History Sessions: Rise Of The Machines (1997 – 1998)

Whilst Jump-Up heralded a return to the boisterous abandon of early 90’s rave, there was another burgeoning sub-genre of D&B that painted a much bleaker picture of British life in the late 90’s. Spearheaded by Nico’s No U Turn label, ‘Techstep’ was a sharp, angular, and gloomy foreboding sound far removed from any kind of ‘jazzy’ laid back coffee-table sophistication.

History Sessions: DnB Enters The Mainstream (1996)

In 1996, Dance music’s reign at the forefront of public consciousness had mostly been eclipsed by the rise of Britpop, with Bands such as Blur, Oasis, and Supergrass, providing the soundtrack to a distinct period of British cultural identity that had resulted in the whole “Cool Britannia” phenomenon. Bubbling away in the background however, and now freshly detached from the jungle scene (which had since sunk into oblivion), drum & bass was busy carving out its own place in this perceived cultural upsurge of the mid-90’s.

History Sessions: Rave Fought The Law, And The Law Won (1994 – 1995)

In 1994, the government introduced a bill to tackle what it perceived as the menace of rave music. Against a backdrop of widespread protest, The Criminal Justice and Public Order Act was eventually passed into law – Part 5 of which concerns ‘collective trespass and nuisance’ where it characterises rave music as: “…sounds wholly or predominantly characterised by the emission of a succession of repetitive beats.” The Act empowers authorities to stop a rave in the open air with a hundred or more people attending, or where two or more people are making preparations for a rave. In other words, police now had the power to shut down anything from the size of Castle Morton to this poor guy’s bbq.