Sour Records Profile

The story of SOUR Records started way back in 1985 when a guy called Dave Stone, co-owner of SOUR, was living in Amsterdam, Holland. At this time his business was the jewellery trade, jetting off to Thailand once a month to buy supplies, then returning to Amsterdam to sell it on. Whilst living in Amsterdam, Dave became involved in a band and it was through this association that he met Norton Blue, who is the other half of SOUR Records. As time went on Dave and Norton came to know each other better, Dave became aware that he and Norton shared the same musical vision.....

So in 1986 they both decided to leave Amsterdam and return to London to pursue a musical career. They met up with another musician called Aaron who played the saxophone and became part of the band. The breaks then were few and far between and after much discussion the trio decided to fly out to Thailand where Dave had many contacts and friends. At this time the Thai music consisted of The Beatles, Rod Stewart, etc. Dave Norton and Aaron quickly set about putting together a demo tape. Armed with their demo tape they met up with Gasten Goosens who worked for Clarke Technique, who are a big audio company in Thailand. Impressed with their work, Gasten decided to allocate them some studio time. The boys called their band The Big E and went on to record an album entitled ‘Mightier Than Mike’, featuring the iron man Mike Tyson on the album cover. After a couple of years in Thailand and with an album under their belts, the boys returned to England to see what response they would get from the album. Unfortunately the response was not good, indeed it was very bad. It seemed that the past three years were completely wasted.

It was now 1989 and Dave was penniless and back in London. He got himself a job at a youth hostel where he earned £60 a week. Still driven by his love of music, Dave invested £40 towards studio time and the other £20 towards food. Together with this friend Norton they formed a new band called KTP and recorded a new demo tape. They met up with the A&R man for Beggars Banquet aka XL Recordings, Nick Hawkes, who got KTP signed to Dave Lee (Joey Negro). Soon after they signed, Tim Jeffreys, a music journalist for the Record Mirror, gave them some major press coverage. This exposure lead to a £40,000 publishing deal with Virgin Publishing. The ball was beginning to roll, Dave and Norton’s persistence seemed to be finally paying off. Then, out of the blue, Republica Records whom they were signed to, suddenly went bankrupt leaving the group in a publishing deal they could not free themselves from due to legal reasons. In the meantime, the boys not content with sitting still bought their own equipment and set up a studio in the Kings Cross area of London, and they named it Trinity Studios. Months later, to their surprise, an amazing piece of luck came their way when Virgin Publishing was bought by EMI, freeing them from their contract. This was great news and meant they could forge ahead with their own project.

By 1990 Trinity Recordings were formed and incorporated a branch off Dance orientated label called ‘DJ Only’. This dance label was run by SOUR employee and artist, Levi. The first signing on the DJ Only label was a group called Bass Selective. They released a track called ‘SFK’ which translated as ‘Southern Fried Kickin’. SFK was a 4 track EP and the B side had a track called ‘You Had It’ featuring Elizabeth Troy, which became an anthem. Further releases on the DJ Only label were from Bass Selective (second release) and Gangsta Kid (third release). In December 1992 Shy FX came onto the scene. He started out as a trainee studio engineer in the Trinity Studios, but was sacked by Dave Stone as Shy did not like the mundane side of the job, such as cleaning and making tea. After a long discussion between Dave and Shy it was decided that Shy would be allowed to work in the studio and produce his own tracks. It was Shy who co-wrote and produced with his friends Gunsmoke, the third release on ‘DJ Only’ records, the infamous ‘Gangsta Kid’. This track provoked amazing reaction from the scene as it sold out within three days of going on sale!

