Blame essential mix 28 february 2009

.::biography::.

Growing up, I was engulfed by the electro and early hip hop scene in London. That was really where my love of music began,’ says Conrad Shafie, aka Blame, one of drum and bass’s most experimental producers and long-time DJ for LTJ Bukem’s Good Looking stable.
It was after a move from North London to Luton however, that love developed into something life-changing. For when work experience brought friend Tony Justice to a local recording studio, Blame tagged along. It was a day of messing around with equipment, sampling and looping breakbeats, mimicking their favourite electro and hardcore sounds. It was the moment when Blame finally found his chosen vocation: ‘When I finally got a chance to get into the studio, everything fitted together for me. At the time, the choice was making an electro / hip hop style track or a hardcore track. Given that I didn’t have much experience in the studio, a hardcore style was easier to make.’
Blame, like many of the senior jungle DJs, had been caught up in the birth of the hardcore sound. The new breakbeat tunes got him interested in DJing and soon he’d bagged a resident warm-up slot at The Grid in Luton, playing for two hours for the grand sum of £10. It’s safe to say that Blame commands a higher value now.
Big-time success, in fact, happened faster than he could possibly have imagined when his studio demo ‘Music Takes You’ took the dancefloor by storm, won a release by Moving Shadow and then entered the top 40 of the national charts. But how did such unexpected success effect the young producer?
‘It all went pear-shaped. I was seventeen at the time. I’d just got into the studio, having put everything into making music. I’d saved every penny I had, I didn’t go out, I just focused fully on what I was doing. But as soon as that track was released, I had thousands of friends, I was out every night clubbing... About three or four months later, I realised I had no money left, and I hadn’t even got back into the studio! I did a lot of learning - you’ve got to take things one step at a time. It’s not about just making one track and forgetting what you were doing in the first place. Music’s a serious thing - you can’t just piss it up the wall.’
A return to his former dedication followed, with a string of successful releases on Moving Shadow, including 1994's ‘Nocturnal’ and, perhaps most influential of all - ‘Neptune’. Primarily his focus was on the production side of the music. ‘It was a financial thing. You had to spend at least a hundred pounds a week on records. My position was "Do I spend this hundred pounds on records or do I spend it in the studio?" And for me, making music was always my main driving force. So I put the DJing on hold and concentrated on my own tunes.’ But after five years at Moving Shadow, Blame was ready to move on to pastures new, signing to LTJ Bukem’s Good Looking label - a move which also saw a return to the DJing life. ‘I’d built up my own studio by then, so I didn’t have to pay for studio time and could afford to get back into it.’
It was Good Looking’s open-minded nature to experimental sounds which attracted Blame to the label. It was here that he could release tunes like ‘360 Clic’ - his astonishing take on drum and bass in 6/8 time. It’s this restless experimentation which has always typified Blame’s stance to his music. 1999's ‘Between Worlds’ EP, for instance, ranged from the 3/4 of the title tune to the ‘sleazy jazz’ of ‘Altered Course’, to the industrial machine sounds of the brutal ‘Mechanism’.
With the move to Good Looking, Blame’s DJing went into overdrive with the Logical Progression tour. Along with Bukem and MCs Conrad and DRS, Blame played to venues all around the world, mixing the second compilation in both the Logical Progression and Progression Sessions series. It was during this time that his DJing style really developed, with Blame cutting his own dubplates of tunes and loops made exclusively for use in his sets. ‘I started saying to myself, "This is it. I’m really going to try and make it as a DJ".’
Bukem’s influence was obviously profound. ‘You can’t come on after or before Bukem and be shit! The geezer’s like a robot when it comes to mixing! In my eyes, I had to be equal to him mix-wise or better. I like that kind of challenge - you’ve got to rise to that. Without having to play next to Bukem, my mixing might not be as tight as it is now.’
In 1997, Blame went on to found his own Good Looking off-shoot label - 720 . ‘I want it to sum up a whole spectrum of sound, to be an open label - that’s how I’ve always wanted the label to be seen.’ Currently, the label has just released the Two Revolutions compilation, half of which is back catalogue material (the first ‘revolution’), and half new, unreleased material (the second).
Concentrating on his A&R role and DJing has seen a relatively quiet time as far as production goes. ‘In between gigs, I’m trying to get my solo album together. I’m aiming to finish.

