Discover The Sonic Brilliance Of Bedford’s Underground Dance Music Legend Tony Boinsega
Cold Blow has joined forces with Musique Pour La Danse to deliver an anthology of Tony Boninsegna’s greatest productions and co-productions – many rare or hard-to-find – for the first time.
Featuring 24 restored and remastered tracks stretched across two volumes on vinyl and digital, including a handful of previously unreleased tracks and mixes, and accompanied by detailed sleeve notes by Anniss, Notes From The Underground 1986-1994 is a joyful celebration of one of British dance music’s most under-appreciated artists. The full breadth and depth of Boninsegna’s rave-ready catalogue, as well as an indication of the sheer volume of aliases he utilised during the period, is explored in detail across the two-part compilation.
The story of dance music is littered with hidden heroes and underground activists whose immense contributions have been overlooked, ignored and under-documented. Tony Boninsegna, a producer who made and released countless classic cuts and forgotten gems during the acid house and rave era, is one such example.
Volume one features two previously unreleased recordings that mark his earliest explorations of the emerging house sound (both as The Rhythm Squad, with Richard Compton), alongside touchstone releases such as Zeco’s The Witch Trials (a 1989 production that marked his first outing on vinyl), celebrated workouts recorded with regular collaborator Mykey Tee (Lab Technicians’ bleep-inspired We Gave U Life, Big Showdown’s epic They’re Here and AEK’s mind-mangling, bleep & breaks number ‘Lick It’), and genuinely overlooked gems (the proto-tribal house of Pierrepoint’s acid-smothered ‘Tonnerre’ and saucer-eyed rush of Estudiantes’ Let The Music Into Your Mind).
Volume two continues in a similar vein while devoting more disc space to Boninsegna’s breakbeat-driven productions of the early 1990s. So, alongside more must-have tracks from the producer’s Chill-released projects (Return of The Living Acid’s surging acid thumper Big Dipper, MI7’s twisted bleep and breaks monster Show I, and a couple of killer cuts alongside Mykey Tee as Original Clique), Cold Blow & Musique Pour La Danse have also made room for the proto-jungle brilliance of Ragga Head’s Give The People Junglis, the tongue-in-cheek excellence of Ministry of Fear’s Original Cliché, two top tracks as Napoleon, and the wild, acid breaks breathlessness of Monsoon by Sykosis 451.
Tracklist
Volume 1
A1. Lab Technicians – We Gave U Life
A2. Aural Exciter – U = Euphoria
A3. Original Clique – “F” (Whistle Mix)
B1. Pierrepoint – Tonnerre
B2. A.E.K. – Lick It
B3. Zubbizerretta – Wake The Town (Somnabulist Mix)
C1. Estudiantes – Let The Music Into Your Mind
C2. Zeco – The Witch Trials
C3. Big Showdown – They’re Here
D1. The Rhythm Squad – Animal House (Original Mix)
D2. The Rhythm Squad – Manhunt (Instrumental)
D3. Nine-L – Islands, Part 2
Volume 2
A1. Lab Technicians – We Gave You Life (Original Version)
A2. Nine-L – Untitled (Houston, We Have A Problem B2)
A3. Sykosis 451 – Monsoon
B1. Original Clique – U = Underground
B2. Original Clique – Now Hear Me Now
B3. MI7 – Show I
C1. Napoleon – Fortuna
C2. Napoleon – La Chaux Du Fonds
C3. Ragga Head – Give The People What They Want
D1. Return Of The Living Acid – Big Dipper
D2. Ministry Of Fear – Original Cliché
D3. Nine-L – Untitled (Houston, We Have A Problem A2)
Released February 9, 2024