Cloud Nine* – Distant Affairs

I bought a full artwork release copy of this in Tokyo earlier this year, so I assume the Japanese release did happen. Who knows how many came out though!

This LP was intended to be released exclusively to the Japanese market, although due to sample clearance problems it never happened. Many of the tracks were exclusive to this release such as the amazing Peshay remix of ‘Living in a Ghetto’, which was arguably one of the most sought after Drum & Bass tunes of 1998. The instrumental version of this tune never found it's way on to this release as intended. Despite these vocals, the tune is identical to the instrumental and the reason for incorporating them was apparently to make the LP more saleable to the Japanese market. Even on the UK limited edition promo release the vocals are still present.

To elaborate on the note pertaining to track D2 ‘We Can Make It Happen’; in the few copies that exist of this release, the track, despite sounding similar to the sampler has a slightly different structure, arrangement of the vocals and also appears to be slightly better mixed down. One of the main differences is in the sound of the drums which clearly have a much more ‘live’ feel as opposed to the drum machine generated beats of the sampler release. This would probably correspond with the period of time during 1997-1998 when Nookie was pioneering the use of live drums in Drum & Bass and possibly decided to spruce up this track for the album release. These subtle touches only serve to enhance what was already a very good track and in my opinion make it sound considerably better than the sampler. There is no mention of the track being slightly changed and furthermore the sleeve notes make no reference to the fact that this track is actually a remix by Nookie/Cloud Nine and was originally written by NCA. The release does however credit the original NCA artists by their real names in the small print beneath the track title.