Fear EP

A handful of tracks can form a performance programme before there is a stage to put it on. Fear belongs to those early All Out experiments. Road Of Century and Sleepwalkers open the DJs Complete Guide programme, followed by The Book Of Lie, First Time and U.K. Sound. This was conceived in the studio as a way to present the music, not as a recording of a concert.

The DJ’s perspective matters: finishing an individual track is only part of the work; discovering what happens in the transition to the next one is another pleasure. In 2012, Road Of Century, Sleepwalkers and First Time also formed an original-material section within a selection of Future Funk Squad, Nubreed, Omar Santana and breaks versions of rock and pop songs. The music was finding company before the later albums arrived.

The Road lineage eventually led to Into The Storm, while First Time returned as The Wormhole. Fear catches both near the beginning, when the producer could first imagine his own material not as separate tracks but as a longer programme. The studio walls remain real; the music reaches beyond them.