Energy Flash - The comp?

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I am currently brushing up on dance music, as detailed in Reynolds' 'Energy Flash' book

My friend seems to think an enthusiast has put together a comp of the tracks it mentions. True? Would anyone be nice enough to trade me a copy? Cheers.

― Louise Conroy (Louise Conroy), Thursday, 11 August 2005 11:42 (twenty years ago)

There was a CD of some of the tracks given free with (UK only?) copies of the book.

― Alba (Alba), Thursday, 11 August 2005 11:46 (twenty years ago)

AFAIK the book comes (or used to come) with said CD

― droid, Thursday, 11 August 2005 11:47 (twenty years ago)

yes, uk only.

there's also a "rough guide to energy flash/generation ecstacy" lurking in the archives.

― strng hlkngtn, Thursday, 11 August 2005 11:48 (twenty years ago)

there is also a mythical mp3 set put together by an ilmer

― mullygrubbr (bulbs), Thursday, 11 August 2005 11:54 (twenty years ago)

There was a CD of some of the tracks given free with (UK only?) copies of the book.

Yeah, but isn't really a good companion to the book, because besides Nightmare on Wax's "Aftermath" and some Wu-Tang/Onyx collab track it has only early nineties hardcore tunes (the ones Reynolds obviously loves, but that still covers only one chapter of the book). If I remember correctly it doesn't even include "Energy Flash" the track.

― Tuomas (Tuomas), Thursday, 11 August 2005 11:59 (twenty years ago)

there wasn't a wutang track on it. was there?????

― mullygrubbr (bulbs), Thursday, 11 August 2005 12:01 (twenty years ago)

Well, if my memory isn't totally full of holes, there was. A Wu-Tang/Onyx joint. It was pretty good.

― Tuomas (Tuomas), Thursday, 11 August 2005 12:06 (twenty years ago)

I think Michael Daddino put together a mega-huge archive dump of death compiled from the Energy Flash discography.

― Tim Finney (Tim Finney), Thursday, 11 August 2005 12:19 (twenty years ago)

mythical indeed!

― strng hlkngtn, Thursday, 11 August 2005 12:20 (twenty years ago)

I'm sure 'Energy Flash' is on it.

― Alba (Alba), Thursday, 11 August 2005 12:32 (twenty years ago)

Anyway, the book mostly ignores German electronic music (especially trance), because Reynolds thinks it's "whiter than white" or something equally silly. If I were to do a compilation, I'd add a healthy dose of that to get a good idea what was going on in electronic dance music in the early-to-mid nineties. I can offer recommendations if needed.

― Tuomas (Tuomas), Thursday, 11 August 2005 12:34 (twenty years ago)

Yeah, now that I think of it, "Energy Flash" was on it. But still, 10 tracks of hardcore and 3 of something else isn't exactly representative.

― Tuomas (Tuomas), Thursday, 11 August 2005 12:38 (twenty years ago)

Yeah, early 90s Harthouse and IQ stuff is surely some of the most E'd up music ever (bar happy hardcore and other extreme variants/sub-genres obv.).

― Sociah T Azzahole (blueski), Thursday, 11 August 2005 12:39 (twenty years ago)

Also, he should've written something about Low Spirit/Mayday, for the sake of it's sheer popularity if nothing else.

― Tuomas (Tuomas), Thursday, 11 August 2005 12:44 (twenty years ago)

But Reynolds certainly isn't the only one who suffers from blinding anglo/afrophilia as it comes to electronic music. Usually the line of thought is kinda like this:

American producers: came up with sensuous beats for the body and futuristic sounds for the mind.

British producers: tweaked the formula into thousands of interesting hybrids.

German producers: made tons of dancefloor fodder for E-crazed Nazis.

― Tuomas (Tuomas), Thursday, 11 August 2005 12:49 (twenty years ago)

But now it's the Germans who run tings in the eyes of pretty much everybody. Talk about full circle...

