Breakbeat is a style which I have always loved since hearing it for the first time back in the early 90's. It was mainly the Prodigy who got me addicted to it when 'Android' was released. It was just something more dynamic and since I had always been into hip-hop it was like new food to me. I decided to do my own tunes on this Commodore Amiga 500 with a music-tracker called OctaMED-Professional.

I had been doing tunes before on an Atari-ST, mainly synth/electronic-style, but all was midi-interface and I had no sampler to create those phat breakbeats. Without having enough memory I was only able to use 4 channels on the Amiga, very limited but I guess all musicians start from bottom line. A bit confusing to see an artist producing tunes on a computer which was mainly build for graphic applications :)

During the years a new stream called Jungle, partly evolved out of Breakbeat, got me hooked so I started to work on a new set of tunes. Artists like Slipmatt, Noise Factory and a whole bunch of other UK underground DJ's were the inspiration for my first album. Niels Attema, a good friend of mine joined me and we decided to do some promoting. From a stupid interview at a local radio-station, to the wicked Radio Static 105.9 FM in Amsterdam, the album had been played a couple of times. Enjoying every moment of it, but still unexperienced and uncertain about the scene I pulled back. It was too much of the same and I realised I had to innovate and create my own style.

A period of hard work had begun, fresh material made way for the bad results at school :P The second album was finished, very dark, various and different than the first. I was really happy with it and it hardly even sounded as a production on 4 channels. A few tracks done by Niels produced with Cakewalk (PC) added some variety to the album and again my sister provided vocals on one track which worked out really well. But most important of all it reflected my opinion about the mainstream. The album's title coincidentally similared that by 3 definitions relating to the bat on the cover. The first was the navigation part: breaking sound (bats navigate through space by sending out ultra-high frequencies to identify obstacles), second was the purpose to break away from that mainstream. But the third and main part how it would dynamically 'overwhelm' music I disliked. For example; when your neighbours are playing their everyday song, simply let your bass speakers do the job. Some lyrics on the album described that definition, but mostly I was just playing silly :)

Ofcourse the music on it was more important than the story behind it. A few tracks were left out and put on the Easy Minds EP that same year. Unfortunately the album was hardly promoted due to other interests by both Niels and me, for that was really a pity. Nonetheless it got many positive feedback which was a great thing and maybe the key to the other 2 compilations. Still all tunes, except those of Niels, were a 4-channel production. I must have been really stupid :P Let's say it was more like a challenge to me. I thank you almighty Amiga and for the great 10 years you've given me :)