bleep 'n' bass -- an anachronistic term?

dominic · Mar 11, 2005

about clubs i'm making a midwest/east coast distinction . . . .

but even in washington, dc, i think the belgian stuff had a wide & enduring profile

northeast (nyc, new jersey, connecticut, philly) obviously had an indigenous house tradition

but people like frankie bones, adam x took the belgian hardcore angle and persisted in that stance for quite some time

have absolutely no knowledge, however, about the west coast or southern states

Diaz · Mar 11, 2005

mmm yes please on the vote for a set of this stuff. it's delicious!

i first heard anything remotely i n this genre when i picked up the Warp 10+1 Influences cd when it first came out, and it blew me away! I was in high school and mostly listened to gimpy breakbeat trance, hardcore/speedcore/gabber and squarepusher, and the stuff had a feel to it that was completely removed from all else I was hearing...it was so very spare, and yet didn't feel empty at all, quite the opposite.

Is the Warp collection a good list to start collecting from? No one I've asked in my little world knows a whole lot about what else to look for. I'll start looking for things mentioned here though...

Been thinking about trying to mix it in to sets forever, but it's difficult because it overpowers a lot of other kinds of music, and i'm just not good enough at layering my mixes (ok, i'm absolutely terrible!) to do any of it justice. and my personal barometer, my little brother, loves it too, so i know it'd be worth it.

dubplatestyle · Mar 11, 2005

yeah i think dominic is right irt the wax trax/industrial connection. it's not <i>that</i> big of a leap between nodes from t99 to vitalic, is it? (i think the optimo guys already play some belgian stuff, but then they play everything.)

really it's only when the speeded-up breakbeats start going in that i think we're going to see a wall going up in williamsburg.

kidkameleon · Mar 11, 2005

dominic said:
i think belgian hardcore actually had a pretty long run in america, longer than in britain -- the really massive belgian hits that came out in 1991 -- stuff that was on the verge of being commercial -- were still be played in places like st louis in 1994 -- stuff like T99, stuff like the track that got played on the film "basic instinct," stuff like james brown is dead -- and the reason for this is that a lot of the rave crowd, especially in the midwest, had been into wax trax industrial stuff

OK, cool, yeah, I'll buy that, and stuff like James Brown is Dead also kinda fits in with I was mentioning before for mashups. For sure that was what I was hearing at "Raves" (In the south south, dominic, so maybe that partially answers your question). But, and forgive my ignorence, I was 11 at the time, isn't that stuff pretty different sonically from what I thought SR was referring to as bleep and bass ... I got the feeling that stuff was all stark and cold, but with overtones of dub, at least, dub-echo effects, and electroee bouncy beats, 808 cowbells and such ... you know, early warp ... that sounds different to me than wailly, grinding along, churning "Rave" stuff (does anyone remember the rave version of bethoven's 5th?) and those over the top keyboard lines. I dunno ... is that bleep n bass?

Am I showing my age?

-KK

dominic · Mar 11, 2005

kidkameleon said:
But, and forgive my ignorence, I was 11 at the time

only reason i know is b/c i was 18 in 1990!!! -- but certainly i've never been into rave music to near the extent as you, so please don't use the term "ignorance" -- as in almost all cases it will attach to my name!!!!! ----- seriously massive respect to you and ripley

isn't that stuff pretty different sonically from what I thought SR was referring to as bleep and bass ... I got the feeling that stuff was all stark and cold, but with overtones of dub, at least, dub-echo effects, and electroee bouncy beats, 808 cowbells and such ... you know, early warp ... that sounds different to me than wailly, grinding along, churning "Rave" stuff (does anyone remember the rave version of bethoven's 5th?) and those over the top keyboard lines. I dunno ... is that bleep n bass?

the thread was initially about bleep 'n' bass -- and i think you describe bleep 'n' bass well -- though it's not necessarily cold and stark in all instances -- but you've got the idea right

what's confusing you is that dubplatestyle then introduced to the conversation his belief that 91/92 belgian hardcore will be the next zone of hipster appropriation -- and yeah, 91/92 belgian hardcore is whiter-than-white, mid-range riffage -- though not monolithically so -- that is, "get down everybody" has sub bass tones (or at least a sine-wave drop) -- and if the "we are taking every precaution" track that i'm tyring to ID is indeed by frank de wulf, then that to my mind is proto-junglistic despite being from belgium . . . .

