Various – High Performance Showdown

Living in Germany, and starting listening to Drum and Bass in the late 90s, you end up sooner or later at one of the most prolific german labels here.
In my case the contact with Precision stemmed always from my love with the colder and funkier sounds of that time, even though anyone else of my fellows tended more towards either Bukem or JumpUp when going out.

This compilation marks my personal high point of the labels pretty solid back catalogue.

This is also one of those releases, that no one probably ever heard of, even though it has a pre-Bad-Company feature of Future Forces and some extremely great tracks. Tsuneari Fujiis - "Waves" being one of my All-Time Top 5 Drum and Bass tracks ever!

Makai and Future Forces Inc's Cylon is that dark, funky Roller with sweeping synths, rolling breaks and funky bassline. The breakdown after 3:30 minutes has one of the best riffs of that era! You would not believe this hasn't been released on Renegade Hardware if it wasn't released here. Kabuki and Mainframe already had a few feature that were established in '97 (i believe) that resulted in Omen, which was done in collaboration with No-U-Turn's Nico. I guess this was a similar collaboration, when Fresh and D-Bridge played out here in Germany in 97/98. It is interesting as the liner notes mention, that already Dan and Darren had left Hardware when this was released and the note hints at big things to come (which in this case was )EIB( )

Where as Cylon is quite dark and industrial, Le Mans is much much funkier. WahWah Guitar/Bass, skitty and steppy beats and a looped ambiance sample coupled with a vocal about the Le Mans racetrack, this one is surely recognizable and quite solid! The bassline is so actually so memorable that it pops up involuntarily in my mind from time to time.

Ono Sendai, another alias of Kabuki and Mainframe, has this eerie stomping beat and screeching sounds, before it drops into an hinted acid bassline. A Soulpride break in the background accompany the tune, before dropping into an frenetic and uplifting techno synthline, before dropping into straight two-step mode.

Miguel Ayala's "The Punisher" is a great funky tune, centered around an detuned jazzy, old piano loop and subtle two-step groove, before dropping into a droney, looping bassline, that carries away the filtered main piano sample. In know Miguel was heavy into hiphop and the sample is actually a hint at his love for beats and samples!

As said above "Waves" is one of the greatest track I've ever heard. It's so simple, but at the same time evokes a lot of emotion (well in me at least!). Starting of with a reverberated ambiance sample, a faint Tuvan throat-singing vocal, muted beat and hihat it gradually transforms into this acidy, but not hectic, captivating cascade of bass, that changes and meanders through the whole tune. Adding shakers and playing with all samples, before dropping into one of the calmest moments of my late teens, when the slowly progressing string sample comes in, this one always captivated my mind and imagination. Teenage angst sometimes makes you imagine sitting alone in a far away city, but this one always had that glimmer of hope in it, that i missed from that time. Listing to this today is totally different, but it is still very captivating and a soothing experience for me.

Monophace - "Main Task" is totally different from Waves and the darkest and hardest tune on this compilation. Taking cues from the Renegade Hardware Sound this one is a great Techstep track, with a well-known sample, memorable guitar riff, straight-in-your-face two-step beats and menacing bassline.

As said in the beginning, this might be one of those DnB compilation you've probably never heard of, even though there are some solid and interesting tracks on it. I'd also recommend getting the CD version of this as it features a few extra tracks of all artists, that were released before this one (Inside Straight, Deadly Nightshade, Centipede) and of course the 12" Edit of Makai's biggest hit "Beneath the Mask"!