Raving in 1995

 

Alchemist & Fade - Sweet Inspiration

Now we're in the penultimate week of 1995 I thought instead of picking a rave to visit from around that time I would do a round up of the year instead.

One thing that has been said numerous times about 90s rave was that everything was happening so quickly which made it somewhat difficult to take stock of what was going on.

27 years has now passed with plenty of records from that era now a permanent fixture in my head. We also have the benefit of the internet to inform us of what happened when.

Yet despite all of this I've still found it difficult to keep up with everything. I've also learned what a useful resource Rolldabeats is now it's no longer available. It helped me keep track of what records were new for 1995 which was useful for seeing how it was all evolving.

To give you an idea, during the period Rolldabeats was available which was the bulk of the year there were a total of 871 new for 1995 records. This does not include remixes or many records which still remain unidentified plus the music generally played in the technodrome etc which wasn't as easily tracked. 

That's not to mention the sets that aren't on tape or known releases from 1995 that don't appear on any of the sets or even records that just appeared at raves that did not feature.

I've posted one of the records that fits the latter category. "Sweet Inspiration" by Alchemist & Fade was in a set a mate who pretty much introduced me to all things rave did for me. Always thought it was a great record and somewhat surprised it wasn't played at any of the raves featured.

Loads of things happened in 1995 and its a year I have fond memories of. What I've discovered thanks mainly to Rolldabeats is the set that my mate did for me that introduced me to the new world of happy hardcore consisted mostly of Dutch records. I do therefore question whether that set would have had the same impact had it been mostly English records? We'll never know.

There is the temptation to carry this on into 1996 but I'm not going to. For a start it's been very time consuming, I've had as many as 16 tapes up to 90 minutes long each to get through some weeks. Another factor though is that the first Bonkers album came out in 1996 and I've already covered that.

I do have plans for another regular Thursday post next year, but more on that to come. In the meantime next Thursday will feature Dreamscape 21 to round off the year which was the final Dreamscape before the tragic death of the Dreamscape owner Murray Beetson.