Frank-E & Mars-L – Control The Universe

Frank E & Mars L only released a few hardcore records in the mid 90s, before moving into trance - but those they did make are all amongst the best in the style, in my view. Similar in style to a lot of Lownoise & Theo's hardcore work from the same time, so this may be in part due to their help engineering - or it could be the other way around, I don't know.

But I do know that this is my favourite of the lot. Control the Universe is classic 96 hardcore - big juno riffs and a massive kick, sampling the breaks from Tim Dog "Fuck Compton", and in the middle, using a melody from Quench "Dreams" (which they then twist into something better). Hit The Deck carries on in a similar vein.

On the B side "Bust the Beat" has more junos, but this time contrasted with some nice rave stabs in the middle. But the best tune is undoubtedly the B2, "Dream On". Here, the junos are switched for another gabba staple, the Anasthasia stab, for the first part - but then as the track progresses, it takes on more of a hard trance feel, with lovely choir stabs eventually building up to an epic climax with the sample "reaching out...into other worlds!". Hearing this it's no surprise they went on to release a couple of fantastic hard trance records on another Master Maximum label.

And if the quality of the tunes isn't enough, surely the cover art makes this worth it alone? I'm not sure if appearing shirtless was in the contract for Master Maximum but it's certainly one of the most ridiculous record sleeves across early hardcore (amongst stiff competition!). It's unfortunate as it belies the fact that the actual record is one of the strongest from 1996.