AWOL Live in London ’92 Vol 2

Swan-E, Randall, Micky Finn, Kenny Ken, Dr S Gachet and Darren Jay all survive across the pack, with MC GQ and MC Prince running through the night. But what makes these tapes special is the handovers.

You get Randall into Micky Finn, Micky Finn into Kenny Ken, Kenny Ken into Dr S Gachet, then Gachet into Darren Jay. That feels much more like being in a rave than a neat row of isolated one-hour mixes. You hear the room moving from one DJ to the next.

That is what tape packs did brilliantly. They broke a night into pieces, but if enough pieces survived you could stitch the atmosphere back together years later.

The records on these tapes sit right on the fault line between hardcore and the sound that would soon be called jungle. Swan-E’s section alone runs through Kev Bird & Wax Doctor, The Brothers Grimm, Noise Overload, Menace Makes 3, Sub Love, Wax Doctor and Egyptian Empire.

That is why AWOL matters so much in this period. It was not watching jungle form from a distance — Paradise was one of the places where ravers, DJs and MCs were hearing that change happen in real time.

Put this pack beside the AWOL tapes from 1994 and the jump is massive. Same promoter, same tape culture, but the music has moved miles in less than two years.