At the end of 1993 SOUR signed another artist to the ranks in the form of T-Power who was previously in Bass Selective. T-Power had written a track called ‘Lipsing Jamring’ which at the time was a personal favourite of DJ Grooverider. It has often been said that this track was one of the innovators of the Drum & Bass scene as we know it. At the time of its release sales were low, as Ragga Jungle was the ‘in’ thing and T-Powers’ style was wider scale Drum & Bass. But since then sales have reached over 31,000 since ‘deep’ Drum & Bass from the likes of Bukem and Fabio catapulted the music to its current status. After the T-Power project, SOUR released two Ragga Jungle tracks and it wasn’t long before SOUR Records were stereotyped as a Ragga Jungle label. This was not a fair reflection of the SOUR teams vision. It was in 1994 that Vince Medley, the A&R man at SOUR, set up a meeting with a rapper called UK Apachi. This led to a studio session between UK Apachi and SOUR’s Shy FX. Little did the SOUR crew know that this young rapper had been secretly putting together a track with the same rhythms from the Gangsta Kid record. It took just one studio take for Shy FX and UK Apachi to construct a track everybody had heard, yes you guessed it, ‘Original Nuttah’. The SOUR team promptly listened to the result of this session and were completely blown away, realising they had a hit on their hands.

The summer of 1994 was heralded ‘The Summer Of Jungle’ as tracks like ‘Original Nuttah’ and ‘Incredible’ stormed the national charts, with commercial radio stations rinsing them out. All of a sudden media crews from across the globe sat up and wanted to know more about this sudden musical emergence from the street. Nothing had been seen like this since Hip-Hop blasted out on New York in the Eighties! Following on, SOUR released their next track, which was ‘Greater Love’, produced by Don Lloyd and Soundman featuring Elizabeth Troy, and this also became a big hit. With a string of successful tracks under their belts, Dave told me how the scene began to accuse them of selling out to make a fast buck following the sudden mass interest in Jungle music. Dave and the SOUR crew continued their efforts despite the criticisms. To further their involvement in the scene Dave decided it was time to take the music to other markets such as Japan, USA and Germany. This culminated in a number of excursions abroad to put on showcase events. The tours abroad involved ALL the artists and employees of SOUR Records in an attempt by Dave to bring the whole team closer together and ensure that the working relationships would grow stronger. One of the showcase events was held at the infamous Club Limelight in New York where 2,000 people stood in awe as this ruff new underground Jungle sound boomed at them. It was almost as though they didn’t know how to dance to the music. To help the US crowd on their way, SOUR members Shy FX, Dave and a couple of others, mixed amongst the crowd to show them how it was done and soon the whole place erupted as the SOUR boys dropped tune after tune!

In 1995 a new sound was experimented with by T-Power when he released a track called ‘Mutant Jazz’. This track was A-listed by Kiss FM in London, which meant that it was played 5-6 times a day leading to sales of more than 7,000 copies. This was clear evidence that the SOUR crew were on a mission to prove that the scope of Jungle is much wider than the infamous sounds of tracks like ‘Original Nuttah’ and ‘Incredible’. SOUR continued their showcase events abroad in 1995 with their close knit unit that now consisted of DJ Trace, T-Power, Shy FX, MC Det, Elizabeth Troy, L-Double, Dave Stone, Vince Medley plus dancers when the budget allowed. Dancers were mainly employed for the foreign excursions to show the crowds abroad how to dance to the Drum & Bass sound. One of SOUR’s best loved overseas trips was to the world famous Love Parade street festival which takes place once a year in Berlin, Germany. An estimated 300,000 people attended last year during the day, where floats with sound systems on them travelled through the streets of Berlin pumping out their individual styles. At the onset of night time, a seemingly endless amount of all night parties are held across the city. In all there were 33 floats on offer during the day, 32 being Techno and Trance systems, and the other one? Yes, you guessed it, was the SOUR crew!! Their float was two floats behind Germany’s Techno connoisseur Sven Vath. Tearing up the Berlin streets for SOUR were MC Det, DJ Trace and Gunsmoke. Apparently the SOUR float crew said they felt many bad vibes from the other sound systems because of the music they were playing. But undeterred they carried on proud of the Jungle sound.

