The Comedy of Errors: Stevie Hyper D & Tigger Max - Hear the Vibes (8 May 1992)

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My notes for this track when I selected it for inclusion talk of “techno reggae”.  What a super idea - reggae flow over a drum and bass backing.  How niche, eh?  And then I listen to Hear the Vibes again and realise that plenty of other influential and creative people were thinking the same thing but they didn’t call it techno reggae, they called it jungle.
Peel wasn’t calling it that in 1992, but he had form for playing records that would fall under that label, especially if they were on a ragga tip.  With Hear the Vibes though, he provided a showcase for Stephen Austin aka Stevie Hyper D, a man widely acknowledged as the finest jungle MC Britain ever produced.  Ian McQuaid’s outstanding retrospective article does far better justice to the late Stevie than I am currently in any position to, but Hear the Vibes hits many of the fundamentals that seemed to make Stevie’s live sets so mesmeric - he hypes the room, giving himself space to build up his flow of ideas before launching, in double time into his flow of vocals.  The speed flow beats me but he’s certainly shooting for the Millenium at one point.  Sadly, he didn’t see it, dying of a heart attack at the age of 30 in 1998.
After releasing Hear the Vibes, Stevie sat out recording for three years by which point jungle was up and thriving both under and overground.  I hope Peel went back to him or offered a Peel Session.  As for Tigger Max, who provided the fantastic beats and beds for Stevie to work over, this record appears to be all they ever put out as an artist.  Discogs turns up no further evidence or aliases.  Maybe Tigger felt this could not be improved upon.  Regardless, they left a mark.

Video courtesy of PitchlockmobileDJs Ireland.