rolling back to the future garage/post-dubstep/alt-funkstep/intelli-2step etc thread

O

Ory

warp drive
UFO over easy said:
there are differences in approach and scene divisions, of course. but they aren't fixed - there are points of convergence and interesting overlaps. your way of looking at things can't account for champion and terror danjah playing joe tunes, or ossie releasing on lightworks, or funkystepz on hyperdub, or trim mcing over becoming real and dro carey, or mala working with james blake, or petchy and his crew dancing to a joy orbison set at doldrums, or marcus nasty playing ramadanman and mosca tunes

reynolds makes room for stuff like that right? but you lot don't seem to be
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of course there's going to be overlap, with the internet there's bound to be. but those overlaps are rarely crucial to anything really, they're just curiosities that make you go "huh, that's neat". and tbh "claptrap" and "square one" both stand out in a bad way when played by champion/marcus nasty or whoever. they make those sets less interesting.

like pilhead said, rudeness/street vibe is central here.

then occasionally you get "bloggy" producers like jam city who are able to capture the spirit of (in his case) grime/african house really well, but don't count on it.
 
O

Ory

warp drive
and re: funkystepz/ill blu on hyperdub, mr mageeka on numbers, lil silva on night slugs etc. i'm all for it, as noone else is putting out funky vinyl. these label owners are obv in touch with what's going on.

pity bok bok's own productions are so dull...
 
D

daddek

Well-known member
okay so a bunch of artists who were part of that dense uk mass drifted into other territories, and connect with movements that existed before and outside of 1992 london. would you criticize any of them individually for doing so? Because some of them are making very good, genuinely modern music. And house & hip hop are amazing forms, no less relevant than post92 rave forms.

If london is lacking an intense hardcore rave-ish scene, then that's it's own meta problem, no one artist can take a decision to change that, and any group decision to enforce change be achingly contrived and self defeating. i understand your lamentations (altho dont share them - yet). I just don't see what can be done about it, other than wait it out.

In the meantime, you / we might as well enjoy what's good about the output of the now individualistic (temporarily?) post-scene artists.. rather than let all this frameworking get in the way of an authentic listening (or raving) experience.

few other thoughts.. it might be that this hardcore-ish rave thing is just an inevitability of intense city environments (ones with creative flair & cultural mixes) x technology, and not a continuum of derivative ideas based on one master scenius idea that happened in early 90s (as reynolds seems to contend). In which case, its almost inevitable that london will regain a hardcore scene, the city itself demands it.

It's also could be that uk rave music is just never going to be as exciting as it was in it's early genesis, in the same way at least. We're 20+ years deep into it now, there's no certitude of linear innovation graph, it may well settle into its own established history just as rock did. Idk.
 
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Tentative Andy

Tentative Andy

I'm in the Meal Deal
I guess the only problem I have with what Ory and some other people are saying is that even in terms of the nuum stuff alone, it's never been just about out-and-out rudeness, has it? Or rather, there's tunes where the rude vibe is the main feature and really in your face, but there's also tunes where it's more in the background, underpinning some other kind of mood. Jungle seems a good example of this - before you even get to the stuff that's widely understood as deep/abstract like Photek or some of the Metalheadz stuff, you've got loads of classic tunes like The Rumble by DJ Nut Nut, Chapter 19 by Trinity, Anthemia by Blame and Justice, Night Moves by Q Project, The Calling by Size and Die, loads of Foul Play bits like Being With You etc. This kind of stuff is mostly really hype still, but also manages to be spaced-out/brooding/blissed/otherworldly etc as well. It was never just tunes like Gangster II or Roll The Beats (as amazing as they were).
I'm not even sure that the better Hessle or Night Slugs stuff compares too badly in rudeness factor to what I'm talking about (though for me and I'd guess a lot of others they're not quite as awe-inspiring). Likewise in funky, not every tune is Motherboard or Night Skanker, and they don't have to be. Insisting over and over on rudeness and nothing but rudeness seems overly purist perhaps.

Edit: I do share some of Sick Boy's worries about London music losing its stylistic separation from music you find all over the place though. And like a lot of people, I do wonder whether some of the great energy has gone out of dance music in general. But energy can take a lot of different forms, is all I'm saying.
 
