The Story Behind #SMD

Rewind back to the beginning of 1993, and the two biggest years of Rave for me so far had just passed… ’91 and ’92 were a rollercoaster ride of continuously travelling up, down and across the UK performing DJ sets and SL2 shows with occasional trips to the USA, Japan and various European destinations thrown in the mix to boot. That’s not to say things never got busier, because they did and probably still are, but there was a massive change happening deep within the roots of our music. By the beginning of 1993 the bright lights of Rave and the spotlights on the music that had taken the pop charts and commercial radio by storm were starting to dim down and darkness was gently falling over the Hardcore Generation. Jungle and The Darkside had suddenly replaced the uplifting techno riffs and piano heaven of Rave, snowballs had replaced doves, and there was a whole new attitude emerging. This was the major start of all the genre splits that we have experienced over the past 20 years within our scene.

By 1993 Rave music wasn’t really hitting the pop charts anymore so myself and Lime decided to go back to releasing our own music on our own label ‘Awesome Records’. XL recordings who released our SL2 tracks weren’t really interested anymore anyway which was understandable, and we were happy to keep things real and go back underground with our beats from whence we came. I was really in to the Jungle sound and did also enjoy the solemn strings of the latest darkness fad, but there was an unstoppable urge inside of me that needed to escape. I made a few tracks with Lime under the artist name T.H.C. but deep down I knew I had to go off and make some music on my own to satisfy my desire for a different, more solid and uplifting sound.

So the time had come to take the plunge and I went and bought my own fully expanded Atari ST1040 computer and a top of the range Akai S1000 sampler and then set them up in a bedroom at my parent’s house in Chigwell Row. I was off! Lime did most of the computer programming with the SL2 tracks so it took me a few days to get to grips with the computer but once I had sussed out a few of the basics there was no stopping me… and my new personal sound was taking shape very quickly! One of the biggest tunes that had inspired me up to this point was ‘Edge#1 – Compounded’. For anyone who knows this stomper of a track as well as SMD#1 I’m sure you will be able to hear the connection. Actually, the whole reason for producing the first SMD tracks was purely to have some of my own, more uplifting, music to play out and to keep it exclusive to myself. I had cut both sides of the first release on dub plate way before I released them on vinyl in July 1993. It just got to the point where I had so many people bugging me for copies of the 2 tunes that I eventually decided that I would be a fool not to press them as a 12” single.

And that was how the SMD series came about. It was just the simple idea of making a few personal tracks for myself that turned in to what was a major part in the beginning of Happy Hardcore. The name SMD was made up by myself under pressure one day from the cutting engineer, Keith, at JTS Studios in Hackney. He needed the title for SMD#1 there and then or everything would have been delayed. SMD is short for Slip Matt’s Dubs which is what they were originally intended to be, and that’s all I could think of at the time lol.

In all there were only 4 original SMDs pressed on to vinyl across 1993 and 1994 but for some mad reason I thought it would be nice to make a #5 all these years later as a bit of a collector’s item for the Happy Hardcore and Rave fans that still love their music and mixing with vinyl. There are 2 tracks on the AA side that were made in 1996 and 1998 which were only ever cut to dub and released digitally, and I’ve made a brand new track for the A side to keep it nice and fresh at the same time. This is the last ever vinyl release for SMD and it’s strictly limited to 500 signed copies, so if you do want a copy please don’t wait around as they will definitely sell out very quickly, in fact while writing this I can say we’ve already sold over 300 copies in just 3 days so time is running out very quickly!

There are also some t-shirts and hoodies that are exclusive to the vinyl offer and will never be available to purchase separately. Every vinyl will be signed by myself.

You can pre-order or purchase your very own signed copy of SMD#5 here: 

>> CLICK HERE TO BUY THE SMD#5 LIMITED EDITION COLLECTORS VINYL << 

...from just £9.99 +P&P.