Mighty Force Records

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Mighty Force Records was a record shop and influential early techno label based in Exeter, Devon, South West England between 1990 - 1995. It was founded by ex-punk, ex-free festival activist (having briefly worked with the Stonehenge Free Festival Campaign in 1983) and ex-warehouse party organiser Mark Darby and his partner, journalist Jess Shortis after they had visited various club-based events in Plymouth and realised there was no focal point for the burgeoning rave scene in Somerset, Devon and Cornwall.

The label is best known for releasing Analogue Bubblebath by AFX, the first EP by Richard D. James, the Aphex Twin and Tom Middleton later of Global Communication, Jedi Knights, Cosmos and AMBA. Later releases included Middleton's own "My Splendid Idea" and the hard to find Fog City EP by shop and label owner Darby and Matthew Herbert.

The shop was the catalyst for the fledgling West Country techno movement and Middleton, his Global Communication and Jedi Knights partner Mark Pritchard and Herbert met through the patronage of the Mighty Force store. All three also DJ'ed regularly at the weekly promotional club night run by the label.

Darby's connections with the early eighties festival scene and involvement in organising free acid house parties centered around Pepper Box Hill near Salisbury in Wiltshire in the latter part of that decade - especially a joint event at that location in August of 1989 - led to an informal partnership between a DJ and sound system collective based around the shop and Nottingham's DiY Sound System, with whom they collaborated to stage many free parties throughout the South West during the early to mid 1990s.

Although the store ceased to trade in 1995, the label relocated to London and continued to release music by deep tech house artists such as Peach Palf and the Classic / Music For Freaks recording artists, Luke Solomon and Justin Harris under the alias Robotic Movement until 1998. Label design was by Ben Drury, known for his innovative work with James Lavelle's Mo' Wax label and former graffiti artist and The Clash's sometime sleeve designer, Futura 2000.

Other releases included a series of white label breakbeat EPs under the name of Old Skool Flava, nominally produced by Darby and Harry "H" Warren, manager of Global Communication's now defunct Universal Language Productions record label.

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