Jungle/Drum & Bass - Breaking News, gossip, commentary, etc

[Troy]

Dieselboy

Come on... don't make me start a Dieselboy thread. I might get kicked off Dissensus for it.

The new album, Human Resourse. So has this crappy, hyper-testosterone American dnb finally evolved into something worth your listening time? Or is it still just crap.

I'm kinda liking the relentless bassline whiplash ggggrrrrriiiinnnnddddd....

 

[subvert47]

Re the Amit LP, I hoped it might be mind blowing but was sadly underwhelmed. It's so percussive and feature/formless outside of the amazing 'Village People.'

is it percussive? from the clips I thought it was all sort of dark and droney. not checked it fully yet though.

 

[Jason oS]

Come on... don't make me start a Dieselboy thread. I might get kicked off Dissensus for it.

The new album, Human Resourse. So has this crappy, hyper-testosterone American dnb finally evolved into something worth your listening time? Or is it still just crap.

I'm kinda liking the relentless bassline whiplash ggggrrrrriiiinnnnddddd....

the same, if not worse. wish i could say otherwise, but i could only stand it until the first drums.

i can't believe that softsynths come with presets that emulate that sound these days.

 

[Don Rosco]

is it percussive? from the clips I thought it was all sort of dark and droney. not checked it fully yet though.

I just picked it up today, and although i've just had a listen in the shop, it sounds very promising. It's a touch more subtle than some of his 12s, and some of it is proper unsettling. I dig. Looking forward to mixing it up for sure.

As for Dieselboy, I find his stuff works better if you stick your fingers in your ears and shout 'LALALALALALALALALA' for the whole time it's playing

 

[Blackdown]

is it percussive? from the clips I thought it was all sort of dark and droney. not checked it fully yet though.

ok, for percussive read tracky, which could mean droney too. it's definitely dark, but in a dry, featureless way.

 

[Jason oS]

one more for not feeling it. . .

sadly.

 

[Jason oS]

...2 fellas with less press...

_Mav_

static interference is quite gorgeous. the tubes w/ twister on offshore was outstanding...and theres been some other work on fokus ('me v. machine' for one) and cov ops that was pretty solid as well.

_Dissident_

massive tunes with a concentrated effort to get back at the core of dnb. check Pocket World on the Clever's unsung heroes mix...nice stuff. should be on this upcoming gamma ray ep.


also, ...
icicle, voija, usb coming strong with that melodic + nordic beats infused style. .. imo

 

[bassnation]

Not news, but since so few journalists ever deign to discuss dnb thoughtfully (Jess Harvell excepted), it was nice to read Martin Clark's reflections on last year's Calibre album in the context of a discussion of grime and dubstep (and the importance of London to the latter two).

I might note that 'leaving the city walls in order to gain perspective' is one of the oldest experiences recorded in extant western writing: Plato's Phaedrus is built around such a scene, though there are others (you'll understand what I mean if you read his post). Nice one, Blackdown.

i can see what blackdown is saying, but all of those things, the euphoric sweeps, the ecstatic vibe - that all comes from london back in the day. old skool and jungle (conveniently ignoring the fact that doc scott et al were based in coventry!) was definitively a london ting. just because the sound has moved on, doesn't make jungle any less urban music. it makes total sense to me listening to it as i move around the east end and south london, but maybe i'm not really the typical audience for dubstep and grime.

wandering off the point somewhat, seeing as this is a jungle thread, but i'd argue a lot of the sounds and techniques in dubstep immediately bring to mind past techniques from jungle. it certainly does not sound as if any possible reference to ecstasy have been comprehensively stripped out. some of the doomy melancholic feel comes straight from 1993 style darkcore - and that was based around ecstasy - it may not be hands in the air kind of gear, but e use could make you feel pretty twisted and not in a euphoric way. and its also worth pointing out that i am not referring to the scene, or control culture - more the music influences and how they sound out of context.

one mans context means nothing to another - you have to be careful of making something subjective that is based around your background, assumptions and a million other factors into a universal theory as it doesn't always hold water.

 

[Don Rosco]

tracky

I think that's actually what I like about it. Going back to your album thread, this is definitely one for mixing with...

 

[Logos]

i can see what blackdown is saying, but all of those things, the euphoric sweeps, the ecstatic vibe - that all comes from london back in the day. old skool and jungle (conveniently ignoring the fact that doc scott et al were based in coventry!) was definitively a london ting. just because the sound has moved on, doesn't make jungle any less urban music. it makes total sense to me listening to it as i move around the east end and south london, but maybe i'm not really the typical audience for dubstep and grime.

I think that hardcore/jungle/dnb was for a large part, suburban - Coventry, Dollis Hill (ok still London but the part of town where the city starts to give up its name), Romford...

Its still London music - or music which depends on the orbit and gravity of London but the whole rave thing was premised on suburban elements anyway, orbital raves which you have to drive to attend etc.

Just like dubstep - Croydon. Grime is atypical in its inner-cityness.

 

[bassnation]

I think that hardcore/jungle/dnb was for a large part, suburban - Coventry, Dollis Hill (ok still London but the part of town where the city starts to give up its name), Romford...

Its still London music - or music which depends on the orbit and gravity of London but the whole rave thing was premised on suburban elements anyway, orbital raves which you have to drive to attend etc.

Just like dubstep - Croydon. Grime is atypical in its inner-cityness.

yes, i accept that. i guess its ubiquity on the london pirates of the time made it feel like the centre.

 

[Logos]

True - its in the relationship between the centre and the pieriphery too.

