CD Description
In the golden age of hardcore, Peterborough s Shades of Rhythm were as at home headlining genre-defining raves as they were in the Top of the Pops studio. The singles included here The Sound of Eden, Sweet Sensation, Homicide/Exorcist and Extacy are bona fide gems of the bygone era of a happy face, thumping bass and loving race. CD2 adds a stack of unreleased and hard-to-find tracks and promos, legendary in the history books of old school DJs. Shades of Rhythm - Kevin Lancaster, Nick Slater, Rayan 'Gee' Hepburn - went through at least six different chapters of their history during their ZTT years and four of them possibly the four most important are covered by this Extacy Edition of their classic self-titled album. The Soundtrack to chapter one is Homicide and Exorcist two chilling bleep overtures to the last days of Acid House that originally appeared on Frequency, their self-pressed debut album. The Frequency disc also contained tracks the band would revisit when they signed to Zang Tuum Tumb: Techno Dream, The Summer of '89 and Sweet Sensation. And when ZTT signed Shades they began issuing a stream of classic dance singles that completely side-stepped rave's cheesy, sample-driven novelty singles in favour of a unique disco/electro/techno collision. The original edition of this album would go on to sell more than 50,000 units incredible in an era when their peers were lucky to score the option on a second single. By the end of 1991, S/O/R were at number 16 in the UK singles chart with the Extacy EP (ZANG 24) and the album was reissued as coincidentally The Album, adding Extacy, Everybody and Armageddon. They can be found here, as can two alternative takes of The Sound of Eden: X-Press 2's dub and the band's own instrumental, which has previously only been available on 12 vinyl. Chapter Four of the Complete History of Shades of Rhythm, when it's finally written, will cover the post-Album period. It's 1992, rave is over. As they did with Homicide/Exorcist at the end of acid house, Lanx, Nick and Rayan recorded what might happen next. It was future rave, with an upside (Happy Feelings) and a deep, entrancing downside (Fear of the Future). Both are equally enthralling and both finally available on CD2. All the tracks from a planned (but cancelled) single, Happy Feelings (ZANG 32CD) are also here: the 7 A-side, the complete meltdown of rave in Holocaust, and Make It Better. And like Happy Feelings, the promo-only Fear of the Future 12 has also become the stuff of legend.
