 A
Letter from Truelove
I
discovered the London after hours club, Trade,
in 1992, and like many others, both Trade and
FF (same club, following day)
soon became a near religious experience - DJs
like Daz Saund and Trevor Rocklike truly were
sons of God.
TEC
began at a turning point in my life in the same
year. Having had massive chart success
with my first ever release, "You Got The
Love" in 1991, I had naively embarked upon
running a pop label (the original Truelove), with
no experience and certainly no great heart.
Naturally it was pretty unsuccessful,
and by the end of 1992 I had spent all my income
from my hit of the previous year and felt directionless
and disillusioned.
I
wanted TEC to reflect the utter hedonism of these
clubs, their brilliant buzz, the music they championed
and the sheer lunacy of a thousand vested or often
vestless sweaty men dancing through Sunday morning.
Tec was where I could put my heart back in to
producing, and specifically, releasing
music that while neither perceived as cool or
trendy in the UK music press, was what did
and still does, put a tiger in my tank!
 The
Europeans played a key role in shaping the TEC
sound, labels such as No Respect, Superstition,
Important, and Low Spirit; producers and luminaries
Ramon Zenker, Jens Lissat, Joey Beltram, Jam El
Mar, Cosmic Baby and Westbam all played
a hand, and DJs such as Dorian Gray resident DJ
Dag (also half of seminal production team Dance
To Trance) and Sven Vath at The Omen in Frankfurt,
and the mighty Westbam at Mayday had already established
the sound in Germany - Spilling-out at massive
events such as the annual Love Parade and
Mayday parties, It was a fierce sound and I wanted
it badly, and I wanted it here in the U.K. Fortunately
I was not alone.....
Enter
Jon The Dentist & Baby Doc, who made the TEC
package complete. In my opinion they were primarily
responsible for carrying the torch here in the
U.K, albeit a fairly underground one. Under names
such as Hiroshima, Hyperspace and of course Baby
Doc and The Dentist, they released classics such
as Europa, Cyanide, Exigent and the full-moon
party essential 'Mantra to the Buddha.'
Fellow
torchbearer Gordon Edge (of Edge/XVX) collaborated
with Doug Osbourne on Tremorra Del Terra, and
produced Pilgrimage to Paradise with Zoom Records'
Dave Wesson, and together with shops like Tag
and Trax and Pure Groove in London supported the
scene and furthered the sound here in the
UK. Labels to take up the challenge here
in the UK included Red Jerry's Prolekult, React's
Reactivate series, Edge and XVX and latterly Metropolitan,
Eve, Slate, Hook Recordings, Phoenix (up)Rising,
and Bosca Beats, with major record companies
such as Polygram with ffrr, EMI's
Additive and Positiva, and A&M's Wonderboy
dipping their toes in the frothing waters
increasingly frequently.
Tony
De Vit, then a little known DJ from the Birmingham
gay club circuit, and Blu Peter formerly a barman
at London's Heaven club, became the DJ pioneers
of the Hoover sound. Their massive success over
the last few years world-wide and at home is testament
to how hugely it has grown in popularity.
They have since been joined by such shakers and
hoovers as Pete Wardman, Carl Cox, Rachel
Auburn, Ian M, Tall Paul,
Steve Thomas, and a huge wedge of DJ's up
and down the country. Danny Rampling in
the vacuum packed Euro mix section of his Love
Groove Dance Party show on Radio 1, Graham Gold
on Kiss FM and Steve Mason on BFBS have carried
the sound to a massive audience nation-wide and
beyond, and confirmed the widespread popularity
of the Sound Of The Hoover.
My mate and sometime mentor, James Horrocks (the
man behind React), has always said that the magic
of the 'hoover sound' is that "just hearing
it makes you feel like you're rushing "-
the combination of its wrap-around resonance,
bordering on the physical, and its somewhat threatening
and malicious tone, have always transported
me to another place whatever state I am in.
Things
have moved on a lot in five years, but we'd like
to think that TEC has always stuck to its guns.
Instead of being a well-kept secret, The sound
is now firmly established in Clubs around the
UK. When we made the catalogue numbers run backwards
from 23 (inspired by the magical properties of
23 as expressed in Robert Anton Wilson's cult
international conspiracy theory novel The Illuminatus
Trilogy) we never really imagined that we would
ever reach zero, even less that the sound we have
championed, and the people involved in it, would
have such a huge influence on the mainstream.
Our most successful tracks include Mantra To The
Buddha, Rok Da House and the two Lectrolux
singles. We have close relationships with
a large number of like-minded labels around the
world, which occasionally provide us with
material as well as licensing our records for
release in their respective countries.
We
have now, beyond all expectation, set out on TEC
part 2. Having agonised for nearly a year, we
decided to work backwards from the letter
W (23rd letter of the alphabet, naturally!) starting
with Karlton's Terradome. The sound policy
remains the same and we've got a wealth of brilliant
material ready to burst out of our bags in 1998,
including tracks and remixes from such luminaries
as Commander Tom, Knuckleheadz, Jon
the Dentist and much more....The future is looking
busy and we ARE excited!
"We
don't really expect to reach A, but then we can't
help feeling we've said that before somewhere....."
John
Truelove, May 1998 |
