Renegade Hardware was founded in 1995 by Clayton Hines and Mark Hill, who had already established Trouble On Vinyl. Their new imprint pursued a harder, more technical strain of drum and bass, opening with Flash Gordon / Jeep Beats by Future Forces, the partnership of dBridge and Maldini.
The catalogue moved from forceful jungle breaks towards techstep and intricate sound design, with Konflict, Loxy, Ink, and Hive among its artists. Nights at London’s The End gave that music a regular home on the dancefloor and made the parties part of the label’s identity.
A closure announcement in 2015 marked the end of its first 20 years of operations. That period left a catalogue tracing some of the harder developments in drum and bass, from its early jungle records to the technical sound associated with Hardware.
