SOLID FOCUS – METALHEADZ

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The Birth & Growth of This Inspiring Music Label! Junglists, Drum n Bass Heads, Anyone Who Wants to Build Your Own Music Scene – This is a MUST READ…

In our monthly Solid Focus series we take a specific topic, selected by our SD Crew from anywhere in the expansive world of electronic dance music and place it under the microscope for your viewing pleasure. This month our Solid Focus falls upon the realm of Drum ’n’ Bass and it took our Crew all of 5 seconds to decide exactly what we’d like to set our sights upon…Defined by many as the seminal Drum ’n’ Bass label (and we’d have to agree, especially following the hours spent researching this Dose for you). So, if there’s one label that knows how to burn out your pacemaker it’s these guys, no further introductions! This month’s Solid Focus is on Metalheadz…

THIS DOSE IS DELIVERED TO YOU BY CREW MEMBER: SONNEX

What it Took to Give Birth to Metalheadz…A Head of Metal

Metalheadz (or Headz for short) status in the lore of hardcore electronic dance music can be strongly attributed to the label’s owner and co-founder, Goldie a.k.a Clifford Price, without whom the Jungle/Drum ’n’ Bass sound may not have ever broken into the mainstream where it is now thriving in the UK scene. An inspirational individual as demonstrated by his recent affiliation with TEDx, and yes, he’s still at the helm after 20 years.

Origins of the Metalheadz label stretch back to early 1990’s: Goldie had made headway into the UK graffiti scene using his talents as an artist and got tuned in to the underground hardcore scene by DJ Kemistry. Hardcore music at the time was centred around Breakbeats, most notably the infamous ‘Amen Break’ which was soon to become the epicentre from which Jungle music would evolve – Want to know more? Well then check out this link for a 15 minute dose of music history! Goldie locked into the scene and made his first outings as a producer alongside pioneering Jungle duo 4Hero who were pushing this new genre of Hardcore in the UK where the Breaks were being deconstructed and spliced back together at BPMs unheard of at the time.

Hardcore music at the time was centred around Breakbeats, most notably the infamous ‘Amen Break’…the epicentre from which Jungle music would evolve…

His first dose to make a solid impact on the scene was Terminator and it was also the first major outing of the moniker Metalheads from which Metalheadz would take it’s namesake. Despite not being released under the Headz imprint there’s absolutely no way we could overlook this formative dose for the UK Jungle scene…

Breakbeat and Jungle still remain clearly intertwined in Terminator: it’s pace sits a good 10 bpm off the usual 160+ bpm common to later evolutions of Jungle and eventually Drum ’n’ Bass, plus there’s even a cameo from those pulsating synth stabs made iconic by the incidentally in-vogue UK Hardcore magnates, The Prodigy, in their debut distillation, Experience.

…you’d perhaps be forgiven for not telling Terminator apart from other hardcore breakbeat music which exploded along with UK rave culture following the Second Summer of Love in 1988…

Now, if you’re listening with fresh ears or simply didn’t experienced it first hand, you’d perhaps be forgiven for not telling Terminator apart from other hardcore breakbeat music which exploded along with UK rave culture following the Second Summer of Love in 1988…but so that you know; what tells this dose apart is it’s ‘darker’ sound imprinted by Goldie, which not only became the crux upon which his Metalheadz label would develop it’s sound and artists, but also helped to stimulate the early divergence of Jungle/Drum ’n’ Bass from it’s not so distant hyper-energetic sibling, Happy Hardcore, a genre which you can read more about in this loved-up Vice article.

What Goldie and his co-producers also demonstrated with Terminator was their ability to develop the UK breakbeat sound into a new sound with a different musicality – this ongoing evolution of the genre is what really defines Metalheadz for us…around a year later Metalheadz, the label, was born and it’s transformation of the Jungle sound from a breakbeat off-shoot towards the Drum ’n’ Bass behemoth we know and love today was soon to follow.

