I can blog from my Galaxy Tab???? Big. Bloodclaat. Tings!
I'll let you know what's on my mind more often!
Oh, and this one goes out to Stuart Littlechild - don't delete me, bro!!!
Wednesday, January 26, 2011
Tuesday, September 28, 2010
Future Garage
Just a short note this time, rather than a full-blown article.
Future Garage sounds amazing. However it has one of the fucking STUPIDEST names for a subgenre, EVER (and this includes "Liquid Funk"). Which twatfaced journalist dreamt this name up? Surely he should be hanged by the balls until dead. Deader than Speed Garage.
In my haughty opinion, 2Step is still a valid subgenre name. Therefore, I shall be referring to the resurgence of 2Step as, well, 2Step.
Fucking journalists, man. Here are a couple of videos...
SMW vs CeCe Penniston "Finally"
Pariah "Orpheus"
James Blake "I'll Stay" (SMW remix)
Future Garage sounds amazing. However it has one of the fucking STUPIDEST names for a subgenre, EVER (and this includes "Liquid Funk"). Which twatfaced journalist dreamt this name up? Surely he should be hanged by the balls until dead. Deader than Speed Garage.
In my haughty opinion, 2Step is still a valid subgenre name. Therefore, I shall be referring to the resurgence of 2Step as, well, 2Step.
Fucking journalists, man. Here are a couple of videos...
SMW vs CeCe Penniston "Finally"
Pariah "Orpheus"
James Blake "I'll Stay" (SMW remix)
Music suggestions
OK people, I'm a bit starved for weird and wonderful music to listen to. Your mission, should you decide to accept it, is to comment this blog post with links to mixes and tracks (SoundCloud/MixCloud links preferred). I'll try to put together some reviews and feedback for subsequent posts (it's had to write about music when you've been listening to the same five albums for the past six months).
OK, go!
OK, go!
Thursday, June 17, 2010
NERVE closes its doors
It's with both sadness and joy that I report to you the demise of Paul Reset & Pyro's Nerve Recordings & Nerve Breaks.
Sadness because the label, as well as Paul and co., has been an important part of my time within the D&B scene. Joy because, it's been a goddamn pleasure journeying through the underbelly of this music with the Glasgow-based music factory, and neither Paul's nor Pyro's influence in the electronic music sphere will not evaporate with Nerve's closure.
Paul Reset goes on to phuturelabs.com (Twitter), while Pyro continues his sublime techno-infused production and brings forth some naughty, naughty techno.
Nerve Recordings, 2001-2010 RIP.
Sadness because the label, as well as Paul and co., has been an important part of my time within the D&B scene. Joy because, it's been a goddamn pleasure journeying through the underbelly of this music with the Glasgow-based music factory, and neither Paul's nor Pyro's influence in the electronic music sphere will not evaporate with Nerve's closure.
Paul Reset goes on to phuturelabs.com (Twitter), while Pyro continues his sublime techno-infused production and brings forth some naughty, naughty techno.
Nerve Recordings, 2001-2010 RIP.
Wednesday, March 3, 2010
What should we do about the Likely Lads?
Where were you in 1997? I was in secondary school. For me, the turning point in my love of Drum & Bass came in the late summer/early autumn of that year, with the arrival and massive cross-over success of Reprazent's New Forms LP. That album busted my head wide-the-fuck-open, and I spent a lot of time trying to understand the techniques used on it (this was a massive challenge for a kid with an Amiga 1200 and OctaMED Pro).
However, the real turning point for me with D&B came in the September of that year, when I first heard this tune:
(excuse the lions and cheetahs, but this was the only video I could find with the tune)
Ed Rush & Optical - Funktion. From that moment on, I was what I would learn in 2005 was a neuronerd.