― Sociah T Azzahole (blueski), Thursday, 11 August 2005 13:00 (twenty years ago)

The Italians (who always did and still do dominate the "non-minimal" house scene) were also sadly overlooked in the book.

― Siegbran (eofor), Thursday, 11 August 2005 13:17 (twenty years ago)

maybe reynolds left out the trance because it is shiter than shite

― doctor d, Thursday, 11 August 2005 13:28 (twenty years ago)

LOCK THREAD!

― Chewshabadoo (Chewshabadoo), Thursday, 11 August 2005 13:34 (twenty years ago)

It's true that in the 90s at least people in Britain didn't take the rest of Europe seriously re Dance Music, with the exception of luminaries like Sven Vath, DJ Hell, Speedy J and a couple of others (plus the big labels like R&S) - but they were hardly 'household' names, at least before the rise of the French. Trance was sneered at in many quarters. It wasn't helped by the likes of Jam & Spoon cracking the top 40 with their weaker material as opposed to the greatness of 'Stella' (I thought 'Right In The Night' was rubbish personally). Basically that sense that Trance was a big, powerful force as great as that presented by Techno artists and DJs (cultivated in the US and appropriated by UK) didn't come through. Only with the likes of 'Seven Days And One Week' did it really get big here.

― Sociah T Azzahole (blueski), Thursday, 11 August 2005 13:36 (twenty years ago)

all that early trance gareth sent me ages upon ages ago is GREAT. really nasty, ugly, riffy, too-fast, convoluted.

― strng hlkngtn, Thursday, 11 August 2005 13:38 (twenty years ago)

reynolds totally overlooked FRANKFURT!! basically the lack of germany in the book is a major oversight.

ive had this discussion with simon before, in nyc, where he called harthouse etc 'metronome music', or something. hes wrong!

― charltonlido (gareth), Thursday, 11 August 2005 13:44 (twenty years ago)

but yea, the book is fine about england and america, it just didnt handle europe as well at all

― charltonlido (gareth), Thursday, 11 August 2005 13:45 (twenty years ago)

Hang on. I don't remember it all that well, but isn't he obsessed by Belgium?

I seem to remember him saying at the end of the Detroit chapter that, however good it was, hed give up the whole thing for one minute of Belgian rave.

― Jamie T Smith (Jamie T Smith), Thursday, 11 August 2005 13:52 (twenty years ago)

i agree it is kind of criminal to leave out pcp records, tresor, force inc, mille plateuax, even harthouse. but there's acres and acres of terrible trance. painfully awful kack. i know cos i used to buy loads of it when i was a young gurning idiot. stella admittedly is a great track . there are good trance tracks. but not very many

― doctor d, Thursday, 11 August 2005 13:59 (twenty years ago)

Tracklisting as follows:

1. Aftermath - Nightmares on wax
2. Energy Flash - Joey Beltram
3. Mentok 1 - LFO
4. DJ's Unite - DJ's Unite
5. Two bad mice take you - Blame
6. Assention (to the 9th level) - Hyper-On Experience
7. We rock the most - DJ Trax
8. Bust that groove - Sonz of a loop da loop era
9. Survival (remix) - Foul Play
10. Shot in the dark (gunshot mix) - DJ Hype
11. Elements (remix) - 4 Hero
12. The Dark stranger (Q Bass mix) - Boogie Times Tribe

Good stuff but as said above rather a narrow focus on hardcore/proto jungle. Still I always thought of it as a bonus rather than a reason for buying the book.

― Billy Dods (Billy Dods), Thursday, 11 August 2005 14:38 (twenty years ago)

Hold on, I couldn't have beem imagining that Wu-Tang track? Maybe it was a bonus or something? Someone who owns the record please confirm this...

― Tuomas (Tuomas), Thursday, 11 August 2005 14:53 (twenty years ago)

If I remember correctly the main detour onto the continent is something like "then Belgium made it all psycho-metallic, which was scary, except that they came up with some cool synth effects, which sounded great when they got back into UK hands." But really, I think the book is reasonable upfront about centrally being about a particular stretch of UK hardcore, with everything else sort of referencing into and out of that.

