The Ballistic Brothers

The Ballistic Brothers are something of a quintessential London post-acid house outfit. Combining the production talents of some of the most popular figures on the progressive house and acid jazz scenes (Ashley Beedle of Black Science Orchestra, Dave Hill of Nuphonic Records, and house-tech duo Rocky and Diesel), the Ballistics pursue a hip-hop/house/jazz/soul crossover that tends to spell "party" no matter where it's played. Releasing most of their initial material on London club staple Junior Boys Own (including their 1994 debut London Hooligan Soul), the group established the Soundboy label in 1996 to release the follow-up, Rude System. The album's semantic-cum-stylistic switch came via Dave Hill's trip to Jamaica just prior to recording the album, an inspiration that also led the group to pursue a remix project (similar to Mad Professor's take on Massive Attack's 1995 album Protection) at Bob Marley's Kingston studio. Group members' individual projects also include X-Press 2, Free Soul, Low Pressing Records, Blacker, Ill Sun Records, Yellow Sox, and the Uschi Classen band.