 

[Slothrop]

yes, i accept that. i guess its ubiquity on the london pirates of the time made it feel like the centre.

But isn't the point that in places, jungle / dnb reflects its London-centricness through a sort of fantasy of escape? The whooshes and pads and euphoric bits are 'about' London in that their spaciousness and euphoria contrast with the claustraphobia and paranoia of day to day life[1] - whereas grime is 'about' those characteristics in that it represents and revels in them instead. Obviously some jungle is just as paranoid and claustrophobic as grime, and the best of it often works by contrasting the two sides of its personality - fantasy and reality.

But all this means that dnb makes more sense as the soundtrack to an actual escape, or generally outside of its place of origin.

Of course, the usual vocal vs instrumental thing makes a difference in terms of easy universalism too.

[1] Overgeneralisation ahoy. I'm not a Londoner...

 

[nicnic]

FanuSamurai album release date is 24th July.

 

[bassnation]

But isn't the point that in places, jungle / dnb reflects its London-centricness through a sort of fantasy of escape? The whooshes and pads and euphoric bits are 'about' London in that their spaciousness and euphoria contrast with the claustraphobia and paranoia of day to day life[1] - whereas grime is 'about' those characteristics in that it represents and revels in them instead. Obviously some jungle is just as paranoid and claustrophobic as grime, and the best of it often works by contrasting the two sides of its personality - fantasy and reality.

But all this means that dnb makes more sense as the soundtrack to an actual escape, or generally outside of its place of origin.

the dynamic does revolve round a contrast of temporary escape and inner city pressure but for that very reason, it works well in london because those things are still valid and haven't gone away. could it be that grime and jungle are different responses to the same stimuli?

and yes, you are right in saying that vocals add a large degree of localisation - giving voice to pressures that were always there - that jungles instrumentalism could only really hint at.

 

[tate]

good to see dj trax making tunes again - hightime and we rock the most are a couple of my favourite hardcore tunes.

Lots of great new tunes coming from Trax these days. For free downloads, check the links for forthcoming, mixes, unreleased, et al, here.

 

[tate]

Marstman

Martsman's . . . Antifunk is awesome, and it's coming out with another great tune on the flip - Just Let Go by Cartridge.

I agree.

By the looks of it, Marstman is going to have a good year, well into 2007:

- a rmx of "Twitchy Droid Leg" on Offshore
- Two more tracks on Offshore
- "Aeiro" forthcoming on Breakin'
- a 12" on Bassbin (beginning of 2007)
- Antifunk on Counter Intelligence
- Sileni's rmx of Martsman's 'Roads' forthcoming on Exegene (already on the excellent DJ Clever Unsung Heroes/Knowledge mix). The original can be downloaded for free, along with three other Marstman tracks (two separate releases actually), at Exegene records (scroll down for the earlier release).

 

[DJ Lioness]

Download..... click here

 

[tate]

I've been deliberately ignoring dnb for the last six-nine months but I had to pick up a couple of recent releases by Macc: "End of Me" and "The Way of a Small Thought" are both fantastic.

I was starting to worry that "End of Me" was never going to get a release ...

"I thought we had some time left, time left, time left . . . ." Yeah, seriously, "End of Me" is so beautifully constructed and well engineered, and the beat structure so intricate, that it's both a bear to mix buy a joy to listen to. Ranks with Breakage's "9th Hand" for recent work that takes the apache to new heights. As you say, I too was thrilled that it finally came out.

"The Way of Small Thought" - also absolutely superb. How the stick bounces on the snare, such perfect timing, so good in fact that Macc himself struggles to recreate the timing in his own live performances behind the kit. Atmospheric noises alongside stand-up bass, a clarinet, and lovely, restrained melodies floating in and out . . . Clever's choice to mix out of it into Sileni on the Unsung Heroes mix was brilliant (as usual). The Outsider release, "Be Like Water" / "Proper Trouble" was another stunner. So much thought in the construction, such timing, such mastery of rhythmic space and texture. Perhaps the best thing about Macc is that in addition to the overtly percussion-heavy construction, there are so many musical ideas being explored at the harmonic level. And his harmonic and sonic palette only continue to deepen, to expand.

I can't say enough good things about Macc, he is an example of someone coming from another tradition, primarily jazz and actual percussion experience (well, Touch & Go is in there too), to rethink the approach to contemporary jungle, who follows through with substantial results that are respectful to tradition but not particularly related to the current state of the art. At all.

In "Change and Stay the Same" he samples and recomposes a koto from a recording he heard at a martial arts class, then takes it and puts it alongside a horn sample taken from Miles' Sketches of Spain. In "Nunez," rather than use a noisy bleep so characteristic of run-of-the-mill dnb, he samples Edgard Varese's Poeme Electronique. (I should probably add that Macc is a drummer who performs his tracks live on a kit, with a laptop.) Prolific too, I'd guess that he's released upward of fifteen tunes this year alone, with more to come.

(thought I'd get this back to the original jungle thread)

 

[Logos]

I can't say enough good things about Macc, he is an example of someone coming from another tradition, primarily jazz and actual percussion experience (well, Touch & Go is in there too), to rethink the approach to contemporary jungle, who follows through with substantial results that are respectful to tradition but not particularly related to the current state of the art. At all.

I enjoyed reading your description here - definitely think you have hit the nail on the head. He's a big Slint fan too.

Nunez and another really good track called set the world on fire are forthcoming on Transmute, who are a really reliable label so shouldn't be too long...