.::track list::.

01 Blame feat. Selah 'Because Of You' (720 Degrees)
02 Blame 'Solar Burn' (Charge Recordings)
03 Culture Shock 'Vice Chase' (Ram Records)
04 Rudenko 'Everybody (Danny Byrd Remix)' (Data Records)
05 Blame 'Bring Me Down' (720 Degrees)
06 Culture Shock 'Kronix' (Ram Records)
07 System 'Near Miss' (Digital Soundboy)
08 Chase & Status 'Brazil' (Ram Records)
09 High Contrast 'If We Ever' (Hospital)
10 Chase & Status 'Streetlife' (RAM)
11 Commix 'Rack It' (Hospital)
12 Vicious Circle 'Technicolour' (Frequency)
13 Xample feat Lomax 'Contra' (RAM)
14 Logistics 'Cosmonaught' Hospital
15 Shy FX & T Power 'Feelings (Nu Tone Remix)' (Digital Soundboy)
16 S.p.y. 'Sunship' (Spearhead)
17 2Db 'Starsign' (WAR)
18 Technicolour 'Half A Chance' (Technique)
19 Eric Pridz 'Pjanoo (High Contrast Mix)' (Data)
20 Ed Solo & Skool Of Thought 'Always There' (Against The Grain)
21 Jenna G 'In Love' (Bingo)
22 Roni Size 'Its Jazzy (Nu Tone Remix)' (White Label)
23 Brookes Brothers 'Tear You Down' (Breakbeat Kaos)
24 Break 'Let It Happen' (Shogun Audio)
25 Chase & Status 'Take Me Away' (Ram Records)
26 AI 'Desperado' (V Recordings)
27 Roni Size & Dj Die 'Music Box (sigma remix)' (full cycle)
28 Adele 'Hometown Glory (High Contrast Remix)' (XL Records)
29 James Doman 'Alright (J Majik & Wickaman Remix) (Positiva Records)
30 Sub Focus 'Join The Dots' (RAM)
31 Brookes Brothers 'F zero' (Breakbeat Kaos)
32 KG 'Textures & Sound' (Frequency)
33 Shock One 'Further away from me' (Shogun Audio)
34 London Elektricity 'Attack Ships On Fire' (Hospital)
35 Danny Byrd 'Gold Rush' (Hospital)
36 Blame 'Stay Forever' (Charge Recordings)
37 Nu:Tone 'Second connection' (Hospital Records)
38 Die & Clipz 'Indian summer' (Clear Skyz)
39 Shimon vs Sparfunk 'The smoker' (Audio Porn)
40 Blame 'Hiro' (Blame Music)
41 Blame 'Batcave' (Charge Recordings)
42 Blame 'Apocalypto' (Blame Music)
43 Blame 'Hold The Sunshine' (720 Degrees)
44 Matrix vs. Futurebound 'Womb' (Metro/Viper)
45 Blame & The Pedge 'Avalon' (Hospital)
46 Blame 'Skyline VIP' (720 Degrees)
47 Blame 'Solar Burn VIP' (Charge Recordings)
48 Logistics 'Together VIP' (Hospital)
49 Logistics 'Wide Lens' (Hospital)
50 Blame 'Rush' (Charge Recordings)
51 Sub Focus 'Druggy' (RAM Records)
52 Logistics 'Glitch' (Hospital)
53 Chase & Status 'Hurt You' (RAM Records)
54 Logistics 'Waiting Line' (Hospital)
55 Sub Focus 'Airplane' (RAM Records)
56 Ant Miles & Makis G 'Tear it up (Feat. Diane Charlemagne)' (Liftin Sprits)
57 DJ Die 'Slow Burn' (Clear Skyz)
58 Commix 'Solvent' (Shogun Audio)
59 Drumsound & Bassline Smith 'Stay Loose' (Technique Recordings)
60 DJ Die 'The reasons why (feat. Ben Westbeech)' (Clear Skyz)
61 Nu:Tone & Logistics 'Trademark' (Hospital)
62 Nu:Tone 'Balaclava' (Hospital)
63 L.A.O.S 'We All (Blame Remix)' (Spearhead)
64 Blame 'Whirlpool' (720 Degrees)
65 Steve Angello & Laidback Luke feat. Robin S 'Show Me Love (Blame Remix)' (Data Records)