Mo’ Wax — Where Are They Now: DJ Solo (1995)
Mo’ Wax was a record label started by James Lavelle in 1992, which closed about ten years later. Initially they released 12" singles and licensed a compilation from Japan of Japanese Hip Hop, until 1994 when they began releasing albums of their artists original work. While some of these artists such as DJ Shadow, DJ Krush, and Money Mark continued releasing music after Mo’ Wax closed, others have seemingly disappeared from the music scene. In this series I will look at each artist on Mo’ Wax and try to find out where are they now…
In 1995 Mo’ Wax created a spin-off label called Excursions. It put out ten 12" singles which were then collected onto a compilation album, also called Excursions, and released by Mo’ Wax in 1996.
DJ Solo is Mark Wilkins who released his debut 12" Darkage in 1993. The single featured a remix by David Pereira under his DMS alias, and was released in November that year as a blue 10" single with Axis as the double A-side featuring DJ Devine aka Matt Orr.
Also in 1993, DJ Solo was part of Da Untouchablez , were DJ Solo with Rise & Shine, a duo made up of Dan Bray & Rachel Miller. They released Jazzy New Style / Beat Dis, which appears to be the sole collaboration between the three DJs.
The following year DJ Solo released two more 12" singles. The first Deal Wid It / Made In London which was written and produced with Floyd Dyce, the in-house producer of Production House, the label who released Darkage and Deal Wid It. The second was Inna Strength / Sureshot with DJ Rosie, released on FX Recordings. The Wire described Sureshot as “sandpaper abrasion, shot through with revelatory tumbling strings, is another example of the way fragility nests within severity in the [Jungle] music.”
Inna Strength is notable as it was engineered by Illian Walker aka Ills, who continued to collaborate with DJ Solo through the 1990s. At the time, Ils had set up his own studio and began producing for pirate radio DJs, who introduced him to DJ Solo and Rich File, the later who connected Ils with Mo’ Wax. Both DJ Solo and Rich File collaborated on a 12" for Mo’ Wax, and more recently Rich File shared how the song came about:
“Mark (Solo) and Ils taught me the basics of how to make records. I knew Mark from Sutton, where I grew up. And I was aware that he’d made a track called Darkage -which I loved — on Production House Records. And we knew each other from around, but he was a couple of years older than me so we had never really hung out up until that point.
But one day, after I’d been DJ’ing for a year or so on pirate radio, and was now itching to get in the studio and have a go at making some music myself, I just went up to him in our local record shop and asked him if we could make a record together. Mark and I made Take Heed — which I’m still so proud of! — which was my first release on Mo’Wax’s sister label, Excursions and it sold over 5,000 vinyl copies in the first week!
Take Heed was released by Mo’ Wax on their newly launched sublabel Excursions in 1995, and on 25 November 1995 it reached #96 in the UK Singles Charts. Muzik gave it 4/5 stars in their review, writing that track Summer Madness was “the breakbeat cousin of Isley Brothers’ “Summer Breeze”.”
On 15 April 1996, DJ Solo’s Pressure was released as one of the final Excursions 12"s before the sublabel was closed in 1996. The press release described Pressure as “some of the deepest darkest and wickedest drum and bass that Solo has made since “Dark Age”. A Jungle classic with a remix on the B Side by new Mo Wax signing ‘Peshay’ this is sure to be a floor-filler on any dancefloor and a highly desirable piece of vinyl to add to any decent record collection.”
A slightly different version of the song Pressure II was featured on the Mo’ Wax compilation Headz 2A, while Peshay’s remix appears on the Excursions album which collects many of the tracks released on the short-live sublabel.
Ils is again credited as engineer on the Pressure 12", and though this was DJ Solo’s last release for Mo’ Wax, Ils and DJ Solo were already collaborating elsewhere, starting with their Ils & Solo 12" In The Area, released in 1995 on LTJ Bukem’s Looking Good Records.
DJ Solo also worked with Rich File under his Aura alias following their Excursions collaboration, releasing Justice on Flavour Vinyl in 1996. That label also released Abstract Era by Captive, another alias of Mark Wilkins, and the 12" featured a DJ Solo remix of the title track alongside the original mix and a B-side.
These were followed by Ils & Solo’s Frozen, released in 1997 on Timeless Recordings. Upon release Muzik gave it 8/10, and later 9/10 when it was remixed and re-released in 1998. For their next release in December 1997, Ils & Solo put out Outer Edge on Bluprints, a label set up to put out Solo’s music.
Bluprints ran for approximately one year and their planned second, third, and sixth releases were a collaboration between Solo and Ross Marshall, billed as Solo & Ross. The labels fourth planned release was a solo Ross Marshall 12" co-written with Solo, but it’s unclear if that was released. The label had also planned to release a 12" by DJ Search & Magic, and another by Solo & Ross called Assassin, but it appears the only actual releases were those first three from Ils & Solo and Solo & Ross.
Solo later teamed with Ross Marshall again in 2002 for a series of releases as Soul Purpose on Good Looking Records, the parent label of Looking Good Records which Ils and DJ Solo had previously released on. Ross Marshall wrote about their collaboration in 2005, and said:
“After a year improving my own production skills I hooked up with DJ Solo who was writing with Ils at the time and we started doing some tracks together. We soon realised that we had a good sense of balance in the studio. When I introduce a lot of the musical elements to a track, Mark (Solo) adds more of a raw edge and darker influence to it. One of the first tracks we wrote together was ‘Dominion’, which has a nice blend of melodic string lines with harder more acid sounds. We sent it off to a few people and then got a call from Danny Bukem saying he was in it and wanted it for Good Looking. He played it for nearly a year on plate before putting it out. This was the start of Soul Purpose.”
Their final release together was 2006’s I Got A Feeling, released on Vibez Recordings as a 12" as well as on their Sonar Project Vol 1 compilation. Although it sounded like there were plans for more, this is the final credit the duo have on Discogs.
Likewise, Mark Wilkins has had no credits on any other projects, outside of his songs appearing on mixes. But in 2021 Kniteforce Productions announced plans to release a series of DJ Solo remix 12"s, which have since been delayed by issues with their record pressing plant.
In January 2022 test pressings were released to the public, which included a reissue of Darkage / Axis (DMS Remixes), a reissue of the unremixed edition, and new remixes of Darkage by Pete Cannon, Sikka, and Abyss. An exact release date is unknown, but in June they confirmed the 12"s were still coming.
Will these new remixes motivate Mark Wilkins to produce new music as DJ Solo? Only time will tell.
