New 4Hero

[henry s]

I like those song snippets on first listen; maybe a tad more coffee bar than I'm normally comfy with (I'm not hearing the full-on Stepney-esque arrangements that made Two Pages so special), but this will do...talk about a sound for sore ears!

I also really liked the Marc Mac Visioneers thing this year...didn't get "caned" much in the blogosphere, so I assume I'm in the minority...but hey...

 

[hint]

I also really liked the Marc Mac Visioneers thing this year...didn't get "caned" much in the blogosphere, so I assume I'm in the minority...but hey...

Yes... very unfashionable... but it's a mighty fine album. They just quietly get on and do their thing, releasing many different styles under many different names.

This is another great release: http://www.discogs.com/release/216413

 

[bassnation]

But like they said, people always criticise us. To their credit they are bloody legends and didn't get bogged down in dnb, though the whole broken beat thing was always going to be 'jungle pt 2 for grown-ups', wasn't it? After 2step was 'jungle pt 2 for kids'...

Its another of those interesting dichotomies... Stuff that sets out be sophisticated and ends up being boring vs stuff that sets out be fun and ends up sophisticated.

i know, but i still wish they'd explored some of the mindbendingly avant garde directions they pioneered in the early nineties. they never really fitted in - with the rave scene often their tunes would leave people scratching their heads, especially the really dark twisted stuff. you can hear the jazz starting to emerge, even as early on as the "Journey from the light" ep. Madly careering jazz trumpet samples colliding with rave stabs, very odd. In comparision I find some of their broken beat output to be unremarkable although its always quality music from a production perspective - but is that enough?

 

[gumdrops]

wheres the modern equivalent today? partly its that the soul became mute? e.g. detroit techno... songs vs tracks.

if were only talking about dance music, then soulful house maybe? people still dance to (not always but occasionally soulful) R&B. theres always retro nights as well - ive seen hundreds of (young) people dancing to tons of soul at nights like amplified in london. then theres co-op too where people dance to broken beat....

these are all niche things though.. by and large, yeah, you could easily argue that soulfulness isnt something being aspired to in popular urban music...

 

[elgato]

re the soul (presumably you mean in a more obvious sense rather than "soul" as an abstract concept) in modern dance, a lot of liquid dnb brings those elements, sometimes very successfully. people like high contrast and calibre in particular. dont know about right now though, that peaked a few years ago i guess

 

[hint]

Romanthony maybe?

A lot of the Eska / Bembe Segue etc. "West London" tracks share a lot in common with those classic dancefloor soul songs, often concentrating on uplifiting messages - a better tomorrow, unity, dancing away your troubles... that kind of thing.

Perhaps the comparison works better with disco? Once you stray beyond that 3 -> 4 minute mark and make concessions to DJs, with stripped drum intros and outros, you're always going to be one step beyond the classic Motown / soul blueprint.

 

[enneff]

Fuck, this sounds fantastic! Woohoo!

 

[Slothrop]

re the soul (presumably you mean in a more obvious sense rather than "soul" as an abstract concept)

Yeah, I think the point is that lots of good dance music has soul. It's just when people confuse having soul with sounding like Soul that things go TU. When people danced to Motown, it wasn't because it was carefully trying to recreate elements of a thirty year old sound...

 

[gumdrops]

if you were only looking at Creating Patterns, sure, it would be easy to say that 4 Hero have a real problem with song-writing...very little of that record is strong enough to leave a lasting impression...but that first disc of Two Pages, that truly sounded the death knell for drum and bass...I don't think I've listened to the second disc (the "cool" one; why did they even bother?) more than once over the years...so deep, lavish and gorgeous is the music that it resists even the gloopiest of lyrics ("Cosmic Tree", 'frinstance)...

i listened to that 1st disc lately and well it seemed a bit dated and every track also felt like the drum n bass live drumming has just been grafted onto it, which was a bit boring. i actually prefer parts of the new album just cos it doesnt try and put the same rhythmic ticks onto every single song.

 

[gumdrops]

Romanthony maybe?

A lot of the Eska / Bembe Segue etc. "West London" tracks share a lot in common with those classic dancefloor soul songs, often concentrating on uplifiting messages - a better tomorrow, unity, dancing away your troubles... that kind of thing.

yeah it SHARES that but im not sure a lot of it gets there. the best stuff frinstance on the first NSM album was tracks like the instrumental (track 3 i think) and the sun with frank mccomb, the tracks with the female vocalists that turn up on every bb track like eska and bembe just sound a bit unconvincing for some reason - it sounds kinda contrived for some reason. plus the songs/lyrics/singing just isnt often up to scratch. it sounds like an impression of what its meant to be. BB is good when it just combines the 70s traditional stuff with the BB programming but when it tries too hard to write songs like back in the 70s i generally tune out. doesnt help when its *too* tasteful and lacking in any sort of bite either. im listening to the dkd album and the song so amazing has just come on - the lyrics are just pitiful lol, sounds like theyre trying to do the type of chanting vocals that a lot of 70s acts did, kinda like what fertile ground do now, but it just sounds silly in the hands of bembe and whoever it is. kinda as bad as uk hip hop that tries to imitate the americans.

 

[FairiesWearBoots]

BIG - cheers for the link, been loving the proper hardcore sound again

 

[denoir]

 

[wise]

so disappointing