I'd heard some of Optical's prior work, like To Shape The Future and Grey Odyssey, and been blown away by it. I think everybody was, to be honest. Ed Rush's solo work, I hadn't heard a great deal of. I must confess, I was a little wary of the sheer hardness of No U-Turn's sound. Considering I now think of it as one of the defining D&B labels, I was clearly full of shit. When I did get around to checking his pre-Optical hookup work (please don't bombard my comments with mentions of his engineers, I know the stories), I found a richness of Hip Hop-infused, skunked-out, stripped-down, bass weight. The URL of this blog is no accident, let me tell you!
But bollocks to all that nostalgic, geek trip-down-memory-lane stuff. Let's fast-forward a little...
So, Ed Rush & Optical hooked up, made some tunes for Metalheadz, Prototype, V, started their own label, put out a slew of singles and two amazing albums, one passable one (yeah, I said it), one god-awful one (yeah, I fucking said it!), and then started what could be termed a return to form with Travel the Galaxy. Here's the thing though... I don't think this is where they should be.
Considering what they started, the artists they inspired, they should be on a par with the likes of LTJ Bukem, Bryan G, Goldie, Andy C as scene figureheads. Why? I'll tell you why...
Between them, Ed Rush & Optical started a musical revolution. OK, so Dom, Nico, Fierce, Trace, RymeTyme, Matrix, Stakka, K.Tee and Skynet all played a role in that, but if you ask the Young Turks of the Neurofunk scene, they almost universally agree that Wormhole was the point at which they fell in love with this strangely captivating synthesis of Techno, Funk and Drum & Bass. In short, it was their Timeless. Had those two not been introduced by Dom Angas (as in Dom & Roland), there'd be no Noisia, maybe no Black Sun Empire. And though I'm not a fan, no Pendulum. Think about that for a minute. The Drum & Bass landscape would be vastly different. Save for maybe the fallout from Bad Company, but that's another story altogether.
The cut-and-thrust of this post is, Ed & Optical should be focusing on growing Virus as a label, a business, and a home for like-minded artists. Bottom line. I'd rather see them take their label (and distributor, Devilfish) forward, fostering fresh talent grown in the fertile soil they laid down 13 years ago than playing catch-up to young upstarts. Not that there's anything wrong with the young upstarts. I just think mentorship from the guys who started the whole shebang should've been a part of their induction to D&B.
So what should we do about the Likely Lads? We should encourage them to put more time and energy into giving the newcomers the kind of support they need. Because the next generation of D&B heads need that same rawness I enjoyed in my late teens and early twenties.
However, the real turning point for me with D&B came in the September of that year, when I first heard this tune:
(excuse the lions and cheetahs, but this was the only video I could find with the tune)
Ed Rush & Optical - Funktion. From that moment on, I was what I would learn in 2005 was a neuronerd.
I'd heard some of Optical's prior work, like To Shape The Future and Grey Odyssey, and been blown away by it. I think everybody was, to be honest. Ed Rush's solo work, I hadn't heard a great deal of. I must confess, I was a little wary of the sheer hardness of No U-Turn's sound. Considering I now think of it as one of the defining D&B labels, I was clearly full of shit. When I did get around to checking his pre-Optical hookup work (please don't bombard my comments with mentions of his engineers, I know the stories), I found a richness of Hip Hop-infused, skunked-out, stripped-down, bass weight. The URL of this blog is no accident, let me tell you!
But bollocks to all that nostalgic, geek trip-down-memory-lane stuff. Let's fast-forward a little...
So, Ed Rush & Optical hooked up, made some tunes for Metalheadz, Prototype, V, started their own label, put out a slew of singles and two amazing albums, one passable one (yeah, I said it), one god-awful one (yeah, I fucking said it!), and then started what could be termed a return to form with Travel the Galaxy. Here's the thing though... I don't think this is where they should be.
Considering what they started, the artists they inspired, they should be on a par with the likes of LTJ Bukem, Bryan G, Goldie, Andy C as scene figureheads. Why? I'll tell you why...
