The duo of Mike Slammer and Red Alert run this label along with popular rave events (frankly organised like a kid's disco but with unbeatable atmosphere). Today Mike Slammer and Red Alert don't make records themselves, but commission hardcore luminaries Brisk and Vinylgroover to make the releases. If you know anything about the Happy Hardcore scene you'll know Slammin tunes are still anthems, but for me and many others nothing beats the dirty breaks of the first 11 releases, done by Mike and Red.

Slammin' Vinyl is rumored to have started in 91, I don't know if this is true but the style barely changed until the last classic release in 95 - showing the relevance of the records to the early rave scene. All the records run at about the same speed too. The majority of the releases have a high cheese factor, but the beats counteract this and to be honest if your going to play the good taste card f**k off and tell someone who gives monkeys. Anyone who knows about the label can point to any number of darker releases, such as 'Ruffer/Gotta Release' which gives dark d'n'b contemporaries such as Origin Unknown a run for their money. There was also the sister Question Mark label of rip-offs (tasteful reworkings???) and the boys were also asked to do official rip-off style remixes of many then contemporary house records.

The main thing that makes a Slammin' release is the innovate use of low sampling rates and extreme time-stretching/pitch adjustment. All this was before Fat Boy Slim or the widespread popularity of drum 'n' bass. Users of Recycle! would do well to realise these breakbeats were cut up and manipulated by hand on a sampler with /no graphic editing/. The manipulation sounds a million times better than the pony random way Recycle does it. 90% off the sounds you hear are probably sampled from somewhere, and the vocals are all from obscure old house and ragga tracks. However it all works, uplifting without being cheesy, dirty but blissful, and its all Genuine Hardcore - not jungle or happy hardcore. It's all in the sequencing...

Due to a shrewd financial move of Mike Slammer and Red Alert none of their Slammin' records have ever been out of press and you can get them anywhere. The Question Mark records have just been repressed on whites (you know where to get them). As for other material look in 2nd hand places, particularly at Brain Records where they released stuff from time to time. Check the cheesy rave cover art of the later original pressings.

gwem 2001
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