but to get back to basic terms . . . . bleep n bass is from north of england, think sheffield and leeds, think techno meets jamaican soundsystems ---- this sound peaked in popularity in 1990 ------------ if you go to the "everything begins w/ e" website, you can find a lot of cool mixes from 1990, which typically mix northern bleep n bass with london shut up and dance type stuff (check especially top buzz & rat pack mixes)

and then belgian hardcore is the mid-range stuff, some of it quite mad, other parts very aggressive, out of belgium & netherlands, but not exclusively -- think also early underground resistance and joey beltram and frankie bones and john + julie ------ this stuff peaked in popularity in 1991 (check the "second chapter" compilation on xl records, which is very easy to find) ----- and it would inform ny hardcore techno for many years to come, as well as the gabba scene, plus wisconsin drop bass, and you could even say that 1992/93-era trance came out it ----------- moreover, belgian hardcore directly fed into the 91/92 uk hardcore sound, and so was an important sonic source for 93 darkside and the no-u-turn sound, etc, etc, etc

dominic · Mar 11, 2005

kidkameleon said:
does anyone remember the rave version of bethoven's 5th?

or anastasia???? yeah, the bombastic symphonic stuff, the operatic stuff -- all of that was belgian or else belgian inspired -- and that sound had wide exposure in u.s. clubs for a good number of years

don't seem to recall beethoven's 5th, however

mms · Mar 11, 2005

dominic said:
or anastasia???? yeah, the bombastic symphonic stuff, the operatic stuff -- all of that was belgian or else belgian inspired -- and that sound had wide exposure in u.s. clubs for a good number of years

don't seem to recall beethoven's 5th, however

there was an alien christ record which sampled beethoven,
dunno the one you are talking about but there was a classical sampling record on the drugs episode of morse.
i knew girl who used to collect them.
there is that sakamoto sampling shut up and dance record which i think was on a drug advert too

mms · Mar 11, 2005

kidkameleon said:
Well, how 'bout a mix, Gutterbreakz? I'm serious. Last time you broke out the turntables a month ago it was with excellent results. I can tell that so much of this stuff is right there in my musical history, lurking about three layers down, but damned if the only thing I own is my treasured original (given to me for FREE!!!) copy of LFO (Leeds Warehouse Mix). Everything else I know comes from Generation Ecstacy. Plus too, this stuff doesn't hang around in America the way you can walk into a Reckless Records in London and see bits of it here and there. But go for it, Nick, the only way I'm gonna hear it is through mixes like that.

"i have a feeling belgian shit might be the next hipster zone of accquisition." You really think Jess? This stuff resonates with the dissensus crowd, but what large group of American's would really get much of the reference/significence. No, my bet for hipsterism is big rave tune mashups. A la this . A "mashup" (not really, OK, a reference) of Higher State of Conciouness, which if you went to a rave in the mid 90s in America that track is burned into your brain. Uncharted territory for cross-sonic thefting mashupery, but one I'd like to hear more of and that I think a large group of people would get.

it was the brooklyn lot that did all the orig mashups of uk and us dance tunes with an 808 behind them etc, famous one is women beat their men that nicks voodoo ray, he was pissed off about that.

soup · Mar 11, 2005

mms said:
it was the brooklyn lot that did all the orig mashups of uk and us dance tunes with an 808 behind them etc, famous one is women beat their men that nicks voodoo ray, he was pissed off about that.

Yeah I remember there being a certain amount of resentment towards Frankie Bones at the time from various quarters. Though a significant part of the out put from Brooklyn at the time were DJ tools rather than mashups. Mash ups seem to stand up as tracks on their own whereas stuff like the Bonesbreaks series were used in running mixes, introducing the breakbeat to 4 to the floor tracks, upping the ante/intensity and imo became a major influence on uk breakbeat/hardcore.

