Who remembers this one? 003: Groove Chronicles 'Stone Cold'

Probably the definitive product of the Groove Chronicles alliance of El-B and DJ Noodles, 'Stone Cold' took the two-step sound to another level. Sampling Aaliyah's vocals from her track 'One in Million', the Groove Chronicles duo gave her smooth sultry breathes into dark, hypnotic husks by wrapping them around jazzy keys and erupting the mother of all basslines midway through the track. A stone cold classic that still sounds like some dark future r&b shizzle all these years on.

Sunship on Ministry of Sound's Essential Garage show

Headliners at our next Days Like That rave, Sunship were this week's guests on the natty Ministry Of Sound Essential Garage show. There's nuff exclusives and upfront remixes from the men themselves, some proper vintage gear from Tuff Jam, Todd Edwards and Dem 2. There's also Rusko's future garage-styled 'Hold On' what we featured on the blog last week. Basically, it's the bollocks. So stream it here.

Essential Garage : 28th June 2010 : Sunship

01 : Macy Gray - Lately (Sunship Remix)
02 : Groove Control - Beautiful(Tuff Jam Unda-vybe Mix)
03 : Songstress - Seeline woman (Todd Edwards Mix)
04 : Party Hard - Let's Go(Sunship vs Chunky Mix)
05 : New Horizons - Find The Path (Tuff Jam Mix)
06 : Dem 2 - Desire
07 : D-note - Say What You Want (Sunship Mix)
08 : Jodeci - Freak 'n' You (MK Mix)
09 : Reach and Spin - Hyper
10 : Cock And Bull Kid - Misery (Sunship Dub)
11 : Hackney Soldiers - Hold Tight
12 : Sunship ft Charlise- 4u4me
13 : DJ Deller-Romantic Call
14 : Shut Up & Dance - Moving Up
15 : Youngsta - True VIP
16 : Untitled - Untitled
17 : Rusko - Hold On ft. Amber Coffman
18 : Sovereign - Chi Ching
19 : Sunship - Love Suicide ft. Robbie Craig
20 : Sunship - Saturday ft. Buzzkat

Days Like That 6th August with Sunship, Dem 2, DJ Para and more

Ok, we're back. We've been keeping it on the low down for a while, London life has kept us on the grind, but we've got our next line-up locked and we're seriously hype about it. For any two-step or garage fan, our headliners Sunship should need little introduction. And, for us, they're the perfect booking. Tracks like 'Try Me Out'  are basically a two-step soundtrack to London summertime and feel-good 4/4 bumper 'Friendly Pressure' with Jhelisa always brings a smile. And anyone that can make a post-Artful Dodger-era Craig David sound THIS GOOD gets massive props in our book. Anyway, they'll be rocking a 90-minute set - serious!

After smashing up the floor with dangerous dubs and elusive exclusives, the legendary Dem 2 are now back as residents while our mainstay DJ Para (DEA Project) is a man on a mission thanks to his fast-rising Yosh! Records project - bringing garage back into the future. Love's True Flavour from kindred East London spirits Wifey teams up with our mysterious underground hero DJ Haus for a set of vintage garage influences - think MK, Todd Edwards and beyond. And resident MJE completes our bill. It's gonna be bad all day (and night). You know what to do. Facebook event is here. We're back on it now so hold tight for more mixes, interviews and news. And some serious Sunship appreciation posts.

DJ Para Interview

DJ Para. Two-step heads know him as one third of legendary outfit DEA Project. Hip hop and urban heads know him as the once prolific and hugely successful Para Beats. His mates known him as P, his postman knows him as Anthony Hawley. We know - and thank - him for smashing up our dance time and again. And for being a general badman.

Since we booked Para for the first time last year, he's become a key part - and now resident - of all that Days Like That is about. He's got an unparalleled love and knowledge for classic garage that knows little bounds but also a refuelled desire to push the sound forward into the future. Inspired by the reactions he got when he played at our February party and a new generation of producers and ravers keeping the garage vibe alive, he's been back in the studio and writing new garage beats like this. Which we reckon can only be a good thing.

