Desire Adventure & Imagination
The Sanctuary, Milton Keynes • Saturday 6 July 1996. One of the strongest surviving Desire event records in the archive: a major Sanctuary date with original flyer evidence, Design Asylum artwork credit and twelve Rave Archive UK recordings spanning the front line of 1996 drum & bass.
The story
1996 drum & bass at full Sanctuary scale
By July 1996, drum & bass had moved well beyond the early-jungle crossover documented on the 1994 and 1995 Desire pages. The surviving Adventure & Imagination tapes show a mature scene with its own regional sounds, labels, production styles and headline pairings — all still operating inside the enormous rave infrastructure of The Sanctuary.
The twelve RAUK recordings stretch from Roni Size B2B Krust with MC Dynamite through Darren Jay, Micky Finn, Ellis Dee, DJ SS, Zinc, Doc Scott, Jumpin Jack Frost, Dr S Gachet, Kenny Ken and Special K to Randall B2B Andy C. Rage and Flux recur across the tapes, giving the event a strong MC identity as well as a heavyweight DJ record.
Tracklist archives also preserve the Roni Size/Krust and Randall/Andy C combinations, while the flyer archive confirms the event date, Sanctuary venue and Design Asylum artwork credit. Together they give this page a particularly strong blend of artwork and surviving sound.
Rave Archive audio
Twelve recordings from 6.7.96
Roni Size B2B DJ Krust w/ MC Dynamite — Desire — The Sanctuary — 6.7.96
Darren Jay w/ MCs Rage & Flux — Desire — The Sanctuary — 6.7.96
Micky Finn w/ MC Flux — Desire — The Sanctuary — 6.7.96
Ellis Dee w/ MC Flux — Desire — The Sanctuary — 6.7.96
DJ SS w/ MC Rage — Desire — The Sanctuary — 6.7.96
DJ Zinc w/ MC Rage — Desire — The Sanctuary — 6.7.96
Doc Scott w/ MC Rage — Desire — The Sanctuary — 6.7.96
Jumpin Jack Frost w/ MC Rage — Desire — The Sanctuary — 6.7.96
Dr S Gachet w/ MC Flux — Desire — The Sanctuary — 6.7.96
Kenny Ken w/ MC Rage — Desire — The Sanctuary — 6.7.96
Special K w/ MC Rage — Desire — The Sanctuary — 6.7.96
Randall B2B Andy C w/ MC Rage — Desire — The Sanctuary — 6.7.96
Why it matters
A broad snapshot of 1996
The strength of this page is breadth. Bristol’s Roni Size and Krust sit beside established London names, Doc Scott represents the deeper technical edge, and Randall with Andy C captures a pairing that would become hugely important to drum & bass history. The archive therefore preserves not one narrow sub-style but a cross-section of where the music had reached by mid-1996.
