Dark 4x4 and Breakbeat Garage

A

alex

Do not read this.
love that one Sectionfive***, also the flip was a belter also, loved the way it started with the kick on a highpass filter, so sick that one...

got to mention TNT, Nissi, Transmission, Rush the DJ

also there was some really good dark 4x4 mixes of messy by gemma fox (big$hot i think)

alias had some really nice 4x4 bits aswell 'bouncy' was one of them

anyone have a copy of 'Do It' by bubbles from Roll Deep? Came out on a 1 sided one, was in rhythm division, i lost my copy, it's not on discogs, was such a tune, used to get beat by slimzee etc..
 
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G

gumdrops

Well-known member
i love this stuff

really good thread

i bought 2nd II nones road 12" a few weeks ago

the track fuse on that is just grime-techno
 
Ulala

Ulala

Awkward Woodward
Wasn't 'Saved Soul' by Narrows was the catalyst for all this? As I recall, EZ played it in every set for about 6 months and it was so incongruous amongst all the sweet vocal 2-step, yet also brilliant - there'd been moody 4x4 garage prior to it but it was the one which really took garage into the realms of being growly.

Love your mixes nomos; that's a near-definitive selection of this sound. I still love 'Golly Gosh' by Sticky, 'Grouch' (doesn't everyone?) and especially the 'G.A.R.A.G.E. (Narrows Remix)', which is incredibly peculiar.

I have a lot of stuff in this vein - I used to order the garage, breakbeat and techno vinyl (amongst others) when I worked in a record shop (1999-2005) and so ended up with all sorts of stuff from small distros that probably never made it past 20/30 test presses. None of it's on youtube, natch, but if enough of you fancy hearing it I'll try to rip it from vinyl and dropbox it, or something. (There's some Narrows, Close Quarters (which I think is also a Narrows alias?), Faz, Rossi B & Luca and a few others in there.)

I did manage to think of a few, though.



This is (I imagine) the Gemma Fox mix Alex referenced upthread. It's by Paleface, which makes sense given that he ended up making Bassline. (Though he's also in Crazy Cousinz, which probably goes to show something, I expect.)







'Ave That, indeed. Tim Wright spent about a year flirting with garage but never quite relinquishing his technoeyness. Really like the hestitant, scuttly nature of the hats on the above, plus it has a monstrous bassline. Radioactive Man's original is even more boshing - but again, the skippety hats just about allow me to classify it as dark 4/4 garage. It's great, anyway.





This one's deceptive - the intro doesn't really foretoken the bassline grunt that follows. I know MJ does harder stuff these days but this was a real departure at the time. Dark bassline, jolly organ stabs plus overblown emo breakdowns, a strange record.


Lastly, what is a 'dark 4/4 garage' thread without this? This remix coined the expression and it's still the best of its kind if you ask me. One of the few songs you can sing the bassline of:


 
nomos

nomos

Administrator
I didn't even realize we had groups :rolleyes: Not very mod-y of me is it? I took the liberty of inviting myself. (Now how do I get a DB invite?)

Welcome Ulala. Would love to hear some of those tunes.
 
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Benny Bunter

Benny Bunter

Well-known member
I'll sort out the dropbox invites in a bit, quite a lot of dark garage got posted in there a while back actually. PM me your email addresses and I'll add you up.
 
P

pete janner

New member

this track remains a masterclass in dark breakbeat garage

what about that 2nd drop

ignore the clip title, this was the A (Murderer)
 
B

Blackdown

nexKeysound
I always thought of dark 4x4 as some kind of end point for garage, as a chain of increasing intensification (harder, darker, faster) driven by competitiveness amongst DJs. you start with US garage, get UK and more bumpy, add more sub, it goes 2steppy then breakbeat garage (Zinc "Hello" being the pinicle of that style) and so the only level of hardness above that is dark 4x4. Narrows "Saved Soul" definitely broke that style, (named after his friend's death from a car crash inspired him to go into music and "save" is "soul").

Tracks like this Sirus one seemed to exemplify the harder, faster mentality. as you edge up from 128 ->134 -> through to 138 you lose the skippy swing factor over the bosh, hard kick-driven techno vibe.

I remember interviewing Agent X in about 2003/4 and they were bemoaning this tempo shift (though "Turbulence" on this was pretty hard 4x4).

So once you've got faster, darker and harder, you only really have one place to go. Angrier: hence you got grime, which these tracks were a foundation for in places like Sidewinder. I went there with Narrows once during this time, but that's another story (a not wildly interesting one)...
 
G

gumdrops

Well-known member
i think this stuff is some of the best dance music ever

its dark/heavy/hard but bouncy/energetic/driving on the dancefloor

and this period seems like the most fertile almost, i mean, yeah its 'dark' (and i know you could argue garage before this was even more fertile and varied cos you had every shade in there) but it was before grime got much less floor-aimed and started to get more amateur and raw, it was sort of a middle point, but def not a 'transitional' stage cos that implies its not quite there yet, but this stuff really was fully realised

and theres just something about those sounds being used with that much propulsion/bounce and simplicity of the 4/4 pattern, its (underground) dance music perfection for me
 
Ulala

Ulala

Awkward Woodward
A cursory rummage thorugh my vinyl reveals 30+ 12”s of dark 4/4 garage (and garagey techno), none of which is on youtube or discogs. I will, therefore, as promised, rip them, but I have a wedding to attend this weekend so it may take me a while. Quite how I ended up with so much is beyond me, but I noticed (whilst rummaging) that much of my 2-step vinyl has been drunkenly lost (by me) or stolen (by chiefs) over the years. Perhaps nobody wanted the dark 4/4 stuff…

Which isn’t all that surprising - I clearly remember playing ‘Grouch’ to comparative air when released; though, that said, I was living in Brighton, where garage was completely eclipsed by breakbeat. It gets a much better reception when played these days, I guess in part to the rise of niche/bassline, but also due to the Luke’s Anger/Kanji Kinetic/Squire Of Gothos axis, which is pretty much this sound with a load of synths and silliness bunged in. (I won’t derail by linking to that stuff, but the parallels are pretty plain.)

More youtubery:




The quintessential breakbeat garage record? I reckon so, and the sparse beats are a clear grime antecedent as well. You could even make a fair case for this as proto-wobble, the bass is decidedly, um, wobbly. It was certainly something I’d never witnessed before (clever wording, I know. Cheers).




Give trance a chance. ‘Nightmare’ has the sort of ominous strings which became a staple of grime, and Dextrous bungs a huge wah-wah bassline under it to great effect. I found out about this by accident but instantly loved it. (Although the uploader has cropped off the last few minutes, the ninny.)




Another example of dodgy source material being remixed to stunning effect, though this bears little to no trace of Nigel (or Marvin, I expect). This is the most clattery breakbeat garage record I own, and I’m toying with saying it’s actually straight breakbeat, but: a) it’s by J Sweet, and b) it’s on Relentless.


http://www.juno.co.uk/ppps/products/105691-01.htm


Only an audio clip of this one, and it isn’t ‘dark’ in the same way as the others. However, it is hectic and oppressive, and that’s as good as dark in my book. My favourite HP record ever, I think. I managed to get me a copy of this on vinyl when a well-respected breakbeat DJ (who I won’t name, but he’s been on Supermarket Sweep, if that helps) brought it in to the shop I worked in, amongst a pile of promos, and I swapped the lot for a Plump DJs CD (or something equally tawdry). Naturally I snaffled this for myself and I treasure it fondly.
 
e/y

e/y

Well-known member
those mixes from nomos, Benny B and Grievous Angel are fantastic. great thread.
 
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