Reinforced

blissblogger

Well-known member
Surely the greatest label of the first half of the Nineties.

Not just in jungle, but on all fronts.

The militant commitment to a vision-quest.... the sheer sustained strike rate combined with the relentless forward drive....

If you have a spare 19 hours....


(And that sweep through their own archival anthologies (Reinforced Presents...) doesn't include a lot of the odder stray tracks, the Enforcers anomalies, the eccentrics... nor certain artists who could easily warrant a Reinforced Presents... e.g. Nebula II)

(Nor indeed the enormous Tom & Terry tuneage)

But what about Reinforced during the second half of the '90s?

I carried on loyally buying a lot of their stuff - not loyally, really, just genuinely excited by things heard in the store (by that point usually Breakbeat Science the NYC hub for the city's junglists)

However very little of it has stuck with me - in the sense that I literally can't remember it.

Part of it is that tracks by Arcon 2 or Sonar Circle or whoever, the tracks get so convoluted and dense with editing and processing, they actually defy memory.

Also they weren't things you'd hear played out, like, ever - so no memories got attached to them.

So the last thing from that camp that really stuck with me is actually not technically on Reinforced - it's the Jacob's Optical Stairway album, which came out on Crammed or something like that.

Reinforced proper, would probably be the Cold Mission stuff.
 

thirdform

pass the sick bucket
I carried on loyally buying a lot of their stuff - not loyally, really, just genuinely excited by things heard in the store (by that point usually Breakbeat Science the NYC hub for the city's junglists)

However very little of it has stuck with me - in the sense that I literally can't remember it.

Part of it is that tracks by Arcon 2 or Sonar Circle or whoever, the tracks get so convoluted and dense with editing and processing, they actually defy memory.

Disagree, if you're benny b sure but I listen to Turkish music.
 

DLaurent

Well-known member
I bought a lot of the second wave stuff. Not something I return to like the early stuff. I was full of more anger back then and liked the dark tech step and drum funk stuff. But, the hardcore stuff I loved way before then. Manix and stuff as a kid. Being a bit late to the party it was years before I heard the Baby D track sampled in Oblivion. I have a few weird choices for tracks that I return to now like Paradise Lost (Last Action Hero) with the rainy synth and machine gun snare.
 

luka

Well-known member
the dj hype stuff on sub base is literally objectively 25 million times better tho
 

thirdform

pass the sick bucket
the dj hype stuff on sub base is literally objectively 25 million times better tho

to be fair, you're only saying this because you have fond memories of listening to hardcore-jungle pirates from 91-94 in your teenage years. I would surmise that were you in your mid 20s, you would have hated all jungle and seen as it as irredeemably tainted by club culture.

I mean Hype sets from 92-93 are full of manix/4hero gear, so its not a competition anyway.

and to answer @Corpsey 's point here that he made a few years back, the reason why dissensoids can't really make dance music is precisely this, because they don't have the patience to stick with their genre of choice through thick and thin. Poptimists want immediate impact, and lack a notional sense of the cool.
 
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subvert47

I don't fight, I run away
But what about Reinforced during the second half of the '90s?

I carried on loyally buying a lot of their stuff - not loyally, really, just genuinely excited by things heard in the store (by that point usually Breakbeat Science the NYC hub for the city's junglists)

However very little of it has stuck with me - in the sense that I literally can't remember it.

Part of it is that tracks by Arcon 2 or Sonar Circle or whoever, the tracks get so convoluted and dense with editing and processing, they actually defy memory.

Also they weren't things you'd hear played out, like, ever - so no memories got attached to them.

1996-99 is actually my favourite period Reinforced, when people like Arcon 2, Alpha Omega, Sonar Circle, G-Force & Seiji were coming through, along with older producers updating their sound (Chris Energy, damn!). I have everything from the second half of the 90s (about sixty 12s and LPs) and it's all superb. Other labels were bringing out stuff of a consistently high standard too (not least Metalheadz), but no one was pushing it as much as Reinforced. Those records are just fantastic (y)

True, they weren't being played out all that much, but if you've ever heard, for instance...



...blasting out of a club rig, it's like "what the fuck is this?!?" 😶
 

thirdform

pass the sick bucket
1996-99 is actually my favourite period Reinforced, when people like Arcon 2, Alpha Omega, Sonar Circle, G-Force & Seiji were coming through, along with older producers updating their sound (Chris Energy, damn!). I have everything from the second half of the 90s (about sixty 12s and LPs) and it's all superb. Other labels were bringing out stuff of a consistently high standard too (not least Metalheadz), but no one was pushing it as much as Reinforced. Those records are just fantastic (y)

True, they weren't being played out all that much, but if you've ever heard, for instance...



...blasting out of a club rig, it's like "what the fuck is this?!?" 😶

100%. We're totally on the same page here. The Accused - Session 2 is also immense. Like a genuine merger between drexciya electro funk and dnb.

And the Chris Energy Sound Architects 12 is exactly where jazz jungle should have gone. smooth scrumptious breakbeat freaks at the ready.
 

Sectionfive

bandwagon house
These guys were around for the infancy of jungle and bruk, Detroit and New York absolutely love them and they are still knocking out 13 minute groovers so you can jump off the decks for a piss. What a contribution to the culture.
 
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