bleep 'n' bass -- an anachronistic term?

As far as I know Rimini is mainly an Italian resort, the British contingent is fairly negligible compared to their presence on the Spanish islands and Costa del Sol and on Cyprus.

top roman sound

dominic said:

i completely agree that the italians have made a lot of great dance music, though had been unaware of their talent for dark techno

i just didn't think there was much of a rave scene there in 90/91/92 -- i always thought that rimini was british tourists, same as ibiza -- the flying records/cowboy records crowd and that sort of thing, which was contemporaneous w/ belgian hardcore

i'm perhaps too eager to pigeonhole

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http://www.discogs.com/label/Sounds+Never+Seen
the original sound of rome


http://www.discogs.com/label/ACV including robert armani and lots of consequential chicago crossover, plus leo anibaldi

hot trax sublabel of acv
http://www.discogs.com/label/Hot+Trax


fact people, william bennet from whitehouse dj's under the name dj benneti from rimini, for his italo sets. he's a huge italo collector

http://www.discogs.com/label/Molecular italio anglo.

bleep

Sorry, just to take it back a bit.

There is very little of that bleep stuff around. I think pretty much all of it was already named in this thread, 3-4 labels and a couple compilations encompass pretty much all of it. It would be kinda hard for a revival to happen.

The Germans...they didn't do much techno either, until 1992. I really cannot name a single artist aside from Westbam and Acardipane (who released through Belgian channels) that made anything that was notable until 1992. I think Germany only became a big player on the techno scene with the hardtrance (Harthouse, Overdrive) stuff and hard acid (Jammin' Unit & Dr. Walker, Labworks) shortly after. I do remember one now, that Force Legatto - System track, that only highlights Germany's conspicious absense and the ebm-type sound there were into.

Italy did release a lot of rave tunes in the very early 90's, I think all those producers must have switched to euro-dance after the success of 2 Unlimited. They were probably too hung up on melody to really make an impact later on anyway.

Here's a rather neat summary of Yorkshire Bleeps and Bass c/o the Wikipedia and written by a friend of a friend who hails from Leeds. The scene was localised and the sound was indeed short lived, but as has been noted elsewhere in this thread and in the article, it was influential on the later 'ardkore and jungle sound. As such the lineage through early UK 'speed garage' which similarly used breaks and sub bass, through to the current sublow/dubstep and grime scene can't be ignored. The origins in soundsystem culture and the electro scene are clear too but the true origin of the 'bleep' sound is YMO's 'Computer Game'. It's interesting that the YMO Remix album Hi-Tech/No Crime was overseen by Mark Gamble and Robert Brydon of Sheffield's FON force along with Graham Massey.

I still find it weird that Mark Brydon makes the kind of music he does now with Moloko, coming from this background with FON and the bleep scene and so on.

Sorry, yet another tangent.

DigitalDjigit said:

The Germans...they didn't do much techno either, until 1992. I really cannot name a single artist aside from Westbam and Acardipane (who released through Belgian channels) that made anything that was notable until 1992.

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don't mean to be too nitpicky here, but wasn't acardipane releasing through pcp in 90? and force inc. was putting out stuff by thomas heckmann, ian pooley, etc in 91... and tresor was around in 90/91 (right?). not sure how this stuff was distributed back then, but its existence is indicative of there being at least something of a scene...


as far as the romans - the sounds never seen stuff is truly great and should not be missed! (i've got a couple of the later 12"s - anyone know where one can find the early stuff????? wishful thinking, i'm sure...)
the romans are still releasing some good stuff - passarani's label pigna does ok chicago/italo inspired stuff, and i think nature records is still putting stuff out...

DigitalDjigit said:

There is very little of that bleep stuff around. I think pretty much all of it was already named in this thread, 3-4 labels and a couple compilations encompass pretty much all of it. It would be kinda hard for a revival to happen.

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Have anyone mentioned Ubik yet? The System Overload EP is pretty great. But their album Just add People isn't all that.

DigitalDjigit said:

The Germans...they didn't do much techno either, until 1992. I really cannot name a single artist aside from Westbam and Acardipane (who released through Belgian channels) that made anything that was notable until 1992. I think Germany only became a big player on the techno scene with the hardtrance (Harthouse, Overdrive) stuff and hard acid (Jammin' Unit & Dr. Walker, Labworks) shortly after. I do remember one now, that Force Legatto - System track, that only highlights Germany's conspicious absense and the ebm-type sound there were into.

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But the EBM-thing is the whole point... When rave arrived Germany allready was a major techno player, simply because they allready had a techno scene - clubs where they danced to heavy EBM-stuff. What happened in 90-92, in addition to early stuff from PCP and Force Inc and Air Liquiede etc., was that acid/rave (mainly belgian New Beat) and EBM/industrial had a kind of power struggle of who was to dominate the scene, and that resulted in an odd, but really fascinating, fusion of the two styles (as well as a fraction of the EBM-scene going in its own direction, Germany is still a leading country for this kind of music). You could say that EBM played the same role in Germany as hip hop/dub did in England. And to say that this isn't notable is ridiculous. Genetic material from EBM live on in hardcore/gabber as well as trance and the neo electro of today.

There's several good compilations with the early german electro/EBM-tinged rave sound. The best is probably the first of the "Techno Trax"-series. This is what got me into techno. It contains the Force Legato track as well, even though it's far from the best example. Eventually, Force Legato was one Oliver Lieb, later to gain some fame, and a lot of condenscending remarks from detroit purists, as trance (if you could even call it that) producer Spicelab. One of the great unsung heroes IMO.

If you look at Tresor releases they are mostly Detroit stuff, especially the early ones: Jeff Mills, Blake Baxter etc. The few examples you can name...what's that compared to what Germany unleashed on the world in 1992.

I am not saying Germany didn't make good music or anything I am just saying that they didn't make any impact on the Techno scene per se until 1992. They had their own little thing going. Or so it seems to me from reconstructing the history, I wasn't around back then. So if I am incorrect about this then tell me. All the old mixes I hear from that period have british, belgian and italian tunes but nothing from Germany. I think it had a bigger impact in America, it seems that a lot of the clubs that played EBM switched over to techno/acid house/rave in the early 90's and took a lot of people with it. So they probably got associated together a lot. That's what Adam X is doing these days apparently, bringing the EBM back into techno.

DigitalDjigit said:

I am not saying Germany didn't make good music or anything I am just saying that they didn't make any impact on the Techno scene per se until 1992. They had their own little thing going. Or so it seems to me from reconstructing the history, I wasn't around back then.

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But isn't this because you equate the techno scene with the british techno scene? I think a german could say something like "well, the british had their own little thing going, but they didn't make any impact on the techno scene per se until '92", because very little british music filtered into Germany until then, even though belgian and italian music did (at least if you're to use german compilation albums from the time as evidence).

hamarplazt said:

But isn't this because you equate the techno scene with the british techno scene? I think a german could say something like "well, the british had their own little thing going, but they didn't make any impact on the techno scene per se until '92", because very little british music filtered into Germany until then, even though belgian and italian music did (at least if you're to use german compilation albums from the time as evidence).

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Touche.

That depends of "We are IE" came out in 1989 or not. But really, the Amen break was just another break until Jungle came along. Weren't italians using Think break all over the place in 1989. There's even a trance track "Summer '89" by California Sunshine (done in the mid-90's, some kinda nostalgia thing I guess) that has that break.