Wednesday, November 27, 2002
as far as any having any "cool" points goes, I'm probably gonna shoot myself in the foot here, but here goes anyway. simon's recent postings about "punk garage," "gabba garage," whatever-you-want-to-call-it have had me thinking about drum'n'bass. so this week I went back to two of my favorite d'n'b records, the first two volumes of logical progression. the first, put together by scene guru l.t.j bukem, was one of my first exposures to the genre, and I instantly fell in love. I know that for so many people it's too "nice," too "clean," too jazz-fusion-y. well, I happen to like some jazz fusion (not yellowjackets, for pete's sake - more miles' nasty electric experiments, and herbie hancock). bukem didn't make 'ardcore tracks; he made stuff you could use on the dancefloor and at home. I appreciate that. I've never lived anywhere where I could get to d'n'b nights, and I'm not much of a scenester (I'm even a piss-poor trainspotter these days), so home is where I consume pretty much any genre of dance music.
bukem's "music" nearly made my top 90 of the '90s, and probably should've yet (peshay's "vocal tune," too). this was, at the time, music unlike any I'd ever heard. it sounded new. it still sounds fresh. but that's what caught my ear first: this was new, future shit. dance music (largely) without diva cut-up vocals, cool yet warm, dry yet deep - and excepting the unfortunately named sub-genre known as "hip-house" (unfortunate is right) - this was the first dance music with rapping. sure, they called it toasting, an ode to their jamaican bred'ren (and the similarities between d'n'b and dub, I 'spect), but it sounded like rapping to me. this was something that combined my love of atmospherics (see: cocteau twins, eno, or the triple-disc ohm box) with deep, deep bass, cold crisp snares, and outre' keyboards - what was not to love?
I never collected one-sided white label test-pressings or acetates, never really considered myself a true connoisseur of the scene, I just knew what I liked. I tried some of the harder, darker stuff (some metalheadz and moving shadow, some hardstep), and didn't care for it as much. it was too dark for my tastes, too predictable. it didn't have the lightness, the almost airy (yet still substantive) quality of the bukem mafia's stuff. and it didn't have mc conrad.
conrad, in my view, is the most talented mc in the d'n'b scene. he's all over logical progression 2, mixed by blame (bukem's completely absent from this one, I assume so that it wouldn't be considered "his" series, and to better turn it into a brand). disc one of the set is mixed, and features conrad and mc drs toasting all over it, splendidly so. since when was "tasteful" a dirty word in music, anyway? I understand, sometimes music needs to be nasty and dirty and grungy (not grunge, necessarily). but not always. the one-two punch of blame's "visions of mars" and odyssey's "expressions" kicks lp2 off superbly.
[to be continued.]
bukem's "music" nearly made my top 90 of the '90s, and probably should've yet (peshay's "vocal tune," too). this was, at the time, music unlike any I'd ever heard. it sounded new. it still sounds fresh. but that's what caught my ear first: this was new, future shit. dance music (largely) without diva cut-up vocals, cool yet warm, dry yet deep - and excepting the unfortunately named sub-genre known as "hip-house" (unfortunate is right) - this was the first dance music with rapping. sure, they called it toasting, an ode to their jamaican bred'ren (and the similarities between d'n'b and dub, I 'spect), but it sounded like rapping to me. this was something that combined my love of atmospherics (see: cocteau twins, eno, or the triple-disc ohm box) with deep, deep bass, cold crisp snares, and outre' keyboards - what was not to love?
I never collected one-sided white label test-pressings or acetates, never really considered myself a true connoisseur of the scene, I just knew what I liked. I tried some of the harder, darker stuff (some metalheadz and moving shadow, some hardstep), and didn't care for it as much. it was too dark for my tastes, too predictable. it didn't have the lightness, the almost airy (yet still substantive) quality of the bukem mafia's stuff. and it didn't have mc conrad.
conrad, in my view, is the most talented mc in the d'n'b scene. he's all over logical progression 2, mixed by blame (bukem's completely absent from this one, I assume so that it wouldn't be considered "his" series, and to better turn it into a brand). disc one of the set is mixed, and features conrad and mc drs toasting all over it, splendidly so. since when was "tasteful" a dirty word in music, anyway? I understand, sometimes music needs to be nasty and dirty and grungy (not grunge, necessarily). but not always. the one-two punch of blame's "visions of mars" and odyssey's "expressions" kicks lp2 off superbly.
[to be continued.]
# posted by Thomas : 7:21 PM
