Valley of the Shadows

"Valley of the Shadows" by Origin Unknown is a highly influential jungle music track from 1993 released on Ram Records. Originally featured as a B-side of the 4th Ram Records release "Valley of the Shadows" proved a lot more popular than the A-side, "The Touch", and the 12" went on to become one of the label's best-selling releases.

Origin Unknown is the recording pseudonym of long serving Drum n Bass DJ/artist Andy C and veteran producer Ant Miles.

Two vocal samples are used extensively throughout the track:

• The phrase "Felt that I was in this long dark tunnel", sampled from an episode of the BBC documentary series Q.E.D., first shown in 1989, concerning out-of-body experiences.
• The phrase "Thirty-one seconds", from the Apollo 11 countdown to the Lunar Module landing on the moon in 1969 (as voiced by then-Kennedy Space Center Chief of Public Information Jack King).

Most of the samples that were used to make the tune were taken from the free CD that came with the first issues of the magazine Future Music that came out in the UK in February 1993.

The title is perhaps inspired by Psalm 23 in the Bible, but is probably more likely to be a reference to 'The Valley of the Shadow of Death' in Bunyan's 'Pilgrim's Progress', which was itself inspired by the Psalm.

References

The original mix tape was created by Sean Christopher Miller and co-produced by Gary Austin, Forest Gate.