I remember being introduced to Rob Playford, founder of the Moving Shadow label, at a club in London in 1998.  At the time, I wasn’t familiar with who he was, and the friend that introduced me quickly set me straight: “You know ‘Tough At The Top’ by EZ Rollers?  They’re on his label.  You know Goldie?  He produced his first album.  You know 2 Bad Mice?  That’s him.” And then I said “ohhhhh…..!” and ran back to buy him a pint and apologize for the blank look I’d given him moments before.

I dug up this mix recently and still really enjoy it.  It captures some of my favorite Moving Shadow releases, catching the label at a time when it was split between the jazzy sounds of EZ Rollers and the harder techstep sounds of Dom & Roland that were coming to the forefront of the drum and bass scene then.  This mix is a great tour of Moving Shadow’s sound, including “Tough At The Top” and Flytronix’s awesome “A Rosay for Rhythm,” an urban spoken word poetry tour de force.  Mixed flawlessly by Rob, (under the moniker Timecode), it still has the same edgy, sophisticated and sexy energy that was the mark of this important era in d’n’b.  Tracklist after the jump.

Listen now:

Download here (right click and “save as”)

41min 23s /// 77.6mb /// 256kbps .mp3