Metalheadz / Blue Note Sessions
Sunday night, a low ceiling, and a room full of producers listening for the next impossible break.
What you're really asking
The breakbeat is more than a rhythm: it is something to pull apart, rebuild and make unfamiliar. Metalheadz brought together producers and DJs who treated drum and bass as a space for invention.
The records can be spacious, soulful or brutally dark, with detail that only becomes clear on a good system.
Where it sits
Goldie founded Metalheadz with Kemistry and Storm in 1994. Its Sunday Sessions at the Blue Note in Hoxton became an important meeting point from 1995: producers brought new music, DJs tested dubplates, and listeners heard tracks before release.
Timeless reached a wider audience, while the club and label kept an experimental circle in motion. Photek, Source Direct, Peshay and Dillinja were among the artists associated with that world.
Their work also appeared elsewhere; this is a network, not just a catalogue.
The scene
Who: Goldie, Kemistry, Storm, Doc Scott, Randall, Grooverider and the producers around them. Room: the Blue Note.
What: intricate breaks, sub-bass, texture and dramatic space. Membership follows participation, collaboration and circulation through this circle.
Later Metalheadz releases extend the label story without belonging to the original Sunday-night period.
The leading records
Goldie
Timeless
1995
The ambitious album entrance, with Rob Playford central to its construction.
Various
Platinum Breakz
1996
Hear several distinct producers inside a shared scene.
Photek
Natural Born Killa EP
1995
Precision and tension, with the breakbeat under a microscope.
Source Direct
Stonekiller / Web Of Sin
1996
The darker route, with rhythm carrying the suspense.
Kemistry & Storm
DJ-Kicks
1999
A later DJ document from two people central to the network.
Doc Scott
Here Come The Drumz
1992
An early hardcore-into-jungle cornerstone from a core Blue Note DJ.
Dillinja
The Angels Fell
1995
Sub-bass engineering as its own argument.
Peshay
Miles From Home
1995
The jazzier, more spacious end of the room.
J Majik
Your Sound
1995
Made as a teenager; the label's ear for new producers in one record.
Hidden Agenda
The Fugitive / Is It Love
1995
Rollers built for the floor rather than the headphones.
Lemon D
This Is L.A.
1996
Weight and swing from a Metalheadz regular.
Oddballs
Keep digging
- Hear the Blue Note through its DJs
- Photek and Source Direct: two kinds of tension
- Follow the soulful Metalheadz records
- From the original circle to the later label