Mark Summers - First Recordings

First Recordings

Starting his musical career as a London club DJ at the age of 15 (playing Disco/Soul/Funk/Electro until a transition to House music in 1986), Mark Summers became a UK recording artist and studio engineer in 1989 with his involvement on the underground Rave track "Meltdown" by Quartz. Following a dispute over ownership and royalties of "Meltdown" between Summers and the other two Quartz members, Summers decided to release his own first solo work "Melt Your Body" - which was moderately based upon "Meltdown", made in retaliation by Summers after the dispute. By January 1990, "Melt Your Body" had outsold "Meltdown" by 3:1, it entered the UK top 100 sales chart, and in recognition of this Mark Summers was firmly established as a promising new UK dance music producer.

Due to big responses from playing his own tracks whilst DJ-ing, Summers signed a two-single deal with Island Records' offshoot urban dance label 4th & Broadway, in May 1990. The first single "Party Children" just missed the UK top 75, whereas the second single "Summers Magic" climbed up the UK chart to peak at number 17, in January 1991. "Summers Magic" gained instant recognition as the first ever dance track to heavily feature a sample of music from a children's TV theme tune, in this case it was the BBC's "The Magic Roundabout".

The Hardcore/Breakbeat/Techno ("Rave") driven kids' TV sampling phenomenon of "Summers Magic" seemingly provided inspiration for many other artists, including The Prodigy, releasing their first ever single "Charly". Before entering the UK national charts, the majority of Rave followers believed "Charly" was possibly the work of Mark Summers and his follow-up to "Summers Magic". The Prodigy's track eventually charted in July 1991, almost 7 months following the ground-breaking "Summers Magic". During 1991-93, Summers produced and remixed tracks mainly in the musical style first labeled "Hardcore", which later morphed itself into the breakbeat-driven music genre now commonly known as "Drum 'N Bass".