djcev.com

So back in the late '90s there used to be a site called mp3.com, a place where musicians released low-bitrate mp3s of original tracks. There was a drum & bass producer I liked a lot there by the name of Red Orc. I got to wondering yesterday: where'd Red Orc go, what'd they end up doing?

Discogs.com tells me that Red Orc is Andrew Smith AKA Professor Smith AKA Jackie's Army. This appears to be the same Andrew Smith that founded XLR8R magazine. Discogs lists three releases by Red Orc in 1998 after which Smith released a series of very interesting minimalist dubby electro EPs on the San Francisco label Voltage Music (all of which are now available on bandcamp).

The one Red Orc track I can remember clearly is Plus Two, a dark sketchy 170 BPM amen workout. I wasn't able to find any Red Orc for download on the web; digging through old burned CDs I found Plus Two and four other tracks, all in 128kbps mp3 format. Plus Two's metadata says it's from a 1999 album called "Red Orc in the Palace of Funk"; I'd very much like to hear that album someday.