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M

muser

Well-known member
Sick Boy said:
Mount Kimbie/James Blake/Burial influenced things - along with a smattering of that weird, overdone hip-hop influenced stuff you found a lot more last year - that you hear on people like Blackdown's shows*, and the last two years of turning on Rinse FM and hearing bland, American sounding vocal house. If necessary I will trawl through Boomkat to provide some examples of the former, but I can't provide any examples of the latter because I've never bothered to find out the names.
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Actually I thought you were being more general (slightly misread your post), I got the sounds what you were angling at though.

But I think alot of stuff is getting lumped together that is mainly only connected through either 1. What listeners tastes are (the circles that the sounds are spread) and 2. What the artists are being influenced by.

The internet has made it a big confusing mess without anyone being able to really pin anything down before its moved on again. Which kind of makes generalised arguments a bit futile. How relevant is Mount Kimbie to Addison Groove for example? How relevant are either of those things to the "Hardcore Contiuum"?
 
D

daddek

Well-known member
Sick Boy said:
Mount Kimbie/James Blake/Burial influenced things
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thing is tho none of that was really designed for clubs, primarily. So criticizing it for not working in clubs doesn't hold if that wasn't the artists' intention.
Of course, you could argue that it doesn't work outside of a club either, in which case, yeh it fails all round.

but there's a ton of evidence to the country - ive witnessed club audiences go wild to DJs playing James Blake, like, wtf wild. the same tracks are on loop in people's living spaces judging by last.fm. Which also puts a lie to the assertion often made around here, that music simply can't be good to dance to, and emotive/listenable/arranged at the same time - yet that "fact" is being used to cut down post-dubstep stuff in this thread.

We can agree, its mostly certainly not overly hardcore/rude music, and if thats the preference, it wont be liked. But if no one's presenting it as such, why are we even talking about as not being nuum enough?
Because there is still hardcore music being made in london. it's sill here..in the form of UK Funky. It's just not quite as exciting as jungle/ grime, unfortunately. If it was more exciting, you lot wouldnt be slating claptrap or whatever as not being nuum enough.. i just see it as a misplaced frustration at the void; I guess. And I agree, there is one.
 
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A

Aww Nein

Wild Palms
Shadow Face said:
what was the swamp81 night saying? cos thats probably a good indication of whether post dubstep shit can inspire dances.
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yeah, i had a wicked night at the swamp81 thing, i dont necessarily think its idicative of whatever this thread title is referring to, as the terms are far too broad, but i thinbk loefah certainly has one direction out of dubstep, this drum machine 808, heavy-but-classic moody electro sound... i would not describe it as a glutted mush but neither is it particuarly rude/cheesy, and it definitly seemed aimed at the dancefloor more so then early dubstep ever was, simply by being more percussive and less static... i wouldadvise anyone to listen to the loefah rinse show here as it gels well with my memories of his set one the night, stand out tracks etc

http://podcast.dgen.net/rinsefm/podcast/Loefah140111.mp3

As for the other rooom, 502, thought was better, Fis-T was amazing, Oneman double-dropped James Blake CMYK and Rhythm & Gash, which went off... that to me is a good example of the mixture of scenes etc, again you all should listen to this set as well

http://podcast.dgen.net/rinsefm/podcast/Oneman170411.mp3

especially the blends coming in round the middle onwards, one was nelly furtardo "promiscuous girl" remix over weird serrated wobble into joker.... again nothing but hype, and i guess 3 mins of music where you could trace pop, wobble jumpm up, grime and funk out of...

this thread has so much to be written about it that i cant really get it all in, so sorry if it seems fractured... but the thing simon/pilhead said about the competitiveness/battling creating tracks, would totally agree, but it segues into the net consuming the street, i mean its not like a track has to get played out to be heard, and if people can hear it at home in theyre bedrooms then it needs to do different things in order to work... i mean for me the real "post-dubstep" is the stuff coming out of witch-HAus or whatever, where theyve taken the ambience and turned it inward into this sad gothic slump... really is after the event.

and this is the real "future garage" :)

 
M

mrfaucet

The Ideas Train
daddek said:
it might be that this hardcore-ish rave thing is just an inevitability of intense city environments (ones with creative flair & cultural mixes) x technology, and not a continuum of derivative ideas based on one master scenius idea that happened in early 90s (as reynolds seems to contend). In which case, its almost inevitable that london will regain a hardcore scene, the city itself demands it.
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Someone made the point earlier that London is full of CCTV, privatised spaces, Grime raves getting shut off by the Met, etc. and I think that probably makes it difficult for London to throw up the kind of musically vital scenes it has done previously. To my mind, there has always seemed to be a certain level of illegality connected with the music - pirate radio, drugs, raves in warehouses/fields. That's not to say that illegality = good music, but maybe it helps create these marginal spaces where the music can be tested out and incubated. Dubstep had Plastic People, a kind of marginal place where the music could be tested out, which although legal (despite attempts to shut it down), isn't exactly common. I think what is important is that these places have low barriers to entry, so pretty much anyone can give it a go, but it's putting you into a network so ideas can be exchanged and the whole thing doesn't become too esoteric.