During the evening a party was staged by SOUR for 3,500 starving Jungle maniacs with an overwhelming response from the German crowd who attended. The crew met a guy called Uli Sabel who owns a Drum & Bass outfit called DownBeat in Germany, and Uli said he was shocked and pleased to see the SOUR crew tearing it up in Germany! Pushing the Jungle scene abroad was an extremely difficult task, and Dave respects the man like Goldie for his hard work, especially on his recent tour with Bjork. Goldie went around clubs trying to get in and play the music he so loves, and surprisingly he managed to get in and play at most of them. Such dedication and determination is what Dave believes helps the scene to progress and advance, and respect is issued to every artist, DJ and promoter who works with and for the music! Back to SOUR, and in mid ’95 a new label was formed called ‘E-Motif’. The music policy of this label is free-from Drum & Bass, taking any form and direction but remaining close to the Drum & Bass forefront. The E-Motif label did not want to be associated with Ragga Jungle and made a decision to drop it. The reason behind this was simply because the Ragga stuff had had its day, plus the SOUR boys did not like the attitudes that came with the music. Dave from SOUR comments, "There is no long term thing in being a rude-boy, there will always be someone who is badder than yourself! SOUR is not about bad attitude or bad vibes, we don’t want that, and that is why we have turned our backs on that particular style. Music has to be positive, not negative!".

In August 1995 Dave took a week off his demanding schedule to go and stay with his girlfriend in Newcastle-Upon-Tyne. Whilst there Dave checked out the local record shop, Bass Generator, to see what music was on offer. He picked up a flyer which advertised a Jungle night called Telegraph, which was to be held at a public house in Newcastle. On the flyer was Hidden Agenda (who are signed to Metalheadz) , and Elements of Noise, who are two local guys called Justin & Alan. Dave’s curiosity lead him to the venue where he got chatting to the guys from Elements of Noise. After the event Dave went back to their place and listened to more of their work, and immediately set about negotiating with the boys to sign for the SOUR label. I asked Dave what his views were on the segregation of the Rave scene, i.e. Jungle, Techno, Hardcore and House all going off in their own directions?

"Personally I believe the scene is big enough to cater for each style. I don’t like the idea of big events trying to fuse the music back together, like having Hardcore and Techno DJs playing in the same arenas. I say forget big raves and let’s go small again with clubs such as Speed and Blue Note, so that the punters know what they are getting. I think it’s a good thing that the scene has segregated". Dave continues by telling us how SOUR is progressing in the overseas market.  SOUR are selling in Japan, Australia, Scandinavia, USA, Germany, Hungary, Israel and Italy. In Japan we are selling more albums than we are in the UK and over there they sell at thirty a time! The Japanese sales mean we can run other projects such as the E-Motif label. The real key to SOUR success is in the USA where we released an album last year called ‘Law Of The Jungle’ on Moonshine Records, it sold 15,000 copies.

We were interested to hear what he thought about the press stereotyping Jungle as ‘a London only’ creation. "In 1994 the press took a massive interest in our scene, and back then the majority of the music did come out of the capital, but now times have changed. You’ve got Flex Records in Huddersfield, DJ Kid in Scotland, Elements Of Noise in Newcastle, Magika and the Roll-The-Beats crew in Birmingham. Formation Records in Leicester, Ruff-Neck Ting in Bristol, the list goes on and on. So to label Jungle as a London thing is the same as saying Jungle is a black thing, it just doesn’t paint the picture". Dave Stone, head of SOUR and co-owner, concludes. "This music is getting better, not a week goes by where I don’t hear a ground-breaking tune. The scene will always be musically diverse. Take ‘Babylon’ for instance, written by a seventeen year old kid, you just don’t know where it’s coming from next. Also I would just like to say you should respect everybody in the scene, judge them by their own actions, listen with your own ears, talk your own quotations, be respectable for everybody and don’t believe the hype. If you are an artist and you sign for your first deal, remember it’s your first step. 1996 will see a lot of great music emerge, keep it real, keep it UK, develop your own talent!!".

