



Source Direct (alternatively Sounds of Life, Mirage, Intensity, Hokusai, Oblivion) were Phil Aslett and Jim Baker, two teenage friends from St Albans, who between 1994 and 1999 produced some of the heaviest, most abstract drum and bass ever conceived.

In the process they pushed the boundaries of what could be expected from a music written off by the mainstream press just a few years before as ‘toytown’ rave. Along with Photek and Goldie they spearheaded a new minimal, auteur aesthetic within a scene more usually associated with the messy, practical craftmanship of scenius. And with the rest of the Metalheadz camp they cleared a space for dark music in intimate basements which reverberated through the next decade at nights like FWD and DMZ. To paraphrase Mark Fisher, they sounded like the future rushing in, but not the future imagined by Jeff Mills or Juan Atkins; this was a more dystopian future, the kind imagined in John Carpenter’s Prince of Darkness or James Cameron’s Terminator films.

Source Direct’s early experiments combined the ubiquitous amen breakbeat with the drifting pads of Detroit, and early on they were associated with the loose grouping of artists on LTJ Bukem’s Good Looking label, or more widely, the ‘intelligent’ jungle scene. Later, in tandem with the music’s darker, noisier turn in 1996 and 1997, they would develop an approach which favoured looping breakbeats over pulses of analogue bass and suspended, tense atmospherics.

Part of Source Direct’s mystique was their enigmatic outsider status; they rarely gave interviews, never DJ’d; most importantly, their records sounded like no one else, particularly the brooding, angular brutalism of their work for Metalheadz and Razors Edge. In common with fellow travellers Photek and Digital, Source Direct’s base outside London meant that they were able to cultivate a certain distance from dancefloor trends, and they demonstrated an unmatched ability to integrate the minimal attitude of, say, Robert Hood with the bass weight of the British hardcore tradition and the paranoid menace of Marathon Man or The Parallax View.

The years since their dissolution have only seen their reputation grow stronger, which is ironic, since while well-known when active they were never ‘big’ artists in the sense of having a huge hit (like Dred Bass or the Helicopter tune), nor did they ever have a significant public profile through DJing. In fact between 1994 and 1999 you were very unlikely to have heard Source Direct DJ in a club, in common with many members of the production avant-garde in jungle. Their work pre-dated the emergence of the producer-DJ model and the pair tended to outsource their tunes to the adventurous selectors around the Metalheadz camp like Kemistry and Storm, DJ Lee, Loxy and of course Grooverider, Fabio and Bukem.

“I love and own every Source Direct (including Hokusai, Intensity, Mirage, Oblivion, Sounds of Life, X-Files). I wouldn’t give them away, even for a complete KMS or UR catalogue.” – Felix K (Hidden Hawaii, QNS, 31)

Source Direct were, along with Photek, Alex Reece and Goldie, one of a handful of stand-out artists who were signed to major labels in the wake of jungle’s popular explosion, although it’s difficult to see how they could have ever sold enough units to satisfy a major; certainly there was a trend at the time of A&Rs signing drum and bass artists who were well-respected without really knowing what they were about, or really thinking what they were going to do with them.

The duo followed Photek to Virgin sub-label Science in 1996, though the fruits of that enterprise (apart from, perhaps, those identical black BMW M3s) only emerged in 1999 with the arrival of the long-awaited LP Exorcise the Demons. It’s widely accepted that this album didn’t reach the heights of their single releases and in any case the world of jungle and drum and bass had by this time changed irrevocably. Ed Rush and Optical’s crowning achievement, Wormhole, had been released to huge acclaim, and along with (to name a few) Ram Trilogy, Jonny L’s ‘Piper’ and classic LP Magnetic, DJ Trace and finally Bad Company established the dominance of the new tech-step movement. It should be noted, however, that Source Direct remained a lasting influence, for instance on the Renegade Hardware sound.

Looking back, Source Direct seem to stand on the threshold between two worlds; the relentless sonic, rhythmic and tempo experimentation of hardcore and jungle on one hand and the sleek, shark-like propulsion of of drum and bass on the other.

Jim and Phil split acrimoniously around the turn of the century. Jim went on to run the short-lived label Demonic, which was notable for putting out Al Green and Damon Kirkham aka Instra:mental’s first three releases (starting with ‘Yo Bitch’ in 2000). Phil re-emerged a few years later as Phil Source, running the Vampire label in the mid- to late 00s and DJing occasionally.

It should go without saying that what follows is a personal selection of favourites. In any case there isn’t really a bad Source Direct record, and all are worthy additions to a jungle collection.

[EDITOR’S NOTE: Where possible we’ve embedded audio for each release; to those looking to explore Source Direct’s music further, we’d recommend these mixes of all Source Direct material by The Law.]