And so, the Metalheadz Dosage Distribution Began…

Initial releases were Jungle orientated owing to Goldie’s original ‘schooling’ in the scene and the form of the fledgling Jungle genre at the time; sampled breaks and their manipulation/re-editing together to produce all kinds of numerous beat patterns was still king, but now the Metalheadz sound began to develop, further and further with each release.

On the first release, MH001 V.I.P Drumz/V.I.P Riders Ghost, the darker Metalheadz sound can be heard on the A side, but on the flip, under his Rufige Kru alias, Goldie delivered an early example of a different sounding track, starting to show hints of what could of and has become of Drum ’n’ Bass. Riders Ghost has a more continuous groove making it a nice roller and well worth a listen.

Metalheadz were creating a buzz bigger than Heisenberg’s blue and aspiring, now legendary DJ/Producers flocked to the label.

Metalheadz grew in stature throughout the early nineties and underground rave scenes throughout the UK all wanted a dose of the grade A Jungle vibes that were coming out of places like Bristol, Brighton and London; whether it was the intense but ineffably danceable raves, or Goldie’s magnetic presence (an ironic statement some might say) Metalheadz were creating a buzz bigger than Heisenberg’s blue and aspiring, now legendary DJ/Producers flocked to the label. The label’s sound became more diverse and expressive; elements of Jazz and Funk in the mid 90’s Metalheadz releases by DJ Peshay, Doc Scott and Alex Reese brought the beginnings of distinctly Liquid Funk vibes which are still mesmerising.

Through Metalheadz, guys like Dillinja, J Majik and Hidden Agenda were able to help push Jungle and it’s sample/cut/rework of the amen break ground rules to the limits, none more perfectly than Photek with Consciousness, a track which for us still stands up today thanks to it’s look towards the future of the drum ’n’ bass sound. For an insight into this practitioners mind, over at DJ Kicks, Photek talks about the start to his career and also his recent contribution to their DJ Kicks Mix series.



Once at the limit it was none other than Goldie himself who in 1995 put sampler and mouse-click to DAW and produced one of the defining albums of both Jungle and Drum ’n’ Bass; Timeless. The title piece is so important to us in fact that our very own Saundersz intends to do it justice with a full future dose, so for the time being here’s another track from it to serve ample example of our next point; Timeless demonstrated new heights of musical expression in a maturing genre and not only marked the eruption of Jungle from the underground into the overground mainstream but also the acceleration of Jungle’s transformation into the Drum ’n’ Bass behemoth still evolving today.

The releases came thick and fast off the back of Timeless. Goldie was propelled to near superstar status through his affiliations with Pete Tong and the Gallagher brothers but despite this the popularity of the label in the underground scene only ever increased; the integrity of the labels sound remained strong and under Goldie’s direction undiluted by mainstream success.

Our stand out track to follow in ’95 was Alex Reese’s straight forward groove in Pulp Fiction.

Minimal, Deep, Dark and Undeniably Heavy; gone were the breaks all that was left was the rolling bassline, female vocal and those oh so refreshing trumpet licks. This minimal sound surely met with mixed reviews from the hardcore Jungle fans, but it was undoubtedly a breakthrough hit for the emergent Drum ’n’ Bass genre and minimal DnB now finds it’s deserved place in many modern releases.

MetalHeadz Medicating the Masses from 1994 – Present Day

UK bassheads were addicted and have been ever since; so what have Metalheadz dosed out in the years following the ’94 inception and heyday of ’95 that have kept us so satisfied? Well of course we can highlight some for you guys needing that instant fix and we also found this nice run through of 25 tracks over at DoAndroidsDance.

Here are our highlights…

’96 Peshay – On the Nile – Jazzstep at it’s unassuming best; a beautiful amalgamation of modern and classical music. From the first flute trill onward, each and every bit of ornamentation sounds stunning, so much so that we had to dig a little deeper into just where Peshay sampled from – Claude Debussey’s – Srinx, if you don’t want to ‘click’ – and some Jazz flutes we couldn’t quite track down.