I think another thing, which probably links into how London and the UK has changed, is it is probably more divided now so you don't have that social mix (I think Baboon has made this point quite a few times and I think it's worth considering). That is also important for developing ideas and I think someone made that point before with Goldie and Rob Playford. Whenever I go to these post-dubstep/bass music nights, I always think that the crowd is very homogenous, even if sometimes the DJs themselves are 'street'. That's not the fault of the producers of this music of course, but it maybe helps explain why this music is sometimes lacking something.
 
F

Fundamental

Well-known member
Things I miss about a scene (alot of this I didn't know I missed this till it stopped happening and I'm not being facetious.)

1. Everyone battering the same dubplates.
-It creates those all encompassing anthems a whole lot easier
-Knowing that you would almost certainly hear a certain tune/dub that friday night
-Everyone knowing the same tune in the club
-Anthems create those great bonds and memories

2. Sonic memes
-They came and went much faster coz everyone was on the same page
-for instance the Juke virus would have lasted 6 months in ukg/grime, here we are 18 months later and it wont fuck off coz everyone picks up on things slower
-Same with pitchbent multicoloured 'mngo' chords
- sinogrime/r'n'g/breakstep lasted 12 months at best and we all moved on happily

3. The flux would solidify eventually
- I'm all for the creative spaces that the wotd'youcallit non-statis creates but for a healthy scene I'm probably coming round to the fact that it probably does need to solidify now and again, otherwise there is nothing to take that proverbial sledgehammer to shatter again.
-Lets be fair it has been like 30months or something since hyph mngo happened.
-TBF something might give way soon... who knows.
 
T

Tim F

Well-known member
Probably the most pernicious binary is the one between binaries or their lack: as if the self-evident truth that a theory of music or set of aesthetic preferences cannot explain all that is good about music necessitates their abandoment in favour of pure flux.

Most of the things talked about in this thread are tendential: the existence of a continuum, the importance of "street"/"rudeboy" elements, the music's relationship to questions of class. Like anything tendential, contradictions and counter-examples abound.

If SR was on this thread he would say the same, and further, that those contradictions and counter-examples feed back into the overarching structure of the trend, that e.g. Foul Play gentrifying (from the OG "Open Your Mind" through to "Being With You" et. al) really established the limits of what "rudeboy" possibly could mean (and undeniably, there is a trip-limit there, where "intelligent" jungle stops signifying hardcore, but where that limit is precisely not surprisingly is and always has been contested).

Marcus playing Ramadanman or Mosca is another example of this. But as a fact in and of itself its capacity to illuminate is limited. The next question is: which Ramadanman and Mosca, and why? Which Dennis Ferrer and which Feliciano and which Bugz in the Attic and which dutch electro-house, for that matter? There is a process of discrimination at work here, divining a possible logic amongst all of these things that couldn't have been identified before, but cannot be summarised as "Ramadanman and Mosca and Dennis Ferrer and Feliciano and..." as if you could take any tune by these artists and find the results the same.

Scenes are like constellations if the stars in the sky were all pushed together, such that the stars forming the outer edge of one constellation also formed the outer edge (or even inner structure) of others. Notwithstanding this, each constellation shows a different imagined picture, and usually the ones we are drawn to are those which seem brightest and most fully formed as a constellation, rather than just a random collection of stars.

PS. Cheers for the nice words Luka.
 
A

Aww Nein

Wild Palms
Tim F said:
Probably the most pernicious binary is the one between binaries or their lack: as if the self-evident truth that a theory of music or set of aesthetic preferences cannot explain all that is good about music necessitates their abandoment in favour of pure flux.

Most of the things talked about in this thread are tendential: the existence of a continuum, the importance of "street"/"rudeboy" elements, the music's relationship to questions of class. Like anything tendential, contradictions and counter-examples abound.

