from Blackdown:
Download the Hatcha 2002 mix CD: here.
In the earliest days of dubstep the scene really was a tiny collective, with perhaps no more than 50 or so interested participants. In those times the way music got distributed (long before broadband), was by the passing of CDs, often down at Forward» and this promo mix CD by Hatcha is one of several he gave out. I have two or three (including the 2005 “Practice Hours” one) and I bet even more exist. They’re unique records in the development of dubstep, not least because more than anyone ever has and perhaps ever will, Hatcha singularly had more influence over what dubstep was and has now become.
The hardest part is dating it. My educated guess is 2002 or failing that late 2001. You can date stamp it by book-ending it with producers it doesn’t feature. At one end you have no Ghost, Zed Bias or warm garagey beats, so that rules out 2000 and early 2001. On the other hand there’s no Mala, no Loefah or coki, so that rules out 2003 when “Pathwayz” and a whole host of DMZ other beats began to emerge through his sets. And it’s long before he began blew up Scuba, Distance and Caspa by playing their new dubs. There’s even a little bit of 8bar grime, from Jon E Cash and Soulo (aka Jameson), which was never a huge feature of Hatcha’s sets, though it popped up from time to time.
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