While the freeform world is recovering from New Year, it might be a good time to relax with a few more intelligent drum and bass tracks from the 90s. First we have quite a well known tune – The Mystics from my favourite producer of the era, PFM. This one’s from 1996, and as deep as they come.

Next is a very chilled track from Photek, a real pioneer whose drum programming was on another level, just amazing stuff. T-Raenon (1996 again) has a different feel to some of his more minimal tracks (check Rings Around Saturn and Ni Ten Ichi Ryu), but the usual great drumming.

Jonny L has been around since the very early days (have a listen to the classic Hurt You So), but in the mid-90s he was producing some nice ambient tunes too. I first heard Tychonic Cycle in a Bukem set, it’s been a favourite ever since.

Expressions Pt.2 by Dave Wallace was quite an overlooked tune at the time, but it’s got just about everything – great bassline, deep pads and that addictive melody over the top.

Going back a year to 1995, here’s True Romance from DJ Pulse. I first heard it in a mixtape by my cousin in 1996, really nice drums in this one.

We haven’t had an amen track yet, so try the amazing PFM remix of JMJ & Richie’s Free La Funk.

The next couple of tunes are both from 1997, when the mid-nineties sound started to be left behind a bit. There were still plenty of great tracks though, including Eastern Promise from Intense.

Next is The Ephemeris by Future Bound. Beautiful opening to the track, and extremely chilled out from start to finish.

Finally (before I kill the site again), here’s Voyager’s Apollo. His Hypersleep is one of my favourite tunes, but this one was a few years later (1998). I didn’t actually listen to it that much when it was first released but now I’ve seen sense… You’ll notice the bpm is creeping up already though, and in a couple more years this kind of deep sound had almost completely disappeared.

Right, that’s enough for now – I’ve missed out on so many classics, but they’re easy enough to find on YouTube, following links from PFM’s tracks etc. By the way, if you missed Chill Out Corner part 1, here it is.