Mighty Force began life in 1990 as an Exeter based record shop and then label run by Mark Darby, created largely to put out the music on a tape passed to him by one Richard D. James. Said cassette contained Analogue Bubblebath, the first appearance on vinyl of Aphex Twin. The label ran to 1999, from '95 in London, and then closed its doors. Mark began releasing music again in summer 2019 and since then had put out album after album of outstanding electronic music- ambient, techno, dance music, acid and all points in between and around, releases by David Harrow, Boxheater Jackson, M- Paths, Golden Donna, Myoptik, Long Range Desert Group, Yorkshire Machines, WRNR, Shrieky, SubDan, M- Paths, D'FunK, Fluffy Inside, AP Organism, Paddy Thorne, KAMS, Sven Kossler, Solipsism, and dyLAB plus several compilations of MF Acid and this year has already released two further compilations to celebrate the label's thirty three years. MF33 Volume 2 can be found here. The most recent Mighty Force release appeared ten days ago, an hour long mix of music by Boxheater Jackson containing music from his Indigenous State Of Mind album and some previously unreleased Boxheater tracks. Find it here. There is nothing on Mighty Force that isn't worth listening to, Mark's quality control is ridiculously high. Today's mix is a celebration of the label, nine tracks long with eight from the reborn Mighty Force.
Fifty Five Minutes Of Mighty Force
- Aphex Twin: Analogue Bubblebath
- AP Organism: Moon Rocks
- Fluffy Inside: Nylon Corner
- KAMS: Website Rave
- Long Range Desert Group: Lutheran Burglar
- Yorkshire Machines: LS3 03
- M- Paths: M- Paths By Name, Empaths By Nature
- Boxheater Jackson: Let It All Go!
- David Harrow: Jitter
Analogue Bubblebath is a perfect piece of electronic music, a track Mark heard in his shop over the shop's sound system and was 'like nothing (he'd) ever heard before'. It took a while to convince Richard/ Aphex Twin to release it, Richard eventually agreeing while under the influence of LSD. Analogue Bubble bath is otherworldly, emotive, inventive, ambient dance music that keeps shifting shape, and still sounds like the future.
AP Organism released Space Docks And Moon Rocks in May 2023, a two track EP of dubby/ cosmic/ ambient electronica from Andy Pitman.
Fluffy Inside's Nylon Corners came out in July 2023, a ten track album that works as both headphone and dancefloor music. The title track is a beauty, acid melodies dancing about over rattling 303 percussion.
Website Rave is from KAMS Described Spaces album, a twelve track delight. Website Rave sounds exactly like its title suggests it should- acid basslines, thumping machine drums, squiggles, sirens, the occasional sampled vocal shout.
Long Range Desert Group's album Pro- oxidant was one of my favourites back in 2022, drawing its influences not just from electronic music but from post- punk, from ACR, 23 Skidoo and Talking Heads. Heads down, absorbing and cinematic, the whole album is an essential Mighty Force release.
Yorkshire Machines put out their Firing Up EP in late 2023. It is thumpy acid dance music. LS3 03 samples Sean Bean from the TV adaptation of David Peace's deeply unsettling Red Riding quartet of novels. No one made the construction of a vast shopping centre sound more like a threat than a promise.
M- Paths have had two albums out on Mighty Force, Hope in March 2023 and Submerge in April this year. The track here is from Hope. On the whole M- Paths make chilled out ambient and ambient techno. The one here is pretty thumpy though, dance music as a thing of optimism.
Boxheater Jackson has had two full length albums out on Mighty Force, the first We Are One in 2022 and the second this year's Indigenous State Of Mind from September last year. Both albums are superb, Big Vern creating widescreen, stripped down, consciousness raising, awestruck dance music. Boxheater Jackson is otherwise known as Big Vern Burns. He who DJed alongside Andrew Weatherall at the Double Gone Chapel and before that was an engineer at Sabresonic and then went onto Rotters Golf Club.
David Harrow's road to Mighty Force takes in a past that includes time spent with Psychic TV, writing and producing with Anne Clark, being a key member of the On U Sound crew, playing with Jah Wobble, recording with Andrew Weatherall as Blood Sugar and then on Sabres as Technova, writing Billie Ray Martin's Your Loving Arms, moving to LA and releasing music as James Hardway and more recently putting out modular synth/ ambient/ dub recordings under his own name. Jitter was the title track on a two track EP from 2023, a slice of mighty, jittery acid techno to finish things here.