Funky/London/UK House
Grievous Angel
Beast of Burden
Absolutely cannot wait to see it!you can, i videoed it from the DJ booth for you...
Corpsey
bandz ahoy
Went to Futureproof in Nottingham on Saturday night (wicked night all round - big up Ben, especially for reminding me how fucking heavy 'Shattered' by Coki is) and saw most of Lil Silva's set - he absolutely killed it.
It was interesting hearing funky on this absolutely MASSIVE system, tunes like that Xylophone Crazy Cousinz tune sounded completely different and pumped up. Funky came through loud and clear even with the bass so prominently placed, whereas garage seemed to lose something to me, its percussive intricacies being swamped and anchored a little by a weighty sub (dubstep sounded absolutely perfect - reminding me of how dubstep is soundsystem music first and foremost). This might have had something to do with Lil Silva playing off CDs - at one or two points the mid range was seriously savaging my ears, just as seems to do at FWD when DJs play off CDs...
Anyway, so much energy and fun. Was a buzz just watching people dancing so joyously to it, really. Real party music.
It was interesting hearing funky on this absolutely MASSIVE system, tunes like that Xylophone Crazy Cousinz tune sounded completely different and pumped up. Funky came through loud and clear even with the bass so prominently placed, whereas garage seemed to lose something to me, its percussive intricacies being swamped and anchored a little by a weighty sub (dubstep sounded absolutely perfect - reminding me of how dubstep is soundsystem music first and foremost). This might have had something to do with Lil Silva playing off CDs - at one or two points the mid range was seriously savaging my ears, just as seems to do at FWD when DJs play off CDs...
Anyway, so much energy and fun. Was a buzz just watching people dancing so joyously to it, really. Real party music.
I went to see Prosumer DJ at Fabric on Saturday and he played Lil Silva's Pulse X Remix. He mixed it in with Lil' Louis's Original Video Clash ( ) it sounded amazing and really brought out the similarity with some of the rougher sounding early Chicago beats.
It's really interesting to see 'proper' House DJs pick up on Funky.
It's really interesting to see 'proper' House DJs pick up on Funky.
Grievous Angel
Beast of Burden
That's very interesting! Wonder if Terry Farley will ever stoop to it...
viktorvaughn
Well-known member
viktorvaughn
Well-known member
Good question. However i don't see this as a continuity of personnel relevent to funky since those guys aren't really involved with funky at all to my knowledge. That is not to say it's not a mini continuum of its own of course. Beyond at points did put me in mind of Sunday Co-ops at times.
Was there talk of the continuum when these guys started making house? I dunno but i doubt it. I remember reading that Photek's attempts to make house didn't go down too well at the time? Dego and Seiji make broken beat rather than straight up house and broken beat seems like a little, somewhat insular genre tangential to the main flow of the continuum and mocked by many for its self-contained tastefulness (not me).
viktorvaughn
Well-known member
Xylophone workouts with fat basslines are killing me! Kentaphonik's Sunday Showers and a remix of Afefe Iku's Mirror Dance (I think) were amazing at Beyond.
interesting to note in this context though that Karizma identifies strongly (and collaborates) with the likes of Simbad (and is one of the most quoted influences on UK guys), that Marcus Nasty is playing Altered Natives, Roska quotes and plays Broken Beat as a key part of his vibe, MA1 plays Greenmoney who are two ex-Bugz... i'm sure there are many more connections and crossovers
i think there's a strong argument to view broken and bruk as ignored and sidelined parts of the 'continuum', which perhaps serve to demonstrate its flaws and insularity even in its pared back 'empirical' form
also interesting... although bear with me and please put me right or add to this bit, i really know very little about it... is something i heard in passing (on here i think?), saying that those guys saw broken as a return to pre-hardcore London music sounds? streetsounds culture or something? Soul II Soul were mentioned... which is also interesting given that Wookie was so heavily involved with Soul II Soul, and that he in many ways pre-empted funky with his 'garage' productions, and is now a highly revered figure in the scene
hint
party record with a siren
It just strikes me as odd that people are digging for connections between Funky and Jungle, particularly from the "personnel" side. Seems to be a determination to prove it's part of the HCC in order to what... prove it's OK to like it? I'm not sure.
People are waiting for "dark" Funky. But records like Dego's "This Ain't Tom & Jerry" / "Hands Off The Controls" are already out there and are arguably more "nuum" than anything the Funky scene has thrown up so far. Where's the line drawn? What's the real litmus test? The Rinse FM studio?
Alfons
Way of the future
think Photek's house records are probably some of his biggest sellers, altho some of the dnb community didn't respond to well tracks like mine to give were huuuge.
Anyway could paralells be drawn between broken beat and its tastefulness as a response and evolution to the dnb sound of that time and then funky and it's dress up and party vibe as a response to grime & dubstep?
viktorvaughn
Well-known member
OK...i guess i just think it's cool that people can be traced back do far though the music, whether as part of the hhc or just as an interesting social observation. Obviously if its being used to try and legitimise funky thats bollox as it can clearly stand on it's own merits. All interesting questions. I guess for me the feeling of Funky exploding has made it seem more vital - i like broken beat but it has seemed a bit static and self-contained somehow (this is probably rubbish, i'm no expert on bb).
Maybe that's the crux of thing - the hhc is great as an observational tool but rubbish when it starts to become proscriptive in trying to say what paths musics should and should not follow (i'm sure this has been said in the pages of debate...)
Grievous Angel
Beast of Burden
Funky's roots in the nuum are explicit - it links with grime, and dark 2002 garage, and 2step (wooky)' so it doesn't have to go all the way back to jungle. No doubt there are producers who go back to jungle, certainly some djs do.
yes or if you start imagining that the future is a/ laid out in front of you along the path of the numm and it's really that obvious,
b/ that it's something you can predict the future by
and
c/ gotta watch also that the dark/ light dualism, (which seems to be a prominent feature of ideas around the numm) is a way of predicting and controlling, its almost religious the way that that idea is perscribed onto the numm.
I would prefer something a bit colder.
i've re-read energy flash the sort of ur text, as i was worried my mind was playing tricks on me, the book is basically simon reynolds as a journalist/fan going thru dance musics many facets, (not just in the UK) as both a scene report and looking at the mechanisims, making sense of the drugs, etc and its great, it's very positive, which is something that as time has passed and the idea of the nuum has developed his writing seems less able to express, but it's got a sense of humanity and almost christian narrative of every grand act of hedonism definitley has a fallout, or a marxist sense that hedonism doesn't mean revolution etc etc
I read the book just after uni, then gave it to someone, and in the mean time, probably due to the blog and the wire articles, have kind of re-remembered it with a much stronger emphasis on the matrix of the 'numm as a kind of strategy which the book never actually mentions, but when you actually read energy flash again, there isn't much difference between what mos dan does now and simon did back then.
hint's still right, didn't john tejada get involved with broken a bit too?
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Grievous Angel
Beast of Burden
And yes there's been a bit of talk from dego and others about going back to non-ardkore roots - though soul II soul / africa centre ARE part of ardkore's roots.
mos dan
fact music
princess nyah on kiss now.. logan into funky.. kiss fm continuum (ahem) http://kube.totalkiss.com/?jumpto=kiss100
mos dan
fact music
lol. me and bok bok went to the first and only (afaik) big bassline all nighter in london itself (more empiricism! the horror! hehe), as opposed to the midlands and sheff raves... it was this time last year at the egg.. the first hour was great. the second hour got a bit samey. by midway through the third we were bored. read into that what you will.