His story is a pretty epic one. He's been a restless pirate radio DJ, an underground two-step hero with DEA Project, remixed a Spice Girl (Victoria Beckham, if you're wondering) and his prolific production work has dropped everything from dope hip-hop beats to rowdy electro-house. So we thought it'd be a good idea to throw a few questions his way and find out about all that has taken him here and his recently reignited love for the UKG.

DLT: Easy Para, hope all’s good. First of all, lets take things things right back. What were your first musical influences?

P: My mum was always playing soul music around the house when I was young, so from an early age I was exposed to musical greats such as Shalama, Kool And The Gang, Marvin Gaye, Stevie Wonder, Michael Jackon and so on. I started collecting 7" singles from when I was about 5 or 6 and had a several electric pianos that my mum bought me. So I was always messing around playing keys.

DLT: What was your route into DJing itself?

P: My route into underground music and DJing started when I was very young , about 13 years old. I used to live in Kennington and many of the ‘older lot’ (friend’s older brothers and such) were into the acid house and what became the hardcore jungle scene. A lot of them were DJs on a pirate station Destiny 99.3fm which was also based in Kennington.

A few years later, I met a guy called Love Dove Jay who was on Eruption FM, and started tape mixing stuff like Acen’s ‘Trip to the moon’ then scratching. I’d seen people mix before, but scratching just blew my mind, at that moment I said to myself ‘I wanna be able to do that’. From then I bought some belt drive Citronics of him and started buying records and picked up mixing really quick.

Me and Love Dove became friends and he used to take me on his radio show on Eruption 101.3fm, which is where my taste for pirate radio started. From then on it was onwards and upwards.

DLT: What was the first garage beat that really caught your ear?

P: Black Science Orchestra’s ‘New Jersey Deep’. It's not really a garage track but back then the scene was more house and garage and this was the track that really got me into that sound. At that time I was into intelligent drum and bass, so it was right up my street.



DLT: How did you first get into producing yourself?

P: I used to DJ drum & bass/jungle/hardcore and I always wanted to make my own track but back in them days you needed a full studio to make a tune and I didn't have access to one. I remember when I was around 13, a close friend lent me a synthesiser and a four-track cassette recorder which I would use to record basic piano melodies and chords with. It wasn't until I was 16 when I was studying music technology at the Brit School that I had my first opportunity to get my hands on a fully operational studio. Brit School is were I learnt most of my technical and theoretical knowledge about music tech and composition.

DLT: The D.E.A. Project productions really stood on their own - you could always tell one from the first 8 bars. What do you think made them so unique? 


P: We definitely had our own sound that wasn’t your typical ‘garage sound’, a lot of the sound modules and synths we used were not generally used for garage and I guess our drum and bass influence also contributed to the original sound.

DLT: At a time when garage tracks were suddenly hitting the charts, DEA Project releases always felt like an underground secret - the real deal. Were you consciously trying to take things in a more underground direction?


P: No not really, we used to make tracks we liked and tried to be ourselves. Obviously there was a time where we tried to make more commercial sounding music but somehow is always retained that gritty or underground edge.

DLT: There always seemed to be a subtle jungle influence to DEA Project tracks, the deep dark warmth of the basslines, the use of clipped female vocal samples and more obviously through direct samples like Pascal's ‘P Funk Era’ on ‘Nasty Boys’ and the vocal from Aphrodite's ‘Music’s Hypnotising’ on ‘Music’s Hypnotising’ … a lot of your tracks also almost felt like soulful underground jungle slowed down to a more accessible pace… was this the intention?

P: Because myself and Lally are from jungle drum and bass backgrounds our tracks would always tend to have this influence. Lally had released many tracks in the jungle days. For me personally. I guess I was trying to fulfill my creative needs that I didn't within jungle.

DLT: Who were the jungle producers that you had the most respect for?

P: Dillinja, Goldie, LTJ Bukem, Rufige Kru, 4 Hero and DJ Crystl.

DLT: Every DEA Project fan seems to have their favourite… what’s yours?


P: ‘Come And Get It Girl’… love the b-line and scatty drums!