If SR was on this thread he would say the same, and further, that those contradictions and counter-examples feed back into the overarching structure of the trend, that e.g. Foul Play gentrifying (from the OG "Open Your Mind" through to "Being With You" et. al) really established the limits of what "rudeboy" possibly could mean (and undeniably, there is a trip-limit there, where "intelligent" jungle stops signifying hardcore, but where that limit is precisely not surprisingly is and always has been contested).

Marcus playing Ramadanman or Mosca is another example of this. But as a fact in and of itself its capacity to illuminate is limited. The next question is: which Ramadanman and Mosca, and why? Which Dennis Ferrer and which Feliciano and which Bugz in the Attic and which dutch electro-house, for that matter? There is a process of discrimination at work here, divining a possible logic amongst all of these things that couldn't have been identified before, but cannot be summarised as "Ramadanman and Mosca and Dennis Ferrer and Feliciano and..." as if you could take any tune by these artists and find the results the same.

Scenes are like constellations if the stars in the sky were all pushed together, such that the stars forming the outer edge of one constellation also formed the outer edge (or even inner structure) of others. Notwithstanding this, each constellation shows a different imagined picture, and usually the ones we are drawn to are those which seem brightest and most fully formed as a constellation, rather than just a random collection of stars.

PS. Cheers for the nice words Luka.
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in comes a heavyweight...

this thread is producing some nice writing and ideas
 
S

Sick Boy

All about pride and egos
See what Tim Finney just did right there. The appropriate response for certain people out there right now is to read that and cry. I almost feel like crying on their behalf. All nice words your way well deserved, pal.
 
O

Ory

warp drive
finney's visceral writing (esp. on funky) actually inspires me to make tunes, the same way those old reynolds hardcore pieces do. can't say the same for muggs, never get that sense of urgency with him; that this is important and must be listened to.

alright that's enough feeding tim's ego...
 
Benny Bunter

Benny Bunter

Well-known member
I love that idea of music scenes as constellations...beautiful. Tim, I wish you'd been around the other day when Muggins showed up, it would have made for a much more interesting conversation!
 
D

daddek

Well-known member
lovely. thanks tim. how can anyone not agree with that.

im not sure anyone has argued against scenes, not even muggs*. what has been suggested however, here and elsewhere (SR's writing), is a framework for discouraging artist's to leave scenes, and pursue individual directions. Some suggestions are that individual artistry is "rockist" or bourgeois, and so de facto bad. The thing is, personally, I need some artists to do this, if I am to continue loving music so... if all was a night of dj noface playing noname dubs with "sick basslines", with no real individual artistic ambition, my love for music would die somewhat. The problem is, for an artist to detatch from a scene, and exist in that lonely spot between constellations, they must be extraordinarily good, they must shine very brightly.
which is why, a lot of non-scene music, is somewhat underwhelming. its a very tall order.

*not here at least, altho, it is hard to parse out his point. i think he just sees himself as a spokesman on behalf of artists' he feels personally attached to. This is a tricky spot for a critic to place himself in, it discourages detached critique of the artists' work, and the artists themselves are not even requesting it. "boosterism", however well intentioned, can only muddy the waters.
 
slackk

slackk

-
I don't really feel like the way this thread has grouped everything getting made that doesn't fit into easy categories like "future garage" is too fair to be honest. "Future garage" is that stuff on soundcloud that sounds like enya with weak 2-step drums. I don't like a lot of music but to try and infer that everything getting made is rubbish because it doesn't come from a pre-approved background or scene nucleus is ridiculous. I just wish there was more grime influence but then I would, wouldn't I.

Fucking love Silo Pass. Love it.

Post-dubstep, that is another terrible name. Almost patronising I think
 
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Tentative Andy

Tentative Andy

I'm in the Meal Deal
Hehe, every time I think this thread has reached the stage of just being the same slogans chanted over and over again, up pops some really interesting writing that gives me loads to think about. Big up Tim, facucet, AwwNein and the rest of you.
 
luka

luka

Well-known member
The capital upon which literary citations borrow maybe considered as a kind of literary semen, the sign as well as the embodiment of authorial potency. If the pen is a metaphorical penis and if the products of that pen is figuratively semen, then the relation between the original poet and the one who steals, borrows, appropriates, or otherwise makes the formers text his own is engaged with homo-erotic desires and conflicts.
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Lamos
 
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