New 4Hero

Leo

Leo

Well-known member
just saw this in the latest earplug email newsletter:

Music of Changes
4hero to release new album

Pioneering British duo 4hero have announced the February release of their fifth album, Play with the Changes. The record, their first in six years, will see 4hero's longstanding core of Dego McFarlane and Marc Mac collaborating with an array of contributors including Ursula Rucker, Lady Alma, Jody Watley, and broken-beat compatriots Bembe Segue and Kaidi Tatham. Founded in 1989, 4hero first garnered acclaim for their rave anthem "Mr. Kirk's Nightmare," and their label Reinforced served as a crucial force in the evolution of breakbeat hardcore into jungle and drum 'n bass. Since the late '90s, 4hero have focused on fusing breakbeat forms with classic African American soul, helping to establish the "West London sound" of broken beat in the process and netting them a Mercury Prize nomination for 1998's Two Pages. Milan Records will release Changes in North America on February 27, 2007.
 
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henry s

Street Fighting Man
I'm all over it...they're my Beatles!...(I was underwhelmed with Creating Patterns, though...have to say)...
 
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DJ PIMP

Well-known member
Where is broken beat right now? Never been the greatest afficianado but it seems to have tapered off the radar?

I can't hang with a lot of the more recent 4hero stuff... occassionally lovely but more often black-prog "soulful" all-too-knowing retro-futurism.

But like they said, people always criticise us. To their credit they are bloody legends and didn't get bogged down in dnb, though the whole broken beat thing was always going to be 'jungle pt 2 for grown-ups', wasn't it? After 2step was 'jungle pt 2 for kids'...

Its another of those interesting dichotomies... Stuff that sets out be sophisticated and ends up being boring vs stuff that sets out be fun and ends up sophisticated.

Though perhaps its more that "soul" is always going to be problematic in dance music because its rubs against the pleasure-function axis.
 
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mms

sometimes
bleep said:
Though perhaps its more that "soul" is always going to be problematic in dance music because its rubs against the pleasure-function axis.
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hmm yes soul specifically comes from a kind of disconnected gospel though which has all kind of pleasurable possibilities and has throughout dance music history, it's probably like any other music when it becomes overtly concerned with a kind of explicit socially concious worthyness and musicality then it gets a bit wrong, no one wants to be reminded of the church in a club unless its ecstacy..
there are so many lines that broken beat /dubstep / 2 step and garage and grime cross it would be good to see them cross again, i really wish dubstep would develop a little taste for the 'deepness' of jazz or funk for instance rather than just dub spaces.
 
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Blackdown

nexKeysound
mms said:
i really wish dubstep would develop a little taste for the 'deepness' of jazz or funk for instance rather than just dub spaces.
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Debate about this issue going on over at the Dubstep forum.

what approach to deep jazz/funk would you take marcus? i pitched some chords of miles' "in a silent way" down about three years and they sounded nice... well, moody but in a good way :)
 
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DJ PIMP

Well-known member
With dubstep the thing I miss most about garage is the sense of glam.

Theres so much drab echo-atmos mood-texture vs the sheen and glisten of garage.

Though I'm a sucker for ear-candy.
 
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mms

sometimes
Blackdown said:
Debate about this issue going on over at the Dubstep forum.

what approach to deep jazz/funk would you take marcus? i pitched some chords of miles' "in a silent way" down about three years and they sounded nice... well, moody but in a good way :)
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hm, the only attempt i made at doing dubstep i pitched down a two bar brazillian guitar motif too and it sounded lushy thick and gloopy, over some santeria drum samples. but it got locked off cos the bloke i was doing it with only really wanted to work on his own stuff.
i want more dangerous unpredicatable spaces, more risks with rhythm, more adventurous vampy basslines and chords, more abstract electronic incidentals. stuff that makes your heart race a bit or that has rhythms which screw with yr head a little, rhythmically a bit like the dilla thing i guess, but 2 step had shades of that from time to time too. there is so much actual space to play with and things you can do at that speed, so much more room for experimentation than d and b ever had, that it seems a shame to waste it. maybe i should come over yours and do a track with you. ;)
dubstep is way too stiff and regimented at the mo, like a tired march sometimes.
 
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tox

Factory Girl
Gilles Peterson has been smashing the new 4 Hero record for months now and it's sounding fresh. Again, not strictly what I would have considered Broken Beat - there's none of that snap and crack of say, Hold It Down, more smooth Compost, Jazzanova style.

Coincidentally I'm off to see Kaidi do a live set tonight. It's billed as a cross between Broken Beat and live jazz, so that should be interesting.

As for Broken Beat trailing off, just look at the state of the Broken Beat gossip slander etc thread for the evidence. There's just not much happening.

Its another of those interesting dichotomies... Stuff that sets out be sophisticated and ends up being boring vs stuff that sets out be fun and ends up sophisticated.
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I'd say this is a little unfair to Broken Beat. Were early Bugz tracks ever supposed to be sophisticated? If so, that certainly didn't come across in their music to me. There are those Broken tracks on Blackdown's Roots of Dubstep too, which are anything but sophisticated. I'm well biased cos I love Broken, but unless you're talking about wanky nu-jazz, I don't think there's much pretence around Broken Beat.
 