DLT: What were you favourite memories from back in the day? 


P: To many to mention, but here’s a few randoms

Cutting dubplates at Music House and JTS (cant’ beat the smell of a freshly cut dub)
Playing at Pure Silk at Wembly NYE 1999 to a crowd of 12 thousand people!
Climbing on roofs and putting up aerials (pirate radio days)

DLT: Does it surprise you that heads are still digging back over tunes you made 12 - 13 years ago? 


P: Most definitely. The Youtube generation has made me realise how influential my music has been. It’s funny because at the time you don’t realise what an impact you are making.

DLT:
 What do you think caused garage to fall back in the first place?


P: After people started to get number 1s in charts and stuff, the focus of everyone in the scene seemed to switch from making good underground beats to trying to get that hit record. I myself plead guilty to it. We were narrow minded. We shifted the focus off building a great underground movement and taking it worldwide to new audiences. By this time new forms of garage were evolving such as grime, dubstep and whatnot, so traditional 2step/4x4 garage was becoming less and less popular, thus the breakdown of the scene. That how I see it, of course there were many contributing factors. I could be here all day talking about the if, whats and whys, but what happened, happened. I don’t think it could have been prevented.

DLT: You seemed to drop off the garage scene around 2001, but were still involved in lots of other musical projects like remixing Victoria Beckham, dropping hip-hop beats and your fidget house/electro projects… can you tell us a bit about what you’ve been uip to recent years? 


P: After garage fell off a bit, I started to produce r&b, hip hop (for the record I had always produced hip hop, but never put anything out so people didn’t know about this side of my production). Anyway, at that time everything was about MCs and crews. UK hip hop was coming up and getting more popular, and because I had a love for it and knew how to make ‘real’ sounding hip hop beats I started doing production for artists. I had numerous record deals and at the time I was managed by 19 so work was coming in thick and fast. When Channel U first launched, I had five videos on the playlist at once, so as you can imagine things were pretty hectic.

After the Para Beats ft Carmen Reece ‘You Got Me’ track came out and didn’t do as well as expected (chart position wise), I decided to take a break from music. I had been working constantly on music for the last 10 years and I needed a break to assess my life and future direction. So I started doing web design and development for a few years, still putting out the odd track here and there, but not really being 100% engaged in music.

In 2008 I started getting into fidget house and electro stuff. It was refreshing to be back into a dance based music genre again, back to the club vibes! I released a few electro and fidget tracks in 2008/2009 which got a massive response. I am still making house music of various flavas, I will be releasing a few new tracks soon

DLT: You seem to have relit your passions for garage and have been rolling out beat after beat in the studio - what re-ignited your love for the sound?


P: Playing at Day Like That made me discover a whole new crowd of people that are into proper garage. It gets tedious playing to the same sort of people, seeing the same old faces everywhere you go. So it’s refreshing to play to people that were not necessary there back in the day, but they love the music nevertheless. They are into the music because they love it, not because its the ‘in thing’.

Having people come up to me and request obscure underground DEA tracks just confirms ‘these people are into the music proper’. Trust me I hate playing the same old tunes everyone plays, Days Like That gives me the opportunity to play quality old school beats that don’t generally get played in your average garage do. For me it’s about showcasing the best underground beats and that’s what I love doing.

Also, for me the Future Garage movement has given the music a new lease of life. It’s everything garage could and should of evolved into but didn’t. DJ Whistla (Sub.FM, L2S Recordings) contacted me and asked if I would do a remix for one of his Future Garage tracks. I heard the track and I loved it, so of course I wanted a piece of the action. I did the remix and ever since have been building garage beats again.

Don’t get me wrong I have always built garage beats even through the hip hop days. I would do at least one a year and put it out on DEA, last of which was last year’s ‘So High Remixes’. But being introduced to the Future Garage stuff has fueled my passion for producing, DJing and evolving the garage sound. There’s is so much good music about at the moment from all corners of the planet, it’s a pleasure to be able to play a whole set of completely fresh garage beats. It feels like an underground secret at the moment. We all love old school, but as a DJ nothing is more exciting than playing new underground music.

