Thursday 27 January 2022

Quest @ Quest, Wolverhampton 28/01/1995

 

After going to Willenhall near Wolverhampton 3 weeks ago, this week see's us going to Wolverhampton itself. The event is Quest at a club called Quest which was called Paloma's when they first began in 1991. 

For much of it's existence it was a weekly event at this venue. Then they took a break in the summer of 1994 before returning with "Out of the Darkness into the Light" which was designed to go against the moodiness that jungle music was attracting. It wasn't a success though and it then became a monthly event.

Before the end of 1995 the venue closed until further notice. A couple more events happened in 1996 before they called it a day. The venue has since become a Rileys snooker club.

The line up is very much geared towards jungle. The was Grooverider, Micky Finn, Kenny Ken and Nexus who were all very much jungle DJs and Pilgrim and Easygroove who were what I'd describe as sat on the fence between happy hardcore and jungle DJs. For the first time so far this year there is no DJ SY.

There are 3 tapes from this event, Grooverider, Micky Finn and Pilgrim. The MCs on each set aren't ones you'd associate with jungle at the time, with Grooverider it was Magika, with Micky Finn it was Ribbz and with Pilgrim it was Stixman and Ranger T.

At the beginning of the year I highlighted the Pilgrim set from Dreamscape 15 vs 16 as the set of the night. This time it's still a mixture of jungle and happy hardcore but much more leaning towards jungle. There are 2 records he plays on both sets, "In Effect" by Red Alert & Mike Slammer and "Let It Lift You" by Billy Bunter & JDS.

None of the tunes on the Pilgrim set appear on the other 2 sets. What is notable though is that the set has tunes by Luna C, Demo and Ham who are all names associated with hardcore but the tunes on this set sound more jungle.

Despite there just being 3 recorded sets, we have quite a few new for 1995 tunes. These are tunes where I've found no existence of them being released or played anywhere prior to 1995:

In Between The Lines - 95 Rampage

Law & Auder - Volume 1 Side B

Roni Size - Fashion

Rhythm For Reasons - The New Style

F.X. - The Sound Of F.X

Amazon II - Bass Light

Asylum - Da Base II Dark

Trinity - I Selassie I

Tom & Jerry - All Of My....

Special K - What's Going On

DJ Demo - Light Years Ahead

Luna C - Piano Omission

"95 Rampage" appears in both the Grooverider and Micky Finn sets, as does "Fire" by Prizna and "The Lighter" by Sound of the Future. Also appearing in both sets but as different remixes is "Some Justice 95" by Urban Shakedown.

Once again though it's the Pilgrim set that does it for me. Around this time I was into rave as opposed to specifically happy hardcore or jungle and this set captures that. It also seems apparent Quest wanted the jungle music with the hardcore vibes. 

It remains to be seen how many other sets like that we'll get in the rest of 1995.

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