Modern d'n'b is rubbish - tune ID and a moan from an old man

john eden

john eden

male pale and stale
I went raving in Eindhoven in Holland last weekend and the best option for everyone seemed to be a drum 'n' bass night. It's been about 8 years since I last paid any attention to drum 'n' bass other than a bit of ragga jungle and breakcore.

It's all very... flat... these days, isn't it? Very linear interpretations of tech-step, but a bit cleaned up. No mad chopped-up beats, not even that many big fat b-lines.

People liked it and we had a bit of a dance, but it was interesting to me that the music is barely recognisable as what I consider drum n bass.

Pendulum came on the much acclaim, but it was more of the same really. The only standout track all night was one with a ragga-ish vocal singjaying "tarantula". That was good - any clues?

But a bigger question is - how did this happen? Was I just unlucky or has d'n'b actually got boring, and if so why/how? I always assumed it was relatively easy to make huge jump up tunes with the simple ingredients handed down from the jungle forefathers, but it looks like there has been a conscious decision to not do that at some point.

(As ever the above is personal opinion, blah blah blah, the value of your Metalheadz back catalogue may go down as well as up, your junglist credentials may be at risk if you do not keep up repayments on your raving account...)
 
mos dan

mos dan

fact music
john eden said:
(As ever the above is personal opinion, blah blah blah, the value of your Metalheadz back catalogue may go down as well as up, your junglist credentials may be at risk if you do not keep up repayments on your raving account...)
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LOOOOOOOOL

[i never liked dnb in the first place, i'm afraid i have nothing constructive to contribute]
 
swears

swears

preppy-kei
Every tune seems to have that clunky boom-bap-boombap boom-bap-boombap 160 bpm beat now. I'm sure there is some more interesting stuff out there, I haven't heard it though. And everybody I know from school that's still into dnb is a boring sod.
 
john eden

john eden

male pale and stale
swears said:
Every tune seems to have that clunky boom-bap-boombap boom-bap-boombap 160 bpm beat now. I'm sure there is some more interesting stuff out there, I haven't heard it though. And everybody I know from school that's still into dnb is a boring sod.
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I reckon you would see more inventiveness with the beats at most House nights - it was all very alarming.
 
G

gumdrops

Well-known member
i remember reading a 4hero interview where marc mac said he thought too many D&B tracks started sounding too rock-y which is what turned them away from the music... dont most people say D&B went shit around 97/98?
 
Landfill Elektronikz

Landfill Elektronikz

-
gumdrops said:
i remember reading a 4hero interview where marc mac said he thought too many D&B tracks started sounding too rock-y which is what turned them away from the music... dont most people say D&B went shit around 97/98?
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funnily enough i said that just last week
http://gutterbreakz.blogspot.com/2007/06/spirit-of-97.html

and if you've reduced the value of my metalheadz box before i put it on e-bay, i'll bloody 'ave you, eden!
http://gutterbreakz.blogspot.com/2007/06/metal-gear.html
 
J

jonny mugwump

exotic pylon
yeah- it went shit a long time ago and as far as i can see, the name change from jungle to d'n'b was the immediate sign that things were fucking up- after all, it was an engineer's music if you like and the move from a metaphorical title to an instrumental label (ie, drums and bass) signified musicians taking over the asylum. Never a good thing as far as i'm concerned. No U-Turn were pioneers of the techstep sound but way in advance and still with that now old-skool element.

yeah, d'n'b sucks. no genre ,omiker should emulate fish'n'chips.

oh, and hi, this is my first post.

:D
 
john eden

john eden

male pale and stale
Hello exoticpylon!

I think most people agree there was a seismic shift in around 97/98. For my money there were still a load of great tunes coming out after then and I was still pretty much on top of it all. The V Recordings stuff and even a lot of the Optical etc bizness was still pretty exciting imo as was going to the label nights at The End and Movement at Mass.

There was a great thread on here a few years back where a load of people (including Droid iirc) were talking about their first experiences of raving during that period...

