DJ Boneyard – ‘Gutter Trax’ Cassette [Hound Records]

First encounter here with DJ Boneyard in the form of an eight track cassette of proper raw house. Fans of Marcuss Mixx (where’s he been by the way?), the brutal Andy Blake plates or even the Cerberus Future Technologies stuff we’ve been loving of late should flock to this.

Blown-out drum machines drive the ghetto-bass samples, pounding along at 130bpm with a Chicago house swagger and the subtlety of a jackhammer. It’s underproduced to perfection, with the minimum amount of tracks required for each joint, and tried and tested sounds used to make the patterns

And this is what we’re saying when we talk about formats for releases, as having it on cassette just makes capturing that raw analogue spirit a little bit better

I know in the 21st century with Internet and the world being connected as it is that I shouldn’t be surprised about locations of where tracks are made. That said, as someone (can’t remember who) recently mentioned in their Wire ‘Invisible Jukebox‘, no one outside of the UK has made a grime track that is a club hit in the same was as ‘Woo-Riddim’ and company. It’s all still coming from inside the scene’s originating area.

But we’re getting off point, which is that DJ Boneyard, or at least the label which is releasing these tracks, appears to be based in Gundagai. If you’re in Australia, you’re probably as surprised as I am, knowing that it’s a small country town, akin to what most Americans probably think all Australia is like. Population under 2,000, one post office and no railway as of 1984.The fact that a cassette this raw, this good and this much steeped in the Chicago ghetto-house style was made is still a fact worth mentioning, and somewhat brilliant in my opinion.

It’s the first in the catalogue for Hound Records, hopefully more to come. No press release, but one track’s made it to youtube. A few physical left at time of writing, get on it here: https://houndrecords.bandcamp.com/releases