The fourth and final rinse in the Wax Doctor series, this one is different. Towards the end of the 90s D&B was morphing from a heavily sample based music to more synthetic instrument base. Trackers were on the way out and DAWs with soft-synths, drum samplers and other built in instruments changed the sound forever.

Wax Doctor by this stage had teamed up with Alex Reece to become the Fallen Angels, and were sometimes joined by Utah Jazz. Amen breaks changed to heavily processed step-style beats with a real crunchy snap to the snares. Experimentation was king, and a lot of the tunes in this mix feel like all three producers were trying to find their ‘new sound’.

While some of these tracks are a little rough, there are still some absolute diamonds in the rough like the Alex Reece & Wax Doctor collaboration – Exposed, Q Certain Thoughts and the bass heavy Track 7 which is one of my all time favourite Wax Doctor tunes.

After this era Wax Doctor pretty much disappeared off the D&B map. Although a few older tunes were re-release via the Creative Wax label. And very recently a new tune cropped up in a Sun & Bass set by DJ Djinn give me hope that maybe, just maybe Wax Doctor will revive his career and bless us with some more of his sublime style of D&B again.

Doctor Who?: 4th Regeneration – 1hr of 98-01 era Wax Doctor

Fallen Angels – The Theme
Alex Reece & Wax Doctor – Exposed
Fallen Angels – Track 7
Fallen Angels – Like the Sun
Alex Reece & Utah Jazz – All Night Long
Wax Doctor – Q Certain Thoughts
Fallen Angels – Rapier
Fallen Angels – Event Horizon
Alex Reece & Utah Jazz – G.R.V.
Bounty Killaz – Silent Voices (Tango Mix)
Sounds of Life – Release the Bells (Wax Doctor Remix)
Frank De Wulf – Drums in a Grip (Wax Doctor Remix)
Jazz Juice – Detroit (DJ Lee ’97 Remix)
Alex Reece & Utah Jazz – Retrospect
Fallen Angels – Biophonic