blissblogger
Well-known member
A couple of things made me think of this sequel to the hugely successful Softcore Rap thread - a moment in dance similarly indexed to the wave of end-of-Eighties / very-early-Nineties positivity and vague hopefulness / hopeful vagueness.
1. reminded for the first time in decades of this group and this 1990 track, which has a breakbeat, but slow and hypnotic
2/ remembered that earlier this summer Bob Stanley put out a compilation called Fell From the Sun about this moment in UK dance - 1990 essentially - when everything slowed down and got dreamy + floaty + "dubby"
Well, not everything - indeed the converse tendency was going on at the exact same time - things getting faster, harder, more brutal and riff-nasty. Belgium!
Still it was a thing - the 98 bpm movement, which according to the Fell From the Sun blurb was a Andy Weatherall initiative (although I seem to recall Danny Rampling was also pushing it).
Names like Sheer Taft, One Dove, The Grid...
Fell From the Sun includes an artist with the name Elsi Curry which for some reason amuses me even though Elsie and Curry are both perfectly normal names.
Others around that time vaguely in this zone would have been Fluke (not as slow and dreamy - perhaps better slotted into the category "amalgamation dance" - recent exponents: Bicep, Overmono... earlier would be Leftfield. I.e. eclectic versatile stylistic smorgasbord-y - album-oriented or at least home-listening compatible).
A lot of this 98 bpm stuff is indie-dance, linked to the Heavenly Records / Creation nexus. Some edges into the chill out Orb zone (a haven for aging postpunkers - Youth's transformation from Sid Vicious wannabe to Goa beach bum / head = archetypal and unmatchable).
It's pointing towards progressive house (another haven for ex-indie, the beats simple and chugging enough for them to cope with, and the "dubbiness" connecting for people who had liked an On U Sound record or two).
Then another "development" a bit further on - and lurching lairily upward in bpm / vibe - would be Big Beat.
So a succession of dead ends - but in this case, a pretty little cul de sac.
1. reminded for the first time in decades of this group and this 1990 track, which has a breakbeat, but slow and hypnotic
2/ remembered that earlier this summer Bob Stanley put out a compilation called Fell From the Sun about this moment in UK dance - 1990 essentially - when everything slowed down and got dreamy + floaty + "dubby"
Well, not everything - indeed the converse tendency was going on at the exact same time - things getting faster, harder, more brutal and riff-nasty. Belgium!
Still it was a thing - the 98 bpm movement, which according to the Fell From the Sun blurb was a Andy Weatherall initiative (although I seem to recall Danny Rampling was also pushing it).
Names like Sheer Taft, One Dove, The Grid...
Fell From the Sun includes an artist with the name Elsi Curry which for some reason amuses me even though Elsie and Curry are both perfectly normal names.
Others around that time vaguely in this zone would have been Fluke (not as slow and dreamy - perhaps better slotted into the category "amalgamation dance" - recent exponents: Bicep, Overmono... earlier would be Leftfield. I.e. eclectic versatile stylistic smorgasbord-y - album-oriented or at least home-listening compatible).
A lot of this 98 bpm stuff is indie-dance, linked to the Heavenly Records / Creation nexus. Some edges into the chill out Orb zone (a haven for aging postpunkers - Youth's transformation from Sid Vicious wannabe to Goa beach bum / head = archetypal and unmatchable).
It's pointing towards progressive house (another haven for ex-indie, the beats simple and chugging enough for them to cope with, and the "dubbiness" connecting for people who had liked an On U Sound record or two).
Then another "development" a bit further on - and lurching lairily upward in bpm / vibe - would be Big Beat.
So a succession of dead ends - but in this case, a pretty little cul de sac.
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