Direct me to broken-beat in London please

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viktorvaughn

Well-known member
Now co-op has sadly gone from Plastic People where should I go? Have the Co-Op guys found a new home?

Can't think of anything except Deviation at The Gramophone which is quite a general night.
 
S

Sick Boy

All about pride and egos
Could someone explain to me what broken beat actually is and how it isn't breakbeat? I've seen the term a million times, but I can't actually link a specific sound to it at all.
 
M

mms

sometimes
viktorvaughn said:
Now co-op has sadly gone from Plastic People where should I go? Have the Co-Op guys found a new home?

Can't think of anything except Deviation at The Gramophone which is quite a general night.
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one of sa ra's at the next deviation!
 
S

stelfox

Beast of Burden
at its best it's not bad music at all and there's very little world music in it. sometimes it can be very danceable as well. i actually really love it when it's a bit more straight ahead and dancefloor-accented, like seiji's solo stuff and a lot of the bugz stuff. the whole scene can be stultifyingly tasteful and beardy but it's not worthy of blanket dismissal at all. bugz in the attic played forward once and went down a treat. now people grumble when someone plays funky house there...
 
B

bassnation

the abyss
stelfox said:
at its best it's not bad music at all and there's very little world music in it. sometimes it can be very danceable as well. i actually really love it when it's a bit more straight ahead and dancefloor-accented, like seiji's solo stuff and a lot of the bugz stuff. the whole scene can be stultifyingly tasteful and beardy but it's not worthy of blanket dismissal at all. bugz in the attic played forward once and went down a treat. now people grumble when someone plays funky house there...
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the revenge of acid jazz.

i once saw carl craig play a rubbish noodly set of the stuff at plastic people. i nearly got attacked by a fanboy who must have been listening to me and my mate slagging the set off - you know how seriously techno fanboys take their sacred cows. but yeah sejjii is wicked but i don't have any time at all for the once-great 4heros boringly authentic jazz cover versions. dull.
 
V

viktorvaughn

Well-known member
Sick Boy said:
Could someone explain to me what broken beat actually is and how it isn't breakbeat? I've seen the term a million times, but I can't actually link a specific sound to it at all.
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I don't really understand what breakbeat means nowadays. It is nothing like Nu-School Breaks if that is what you mean.

As stated it can be a bit 'tasteful' and jazzy and Gilles Peterson but at its best its full of pumping house and techno rhythms, sometimes the eponymous pronounced stuttering/staggering/broken feel, with a really warm sound and sometimes soul/jazz-type singing on it.

I realise that is not a very good description! The scene is pretty small - Bugz, 4Hero (later stuff) etc. Utter joy hearing the good stuff on the Plastic People soundsystem.
 
G

Gabba Flamenco Crossover

High Sierra Skullfuck
Bugz are ace to be fair, but I just classed them as 2-step.

Maybe because broken beat was for me a pejorative term, anything good within it got metally filed as something else.

It is a crap genre name though. Break beat has a clear etymology, from the bits in funk records where everyone but the drummer took a break. 'Broken Beat' sounds like a superior bunch who thought breakbeats weren't good enough, and made them breakier and breakier til they broke them. I don't see that's anything to crow about, frankly.

cf. 'abstract dance'

2-step on the other hand is a great genre name - it's slick and catchy, it explicitly refers to dancing and it actually describes what the music sounds like.
 
V

viktorvaughn

Well-known member
Gabba Flamenco Crossover said:
Bugz are ace to be fair, but I just classed them as 2-step.

Maybe because broken beat was for me a pejorative term, anything good within it got metally filed as something else.

It is a crap genre name though. Break beat has a clear etymology, from the bits in funk records where everyone but the drummer took a break. 'Broken Beat' sounds like a superior bunch who thought breakbeats weren't good enough, and made them breakier and breakier til they broke them. I don't see that's anything to crow about, frankly.

cf. 'abstract dance'

2-step on the other hand is a great genre name - it's slick and catchy, it explicitly refers to dancing and it actually describes what the music sounds like.
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Good broken-beat is very dance-able. And i think the name is good - when you hear some broken-beat tunes they really do sound broken somehow, but the best ones are simultaneously very warm and funky. I think people can be a bit snobbish about broken-beat sometimes.

So what exactly does breakbeat music mean now?

Cos loads of stuff is built on breakbeats - dnb, jungle, garage and hip-hop right? Or am i confused? But that isn't what people mean is it? And the there is breaks which evolved from 'breakbeat' which are largely pretty awful...

2-Step is a wicked name but Bugz have never been a proper 2-Step outfit.
 
B

bassnation

the abyss
viktorvaughn said:
I think people can be a bit snobbish about broken-beat sometimes.
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no-one wants another acid jazz revival thats why. its a subnote of a subnote of an unread footer in terms of dance history. i can think of four tunes which are passable and even then i have to hold my nose to say i like them, such is the opproprium heaped upon the west london scenes shoulders. berets, jazz ciggies, toe-curlingly faux-sophistication - NEVER AGAIN.

and ultimately their sole selling point beyond the "warmness" (a euhpanism for jazz lite if ever i heard one), the brokenness of the beats themselves have been way surpassed by dubstep long ago - and before that jungle makes a mockery of those pretensions. does anyone still really like it?

i don't know why, but the very idea of it makes me feel light-headed with irritation.
 
G

Gabba Flamenco Crossover

High Sierra Skullfuck
viktorvaughn said:
2-Step is a wicked name but Bugz have never been a proper 2-Step outfit.
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No, I realise that in hindsight it was my mistake, but at the time I wasn't close enough to the scene to tell the difference.

I still think the name is a bit clever-clever. Some of the music is probably very good though. I've got that Reza mix that Hint upped on download now.

Is Recloose broken beat?
 
hint

hint

party record with a siren
Sick Boy said:
Could someone explain to me what broken beat actually is and how it isn't breakbeat? I've seen the term a million times, but I can't actually link a specific sound to it at all.
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I think the distinction is that with "breakbeats", there is usually something constant, like a shaker, ride or hi hat keeping time, with the kicks and snares shifted.

With a lot of the broken beat stuff, it's more stop / start.

Some clips from Juno:
Seiji remix of Tubby T
DKD - Future Rage
Nutmeg - Oscar's Shed (Rima Reprise)
Nutmeg - Bicycle Kick

Most of this stuff is close to (or more than) 5 years old. The sound seemed to exist in a bit of a bubble I think, and for whatever reason it dried up.

With the Funky scene it seems to be re-appearing, with the important distinction being that the artists and DJs seem to be determined to build a new scene and present themselves as part of that scene. I think a lot of the Broken Beat producers / DJs fought against that kind of pigeonholing... perhaps because many of them had already been through the single-genre process in other scenes such as d'n'b, and had become disillusioned?

Compare the snare sound on Future Rage to the snare that Apple uses so much, for example.
 
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