Bristol allstars, Roni Size & DJ Krust on the one’s & two’s this week with this live & exclusive mix brought to you by Minirig!
“Roni Size & DJ Krust Minirigs Mixtape – Live At Band on the Wall in Manchester”
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Very few record labels can claim to have had the same impact on the UK music scene as significantly as Full Cycle Recordings. Often mentioned in the same breath as other iconic labels such as Good Looking Records, Metalheadz, RAM, Dope Dragon, Talkin’ Loud and V Recordings, the label has gone onto shape the current sound of UK dance music from the mid 90’s onwards.
Musical friendships like those that helped create Full Cycle aren’t created overnight, Krust and Roni originally met at an interview for a job they were both going for. Suv could be found at local spots like the legendary Ajax Blues Club whilst Die shredded the streets of Bristol on his skateboard and was linking with Roni’s older brother’s Lasertronic Soundsystem in the early days of his music making career. After the original members spent a long weekend at Glastonbury Festival, Roni Size, Krust, Die and Suv left with a shared vision that would go on to re-shape the foundations of dance music.
Bryan G and Jumping Jack Frost gave Roni some early opportunities to release music on the legendary V Recordings, a move which started a long and productive relationship between the London and Bristol crews, but due to busy release schedule the pre-Full Cycle members found their own music building up with long delays on release dates (as well as feedback from other labels suggesting they change their names as ‘Roni or Krust would never be big’). The crew had to get their music out and couldn’t wait any longer. ‘Fuck it, let’s do it ourselves’ became their mantra and in 1994, Full Cycle Records were born.
The four original members shared a vision of how they wanted they’re music to sound, evolving the early energy of Jungle, Ragga Jungle and Hardcore to incorporate deeper elements from Jazz, Soul, hip hop, funk and blues into new forms of dance music. One of the labels early releases ‘Music Box’ by Roni Size and Die (released in 1994) is considered a seminal release that will go down in history as one of those records that changed so much in the scene whilst being inescapable at the time. Borrowing elements from the crates and combining those sounds with the raw, drum-led power of jungle and deep sub bass, the group had created a sound that they could truly call their own.
As the label continued to grow and influence the direction of jungle and drum and bass even further, new projects and members were introduced into the busy release schedule and extended family. Artists such as Clipz (now Redlight), D Product, Heist, Tali, Surge, Bill Riley and J Raq continued to add to the Full Cycle catalogue throughout the 2000s, whilst carving out their own place in the constantly changing sound of drum and bass. Other collaboration projects on the label such as Breakbeat Era (Roni, Die and Leonie Laws) and I Kamanchi (Die and Krust) are still considered to be classics from the era, receiving critical acclaim and continuing to be held up as a reference point for current producers in Drum and Bass and beyond.
After 15 years of successful releases, the label took a break from releasing new music and the four original members of Full Cycle pursued new musical interests and solo projects. Now the time is right for the label to return with their unrivalled back catalogue of classics; a run of live showcases with originators Roni, Krust and MC Dynamite; and a special remix package from some of the most respected producers in the world of dance music. Things do go Full Cycle…
