elgato

I just dont know
Yes, that's my problem with it really. It's view of black music is strictly within soulboy connoisseur limits.

But you can drop El-B and Horsepower records in with that stuff and it drops, no problem.

more valid with Horsepower i think, although at their best i think their influences are drawn from very far afield and lead to very unusual tracks and sounds. but with regard to El-B i wouldn't agree at all...
 

Gabba Flamenco Crossover

High Sierra Skullfuck
more valid with Horsepower i think, although at their best i think their influences are drawn from very far afield and lead to very unusual tracks and sounds. but with regard to El-B i wouldn't agree at all...

I've been playing tracks from the El-Breaks records in house sets for years. You have to work at mixing them cos the swings so wierd but once they're in, it goes off.
 
more valid with Horsepower i think, although at their best i think their influences are drawn from very far afield and lead to very unusual tracks and sounds. but with regard to El-B i wouldn't agree at all...

Have to disagree, some of El-B's productions mix VERY well with house! Have you tried?
 

elgato

I just dont know
Have to disagree, some of El-B's productions mix VERY well with house! Have you tried?

sorry i meant in terms of his view of black music being "strictly within soulboy connoisseur limits". GFC i've understood what you mean a bit better on second glance, and probably with Horsepower its a fair statement. but i don't recognise it in El-B at all
 

Gabba Flamenco Crossover

High Sierra Skullfuck
No I was talking about jackin' house being soulboy connoisseur music - it's all that New Jersey deep house, MAW jazz club thing. What saves it for me is the whimsical approach to sampling and the sheer dancability of it.

A lot of the Nottingham lot have links to free parties, and I think that's a big reason why this scene isn't quite so up it's own arse as a lot of connoisseur house scenes.

The Horsepower records I've got are lairy as hell and all the better for it. No soulboy tastefulness there...
 

elgato

I just dont know
oh seen what a funny misunderstanding! In fairness though, the horsepower remixes are rowdy but a lot of their stuff is definitely 'tasteful' in the sense you imply i think. but i dont have a problem with it per se, as at their best in that mould they're soulful, evocative, cinematic etc., and draw together a really interesting and diverse range of 'tasteful' influences. and when they turn it on they can make some rowdy tunes

100% agreed on garage mixing with jackin stuff really well, same with a lot of micro-house and even 'minimal'... if its got that swing!

i think its deifnitely a fun scene, there's a cheek and quirk to it that i enjoy a lot, but which ultimately i think is what spoils it for me in too great a quantity. but its got a heads-down, smiles on the dancefloor functionality which is really fun for a bit
 
ok

I'm not sure if people want it to get "hard" so much as fully form its own distinct identity and hear some good records coming through...which is starting to happen. doesn't have to be a "slippery slope"...

it can't JUST be about populism otherwise we're on a friday night town centre residency tip

however i think everyone realises the dancefloor is the bottom line

cool...low that lol

I don't think most of 2-step was particulalry 'hard' but it was more 'avant' and unique (yet dancefloor) than listening to DJs spin US garage dubs for ever.


yeah I'm with you. like I said I'm half and half

hard was used in want of a better word...perhaps avant or progressive should've been it
 

Blackdown

nexKeysound

a lot of the El-(Rox)-Tuff stuff is pretty interesting. it's what they did when garage got too dark for them circa 2002/3. they went down to a charity shop, got all these cheap Sinatra records for a quid, stole all the string samples and made these mad, wonky garage tunes in a broke-Todd style in Ghost studios.

I've felt they're underrated for a while, not least because they made so many of these tracks but so few came out. then again, i listened to them again recently and wasnt as blown away, but still...
 

elgato

I just dont know
a lot of the El-(Rox)-Tuff stuff is pretty interesting. it's what they did when garage got too dark for them circa 2002/3. they went down to a charity shop, got all these cheap Sinatra records for a quid, stole all the string samples and made these mad, wonky garage tunes in a broke-Todd style in Ghost studios.

I've felt they're underrated for a while, not least because they made so many of these tracks but so few came out. then again, i listened to them again recently and wasnt as blown away, but still...

yeh the El-Tuff stuff is decent, although rarely completely blows me away. Karl Brown is still plowing that kind of furrow now, some pretty good stuff, he had a two and a half hour mix on radio a month or so back and it was sick, loads of older stuff, but some newer too in that same crunched bumpy sample-heavy style. mostly 4x4 though, although there was one broken tune which was absolutely off the scale
 

mpc

wasteman
i've been hearing grime djs playing "mr bean" by apple for the last six months. every time i drop it in a set i always get loads of people coming up to me asking what it is. i don't think any of this stuff is soca-influenced - it doesn't have the right percussion. soca uses more metal percussion. i wrote about what "mr bean" sounded like to my ears here:
http://prancehall.blogspot.com/search?q=mr+bean

it sounds like how i expected that tropical stuff JME was going on about to sound.

anyway, this stuff is totally different from that friday night at yates' wine lodge funky house stuff. the acid test for this was when i played skepta's mixtape launch at cargo. right at the end a girl came up to me and demanded i either play some funky house or her and her friends were all leaving. i dropped "mr bean" and they all left.

i don't know if anyone else has mentioned this already but "Tell Me" by DJ NG is really good. It's really catchy but dark and atmospheric and tough.
http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendid=85173266
 

mpc

wasteman
also it's true about the audience shaping the sound i think. my friend thembi used to go to grime nights with all her friends but then when they all got shut down a few years back she said a lot of people starting going to funky house nights. grime nights are seen more as something for teenagers. as that crowd has got older, they don't want to go and hang out at grime nights and not dance. they want to dress up and have fun. it's acceptable to be into funky house whereas it was seen as cheesy for a lot of people a few years back. now you've got the ex-grime crowd who go to nights like freaky fridays at the rex and give gun fingers to big funky house tunes.
 

