dnb and The Wire

[Blackdown]

write less, say more!

 

[nonseq]

The Wire April 2005:
p. 10: MIA
p. 14: Venetian Snares (with unedited transcript on their site)
p. 42: The Primer: Grime

(to counter some of the caricatures painted in this thread a bit)

 

[subvert47]

so, to the dude who started this thread i hear that you run a small label of sorts with a bit of a backstory and that you release what you consider to be genre-bending underground music.

well, i say good luck to you and mean it wholeheartedly, but you have to consider the possibilty that other people might not share your obvious conviction. music is like anything else: you have to keep plugging away at it and not take rejection to heart. pissing and whining is a bit of a waste of time when you could be making a record so damned good people have to change their minds and give you props instead.

i wish you all the best and am sure that if you keep going long enough somebody will take notice, but no one really owes you anything.

Sure thing. Thanks. But that's not the point I was making. It's not that the Wire didn't review our stuff (which isn't enormously genre-bending or underground really), but that they have ceased to engage with dnb at all.

If you've read the piece in the link...? First off I wrote a general letter to the Wire about dnb. No reply. I followed it up noting their only apparent response. No reply. A year later, now with something to promote myself, I wrote direct to Philip...

That at least got a friendly response. CDs went off to Philip in Spain, with the possibility of a mention in his November Critical Beats column.

The Wire November issue arrived and we hadn't made it. Ah well, there isn't room for everything.

Out of interest I emailed Philip again...

No reply.

Three months later I posted it all on my myspace blog, mainly because I'd taken time over it (especially on the initial letter) and now had somewhere to put it.

Then I posted a link here to create discussion

 

[SIZZLE]

I think the point about some things being good music and some being good to write about is pretty important. I know some musicians who do inordinatelly well (considering what I feel to be the mediocrity of their output) very much BECAUSE they provide an interesting one sentence idea that journalists want to write about, how wierd and interesting it is that they've combined genre's X and Y that we NEVER would have though of putting together blah blah blah. One person I'm thinking of created a minor media feeding frenzy around a stunningly un-interesting series of songs and I think it had a huge amount to do with the fact that they hit upon this easy formula/idea that really stirred writers imaginations.

Because in the end, what's written in those magazines very rarely can transfer any useful information about the actual sound. 9 times out of 10 they will provide a hopefully interesting backstory about the artist, tell you what style or combination of styles it might be (often blatantly incorrectly) and then say whether they think it's good/interesting or not.

 

[UFO over easy]

i get sent plenty of middling to good music that i might in an ideal world like to give exposure to, but the reality is that i can't and have to prioritise the things i genuinlely think are great and the things that can inspire some interesting writing.

So why on earth was the dire new Ray Keith album reviewed? If the wire's going to cover drum and bass at all, at least seek out the interesting stuff.

 

[subvert47]

well, there was some dnb (or rather, jungle) in the last issue anyway:

Naphta
Long Time Burning

Dublin's DJ Naphta occupies a space left empty since the shortlived era of the ragga Junglists and early breakbeat scenesters from the early 90s. He resurrects the art of the dancehall loop, but strings a whole series of post-drum 'n' bass devices into the mix of this debut set, meaning Long Time Burning does not consist just of straightahead breaks. After the Ambient interlude of the drifting "Upriver", further experimentation is not as blunt; thus the drone into and bass wobbling of "Soundclash 1 (VIP Mix)" becomes almost predictable, as is the Industrialised closer "Long Story". The attraction of the album is the crossover into both proper songs as on "My Heart Beating" and into extreme dance, as on "Street Dancing", a crazed batucada with muffled Acid synth bassline.

and another of our friends got mentioned as well:

Nubian Mindz
Sellouts EP

Beyond his drum 'n' bass work as Alpha Omega, Nubian Mindz (Colin Lindo) always struck me as among the most classically Techno oriented practitioners of the West London Broken Beat sound with which he was affiliated in the late 90s and early 00s. This four-track EP backs that suspicion up: with their lush, augumented chords and flayed hi-hats, neither "Jazzhands" nor "The Way Across" would sound out of place on a Detroit-centric label like Delsin. Breakbeats, 808s, analogue squeals, chromatic stepping and shiver-inducing harmonies free both cuts from any particular year or even decade. "Losing It" bridges the worlds of vintage minimal Techno (complete with a vocal sample recalling DBX's "Losing Control") and contemporary Minimal, fleshed out with ragged 909s and a generous dose of Chicago House urgency. Rounding out the package is "Sellouts", a blistering dubstep workout featuring impossibly deep sub-bass, oily keyboards and plenty of frayed-wire flareup – a tune so heavy that a lesser producer would have released it as a single side.

sweet