In September 1995 we started Spymania primarily to release music by our mate Tom. Although we knew his music was really something special and unique we couldn't have predicted how quickly and to what extent he would blow up. A few short months and much well deserved hype later, we waved a fond farewell to Squarepusher (aka the Duke of Harringay) as he signed a deal with Warp (yes, Warp!). Suddenly we had to look elsewhere for some music to stick out. Luckily we had loads of other mates who were also making well good tunes and pioneering the well established Drill'n'Bass genre we all know and love today. Releases by WAFTA, Paddington Breaks, MDK, Si Begg, Spandex and Hypo all followed, as well as some offensive cut'n'paste hilarity from the legendary Cassetteboy on our sister label Barry's Bootlegs. (No, we don't know where Barry is now). History repeated itself in 2000 when we released the debut album from Jamie Lidell and he got snapped up by Warp too. Well, we must have been doing something right, right....?

One thing we got wrong though was that we never got around to releasing this mesmerising EP by Songbird and WAFTA. As some of you might know, WAFTA is the sublime combination of Martin Wood-Mitrovski (aka MDK) and our own Hardy Spymania. Their College Street Zoo 12" was released as SPY003 back in 1996 and set the bar for some dark weird heavy funky shit. Songbird is our very good friend Jane Mitchell, an integral part of the crew, extremely talented musician and generally lovely person. Here are Jane's own words about her tracks and why this EP didn't come out twenty years ago:

"I designed Wondering and 55Hz for a quadrophonic sound installation in Brighton back in 1998. I built a specially crafted room and intended the audience to freely move around the space so that listening was a unique and active experience. A really important element of the installation was the panning - the sound was designed for 4 speakers so even if you lay still in the middle of the room the audio layers would circle around you. I loved creating and especially mixing these pieces for 4 speakers. When the Spymania guys asked to release them, I couldn't get my head around flattening the mix to stereo - they just weren't the same. Anyway, I guess I've mellowed a little since then, and now I'm really happy and very proud to be a part of the Spymania story. 🙂"

Thanks Jane!

Over the years I've had these five tracks on a minidisc and listened to them many times, over and over again, often on repeat for hours on end. The EP that never was. It felt like my own little secret. After rediscovering this beautiful gem again recently, I felt really compelled to finally share it with the world. Our 25th anniversary seems like the perfect opportunity to do so, and for Spymania to finally have it's first digital release.

We hope you enjoy the music.
Let us know!