Ach!

Turd on the Run
The El-Tuff collabo was wicked, especially 'Flavour' and 'Cool Breeze'.

Apple is a badman!

Urban house is such a swag name:
http://www.discogs.com/release/247255

I guess the whole London house thing has been brewing for ages. Passion FM changing from ukg to electro/minimal house, aterparties like Wrong! mixing minimal with more soulful house. People want to dance I guess. I really like some of Karizma's stuff, especially his rework of Louie Vega's 'Bass Tone', and his remix of DJ Gregory's 'Don't Panic'. Although he's not from London, they fit in with my idea of the kinda sound that's going on here.
Whenever I've been house raving for the eighteen months I've found it impossible to stop grime MCing to the beats while I'm dancing, which obviously makes me look like a spanner. The Apple track Mr.Bean is so good for that - I can't wait to hear more of his stuff.
 
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Logan Sama

BestThereIsAtWhatIDo
Apple's 'Mad Crazy Skank' is so filthy I am currently awaiting a response to my request for a copy to cut on dub. I would feel no way to drop it in a Grime set.
 
Just wondering whether early converts to House like Grant nelson, Jeremy Sylvester or the Dreem Teem play any part in this scene, or is it mainly low profile pirate DJ's?
 

MATT MAson

BROADSIDE
A new cohesion?

It seems like there is a real convergence going on between all the (not so) different London scenes; grime, dupstep, UKG, bassline and funky house are all being appreciated by DJs and clubbers who claim to be into different sounds.

To me a set of all these styles played together doesn't sound too different from a 1997 UK garage set, when producers, DJs and clubbers were, imho, far less conservative about what they considered appropriate for the dance floor. Which meant you had a scene with the broad mindedness to include everything from DJ Zinc to Masters at Work to TuffJam to Groove Chronicles to TJ Cases. I think this diversity was part of UKG's (then) mass appeal.

Is this something people could see happening again? It sounds like it might be already.
 
Here's a classic CD of 97/98 garage to download. http://www.sendspace.com/file/d5i302
http://www.discogs.com/release/202867

The most important thing to bear in mind is that roundabout this time Garage had largely shed it's American tunes roots and fully embraced local productions. Hence 2-step becoming an acceptable staple in DJ sets, albeit not many were actually made back then compared to the massive amount of 4 to the floor stuff, but yeah, it had become culturally self sufficient.

I'd definitely say UK garage is a very very diverse genre when you think about it, from mid 90's to 2000 onwards, with things progressing and changing at a very fast pace, I guess this is what Matt Mason is imlying. You might have also heard unobvious tunes in Garage of this era, like early 90's stuff like Lenny De Ice- we are ie; or DeePatten- Who's the badman.

I reckon there are definitely limitations when it comes to this whole hardcore continuum theory in practice, but London pirate radio regularly has shows that can feature close to a decade of garage. Just something about the garage audience, they love the idea of old skool as much as commercial clubs. I'm not too sure what's going on with this new breed of London house DJ's, nor am I convinced that it's all that relevant (not too sure if it's a niche market or not), but if they can offer something alternative to the mainstream house they are at least doing something right.
 

MATT MAson

BROADSIDE
I just found this tape from 2000, in my Mac/Ice FM days, which illustrates the kind of cohesion I’m talking about. A few years back it was cool to play 2-step with 4/4 with break beat with MC tracks, but music got really segregated for a while. I’m thinking maybe cohesion is coming back around only with dubstep, funky house, grime, niche etc… I could be wrong.


1. Kenny G – Havana (Todd Terry dub mix)
2. Plump DJs – Electric Disco
3. Ramesy & Fen feat. Maxwell D – Favorite Part of Me
4. Some breakbeat record Deekline gave me.
5. Godwin – Only You (Matt Jam and Gavin Face remix)
6. DJ Zinc – Hold On
7. Sia – Little Man (Exemen Remix)
8. Some break beat track I got from Vinyl Addiction in Camden.
9. Lenny Fontana – Spirit of the Sun (Bump & Flex mix)
10. Phoenix – If I Ever Feel Better (Todd Edwards mix)
11. Dreem Teem vs. Artful Dodger – It Ain’t Enough
12. The Jam Experience – Feel My Love
13. Changing Faces – That Other Woman
14. Santos – Camels (DJ Zinc remix)
15. Some DEA tune with some MC on it.
16. Plump DJs – Fever
17. Zoom & DBX – Too Much
18. DJ Zinc – 138 Trek (Vocal mix feat. MC GQ)
 
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