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September - National: Dred Bass One of the best tracks of the summer, Dred Bass's "Dead Dred" is released through Moving Shadow.
Created by brothers Lee [ a.k.a Asend ] and Warren Smith [ a.k.a Ultravibe ], the midlands duo have been busy turning heads on the producing scene already with their previous release "What Kind Of World" on Jason Ball's [ a.k.a JB ] Back 2 Basics label. With the reggae artist Dr. Alimantado's haunting and delicately timestreched "What's the time" vocal playing a major factor to the record's popularity and it's very dark and inverted bassline, a new word hits the junglists vocabulary - wobble. Dred bass becomes one of the most rinsed out and dare I say - commercially licensed tunes in '94, and with very good reason.
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October
October 1st - München: Universe As the Home secretary Kenneth Clarke and his office of "Yes" men in London are busing themselves and putting the finishing touches to their crowning achievement - the Criminal Justice Bill. When the bill is finally ratified through the houses of parliament, large illegal outdoor parties in the UK will be virtually impossible to pull off.
Universe sees the potential damage to their scene and circumvents the politics of the day by going to Deutschland to host the second Tribal Gathering at the Old International Airport in Riem, near Munich, Germany. This years edition of the gathering will be a mutual anglo-german alliance between Universe's Paul Shurey and Ian Jenkinson and Jens Maspfuhl, Ralf Zintel and Mario De Bellis from the German party promoters and record label "Frankfurt Beat" who are bankrolling the project.
Although they have a successful club residency in London, Universe are going to have to think big, on a grandiose scale as they take on the old intenational airport - a vast concrete structure on ther outskirts of Riem - a small village ten kilometres east of central munich, this will be the first time Universe have held an indoor party since their aborted "In the Underworld" party at Westpoint in December 92.
Forever pushing the boundaries of dance, this years edition of the Tribal Gathering will be held in five huge arenas [ with roughly six thousand capacity in each hall ] within the old airport complex and will have a intriguing selection of sixty local and international DJ's playing in front of thirty thousand ravers including Carl Cox, Sven Väth, Paul van Dyk, Laurent Garnier, MC Ribbs, Dave Angel, Jeff Mills plus many more. As with last years party, Universe and Frankfurt Beat will showcase the musicians and producers on the scene as they have enlisted the services of fifteen live acts who will perform at the festival with The Prodigy and Underworld headlining the gathering.
Universe's triumphant return onto the big stage came at a major price to their fellow organisers at Frankfurt Beat. After this event has passed, Maspfuhl, Zintel and De Bellis will be in the same boat as Shurey and Jenkinson when their rave company "Frankfurt Beat" also has to be wound up and goes into liquidation. Late this year, Frankfurt Beat's parent company "MMS" ran into severe financial difficulties which was the catalyst that pulled all their other subsidiary companies [ including Frankfurt Beat ] to the brink - The rise of the Universe sees the end of the Beat.
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