SOUR’s plans for 1996 are to release two albums in the early part of the year. The first recently released on the E-Motif label and will be on an Ambient tip. Long term, SOUR aim to release one album every month, with forthcoming releases from MC Det (April 1996), Shy FX and T-Power (Summer 1996) and Gunsmoke (late 1996). Other artists signed to the SOUR label are Elizabeth Troy, MC Olive and Elements Of Noise. Artists signed to E-Motif are Deependance (Nico and Peter from No-U-Turn Records), Roller Instinct - DJ Trace, Hydro - Ed Rush, Boy Lost In Music (BLIM), Geruase Cooke from Manchester, Nemesis - DJ Kane, Justin and Alan from Newcastle. DJs playing on the SOUR sound who acknowledge he musical ability are Brockie, Tonic, Trace, Doc Scott and DJ Rap.

Discography

SOSL/U-MEN-001T UK Apachi & Shy FX Original Nuttah
SOUR 001 Southern Fried Kickin Hard Beats + Dub Time (12")
SOUR 002 Phunkateerz Down 4 Da Last Time / So Mad We Stole Your Mother
SOUR 003 Bass Selective The End Of The Beginning EP (12")
SOUR 004 Shy FX & Gunsmoke Gangsta Kid EP (12")
SOUR 005 Shy FX Sound Of The Beast EP (12")
SOUR 007 T Power Lipsing Jam Ring / Blood From A Stone (12")
SOUR 008 UK Apachi & Shy FX Original Nuttah (12")
SOUR 009 T Power The Elemental (12")
SOUR 010 SLAM Collective & MC Olive Heaven 'n' Hell (12")
SOUR 011 G-Flex & The Bandit Party AK47 (12")
SOUR 012 Shy FX & Gunsmoke Gangsta Kid II: The Final Chapter (12")
SOUR 014 Booyaka Crew Ghetto Youth / Unguided Youth (12")
SOUR 015 Demolition Man , Frisky Dan & Terry Tee Latest Craze (12")
SOUR 016 Soundman & Don Lloydie Greater Love (12")
SOUR 017 Loggi I Don't Mind (12")
SOUR 018 Shy FX Simple 'Tings (10")
SOUR 019 T Power vs MK-Ultra Mutant Jazz (12")
SOUR 020 T Power Turquoise / Mutant Jazz (12")
SOUR 023 B.L.I.M. Jeamland / The Road Is Foggy (12")
SOUR 025 Shy FX This Style (12")
SOUR 026 T Power Turquoise / The Mutant Remix (12")
SOUR 027 Elementz Of Noize Stick Up / Hit The Deck (12")
SOUR 028 Elisabeth Troy Let Me Be / Ed-U-Cate (12")
SOUR 029 T Power Police State (12")
SOUR 030 Shy FX My Way / Nasty (T Power Remix) (12")
SOUR 032 MC Det Reality (12")
SOUR 033 Mack, The Another Playa / Rem-a-nissin (12")
SOUR 034 Elementz Of Noize Chillin On The Funk / Other Side Of Town (12")
SOUR 035 Tonic Renegade / Delta (12")
SOUR 036 Mack, The Street Labels / Do Or Die (12")
SOUR 037 Swift Frequency / Slam / Thase (12")
SOUR 038 Amnesia (2) Red Tank EP (12")
SOUR.REV 001 Various SOUR Revisited - Vol. 1 (12")
SOURLP001 Various Sound Of The Underground (Volume One) (3x12")
SOURLP002 Various Junglism (3x12")
SOURLP003 T Power The Self Evident Truth Of An Intuitive Mind (2x12")
SOURLP004 Shy FX Just An Example (2x12")
SOURLP005 MC Det Out Of Det (2x12")
SOURLP006 Various Nu Skool Flava (2x12")
SOURLP007 Various Shapeshifter - A Jazzstep Injection Into Drum & Bass (2x12")
SOURLP008 Various Nu Skool Update (2x12")
SOURLP009 Various Millennial Jazz (2x12")
SOURRMX8 UK Apachi & Shy FX Original Nuttah (Remixes) (12")
TPOW001 T Power Police State - Part 2 (12")
TPOW001R T Power Police State - Part 1 (12")
TPOW002 T Power Symbiosis / Complexification (12")