Re: the bleep. There is a (very live) mix on the Warp site by Winston Hazel using '10+1 INFLUENCES' AND '10+2 CLASSICS' that covers a lot of the more popular tracks.

hamarplazt · Mar 11, 2005

dominic said:
and then belgian hardcore is the mid-range stuff, some of it quite mad, other parts very aggressive, out of belgium & netherlands, but not exclusively --

No, certainly not exclusively, a huge part of these producers was actually german and italian. As for the italians, I think it was mostly professionals, who used to make italo disco and piano house, simply jumping the bandwagon - and doing it brilliantly. The german part of it is the most fascinating I think, they had their own style to begin with, highly influenced by electro and EBM (not surprising, as the german rave scene more or less developed from/fused with the industrial scene), sounding like a missing link between bleep and belgium. This is a style that I would really like to see revisited.

Ach! · Mar 11, 2005

'Bad Lieutenant' was on Channel 4 the other night, and in the club scene (which goes on for a fair few minutes) it has Lords Of Acid's 'Let's Get High' playing - which I hope is vaguley on topic.

blissblogger · Mar 11, 2005

low frequency oscillation

the other X factor in bleep alongside dub and techno is electro -- like unique 3 i think were a hip hop crew who went acid, and on their album they do a few kinda-weak rap tracks which if you had a mind to you could see a distant ancestors for grime -- and LFO were into breakdancing and all that in their teens -- there's a 808 ancestry there

one mystery to me is why i love bleep''n'bass so much but not digidub when... they get quite close sometimes

the crucial classical referent for Belg-core would be 'carmina burana' i think, and maybe Wagner too -- but 'carmina burana' is one of the most popular pieces of classical music isn't it, and possibly entered the folk-memory on account of being in an ad for aftershave with images of crashing surf -- something about that choral sound perhaps evoke a multitude-in-harmony perhaps but also tempestuous, so fits the vibe of a rave -- dark feeling of exultation -- not sure about Carl Orff's politics but i suspect something a bit dodgy going on too -- it's that nietzche-wagner-hitler line -- some old house heads found the Belgian Wagner-fanfare thing quite threatening, associated it with the mob mentality

redcrescent · Mar 11, 2005

blissblogger said:
not sure about Carl Orff's politics but i suspect something a bit dodgy going on too -- it's that nietzche-wagner-hitler line

I don't know too much about Orff's political intentions, but the Carmina Burana (~1230 A.D.) itself is a collection of Old Middle/High German texts, with subject matter ranging from the highly spiritual to the raunchy and degenerate, drinking songs and the like.
But yes, it does have much of Wagner's threatening vibe.

Carmina Burana does pop up in a lot of places. Wasn't most of one of those Enigma albums, Screen Behind the Mirror or something, based on it? Cod-Gregorian chanting over Vangelis synthscapes and faintly pulsating beats, absolute megasellers in Europe for reasons which remain a mystery to me.

notoriousJ.I.M · Mar 11, 2005

blissblogger said:
the other X factor in bleep alongside dub and techno is electro -- like unique 3 i think were a hip hop crew who went acid, and on their album they do a few kinda-weak rap tracks which if you had a mind to you could see a distant ancestors for grime -- and LFO were into breakdancing and all that in their teens -- there's a 808 ancestry there

Not to mention Nightmares on Wax's 'I'm For Real' which samples Newcleus 'Jam on It'. There's also the Man Machine record which features Forgemasters (Rob Gordon again) and is clearly influenced by Kraftwerk. I think the Unique 3/grime thing is interesting. If you check out the track Rhythm Takes Control with Karin on vocals there's definately something grimey about it. I've got a Horsepower Prods 12" (what we do - remix) which samples 'testone' by Sweet Exorcist as well.

redcrescent · Mar 11, 2005

Addendum re. Orff and the Third Reich. It's pretty certain today that he was not a Nazi or a Nazi sympathizer. In fact, at the 1937 premiere of Carmina Burana, the Völkischer Beobachter [Nazi propaganda daily] criticized its use of Latin and even detected 'touches of jazz' (!). A second performance was given only in 1940. Though Orff's work was never banned, it never met with the approval of the ruling regime, and Orff himself kept a low profile and preferred to work with other artists who were critical of the Nazis.
As Mendelssohn's score to Shakespeare's A Midsummer Nights Dream had been banned, Orff completed his own score during WW2, allowing the piece to be performed. He later admitted this had been a mistake, though his primary motive had been artistic (he'd begun work on the score before the Nazi era) and not political.

