Count myself very lucky to have gotten my hands on one of these tapes, as they absolutely flew out of Boomkat upon release. And not to make it a sore point for those that missed out, but this is probably the best £8 I’ve spent in a while.
The Hate story goes back to a brief period between 2008-2009, and a series of hand-stamped, breakbeat infused, dark bass, jungle 12″ releases, coming from the Manchester-based Modern Love family, mastered by the now legendary Loop-o. With a sound harking back to the ’90s rave vibes of jungle, added to by the anonymity behind the plates creators, it was a bit of a surprise to many when Andy Stott, G.H. and Miles Whittaker were named as the collaborative force behind the releases.
I read somewhere (though I can’t find it now) that the limited-run the series was birthed by floppy-discs found with an old sampler, purchased from a random online source by Whittaker who started messing around with them before bringing the others in. On their own Hate label, an imprint of Modern Love, the trio gave us only five platters across their short release period, but they definitely left an impact, especially those that also ventured in to grime and bass territory.
Big credit to these guys, stepping across boundaries unnamed and releasing some killer music honestly and anonymously instead of relying on their reputations as dark-techno purveyors. This is actually the second time in almost as many weeks that we’re talking about a Stott / Whittaker project, and even that one, the Drop The Vowels LP from Millie & Andrea, was highlighting them outside of their usual workings.
Like most others, I temporarily forgot about Hate once the records stopped appearing at the end of 2009. But earlier this year the trio reunited in Sweden for a live sound system performance of Hate, and were smart enough to record the occasion, and even smarter to have put it out on cassette for us masses.
Released on C80, you’ve got one side of archive tracks and a flip-side of the live performance – or at least 40 minutes of it that could be captured to the tape. And where I normally ignore the digital download side of things that may come with purchasing records nowadays, I was stoked to find all five Hate releases (their entire catalogue) bundled together as a digital bonus to be downloaded as individual digi-releases for iPod play.
The cassette released set and archive captures the rawness that the below youtube clips of Hate just don’t manage. They’ve called it Bad History for whatever reason, and both the live side archive are blueprints for what makes good music, no matter what genre you’re coming at it from. Sold exclusively through Boomkat, it seem the physical is no longer available, but beg, borrow and steal, do whatever you need to get a copy of this one, it’s pretty special.
via Boomkat
*One-off, individually numbered 80-minute tape edition, featuring a brand new 40-minute HATE soundsystem session on the A-side and 40 minutes of HATE releases from the archive on Side B. Pro-duped tape housed in customised card outer. Also includes instant downloads of all five HATE EP’s when purchased* HATE are G.H., Andy Stott and Miles Whittaker – a trio of producers with a long collaborative history of releases on Modern Love as part of various configurations from Pendle Coven to Demdike Stare and Millie & Andrea – as well as a ruck of individual projects from each of the three. After a lifetime sucking up records by Tom & Jerry, Source Direct, the 2 G’s, SUAD, Cold Mission, Skanna, Photek and a whole ruck of unmarked whitelabels, the trio started dicking about with old Jungle samples discovered in a stack of floppy discs picked up with an old sampler a few years back. It led to a series of 12″s in 2008 followed by a handful of one-off live sessions which soon enough got put on the backburner as each of the three got busy with their other projects. Earlier on in 2014 the trio convened for a rare show in Sweden and decided to put down a mix session to tape – bringing together previously unheard material. The results are before you on the A-side of this tape, while the B-side features 40 minutes of archival Jungle jamzz bolstered by that unquantifiable ferric haze.