Darkside

When the rave went dark

Strip the euphoria out of the rave, turn the lights down and let the sub do the talking: that is darkside, the name used here for the dark, menacing strand of early jungle. Goldie recalls that "by late '92 a darker sound was taking over" and says "the darkness was Britain's new urban blues". The style is best known through a cluster of 1992 to 1994 records on labels such as Reinforced, Moving Shadow, RAM Records and Suburban Base.

Horror films, doom and heavy bass

Start with Rufige Kru's "Ghosts of My Life" (Reinforced, 1993), a tune where virtually all the rave euphoria has drained away. Boogie Times Tribe's "Dark Stranger" (Origin Unknown remix, Suburban Base, 1993) was based around a horror film, and Subnation's "Scottie" (Future Vinyl, 1993) is horror-themed too, with a deranged sense of humour.

Bass weight and rhythm carry much of the mood. Renegade's "Terrorist" on Moving Shadow flips the idea of piano rave on its head, with a doomy, gothic line lifted from Japan's "Nightporter". "The Shadow" was made by Rob Playford with Goldie. Dead Dread's "Dread Bass" (Moving Shadow, 1994) is a showcase for the thick, acidic, wah-wah-style "dread bass" sound that came to dominate jungle, all low end and pressure. The breaks could be slow, fiddly graft: Omni Trio's Rob Haigh painstakingly constructed the breakbeats of "Renegade Snares" (Moving Shadow, 1993), and he has said his early EPs were done on an Amiga 500 with ProTracker.

How hardcore turned into jungle

Rage and the name

Jungle emerged as a nascent scene in 1992 via labels such as Ibiza Records. Fabio recalls a man called Danny Jungle leading the dancefloor at Rage with shouts of "Jungle, Jungle!", and says that jungle then became the tag. Rage, the Thursday night run by Fabio and Grooverider at Heaven, opened in October 1988; its promoter Kevin Millins says that by 1993 it had begun to fizzle out. Millins also said that "people like Goldie came out of Rage". Fabio dates the shift in terminology from jungle to drum & bass to about 1996.

Terminator and the first dark ones

Metalheads' "Terminator" (Synthetic, 1992) is an early jungle classic, though the year is a bone of contention: Goldie himself places it in 1993 and calls it his "darkcore anthem", built on the buzz-saw synth riff from Joey Beltram's "Mentasm". Two more 1992 tunes belong in the story: Tango and Ratty's "Tales From The Darkside" and Bay-B-Kane's "Hello Darkness". Goldie then released "Killermuffin" and "Menance" under the name Rufige Kru.

1993 to 1994: the heavy years

1993 gave us Doc Scott's "Here Come the Drums" on Reinforced, Omni Trio's "Renegade Snares" and Rufige Kru's "Ghosts of My Life". "Renegade Snares" is perhaps the most famous anthem of the period. Origin Unknown's "Valley of the Shadows" (RAM, 1993) is the work of Andy C and Ant Miles. It is often called the darkcore prototype, and it won Best Hardcore Tune at the 1993 Hardcore Dance Awards; Andy C had set up RAM in early 1992. Among 1994 records, DJ Hype's "Roll the Beats" (Suburban Base) belongs in the same conversation.

Ed Rush, Nico and the road to techstep

Ed Rush persuaded his neighbour Nico Sykes, an engineer with his own label, to let him produce tracks together, and "Bludclot Artattack" followed in 1993. In 1995 Ed Rush released "The Mutant" with DJ Trace, and his 1996 releases, including the Techsteppin' compilation, are credited with defining the move towards techstep. "Damn Son" by Trace, Ed Rush and Nico (No U Turn, 1997) is a lesson in building tension.

Metalheadz on a Sunday night

By 1995, Goldie says, the Metalheadz label was "well up and running", and his album Timeless entered the album charts at number seven, a first for a drum & bass record in his telling. Storm, who began running the label with Kemistry in early 1995, recalled that the club Blue Note in Hoxton offered the label a five-week trial slot on Sunday nights. Goldie recalled that the first dozen or so sessions were empty. Selectors who played there included Grooverider, Doc Scott, Fabio, Loxy, and Peshay.

The roll call

• Goldie and Rufige Kru: "Terminator" (1992 or 1993, depending on who you ask) and, as Rufige Kru, "Ghosts of My Life" (1993).
• Doc Scott: has tracks on both Reinforced and Metalheadz.
• Omni Trio (Rob Haigh): he says Moving Shadow signed him for "a couple of EPs".
• Origin Unknown and Andy C: Andy C set up RAM Records in early 1992.
• Ed Rush with Nico, and DJ Trace.

The labels behind the pressure

Reinforced released Rufige Kru and Doc Scott records in 1993. Moving Shadow, begun by Rob Playford in a Stevenage bedroom in 1990, issued Omni Trio, Dead Dread and Renegade. RAM Records, Suburban Base, No U Turn and Metalheadz are all covered above.

Where darkside sits

Darkside sits between rave-era breakbeat hardcore and jungle. Ed Rush's 1996 releases are credited with steering the sound towards techstep; related darker strands catalogued on this site include darkstep and neurofunk.