I picked up Depth Charge’s debut single after hearing it on John Peel’s radio show (1). Han Do Jin was the first of four 12s, released during 1989 and 1990, that combined Ladbroke Grove-based DJ / producer J. Saul Kane’s obsessions with breaks, beats, cult cinema and soccer.

The samples from a martial arts movie – Incredible Shaolin Thunder Kick – for me were a flashback to late night Jackie Chan double-bill screenings in Brixton. Drunken Master and Half A Loaf Of Kung Fu. A couple of my friends studied Wing Chun when I was in school, but I couldn’t do the discipline. I have authority issues. The beats are built from exaggerated fight scene sound effects. Slaps like swords slashing / clashing. Duelling with bites from Kool & The Gang’s Breeze & Soul. There are sonar blips – “this is a depth charge” right? – which were soon re-sampled themselves and through 1990 became ubiquitous.  Sinead O’Connor is sped up like a happy hardcore chipmunk. Sequences, including some from Ryuichi Sakamoto’s Iconic Storage, are sent through psychedelic gated sections. The track was slow, trippy, stoned. Listening, it’s hard to believe that Kane was famously, fiercely, anti-drugs. In a mid-90s interview he said, “I love acid house, but I couldn’t take all the crap that went with it. The whole big love thing became really false… (2) plus I couldn’t stick to 120 BPM all night… Depth Charge was a direct result of that. A bit of a rebellion (3).”

Bongos rang with reverb and there was a real underground warehouse party vibe. When I bought the record I didn’t have many touchstones, points of reference, but Colourbox’s cover of Augustus Pablo / Jacob Miller’s Baby I Love You So sprang to mind. Its heavy almost industrial funk also aligned it with acts like Renegade Soundwave, whose records, again heard on Peel, I already owned. There were echoed righteous Rasta words from Caribbean ex-pats Cymande, plus a toast from a reggae MC. Kane often cited Lee “Scratch” Perry as an influence.

Kane’s bionic-bass-ed collisions of hip hop and soundsystem culture came from a similar sonic space as the soon to be chart bound Massive Attack and Soul II Soul crews, but his jams were far more anarchic. Kane’s cut and paste collages also have parallels with Coldcut, but he swapped the Disney / Jungle Book steals with samples from video nasties. Dead By Dawn features dialogue from the then notorious flicks Evil Dead II, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Last House On The Left. The A-side was certainly not suitable for refreshed ravers. A seriously creepy head-nodding undead, “deadite” shuffle, serrated by screams and Psycho-like strings, and with a spooky “It’s only a movie” mantra. It’s definite bad trip fuel. However, Andrew Weatherall was known to drop the dub, which shifted the focus onto a haunting distorted steel-pan-like melody.

Depth Charge’s dubby aesthetic can certainly be heard in Weatherall’s own early productions and remixes. His blueprint of a “big bass-line and fuck-off breakbeat.” Check his rework of Word Of Mouth’s What It Is and even later tunes like Sabres Of Paradise’s Ballad Of Nicky McGuire (4). It was Weatherall’s championing of Depth Charge, seeking out and spinning sets of similar stuff, that in turn inspired the Chemical ne Dust Brothers, whose spectacular success then birthed Big Beat (5). Artists on the roster of that genre’s arguably leading label, Wall Of Sound, people such as Agent Provocateur, Jon Carter, Derek Dahlarge, and Mekon, all acknowledged a debt to Kane. He also remixed The Provocateurs – their cover of ESG’s You’re No Good.

The acts on Wall Of Sound seemed to relish, revel in Depth Charge’s sleaziness. Taking their lead from subsequent sorties, like 1995’s Sex, Sluts and Heaven – a super seedy side, drenched in delay and subliminal ecstatic moans, soaked in the cheap smut of Soho telephone box call-girl cards, and which came in a sleeve decorated with gobs of glow-in-the-dark semen.

While Kane’s passion for extreme cinema, both porn and horror, sometimes took his music in a dark direction, you’ve also got Goal! Much, much more lighthearted this was bright, brassy, Brazilian, carnival-flavoured, coloured by cheering crowds and excitable football commentators.

