Review
DIN36 came hot on the heels of DIN35 AKA Heavenly Hardcore. One again we’re in partially mixed territory, which is not a positive. This time, the cuts are “massive”.
It’s back to hot jams with Clivillés and Cole’s urgent A Deeper Love, all fading voice effects. + Love Decade’s sax bomb I Feel You which also doubles up as a killer house tune. Back for more are Digital Orgasm with the rave-lite vibes of Startouchers, then followed by Opus III’s deeply melancholy It’s A Fine Day. Elsewhere Shawn Christopher drops the chugging piano house Don’t Lose The Magic which benefits from a David Morales remix. Next comes all the way from Southport; the flute loops of New Atlantic’s I Know, one of the most memorable tracks of the early ’90s. R&B fans are catered for by The Pasadenas’ I’m Doing Fine Now and Sounds Of Blackness’ jacking Optimistic. Turning up the heat: Kym Sims pounding Too Blind To See It and Ultra Nate’s fresh-faced Rejoicing.
“Acapulco club Halifax or as we called it The Acca. Sticky carpet, cheap drinks, cola tasted like sugar but it was fun and always looked forward to Saturday night. Best of times.” (Old Computer 1969)
Rave on: Altern-8’s full-on masked hysteria of Evapor-8 (Inciner-8 Mix). Cuckoos in full effect on Toxic Two’s stuttering Rave Generator, a real stadium sound, lost continent style. Keep on with Zero B’s heavy bassline monster Lock Up. Serious energy. RAF’s We Got To Live Together was a massive northern tune – Belfast, Glasgow – while Traumatic Stress’ No Fortuna lurches from style to style in a rather aimless fashion. Updated for ’92, Orbital’s Chime remodeled by Ray Keith. And then Isotonik’s swirling Different Strokes, all keyboards and a deadly piano just pops in. Feel the rush and fizz from Sunscreem’s melodic Pressure before getting into home mode on Mr Fingers’ unknown pleasure Closer. Last nod goes to Alison Limerick’s stylish Make It On My Own. “When you’re as pissed off as hell and feel like crap, just play this song and you’ll feel like a million dollars.”
Favourite tracks
Zero B – Lock Up
Toxic Two – Rave Generator
New Atlantic – I Know
Lest we forget
Alison Limerick – Make It On My Own
A Pop Fan's Dream 
A great compilation with very few duffers – I got someone to tape this for me at University as I recall. As you say, shame about the mixing together of tracks though at least (from memory – could be wrong here) there’s not much chopping of runtimes.
Cheers Andy, it flows very well. No – run times are pretty much what they should be for most of it.
This was another eclectic mix of really good tunes that, by coincidence, is in the cd player out in the kitchen! Ultra Nate and Mr Fingers are two stunning rarities. I tried for a while to find that Morales remix of the Shawn Christopher track without success, it never appeared on the cd single. However, it appears purely as a radio edit on some legal dance music download sites. Agreed about Oh Fortuna, bit of a dud. That Alison Limerick remix is a curious one. It seems like more of a dub version. The proper Morales edit appears on The Greatest Moments in Soul. Marginally better. (The Cookie Jar dance compilations from 91-94 are worth a listen if you haven’t already and can cope with the usual frustrations with Mark Arthurworrey!).
One thought with this – had Moran gone with Take My Advice instead of repeating Too Blind To See It, this could have been the next Hardcore Album. By this time, I can presume he had thought the Hardcore series dead and was looking for the next successful title to start a series.
Hi Andrew,
Good review – I really like Cookie Jar’s Full On Dance ’93 – got a lot of play when we were 21 and harks back to a good time. Agree re Moran’s strategy – he probably was heading in a new direction….
Yes that Full On Dance ’93 was a terrific look at the year’s dance music. Far superior to the efforts from both Telstar and Now. Full Throttle by The Prodigy should have been a single and fair play for its inclusion here, even if it wasn’t a massive dance hit of the year (single wise). I play this quite often. The earlier Full-On Dance was another belter featuring quite a few tunes never heard elsewhere.
I missed Full On Dance 20 Kickin’ single disc. Must keep an eye out.
Hi Paul, I’ve just noticed a bit of a quirk with Dino’s catalogue numbering. They released Heavenly Hardcore w/e 14/3/92 (DIN35), Breaking Hearts w/e 28/3/92 (DIN34), then Cold Sweat w/e 18/4/29 (DIN36).
Even more amusingly, in 1994 Energy Rush Hits of the Year was DIN95 but released 5 weeks before the dismal Dance Massive (DIN94). Dance Massive was DIN103 but released months before Energy Rush K9 (DIN102), which in turn was released months before Dance Massive 95 (DIN87)……
Hi Andrew
Sounds like catalogue numbers were allocated in advance. But that’s crazy numbering – very off.
Hi Paul, back again with another. The start of one of my favourite tracks on here, ‘Closer’ by Mr Fingers, loses virtually 8 bars of laid back electric piano intro as it crashes into Sunscreem. This isn’t the first Dino example of this, either. ‘Take Me Away’ on Heavenly Hardcore suffers a similar fate. While it’s not one you’ve reviewed, ‘Music For The Masses’ by Floor Federation on Energy Rush 2 loses 4 bars intro as well, missing out on a rather feeble one finger synth line. I can only presume these were done to keep some sort of momentum going during those softly (badly) mixed sections.
Thanks for the info Andrew – went back and played this one and compared to the original – it’s a pity that these mixing decisions were made. Nothing wrong with a breather!
Agreed. I wonder if Moran thought himself to be some sort of DJ….
What seems strange to me is that they generally occur in the latter tracks of a compilation. I notice ‘Close Your Eyes’ and ‘The Green Man’ on Heavenly Hardcore suffer the same fate (long story, HH is my 8 year old’s favourite compilation and we’ve been looking at recompiling it, so I’ve used all the originals that I have….). He never tried to ruin any big hits, not until he founded Global…