XL Recordings - The First Chapters

I've been reliving my formative years this weekend after buying XL Recordings excellent old school rave compilation The First Chapters. Check the full tracklisting below!

1) SL2 - DJ's Take Control
2) The Prodigy - Charly (Alley Cat Mix)
3) Nu-Matic - Hard Times
4) Kicks Like A Mule - The Bouncer (Housequake Mix)
5) SL2 - Way In My Brain (Remix)
6) The Prodigy - Everybody In The Place (Fairground Remix)(MP3)
7) Liquid - Sweet Harmony
8) SL2 - On A Ragga Tip
9) Awesome 3 - Don´t Go (Kicks Like A Mule Mix)
10) Dance Conspiracy - Dub War (Chapter One)
11) Jonny L - The Ansaphone (MP3)

Wall to wall classics, anyone familiar with the era should know a good number of these tracks pretty intimately. It's almost impossible to buy decent (unmixed!) compilations these days - believe me, I've looked - so it was an essential purchase. It may be a little SL2 and The Prodigy heavy, but they were some of the biggest artists of the time so it's understandable. I've shared my two favourite tracks, the manic joyful exhuberance of Everybody in the Place - still one of the best tracks The Prodigy have ever made, I can't listen to it without putting my hands in the air - and the nightmareish throb of Jonny L's The Ansaphone with the disturbing, yet darkly humourous recorded message from his ex-girlfriend, timestretched and distorted. Cold maybe, but strangely brilliant.

Buy The First Chapters at Emusic or Amazon. Please note this isn't the same as The First Chapter released back in the day, I've still got a couple of these on cassette! The new release is a compilation of sorts of all the releases, covering the more rave-centric tracks. I may do a old school rave throwback special in a couple of days, this release has completely re-ignited my love for the music - I'm not sure how much of it is nostalgia, but I genuinely think it's fantastic dance music. Did this stuff escape the UK at all, does it have a following in the US for example?

I've also been listening to The Prodigy through the wonders of Simplify Media after a friend shared their first two albums (I literally haven't heard them for the best part of a decade). It's basically a way to share your music with others over the internet; choose which folders you want to share and invite your friends to listen in. After installing the client when they're online, you can stream what they've shared through Winamp or Itunes and vice versa - it even works through the iphone for those fortunate enough to have one (or alternatively, those insane enough to pay the current phone tariff!) It works perfectly and I've noticed no ill-effects on my PC. If anyone wants to add me, pop me an email and I'll send you my username.