Moving Shadow was a UK

United Kingdom

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

-based jungle/drum and bass

Drum and bass

Drum and bass is a type of electronic music which emerged in the late 1980s. The genre is characterized by fast breakbeats , with heavy bass and sub-bass lines...

 record label

Record label

In the music industry, a record label is a brand and a trademark associated with the marketing of music recordings and music videos. Most commonly, a record label is the company that manages such brands and trademarks, coordinates the production, manufacture, distribution, marketing and promotion,...

 that was started in 1990

1990 in music

This is a list of notable events in music that took place in the year 1990.-Events:*January 21 – MTV's Unplugged premieres on cable television with British band Squeeze...

 by Rob Playford. Alongside such labels as Suburban Base

Suburban Base

Suburban Base Records was one of the biggest British jungle/drum and bass record labels based in Romford, Havering, UK. It was established by Dan Donnelly and operated in the UK from 1989 to 1997 and in the United States from 1994 to 1997.- History :...

, Formation Records

Formation Records

Formation Records is a Leicester-based drum and bass label that was founded in 1989 by DJ SS and his partner Eidris. The label came to prominence from 1992 onwards releasing countless classics of darkside hardcore/jungle over the next couple of years...

, D-Zone, Reinforced, and Metalheadz

Metalheadz

Metalheadz is a pioneering drum and bass record label based in the United Kingdom. Founded in 1994 by Kemistry & Storm and Goldie, it has been home to some of the drum and bass scene's brightest talent and is notable for the high quality of its back catalogue....

, Moving Shadow grew to become one of the best-regarded and longest-lived labels in its genre, publishing well over 200 releases in a scene where few labels reach 50.

The label began in 1990, initially operating from Playford's Stevenage

Stevenage

Stevenage is a town and borough in Hertfordshire, England. It is situated to the east of junctions 7 and 8 of the A1, and is between Letchworth Garden City to the north, and Welwyn Garden City to the south....

 home. Playford had self-released a track prior to setting up Moving Shadow, entitled Orbital Madness, and had become a focal point for local, young artists/bedroom producers seeking advice on releasing their own music. The label's first release arrived in 1991; the Psychotronic EP by Earth Leakage Trip. Many artists attributed to early Shadow releases were in fact Playford's aliases or collaborations, such as 2 Bad Mice

2 Bad Mice

2 Bad Mice formed in England in 1991, and was composed of Sean O'Keeffe, Simon Colebrooke, and Rob Playford, the latter the owner of the Moving Shadow record label. 2 Bad Mice were credited as among the first UK hardcore acts to begin incorporating breakbeats into their style...

, a group he formed with Sean O'Keeffe and Simon Colebrooke. As the rave

Rave

Rave, rave dance, and rave party are parties that originated mostly from acid house parties, which featured fast-paced electronic music and light shows. At these parties people dance and socialize to dance music played by disc jockeys and occasionally live performers...

 scene scratched the surface of the mainstream music industry in 1991 and 1992, Moving Shadow, like its friendly rival Suburban Base & D-Zone, enjoyed UK Top 75 singles chart success though Blame's Music Takes You and 2 Bad Mice's Bombscare.

As the rave scene split over the next year, Moving Shadow gravitated towards the emerging darkcore

Darkcore

Darkcore is a subgenre of jungle that became popular in the United Kingdom hardcore rave scene in late 1992. It is recognized as being one of the direct precursors of the genre now known as drum and bass...

 jungle scene. Releases by artists such as Deep Blue

Deep Blue (musician)

Deep Blue is the alias of electronic and drum and bass musician, Sean O'Keeffe.O'Keeffe started producing music in 1991 with the hardcore band 2 Bad Mice, co-writing their hit, "Bombscare"...

 (Sean O'Keeffe), Foul Play, Omni Trio, and Hyper-On Experience

Hyper-On Experience

Hyper-On Experience is a UK breakbeat hardcore and drum and bass duo made up of Alex Banks and Danny Demierre .-History:...

 bolstered the label's reputation, and by 1994, Moving Shadow was at the forefront of the UK jungle/drum and bass scene. Encompassing varying styles of jungle/drum and bass such as Ray Keith's proto-techstep track Terrorist (recorded under the pseudonym Renegade), the frenticism of Dead Dred's Dred Bass and soulful, melodic productions such as Omni Trio's Soul Promenade, Moving Shadow's output could be seen at this time to represent the complete spectrum of the genre. The label was an excellent showcase for these artists, releasing albums from both Omni Trio and Foul Play in 1995 and the first of a series of regional compilation albums such as The Revolutionary Generation, Storm From The East and Trans-Central Connection, highlighting artists both local and distantly-located.