Between them, Ed Rush & Optical started a musical revolution. OK, so Dom, Nico, Fierce, Trace, RymeTyme, Matrix, Stakka, K.Tee and Skynet all played a role in that, but if you ask the Young Turks of the Neurofunk scene, they almost universally agree that Wormhole was the point at which they fell in love with this strangely captivating synthesis of Techno, Funk and Drum & Bass. In short, it was their Timeless. Had those two not been introduced by Dom Angas (as in Dom & Roland), there'd be no Noisia, maybe no Black Sun Empire. And though I'm not a fan, no Pendulum. Think about that for a minute. The Drum & Bass landscape would be vastly different. Save for maybe the fallout from Bad Company, but that's another story altogether.
The cut-and-thrust of this post is, Ed & Optical should be focusing on growing Virus as a label, a business, and a home for like-minded artists. Bottom line. I'd rather see them take their label (and distributor, Devilfish) forward, fostering fresh talent grown in the fertile soil they laid down 13 years ago than playing catch-up to young upstarts. Not that there's anything wrong with the young upstarts. I just think mentorship from the guys who started the whole shebang should've been a part of their induction to D&B.
So what should we do about the Likely Lads? We should encourage them to put more time and energy into giving the newcomers the kind of support they need. Because the next generation of D&B heads need that same rawness I enjoyed in my late teens and early twenties.
Sunday, February 28, 2010
Burial: An Essay
First off, this isn't a proper essay in the schoolwork sense. Secondly, I'm not going to sit here and textually suck him off (or slate him). I am, however, going to talk about his music, what it means to me, and what I think its broader implications may be. While eating breakfast (that's how I roll).
Those of you who follow me on Twitter will have an inkling that I'm a fan. It took a while. I'd been hearing people rave about him for about a year before I listened to any of his work, and I must admit I was at first thoroughly indifferent to it. I'd heard Burial was this Dubstep wunderkind, but when I first heard his work it sounded like borderline Emo UK Garage. I stuck with the likes of Skream and Digital Mystikz a while longer. Fast forward to 2008 and the Mercury Music Prize nominations. His nomination brought him to wider public knowledge and renewed efforts to unmask the man, with tabloid newspapers coming up with wild theories as to his true identity. Add to that Hot Chip's Joe Goddard, who intimated to Time Out London (2006) that Burial had been a year above him at school. This piqued my interest, as I went to the same school (I was about four or five years behind Alexis and Joe). So I went back and listened to some more of his work (indeed, everything he'd done up to that point), and was enthralled.
After listening to Burial's work for over a year, and reading various interviews he's done with The Wire, The Guardian, or fellow Dubstep artist Blackdown, I realised that this was a guy who was musically saying some of the same things I've been ranting at my friends about: the music now is often too watered down by seeking popularity and sales; the younger ravers coming to the music have little or no clue where this whole phenomenon came from and don't care; we need a return to Old Skool vibes and energy, and less of the Weekend Warrior lifestyle raving. Of course, when I was ranting my friends' ears off, it was about Drum & Bass, but seeing as we're all hanging from different branches of the same tree, it doesn't matter much. Truth is truth, and I'm right because I'm right.
What strikes me about Burial's music isn't that it's new - his sound is distinctly riven with echoes of mid-nineties UK Garage (which I fucking hated at the time!) - but the purity of the Acid House ethic in his music. This isn't a man wasting time polishing the mixdown at the expense of ideas, arrangement, energy and vibes; he's getting his feelings out quickly, succinctly. The vocals, drums, basslines, keys and strings go for the gut. While not immediately dancefloor material, the tunes capture freeze-frames of sweaty South London clubs, urban panoramas (picture the Southern Trains route from Brighton to Victoria via East Croydon and Clapham Junction), solitude, and typically British "downcast optimism".