Bounty Killer, though, was the one that was a huge hit at Balearic beanos. Big Audio Dynamite had primed people for the tune’s use of Spaghetti Western samples, with their Medicine Show. The juice harps, famous lines – “A measly 1000 bucks…” – and whistles from Ennio Morricone scores and the films of Sergio Leone. While B.A.D. were cool, they were nowhere near as chaotic / kinetic / energetic as Kane. He bashed together his boisterous hoedown in a go-go-esque manner. Cutting up Herman Kelly and Simtec & Wiley, and borrowing the rave bass from Bizarre Inc.’s Technological (7). There were lifts from the electro of Xena and the hook from Mad Professor / Aisha’s The Creator. The funk now fashioned from gunshots and ricochets. The flames of torched Wild West mining town, Lago, and anguished cries from Clint Eastwood’s High Plains Drifter. “Who are you?” A mad breakdown of galloping horses hooves.

This is the music that you’d have found me playing, when me and my mates began throwing parties in the early 1990s. We started doing this simply because no club would let us all in. As far as DJing was concerned I never wanted a peak slot. I just wanted to listen to my favourite records loud and get high. Hopefully taking the crowd with me on that “journey”. Handing them over when ready. Job done, I’d then join in on the dance floor.

Digging through my old writing to prep for this piece – primarily not wanting to repeat myself, since I’ve paid tribute to Depth Charge in the past – I even found an old playlist. Han Do Jin squeezed in between The Unknown Cases and LS Diezel. I did, and still do out of habit, work out a rough road map for my sets. This was an emergency measure since I used to get so shit-faced while DJing, that I needed something I could fall back on just in case I could no longer function / concentrate / see straight. Kane would have probably hated me.

J. Saul Kane Rest In Peace. 

NOTES

1. Peel played all of Depth Charge’s early releases. Depth Charge even recorded a Peel Session in 1991. Peel aired a fair amount of hip hop. It was also where I first caught KRS-One. At that point I hadn’t heard Han Do Jin in a club. I was at Uni then, and didn’t really have dough for records. Instead, I’d listen to Peel while studying at night in my room, and make pause button tapes of the show. Scribble lists of songs that I particularly liked, which I’d then buy when I came into any cash. I, of course, worked my way through the holidays, in a variety of temp jobs – from demolition to  silver service. I found Depth Charge back in Croydon on one of these breaks. I was lucky ‘cos Tim, a Kirk Brandon lookalike, who manned the counter in our only local independent store, H.R. Cloakes, was a big fan of the industrial end of things, but also got in bass heavy stuff that inhabited the overlaps. He knew a lot about On-U Sound. Depth Charge was on the West London label, Vinyl Solution, whose output up until then had been hardcore punk, which was probably another reason why Tim stocked them.
2. Kindred sonic spirits Renegade Soundwave said something very similar when asked about Shoom.
3. In protest at “house music all night” Kane set Depth Charge’s BPMs at around 90. However, many DJs spun the tune at 45, not the intended 33rpm, earning Han Do Jin a place in drum & bass / jungle history. Kane himself produced rave tracks, as Eon, in collaboration with Ian “B” Loveday, and he also contributed to John Rocca’s post-Freeez house project Midi Rain.
4. Kane remixed the Sabres Of Paradise track, Tow Truck. The band liked it so much that when they played the song live they reproduced his version.
5. The Chemicals turned Depth Charge’s Shaolin Buddha Finger into an anthem during their legendary Heavenly Social residency. 
6. I think through Wall Of Sound and Skint, something that had been unique got totally rinsed and massively diluted. So many people were making big beat / trip hop tracks. They were all clearly fans but popularity led to commerciality, cash-grabs and a plummet in quality. The music also seemed to come with a lifestyle of excess for excess’ sake, a horrible kind of aggro-hedonism that was steeped in machismo, and a mean-spirited, nihilistic nastiness, totally at odds with the second summer of love’s inclusive ideals. Fucked-up folks fucking other folks over. Personally, it was a complete turn-off. Kane had by this time moved on, and with his own label, D.C. Recordings was instead was releasing post-punk funk, kosmische and collisions there off. Kane’s alias Octagon Man, and as Sem, with Damon “Deadly Avenger” Baxter, via another offshoot Electron Industries, produced raw synth and drum machine workouts, exploring techno’s electro roots. Paying homage to sinister Sci-Fi Soundtracks. 
7. At D.C. Kane mentored several now highly regarded young musicians and producers. He’d been instrumental in signing Bizarre Inc. to Vinyl Solution. Andrew Meecham and Dean Meredith from the band would later assume several pseudonyms, such as Big Two Hundred, for D.C. Recordings. It was Kane who coined the Emperor Machine moniker. Kane’s knowledge of Italian Giallo scores helped shape Richard Sen’s  Padded Cell project. D.C. was also the first home of Phonica Records co-founder Tom Relleen’s The Oscillation.