In 1994 Playford began working with the drum & bass artist Goldie

Goldie

Clifford Joseph Price, better known as Goldie is an English electronic music artist, disc jockey, visual artist and actor. He is well known for his innovations in the jungle and drum and bass music genres, having previously gained exposure for his work as a graffiti artist...

 on tracks written using his Rufige Kru alias. The result was Goldie's Timeless

Timeless (Goldie album)

Timeless is the 1995 debut album from Goldie and is a groundbreaking release in the history of drum and bass music. The album blended the complex, chopped and layered breakbeats and deep basslines of jungle and drum and bass with expansive, symphonic strings and atmospherics, and female vocals,...

album, produced and engineered by Playford and released in 1995 on the better-funded FFRR Records

FFRR Records

FFRR Records is a subsidiary of London Records, founded and run by English DJ Pete Tong. FFRR has also two subsidiaries: Double F Double R Records and Ffrreedom Records...

 as opposed to Moving Shadow. Lauded by critics, the album was one of the first drum & bass titles to achieve mainstream success, going on to be one of the best-selling drum & bass albums of its time.

Moving Shadow maintained its status as one of the highest-profile drum and bass labels with the next crop of producers, signing names like Dom and Roland, Aquasky

Aquasky

Aquasky is a breaks and jungle group composed of Dave Wallace, Kieron Bailey & Brent Newitt. In early 1995 they got together to produce their own music. Shortly afterwards they sent a demo tape to Moving Shadow records and the seeds of a musical alliance were sown...

, Calyx

Calyx (artist)

Calyx is a UK based drum and bass act, specialising in the techstep style. Previously the duo Larry Cons and Chris Rush , it is now a solo project of Larry Cons....

 and EZ Rollers

EZ Rollers

The E-Z Rollers are a British drum and bass group made up of Jay Hurren , Alex Banks and Kelly Richards...

 in 1996 and 1997. EZ Rollers saw their music featured in the film Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels

Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels

Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels is a 1998 British crime film directed and written by Guy Ritchie. The story is a heist film involving a self-confident young card sharp who loses £500,000 to a powerful crime lord in a rigged game of three card brag...

, though its chartbound jazz

Jazz

Jazz is a musical style that originated at the beginning of the 20th century in African American communities in the Southern United States. It was born out of a mix of African and European music traditions. From its early development until the present, jazz has incorporated music from 19th and 20th...

y sound was not representative of the label as it shifted predominantly into techstep by the turn of the century. Moving Shadow provided music for several popular video games in this time, including Grand Theft Auto 2

Grand Theft Auto 2

Grand Theft Auto 2 is a video game that was released worldwide on October 25, 1999, by developer DMA Design , initially for the Windows operating system and the PlayStation console. The game was later ported to the Dreamcast console and the Game Boy Color. It is the sequel to 1997 hit Grand Theft...

, Midnight Club

Midnight Club

Midnight Club is a series of racing video games developed by Rockstar San Diego and published by Rockstar Games. The games are similar to the Midtown Madness series previously developed by Angel Studios, focusing on competitive street racing in open world urban environments. Midnight Club however,...

, and Grand Theft Auto III

Grand Theft Auto III

Grand Theft Auto III is a 2001 open world action computer and video game developed by DMA Design in the United Kingdom, and published by Rockstar Games. It is the first 3D title in the Grand Theft Auto series. It was released in October 2001 for the PlayStation 2, May 2002 for Microsoft Windows,...

 (where the label supplied an entire in-game radio station).

In 2000, the label reached a decade in business, a rare achievement for its music scene, and celebrated with a retrospective of their back catalogue. Following this, the label's visibility dropped noticeably, excepting album releases from label stalwarts Omni Trio and Dom & Roland. Although Moving Shadow experienced somewhat of a resurgence in 2004 and 2005 with acclaimed releases from Noisia

Noisia

Noisia, stylized as NOISIΛ , is a Dutch Electronic music trio consisting of members Nik Roos, Martijn van Sonderen and Thijs de Vlieger from Groningen, The Netherlands. They now produce a wide variety of music including drum and bass, dubstep, breakbeat and house music...

 and Calyx

Calyx (artist)

Calyx is a UK based drum and bass act, specialising in the techstep style. Previously the duo Larry Cons and Chris Rush , it is now a solo project of Larry Cons....

, the label folded by 2007.

See also

• List of record labels
• List of electronic music record labels
• List of jungle and drum n bass record labels