But beyond that, it captures where Rave got lost. That's a lot to lay at Burial's door, so I'll broaden it a little. Along with the likes of Mala, Loefah, Kode9, Skream, Instra:Mental, dBridge, Alix Perez, Equinox, Blackdown, and Cooly G, Burial's music fits into an emerging strand of artists who just plain ain't havin' it. Having grown weary of superclub chic, anthem bashing and quantity-over-quality, these artists have started making what I term Big People's Music. Music for the over-25 raver (I'm aware, before anyone mentions it, that Alix Perez is himself barely over 25, and Skream is 25 or younger) disillusioned with small venue closures and the ever-growing dearth of superclubs, 45 minute DJ sets, hearing the same five tunes cained by every other DJ every weekend, being surrounded by gormless 18 year olds without a clue about or care for the music and its origins. These artists are experimenting, stripping their music back to a pre-2003 vibes-orientated sound, cross-pollinating Dubstep, Drum & Bass, Afrobeat, true Electro and early House to produce electronic Soul music. Forget the high-passed Amens and predictable R&B vocals of Hospital Records. I'm talking about a revolution in music as big as the emergence of UK Soul in the early nineties. Labels like Hyperdub, nonPlus, Hot Flush, Scientific Wax, Darkestral, and Exit are pushing something as meaningful and paradigm-shattering as the very emergence of Dance music itself. However,with only the high-brow music media, bloggers and a handful of club and radio DJs giving it exposure, it's settling in for a long fight. Or at least, that's my perception.
So where do I see this all going, and what does it mean to me?
Take this tune for example, "Rendezvous" by dBridge. The sound he's working on at the moment, along with Instra:Mental and other artists on their nonPlus imprint is, to me, symbolic of the positive change within the Drum & Bass blueprint in the wake of Dubstep. Where many are trying to ignore Dubstep or simply emulate its halftime beat patterns, the sound of Club Autonomic is the synthesis of a new Soul sound, driven by Drum & Bass and Dubstep. The beat patterns may be different, but the spirit remains. This music is on a frontier, halfway over the edge and pressing on regardless; its glances backward aren't retro so much as informative and educational. And I fucking love it.
I love it because this is what I've been thinking about while the bovine masses of the D&B scene whine and complain like infants that Dubstep is "too slow" or "boring". These tunes won't get rewound three times by Andy C at whatever superclub. These tunes are for a more mature, more thoughtful, more music-loving crowd. I'm not saying that they won't appeal to Andy - they probably do - but his typical fan these days craves a different sound than this. However, don't take this to mean I have no love whatsoever for more typical/tearout D&B - I do - but the times, they are a-changin'. For me, as long as there are artists in that Big People's Music bracket, artists always looking for that next evolution (even if it's a dead-end), there is hope for electronic music.
Burial didn't do it all by himself, but he and many others are symbolic of the shift in what the discerning, older electronic music fan wants. We want to be moved, shocked, surprised, awed by music. We want to be so damn excited about it that we feel like the first time we went raving, the first time we heard this sound. We want to feel incapable of shutting the fuck up about this music, because it matters so much, means so much.
[I like that last bit. "It means so much." Because it really, truely does.]
Those of you who follow me on Twitter will have an inkling that I'm a fan. It took a while. I'd been hearing people rave about him for about a year before I listened to any of his work, and I must admit I was at first thoroughly indifferent to it. I'd heard Burial was this Dubstep wunderkind, but when I first heard his work it sounded like borderline Emo UK Garage. I stuck with the likes of Skream and Digital Mystikz a while longer. Fast forward to 2008 and the Mercury Music Prize nominations. His nomination brought him to wider public knowledge and renewed efforts to unmask the man, with tabloid newspapers coming up with wild theories as to his true identity. Add to that Hot Chip's Joe Goddard, who intimated to Time Out London (2006) that Burial had been a year above him at school. This piqued my interest, as I went to the same school (I was about four or five years behind Alexis and Joe). So I went back and listened to some more of his work (indeed, everything he'd done up to that point), and was enthralled.
After listening to Burial's work for over a year, and reading various interviews he's done with The Wire, The Guardian, or fellow Dubstep artist Blackdown, I realised that this was a guy who was musically saying some of the same things I've been ranting at my friends about: the music now is often too watered down by seeking popularity and sales; the younger ravers coming to the music have little or no clue where this whole phenomenon came from and don't care; we need a return to Old Skool vibes and energy, and less of the Weekend Warrior lifestyle raving. Of course, when I was ranting my friends' ears off, it was about Drum & Bass, but seeing as we're all hanging from different branches of the same tree, it doesn't matter much. Truth is truth, and I'm right because I'm right.
