Bleep

"When Bleep.com asked me to contribute a mix to their series in honour of the publication of the new edition of my book Join The Future: Bleep Techno and the Brith of British Bass Music, I quickly decided that I wanted to showcase my love of bleep & bass old and new, but also throw in sub-heavy cuts made at different points since the ‘90s – after all, one of the key arguments in the book is that bleep had a profound impact on the future direction of British dance music. The new afterword chapter, written last autumn, also references the recent wave of revivalist bleep productions, so I wanted to give a flavour of those too.

So, there are important innovators (Unique 3, Nightmares on Wax, LFO, and Sweet Exorcist), overlooked or under-celebrated acts (Rhythmatic, Tomas), a nod to the short-lived NYC bleep and breakbeat hardcore scene (How & Little), a couple of sub-heavy 1990 workouts from London (Moody Boys, the Leftfield produced ‘Difference’ by Djum Djum), a dash of bleep & breaks (Bass Culture, an early Rennie Pilgrem project), recent revivalist bleep cuts (DAWL, iNFO, Dan Piu, Tom Carruthers), some mid-90s Brummie dub house (Rockers HiFi), sub-heavy 21st century workouts (SuPaFiX, Toddla T remixing Working Men’s Club, Bakey), tons of my own re-edits (over the years I’ve amassed a sizable library of ‘Join The Future edits’ as I call them) and even a completely unreleased (though re-edited) Tuff Little Unit track, ‘Blow Up The System’. Oh, and the crazy dancefloor dub that is Alfanso’s Rob Gordon-produced ‘Dub Feels Nice (Version 4)’, which is exclusively available on the Join The Future:UK Bleep & Bass 88-91 compilation on JD Twitch’s Cease & Desist label (which is, of course, available via bleep.com).

In order to accommodate both original records and digital tracks (particularly the edits), it was mixed on two turntables connected to a DVS box." - Matt Anniss