This thread is funny: last week I was reorganizing books and put this away and put on Acen and immediately started wondering if anyone ever did an mp3 super-comp of the tracks. There's a ton of the hardcore / early-jungle borderline stuff that I'd love to hear.

― nabisco (nabisco), Thursday, 11 August 2005 14:55 (twenty years ago)

Tuomas, that is the tracklisting from the CD which comes with the book. Definitely no Wu Tang on it.

― Billy Dods (Billy Dods), Thursday, 11 August 2005 15:04 (twenty years ago)

Maybe there are different of versions of the CD then? Because I'm almost 100% sure the last track on the one I listened to was by Wu-Tang/Onyx.

― Tuomas (Tuomas), Thursday, 11 August 2005 15:08 (twenty years ago)

i've got the cd, no wu/onyx on mine either.

― jermaine (jnoble), Thursday, 11 August 2005 15:37 (twenty years ago)

so er....anymore news about michael daddinos super comp? anyone got that?

― ambrose (ambrose), Thursday, 11 August 2005 15:39 (twenty years ago)

I think that one of the reasons for the harcore focus on the CD is that the stuff is very hard to get hold of. I like the CD a lot for that very reason.

― Robin Goad (rgoad), Thursday, 11 August 2005 15:42 (twenty years ago)

Yeah, it came with the cd, but I could imagine that was the stuff easiest to licence. It's a bit of an afterthought and I keep on meaning to remove it from the cover. I can find most of the house/techno tracks, but the hardcore stuff (due to the fact that they went a bit sample crazy) is harder to track down, hence it's inflated prices down at the record shop.

I was just hoping someone was nuts enough to er...master their vinyl on to a more easily transferrable format....heh heh

The cd is wu-free. I'm pretty sure the book is too, though I'm only up to Tricky and pot.

― Louise Conroy (Louise Conroy), Thursday, 11 August 2005 15:50 (twenty years ago)

i have the daddino comp, 10 cdrs!

i also have lots of oldskool/rave/jungle/darkness business from 92-93, which simon didnt include. any particular requests?

― charltonlido (gareth), Thursday, 11 August 2005 16:49 (twenty years ago)

the cd that came with the book is weird. other than lfo/beltram, i only really like the dark stranger (that mix is great, also!). its just a weird selection, to have a sonz of a loop da loop era track that isnt peace & loveism or far out, is just obtuse! i dont think the cd is particularly representative of hardcore/jungle, or at least, he chose some quite minor tracks

― charltonlido (gareth), Thursday, 11 August 2005 16:52 (twenty years ago)

haha i think i might have to come round yrs G, ill be back in a couple of weeks.

btw, heres some old school rae promo videos, quite entertaining. made me want to hear loads and loads of this

― ambrose (ambrose), Thursday, 11 August 2005 17:08 (twenty years ago)

All of it, Gareth, all of it. Just put your whole hard drive on YouSendIt.

― nabisco (nabisco), Thursday, 11 August 2005 17:46 (twenty years ago)

10 cdrs = just 2 dvds, right?

― ambrose (ambrose), Thursday, 11 August 2005 18:55 (twenty years ago)

One of the more pernicious results of Reynolds' quite persuasive anti-trance argument is how it's lent the "it's white dance music, ergo it's not good" argument some level of credibility - this was not what Reynolds himself was getting at (or at least not primarily) and in the book he provides some useful structural analysis of how trance actually works to explain why he's not so keen on it. By contrast I now see people saying "electro-house is just slowed-down trance!" and "it's the whitest music ever!" as if these were self-explanatory trump cards that win any argument.

― Tim Finney (Tim Finney), Friday, 12 August 2005 00:28 (twenty years ago)

Anyone with their hands on the Daddino comp wanna trade? Contact me on the email and we'll talk. I can knit you some furry legwarmers to wear to your next trance rave...Cheers.

― Louise Conroy (Louise Conroy), Friday, 12 August 2005 10:02 (twenty years ago)

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