From early 90s Belgianisms to 13th Century cantatas... that's Dissensus for ya!

blissblogger · Mar 11, 2005

fuck Orff

off The Grove Concise Dictionary of Music

"He studied at the Munich Academy and later, in 1920, with Kaminski. In 1924, with Dorothee Günther, he founded a school for gymnastics, music and dance, and out of this came his later activity in providing materials for young children to make music, using their voices and simple percussion instruments. His adult works also seek to make contact with primitive kinds of musical behaviour, as represented by ostinato, pulsation and direct vocal expression of emotion; in this he was influenced by Stravinsky (Oedipus rex, The Wedding), though the models are coarsened to produce music of a powerful pagan sensual appeal and physical excitement. All his major works, including the phenomenally successful Carmina burana (1937), were designed as pageants for the stage; they include several versions of Greek tragedies and Bavarian comedies. "

Sounds well ravey.

and from wikipedia

"As a historical aside, Carmina Burana is probably the most famous piece of music composed and premiered in Nazi Germany.... While Orff's association, or lack thereof, with the Nazi party has never been conclusively established, Carmina Burana was hugely popular in Nazi Germany after its premiere and received numerous performances (although one Nazi critic reviewed it savagely as "degenerate" — entartete — implying a connection with the contemporaneous, and infamous, exhibit of Entartete Kunst)....
Orff was a personal friend of Karl Huber, one of the founders of the resistance movement Die Weiße Rose (the White Rose), who was executed by the Gestapo in 1943. After the war Orff claimed that he was one of the members of the group, and himself involved in the resistance, but unfortunately there was no evidence for this other than his own word, and other sources dispute his claim (for example [1] (http://www.h-net.org/~german/articles/dennis1.html))."

mms · Mar 11, 2005

notoriousJ.I.M said:
Not to mention Nightmares on Wax's 'I'm For Real' which samples Newcleus 'Jam on It'. There's also the Man Machine record which features Forgemasters (Rob Gordon again) and is clearly influenced by Kraftwerk. I think the Unique 3/grime thing is interesting. If you check out the track Rhythm Takes Control with Karin on vocals there's definately something grimey about it. I've got a Horsepower Prods 12" (what we do - remix) which samples 'testone' by Sweet Exorcist as well.

both genres take a live soundsystem experience a bit further, empting out the vocals and leaving the dub sirens and the bass and drum shell.
i remember my my mate martin making a home made outer-rhythm shirt, that label was dope an all, network too from birmingham i think.

ambrose · Mar 12, 2005

i often wonder what happened to rob gordon

rob gordon is still around sheffield! he used to go out with my friend. You can still see him if you go to Headcharge or something, at leat thats where I last saw him. Was 3 yrs ago mind. I think he was sorting out their PA or something. Hes got lots of records in his house............

dominic · Mar 12, 2005

hamarplazt said:
a huge part of these producers was actually german and italian. As for the italians, I think it was mostly professionals, who used to make italo disco and piano house, simply jumping the bandwagon - and doing it brilliantly

do you mean stuff like anticappella???

dominic · Mar 12, 2005

hamarplazt said:
The german part of it is the most fascinating I think, they had their own style to begin with, highly influenced by electro and EBM (not surprising, as the german rave scene more or less developed from/fused with the industrial scene), sounding like a missing link between bleep and belgium. This is a style that I would really like to see revisited.

not sure what you're talking about . . . .

stuff like westbam i always thought pretty weak

i liked the slower, more trippy german stuff -- or what i *imagined* to be german -- stuff like slot's "accelerate" on the leptone label -- or "we came in peace for all mankind" -- this is a sound that evoved into trance music by 1992 ---------- and yet a definite connection here to bleep n bass, the bleep part, not the bass part

bleep 'n' bass -- an anachronistic term?

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