But while I can just about muster a defence for the music if 98 and maybe even 99, there was one tune from the whole night in Eindhoven that I want to hear again.

Nick -yeah been enjoying your recent posts, they kinda kicked this off too!
 
U

UFO over easy

online mahjong
ah, another one of these. if you go to subvert central and have a browse you'll find a few interesting 100-page threads about the decline of drum and bass - it's been absolutely discussed to death.. that kind of stuff dominated SC for ages. check out droid and naphta's writing on weareie.com as well.

the good stuff doesn't get played in clubs, but it's still out there. I'm going to record a mix next weekend.
 
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G

gumdrops

Well-known member
im not a DNB expert but from what i heard of malice in wonderland, quite a bit of it sounded like it could have been made more than a decade back! (quite good) great artwork too.
 
john eden

john eden

male pale and stale
UFO over easy said:
ah, another one of these.

the good stuff doesn't get played in clubs, but it's still out there. I'm going to record a mix next weekend.
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Ah good! Would love to hear it!

Any thoughts on why the good stuff doesn't get played in clubs?

I'm more interested in the conditions which have got us to this point than having a moan about it all I think. :)
 
J

jonny mugwump

exotic pylon
yeah i liked it alot- it has the spark of something of a decade ago but with a sheen of now- parallel universe old skool.

and kind of baffling that it should be Goldie to produce something so cool at this stage of the game but maybe his vanishing from the limelight has removed any pressure to conform to anybody's expectations.

which is curious cos you could say the same for drum'n'bass- i look forward to hearing UFO's mix- i would be ecstatic to find out i'm talking out of my arse.
 
U

UFO over easy

online mahjong
john eden said:
I'm more interested in the conditions which have got us to this point than having a moan about it all I think. :)
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For sure.. it's definitely a combination of lots of things. The scene was locked down by a few producers fairly early on, people started taking different drugs, producers ears got absolutely hammered to fuck, the raver demographic changed... I bet the night you went to was pretty studenty and white?

There's loads of stuff to think about. Seriously though, check Subvert Central. Some seriously knowledgable people on there. Naphta's written some huge essays on the subject :) I'll go and have a hunt for the best threads to check out.
 
Z

zhao

there are no accidents
john eden said:
Why is that tho?
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one can examine sociological reasons for why testosterone took over the scene in reaction to house or whatever, but the possibilities with that pallete and that rhythmic pattern were maybe just simply exhausted. to me it is a zombie genre - really dead, but somehow still alive in a half-life sort of way. (like rock'n'roll)
 
john eden

john eden

male pale and stale
UFO over easy said:
For sure.. it's definitely a combination of lots of things. The scene was locked down by a few producers fairly early on, people started taking different drugs, producers ears got absolutely hammered to fuck, the raver demographic changed... I bet the night you went to was pretty studenty and white?

There's loads of stuff to think about. Seriously though, check Subvert Central. Some seriously knowledgable people on there. Naphta's written some huge essays on the subject :) I'll go and have a hunt for the best threads to check out.
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Yeah the night was studenty (in fact the guy I was staying with was embarrassed to meet some of his students there ha ha) and white (but there isn't a very large black population in the town).

What drugs now - coke?

Yeah Naptha is wicked... any pointers gladly received.

So there is basically an underground and an overground in d 'n' b now?
 
U

UFO over easy

online mahjong
zhao said:
but the possibilities with that pallete and that rhythmic pattern were maybe just simply exhausted.
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Nonsense :)

John Eden said:
john eden said:
What drugs now - coke?

Yeah Naptha is wicked... any pointers gladly received.

So there is basically an underground and an overground in d 'n' b now?
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Yep, coke has a lot to answer for in my opinion...

And spot on with the underground/overground thing. I don't think underground drum and bass does itself any favours by clinging to that tag when it has almost nothing in common musically with what passes as drum and bass these days. If you go to a technicality or bassbin night there's basically nothing but shared history to link them with a Fabric main room for example.
 
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