UK Hardcore

Review: When breakbeat hardcore and "darkcore" were slowly morphing into jungle around 1992-93, few artists delivered quite as many revolutionary and mind-mangling cuts as Northampton's Foul Play. For proof, check out this must-have retrospective of their earliest EPs on Hypercolour. From start to finish, it bustles with proto-jungle gems, from the mangled rave stabs and boisterous breaks of "Dubbing You" and the warehouse-ready voodoo of "The Alchemist" (a kind of prototype liquid tune which also pays tribute to Nightmares on Wax's earlier "Aftermath"), to the blistering rhythms and bassbin-bothering sub business of "Screwface" and the early ragga-jungle brilliance of "Ragatere". If you have any interest at all in the development of UK bass music, then you need this in your life.