Where are the breaks?

[MatthewH]

Yeah this happened earlier in DnB too with the techstep and neurofunk stuff. But they had the sense not to name their music after something that wasn't in it. I'm quite vexed by this.

Think of it this way: most breakbeat house got faster and turned into jungle in the early 90s. Some of it stayed the same and the breaks gradually got replaced by individual samples, while keeping the rhythms approximately the same - relative to a 4/4 beat anyways. Eventually the name got shortened from breakbeat house to just breaks. Make sense?

At some point maybe most dubstep will turn into drumstep and the stuff that's left at 140 will start using halftime breakbeats or something. Some wag call the new style "dubs", the name will stick, and we'll have the reverse phenomenon. That would be typical.

Ok, I think I've pushed this off the trainspotter deep end at this point.

 

[Slothrop]

It was never really cool because it was polished and trancey before all the cool kids decided that being polished and trancey was a good thing after listening to lots of 00's R'n'B.

TBH I thought it was pretty dull even before it was polished and trancey. It mostly just seemed like the ultimate MOR dance music - not as minimally futuristic as techno, not as funky as hip hop or house, not as cheesily epic as trance, not as fast and dark as dnb, not as unashamedly fun as big beat, not as ruff as garage. So what was the point? What was exciting about it?

 

[Corpsey]

When I was at uni all the gal dem loved breaks. Breaks nights were pretty fun, even though the music was a bit shit.

 

[continuum]

At some point maybe most dubstep will turn into drumstep

The bro wobble lot play drumstep at the end of their wobble sets already but i agree with you the dogs will return to their master (dnb) eventually

 

[MatthewH]

Speak of the devil:


Straight-up electro breaks. Brand-new stuff sounding like something from a Stanton Warriors set from 2002.

 

[skweeelicious!]

There's tons of brilliant breaks records if you know who the artists are.

 

[daddek]

there seems to be an assertion that this tempo (130ish) + drum groove (unswung 2step/"funk" patterns) + aesthetic (electro / rave / hiphop) is generally a bad place. And truthfully, that turn of the century "nu skool breakz" scene was hadly the pinnacle of electronic music. im sure there were some good records & some well intentioned artists, naturally. but most of what i've heard combines everything i didnt like about scenes that i otherwise did like,with all the vitality sucked out.

But that doesn't mean the stylistic place is inherently bad. That scene has totally evaporated now, it's now safe to re-explore that area without getting sucked into the shit. I think Boddika is proving that it can be done well. His tunes sound raw, aesthetically tight and authentic - exactly the things that 2000ish sbreaks failed to be.

 

[MatthewH]

Some good points there, daddek. Your formula [tempo (130ish) + drum groove (unswung 2step/"funk" patterns) + aesthetic (electro / rave / hiphop)] could be used to describe Untold if you just subtract the hiphop influence. Yet nobody would drop Untold and Adam Freeland next to each other in 2011.

Personally, breaks was big as I was getting into dance music and coming from more-or-less a hiphop background it was a lot more "safe" of a choice. I just automatically assumed I'd prefer it. A 4/4 kick drum just sounded like gay club music at first.

So maybe there's a hypothesis there: breaks was for clubbing amateurs that had unresolved musical homophobia issues. If you resolve them you eventually end up listening to US garage, if you don't you end up listening to jungle. Either way you move on.

 

[skweeelicious!]

uk breaks is/was one of those styles whose parameters are too vague to make it a winner. like all genres the early records were more experimental. as with jungle, producers played with snare placement making for some exciting tracks, but eventually it got codifed to a standard backbeat. but unlike dnb or dubstep, breaks never really developed anything but a loose formula - 130 bpm and snare on 2 and 4 is about it. no definitive sounds or structure. not really.

more than anything, the initial artists - rennie pilgrim, adam freeland, tipper - quickly got bigger than the genre itself and left it behind. breaks wasn't doing them any favors. lots of breaks artists followed - koma and bones, atomic hooligan, chris carter, elite force - but nobody broke through like a goldie or grooverider or skream or rusko. so it stayed 2nd room music or 3rd room music always. eventually all the producers but a few moved on to house or dubstep or whatever.

 

[Dr Awesome]

So maybe there's a hypothesis there: breaks was for clubbing amateurs that had unresolved musical homophobia issues. If you resolve them you eventually end up listening to US garage, if you don't you end up listening to jungle. Either way you move on.

Hahaha. That's fantastic.