint of jazz-funk. Sometimes eerily dark. Bukem was incredibly tight as a DJ, So smooth. And yet, every now and then he would unleash the most amazing and abrupt cutting from one tune to another’s slamming breaks. Often an Amen break, of course.
Essential mix legacy
BBC Radio One’s Essential Mix series was already baked into our youth with amazing sets from classic artists. But THIS was the moment. We knew it would be good. But we didn’t realise HOW GOOD it would be, and HOW INFLUENTIAL it would be. Even now, in the drum and bass production group I lurk in, many who join reference this mix as a huge catalyst or waypoint on their journey.
Pete Tong’s ‘Buck-up’
Incredibly frustrating at first, but adding to the nostalgia in retrospect, Pete Tong’s mispronunciation of LTJ Bukem (’book-em’) as ‘Buckem’ after saying ‘Danny to his friends’ with Conrad’s recording seemingly correcting Pete. It was reassuring to hear the 25th anniversary version still had the slip in it.
Devastating News at half-time
I’ve been trying to find my original cassette and digitisation as I kept the news break in it. That news break after Skanna’s incredible ‘Find Me’ was full of devastating events including a multi car pile up. It was always reassuring to me that ‘bad stuff always happens’, and ‘it will always be alright’ as JMJ & Richie’s (big up the East Coast) Universal Horn’s darkness fades in for the second half, before the incredibly beautiful ‘Heaven’ by Carlito is mixed in to bring the hope. A tune I have always said I’d liked to have playing at my funeral. Despite being an atheist. In fact, I’d be happy to have the whole mix playing despite my wife’s disdain for Drum and Bass.
Groundbreaking exclusives prompting years of digging
On Pete Tong’s intro he says that he hopes that Bukem doesn’t play too many dubplates. Unfortunately for us at the time, it was pretty much ALL dubpates. Exclusive tracks, many of which took multiple years to emerge and track down, with one of the tracks never released in the same form as the mix. It was infuriating, but also in retrospect part of what made this mix so special for us. When Oli said that he had found PFM’s ‘Rough with the smooth’ on a compilation, and got a copy of the differently versioned Oblivion’s ‘Sands of Time’ over a decade later (possibly two) it was another reminder to revisit the mix.
Smooth flows of Conrad (RIP)
Alongside Bukem’s incredibly tight mixing and epic tune selection was MC Conrad at his very peak. A mix of his echo FX and well-timed rhymes he carried the 2 hours with such grace to punctuate the key moments. I always wondered how scripted it all was. How well he knew the setlist and how Bukem would mix. It was after all, one of the only times I had heard Bukem sequence these tunes in this order, and yet he was known for having some set patterns for some of his mixes.
When Conrad passed last year it hit really hard. Partly because all of us fans really wanted Bukem and Conrad to come together again. An incredible partnership broken-up several years ago. Much speculation on that from commercial inequalities to visa issues affecting touring. Whatever the reasons, we were all gutted a reunion on stage never happened.
Does anyone have a recording of their last show?
The tunes
Of course, beyond all the theory and the deeper reflection above, it should come down to the actual tunes.
Each one of them holds a place in my heart. I have all but two of them, which I should correct. I generally don’t play them in Bukem’s sequence (almost sacrilege and a fear of never being able to get close to his mixing quality) but over the years practiced some of the mixes. And I do play most of them amongst others of that era.
They often stand out in my mixes when I play them outside of Bukem’s near-perfect arrangement. Possibly bringing forth that teen nostalgia to my aging years.
It still baffles me how or why Bukem chose such hard mixes for some of sequencing. I think that was one of the reasons it made him brilliant. Listening back again to the mix, he didn’t make it easy for himself.
Funnily enough after posting the mix on the Atmospheric Drum and Bass revival Facebook Group, someone posted this pic that related directly to one of the mixes I knew was hard.
I share the tracklisting below from Gary Scott who runs the Atmospheric Drum and Bass revival Facebook Group, full of nerdy D&B geeks like me. With some of my reflections and memories alongside.
Architex – Blueprint (Basement): a beautiful melancholy light and cheery tune that almost sounds like jazz, with Bukem cutting in the brilliant syncopated breaks of…
Funky Technicians – Airtight (Legend): one of my top 5 pieces of music, and top 3 (possibly no. 1 Drum and Bass tunes), the brilliant drum programming, leading to an epic euphoric breakdown towards the end
Fokus – Online (DeeJay): a pulsing, driving tune with
Q-Project – Instrumental (Looking Good Records): an incredibly beautiful musical tune with scattery breaks
Aquasky – Dezires (Moving Shadow): one of the cheeriest jazz-funk style tunes (albeit mine has a dodgy pressing issue on Moving Shadow) with a more mystical vibe towards the end that fits so perfectly with…
PFM – Mystics (Good Looking Records): an incredibly hard tune to mix at first because of the lack of percussion at the start (apparently mandated for future Good Looking Records releases), but one of the most incredible break patterns and vibes from one of my favourite ever producers. I remember hearing this at Dreamscape in The Rollers arena, and having a weird experience as a younger teenager at Mike Bolton’s (PFM) house surrounded by older, pregnant women after getting an invite from an older women that I was potentially going to avoid uni for to become a dancer
Wax Doctor – Finer Things (R&S): a deeper tune with more subtle melodies, which to be fair I don’t play as much, but actually still stands the test of time
Ils & Solo – In the Area (Looking Good): another cheery and upbeat tune with the least LGR / GLR cover
J Majik – Lush Life (Infrared): super deep, and ‘lush’ - one of J’s more chilled tunes
Skanna – Find Me (Skanna): tribal percussion and tough breaks before an epic breakdown and perfect vocal snippet
JMJ & Richie – Universal Horn (Moving Shadow): eery, mystical, deep and groovy drum workout
Carlito – Heaven (Creative Source): one of my favourite ever tunes (definitely featuring on the funeral list), amazing string arrangement (unsure if it’s a sample or programmed) alongside a great vocal layer with some infectious Amen cuts of…
Sentinel – Awakenings (Basement Records): a great Photek tune with some classic Photek amens and a funky shuffling beat
Oblivion – Sands of Time (Streetbeats): The one that is hard/impossible to get in this version. A Source Direct Amen workout classic which I never actually bought.
LTJ Bukem – Horizons (Looking Good Records): The legendary classic with Conrad bringing out one of his favourite rhymes before bringing in the darkness once more with…
Source Direct – Exit 9 (Source Direct Records): Another Source Direct amen classic that can be tough to listen to at first
Photek & Tayla – Soul Searching (Good Looking Records): A rare partnership of Phote with someone else bringing out some heavy amen breaks and a beautiful melodic shower before…
PFM – One & Only (Looking Good Records): another huge classic from one of my favourite producers of this era bringing a little vocal snippet with a hypnotic bassline and snappy breaks before the epic
DJ Trace – By Any Means Necessary (Dee Jay Recordings): which brings out a great visual scene of hope alongside the classic spoken word of Malcolm X before ending with
PFM – Rough With the Smooth: yet another hard-to-find PFM classic. I don’t own this, as it only seemed to feature on some compilations. Just been looking on Discogs for it.
I don’t expect everyone who reads this will appreciate all the music. At times it can still be quite heavy for some. Maybe less so over the years.
But I am sure each of you have had a similar music experience in your life. If not, I hope one day it can come.