the T&J uuurrv is fantastic - amazing to think they just knocked out this separate body of strong work alongside the experimental 4 Hero / et al stream
"knocked out" is the right word i think , i read somewhere that each T&J tune typically took a couple of hours to make
seemed to be a slight sense that they were using the alter ego (and separate label from Reinforced, right?) because they were consciously pandering to the massive and the needs of the dancefloor
but a lot of those tunes are among the best of the era
"Well not tall tales but a little myth busting:, Myself and Dego produced the Tom and Jerry records as a little fun side project from the usual Reinforced output. We channeled both our Manix and TEK9 monikers into the tracks and 90% of the tunes were made in a few hours, the 1st 12" was made in under an hour (both tracks), we had a production race lol, like I said it was about fun and capturing the moment, the vibe as quick as possible. The serious part of this was that we mainly sampled things we liked, music we grew up on or was into, breaks, rare groove soul, reggae records we owned on vinyl and sound tapes straight from my pops in Jamaica at the time. The tracks are a snapshot of US. I reckon they were set to be rare from the get go, we only press small amounts and would sell stock from the back of Ian's van, I'm talking 300-500 units. The later releases maybe a little more but at that point in time that was considered small quantities, I still don't have a full set of shells myself. SHELL the name, Reinforced fired the bullets and T&J were the shells or bullet cases that fell to the ground. R #truestory ahh there's so much more but its long... And before you ask, we have no plans to repress. We made a pact in 1993 😁, we have few more unreleased bits and VIPs so look out (big up stretch for convincing us to dig these out). People kinda hate on T&J records now because the prices are crazy but that's not down to us or the music, love or hate... Shrug..."
-- Marc Clair, 2019