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gumdrops

Well-known member
bleep said:
Though perhaps its more that "soul" is always going to be problematic in dance music because its rubs against the pleasure-function axis.
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er what? so people never danced to the isley brothers, motown, american garage, soulful disco etc etc?

as far as this 4 hero album, it just sounds like creating patterns part 2 but without the more interesting programming and uniqueness. i wouldnt be surprised if stuff like the 2nd disc of two pages is something theyrer ashamed of these days (from what i remember they dont really care for mr kirks nightmare either) - now theyre basically making straight ahead progressive retro nouveau 70s sophisto-soul-jazz (which WAS good despite the stick it seems to get around here!). its not bad (bit austere or something though), i quite like it actually, and it does kinda cement their 'sound' (every track seems to have exactly the same instrumentation), it just seems a bit of shame that this is what theyve settled on. much as i like them, they still cant really write songs (kinda like bugz), or at least their songs are lack a lot in the way of dynamics.
 
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henry s

Street Fighting Man
if you were only looking at Creating Patterns, sure, it would be easy to say that 4 Hero have a real problem with song-writing...very little of that record is strong enough to leave a lasting impression...but that first disc of Two Pages, that truly sounded the death knell for drum and bass...I don't think I've listened to the second disc (the "cool" one; why did they even bother?) more than once over the years...so deep, lavish and gorgeous is the music that it resists even the gloopiest of lyrics ("Cosmic Tree", 'frinstance)...
 
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eleventhvolume

Active member
God I loved 4 Hero. Their standout tracks imo were Wrinkles In Time and The Paranormal In 4 Form (which I think only appeared on the first Macro Dub Infection). These two tracks, especially the latter, appeared to signpost a radical new direction which nobody, including themselves, followed. And the diversity of their work under a variety of aliases is amazing - Jacob's Optical Stairway and the early Tek9 stuff remain brilliant statements, not forgetting Tom and Jerry, Manix, etc.

I was also a big fan of Two Pages (Sun Ra meets Jungle in a good way), although those portentous voiceovers on disc 2 weren't great. Parts of Creating Patterns were fascinating as well, but somehow it didn't really gel for me and the instrumentals were too samey. They've made some fascinating music and I think deserve more attention/respect/success than they've received. Like other posters though, I'm a bit puzzled by broken beat which seems not to have had much of an impact in the wider world or on me particularly. If anybody could point out something to listen to, to open my ears I'd much appreciate it.
 
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DJ PIMP

Well-known member
tox said:
I'd say this is a little unfair to Broken Beat. Were early Bugz tracks ever supposed to be sophisticated? If so, that certainly didn't come across in their music to me. There are those Broken tracks on Blackdown's Roots of Dubstep too, which are anything but sophisticated. I'm well biased cos I love Broken, but unless you're talking about wanky nu-jazz, I don't think there's much pretence around Broken Beat.
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I am being a bit unfair for sure, and there is lots of BB I do love, and in a way lots of it is so thoroughly enjoyable its hard not to... always a big fan of the Seiji stuff, for example, and Bugz make great pop, period.

At the same time tho, the sense of pretense is one I think Reynolds and others have talked about, the limitless (but particular) eclecticism and air of being more open-minded than thou... its similar to the attitude that used to afflict jungle - the allegedly endless possibilities of beat science, the sophisticated and misappropriated use of sampling and studio technoloy, the sense of futurism... haha, Armen van Helden nailed that coffin shut with his "2 Future 4 U" album.

Actually now that I think about it, I was on a local (NZ) mailing list (~98?) and I believe it was Mark de Clive Lowe who posted something about drum and bass, and how the people in London who really know where its coming from know its the 70s and jazz etc. Which reflects his roots and isn't altogether untrue, but most of the great jungle tracks never had that sense of reverence, almost the opposite... and jungle didn't really start to overtly develop its historical canon until it began to run out of future, it was too busy being ruff.
 
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mms

sometimes
bleep said:
I am being a bit unfair for sure, and there is lots of BB I do love, and in a way lots of it is so thoroughly enjoyable its hard not to... always a big fan of the Seiji stuff, for example, and Bugz make great pop, period.

At the same time tho, the sense of pretense is one I think Reynolds and others have talked about, the limitless (but particular) eclecticism and air of being more open-minded than thou... its similar to the attitude that used to afflict jungle - the allegedly endless possibilities of beat science, the sophisticated and misappropriated use of sampling and studio technoloy, the sense of futurism... haha, Armen van Helden nailed that coffin shut with his "2 Future 4 U" album.

Actually now that I think about it, I was on a local (NZ) mailing list (~98?) and I believe it was Mark de Clive Lowe who posted something about drum and bass, and how the people in London who really know where its coming from know its the 70s and jazz etc. Which reflects his roots and isn't altogether untrue, but most of the great jungle tracks never had that sense of reverence, almost the opposite... and jungle didn't really start to overtly develop its historical canon until it began to run out of future, it was too busy being ruff.
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yes noise and competition is the key, when drum and bass became too musical, too slick and well produced, it lost it and started to sound like music to test car stereos. The next time it became exciting after that was when no u turn came in etc, which eventually led to it's total death, sealed the deal by bringing in the dark, like musical grim reapers.
 
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DJ PIMP

Well-known member
yeah, tho there has been stuff i've liked since then... some of the liquid stuff especially.

the tempo alone is a bit tough to cope with my current level of decrepitude and premature senility. i have come around to a friends observation from years back, that "it sounds like someone banging lots of pots and pans" :)
 
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mms

sometimes
bleep said:
yeah, tho there has been stuff i've liked since then... some of the liquid stuff especially.

the tempo alone is a bit tough to cope with my current level of decrepitude and premature senility. i have come around to a friends observation from years back, that "it sounds like someone banging lots of pots and pans" :)
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well even the more 'back to the source' shit sounds like trancey rock
 
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DJ PIMP

Well-known member
for a moment i wasnt sure if you were still talking about dnb or some of the electro house/techno thats about.

pendulum and their stadium rock. people seem to love it tho... modern hair metal.
 
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