DLT: Where do you think garage can go from here? Can it stand alone as its own scene again or do you think it will only exist within its more recent successors like UK funky, modern bass music and dubstep movements?

P: I think now is the chance for the sound to stand alone and go worldwide, there are so many people discovering and evolving the sound at the moment, it’s exciting times.

DLT: 5 favourite garage tracks?

P:

1. Todd Edwards ‘End This Hate’
2. Black Science Orchestra ‘New Jersey Deep’
3. Crazy Bald Heads ‘First Born’
4. El-B ‘Among The Stars’
5. Mood II Swing ‘Do It Your Way’

DLT: What was the last track that totally blew you away?


P: I.D. and Skinnz 'Shimmy'

DLT: What do you get up to when you’re not writing beats?

P. Think about writing beats!

If you managed to get down this far then BIG UP. As that was an epic (although well worth the read, you no doubt agree). So you can reward yourself by checking out Para's new tracks HERE.

DLT Mix 002 - DJ Para (DEA Project)

Our second Days Like That mix drops from DLT resident DJ Para, who just about any true two-step head will know as one of the driving forces, alongside Richard Laleye and Lloyd E Holder, within legendary underground garage outfit DEA Project.

To say that the DEA Project are a fundamental reason as to why Days Like That even exists is a total understatement. Between 1997 and 2000, the South London outfit wrote what were in our opinion some of the best, most forward-thinking and unique two-step tunes ever laid to wax and the idea of hearing those tracks, back-to-back, at our own rave were the very reason we started up the pre-cursor to Days Like That (called - slightly naffly - Sounds Of Our Youth) last February and asked Para to come down to play. It was a dream booking. A bit of nostalgic indulgence to hark back to the days when we'd puff weed as clueless teenagers in our parent's sheds and mix red-eyed through DEA's arsenal, getting blown back by every beat. And DEA Project classics sets were not something we'd ever seen done at any other rave. So why not do it ourselves, eh?

In fact, it's always struck as a bit odd that DEA Project never really got the recognition they deserved for such groundbreaking two-step sounds. We all know just how many props the likes of Groove Chronicles and Zed Bias (quite rightly) collected for taking the two-step funk of UK garage down the darker direction that fed into the birth of dubstep, but DEA Project's legendary discography seemed to get forgotten about a bit by all but the most voracious two-step hounds.

Odd, also, because they had a sound totally of their own. Whether we're talking the bleep funk badness, sub booms and natty shuffle of 'So High', the jazzy future-soul of 'Circles Of My Life' or the cheeky cut-up funk of 'Nasty Bitch' you can tell a DEA Project beat from the second it drops. And boy do their tracks drop. If there's one thing, DEA tracks had above all others pushing that darker, minimalist two-step sound, it was the drops... find us one dance that doesn't go batshit when 'Come & Get It Girl' flips into that boomerang funk bassline and skankin' drum shuffle. Nope, didn't think so.

Luckily for you, that very track is included on this mix but, other than that, Para hasn't gone on the producer's ego trip that some might. But then Para's always been a DJ first and foremost and this is most definitely a DJ's DJ mix, sharing the sounds that have inspired him and taking us on a proper journey through UK garage and its many underground evolutions. First going right back to the soulful 4/4 garage sound that ruled the London Sunday scene and nights like Spreadlove Project back in the mid-90s, Para pushes it up into the bumpier Tuff Jam-styled sound that followed (Tuff Jam's killer remix of Soul II Soul's 'Pleasure Dome' features), before dropping into two-step with Groove Chronicles's beautifully light remix of Conner Reeves blue-eyed soul nugget 'Read My Mind', Dem 2's 'Baby You're So Sexy' and even working right into some proper proto dubstep badness. It's ruff.

Don't just take our word for how absolutely rude the selection is, though. Download the link below and work it out for yourself. Oh and come down Days Like That tonight to see the badman bust it out in the flesh. Nicely.

Days Like That Mix 002 - DJ Para (DEA Project) by Days Like That

Days Like That 30th April 2010

One week to go. Who's on it? Sign up here innit.