What strikes me about Burial's music isn't that it's new - his sound is distinctly riven with echoes of mid-nineties UK Garage (which I fucking hated at the time!) - but the purity of the Acid House ethic in his music. This isn't a man wasting time polishing the mixdown at the expense of ideas, arrangement, energy and vibes; he's getting his feelings out quickly, succinctly. The vocals, drums, basslines, keys and strings go for the gut. While not immediately dancefloor material, the tunes capture freeze-frames of sweaty South London clubs, urban panoramas (picture the Southern Trains route from Brighton to Victoria via East Croydon and Clapham Junction), solitude, and typically British "downcast optimism".
But beyond that, it captures where Rave got lost. That's a lot to lay at Burial's door, so I'll broaden it a little. Along with the likes of Mala, Loefah, Kode9, Skream, Instra:Mental, dBridge, Alix Perez, Equinox, Blackdown, and Cooly G, Burial's music fits into an emerging strand of artists who just plain ain't havin' it. Having grown weary of superclub chic, anthem bashing and quantity-over-quality, these artists have started making what I term Big People's Music. Music for the over-25 raver (I'm aware, before anyone mentions it, that Alix Perez is himself barely over 25, and Skream is 25 or younger) disillusioned with small venue closures and the ever-growing dearth of superclubs, 45 minute DJ sets, hearing the same five tunes cained by every other DJ every weekend, being surrounded by gormless 18 year olds without a clue about or care for the music and its origins. These artists are experimenting, stripping their music back to a pre-2003 vibes-orientated sound, cross-pollinating Dubstep, Drum & Bass, Afrobeat, true Electro and early House to produce electronic Soul music. Forget the high-passed Amens and predictable R&B vocals of Hospital Records. I'm talking about a revolution in music as big as the emergence of UK Soul in the early nineties. Labels like Hyperdub, nonPlus, Hot Flush, Scientific Wax, Darkestral, and Exit are pushing something as meaningful and paradigm-shattering as the very emergence of Dance music itself. However,with only the high-brow music media, bloggers and a handful of club and radio DJs giving it exposure, it's settling in for a long fight. Or at least, that's my perception.
So where do I see this all going, and what does it mean to me?
Take this tune for example, "Rendezvous" by dBridge. The sound he's working on at the moment, along with Instra:Mental and other artists on their nonPlus imprint is, to me, symbolic of the positive change within the Drum & Bass blueprint in the wake of Dubstep. Where many are trying to ignore Dubstep or simply emulate its halftime beat patterns, the sound of Club Autonomic is the synthesis of a new Soul sound, driven by Drum & Bass and Dubstep. The beat patterns may be different, but the spirit remains. This music is on a frontier, halfway over the edge and pressing on regardless; its glances backward aren't retro so much as informative and educational. And I fucking love it.
I love it because this is what I've been thinking about while the bovine masses of the D&B scene whine and complain like infants that Dubstep is "too slow" or "boring". These tunes won't get rewound three times by Andy C at whatever superclub. These tunes are for a more mature, more thoughtful, more music-loving crowd. I'm not saying that they won't appeal to Andy - they probably do - but his typical fan these days craves a different sound than this. However, don't take this to mean I have no love whatsoever for more typical/tearout D&B - I do - but the times, they are a-changin'. For me, as long as there are artists in that Big People's Music bracket, artists always looking for that next evolution (even if it's a dead-end), there is hope for electronic music.
Burial didn't do it all by himself, but he and many others are symbolic of the shift in what the discerning, older electronic music fan wants. We want to be moved, shocked, surprised, awed by music. We want to be so damn excited about it that we feel like the first time we went raving, the first time we heard this sound. We want to feel incapable of shutting the fuck up about this music, because it matters so much, means so much.
[I like that last bit. "It means so much." Because it really, truely does.]
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