’97 Optical – To Shape the Future – Even if it’s simply for it’s statement of intent, this dose from Optical is hard for any heavy DnB fan not to love. Considering the year of this release it’s got some astounding sound design going on and if you’re a lover of Neurofunk then you’ll do well to find a cleaner example of your beloved distorted basslines any earlier than this. You can see an example Neuro bassline being made over at Sound to Sample, just remember Optical would have had to wait a decade for NI’s Massive plug-in to show up.

…then 4 years later, after a period when you thought Liquid Funk/Jazzy drum ’n’ bass might have taken over at Metalheadz, John B came smashing in with this 90’s throwback reworked for the new millennium; a perfect circa 2001 comparator for how far Drum ’n’ Bass and production skills had come since those Hardcore years.

’04 True Romance – DBridge and Vegas – Crunchy synth over a moody bassline with punchy breaks, delivered by two of the original quartet who formed the DnB super-group calling themselves Bad Company?…Need we say more?…Oh yeah and the flip is no slacker either.

’07 Call to Mind – Commix – Incredible album, here’s just one of our 8 favourite tunes from this 11 track album. Yes it’s that’s good. You best check out Talk to Frank as well by the way!

’11 Twisted – Rido – just an amazing tune from one of our favourite DnB producers at present. Coming from a Dark and Neuro style background Rido has really shown he can also churn out medications with mass appeal; rock solid breaks and sumptuous swelling basslines which sit right on the cusp between Neuro and Jump-up, all wrapped up with gorgeously combined piano, strings and vocal melodies…this track really has it all going on. The 2012 VIP release really lays it down in a bold new direction as well.

Finally, since we know you have lives to get on with we’ll bring your prescription up to date with the last of our highlights coming from Dom & Roland – one man and his drum machine (Roland) who has been practicing some of the darkest and most delectable DnB in the genre since, well, pretty much forever. One word for this guys tracks would be Gigantic and this is no doubt down to him being in the game right from the beginning; signed from the get go to Moving Shadow (another imprint counted along with Headz as being part of DnB’s DNA) Dom has been a mainstay of the darker sound in Drum ’n’ Bass fuelling the sub genres, Techstep and Hardstep – yes there are so many damn sub genres!

…it’s no wonder Dom decided to bring these to Headz’ attention, both fit the imprint like a glove…

’13 Unofficial Jah – Dom & Roland – Saving his first release to be backed by Metalheadz for around 17 years may seem strange but not after you listen to the two dance floor destroyers on this release – it’s no wonder Dom decided to bring these to Headz’ attention, both fit the imprint like a glove. The especially out of this world high strung synths, that we hope you recognise catching your ears, make Unofficial Jah the stand-out for us – clearly demonstrating the Metalheadz sound hasn’t lost any of it’s potency – Jungle is still massive!

So Thank You Metalheadz…

Jungle, Drum ’n’ Bass and the UK scene owe you health insurance payments – you’ve kept us dosed up to the eyeballs for over 2 decades and it still feels as good as ever…maybe even better than ever?

One final gem from the SD Crew for you guys is this oh so sweet nostalgia trip back to the golden days when the Headz crew took the UK rave scene by storm with Jungle as their ammunition.

Despite this dose of history hitting you like a slug of cheap Speed (no doubt the directors intention and you’ll see what we mean!) and looking like an advert for the group of guys you’d least like to see at your 15th birthday go-kart party, this captures the energy, passion and balls to the wall hardcore attitude of the early Jungle years…we for certain were left feeling sad and emotional once it was all over…Pure Solid Gold.

SO HOW’S YOUR HEADZ FEELING NOW?

Got some vital signs for this label that we should know about too?

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Thanks for supporting the blog! – SD CREW