18th May 2011
In the beginning, the name 4 Hero did actually mark the presence of a quartet. Mark Mac and Dego first hooked up with Iain Bardouille and Gus Lawrence in 1986, through their mutual adoration for hip-hop and involvement in the Strong Island FM pirate radio station. By 1989, Mark Mac and Dego were recording percussive breakbeat experiments and becoming increasingly involved with the breakbeat scene, while Bardouille and Lawrence gradually moved into management of the quartet’s newly formed Reinforced Records. The label debuted with the Rising Sun EP by Mark and Dego, credited to 4 Hero. The second EP, “Combat Dance”, became a big seller in the dance community, though a shady distributor reneged on payment of the profits. Though they were still in the rave scene, 4 Hero’s subsequent recordings also revealed a growing interest in the flip side of rave’s increasingly elegiac feeling. 4 Hero’s 1991 LP debut “In Rough Territory” sketched a sinister path through breakbeat. This was followed by “Parallel Universe”. The smooth sound reflected more of a debt to old – school Detroit techno and Chicago house. Three years after their last album, they signed to Talkin’ Loud and released third album, “Two Pages”.
It was nominated for Britain’s Mercury Prize, and prompted the remix album “Two Pages: Reinterpretations” in 1999. “Creating Patterns” appeared in late 2001, boasting collaborations with Mark Murphy, Terry Callier and Jill Scott. www.4hero.co.uk
