My take on Drum n' Bass/Jungle and it's lack of rythmic danger/edge..

I would say no. There was never enough US interest in Jungle to garnish serious influence on the scene as a whole. It was big for a couple years here around 96-98, longer in Toronto and NYC with micro-clusters in other cities.. but most of the kids I knew in the Midwest that were into Jungle were more into the breaks/jump-up stuff and not so much the tech-step/d&b stuff that followed.. NYC was a little different w/ Liquid Sky, DJ Odi, etc.. but they were supporting their own community and I did't see it interacting too much with the much larger UK Jungle scene.. I think most of the Jungle D&B trends have always been UK-centric, and I think the first shift away from more interesting breaks came from people like LTJ (after a while, every Looking Good 12" had the same repetitive break for 90% of the track) & Roni Size/ Ed Rush, etc..

PS - I also co-host a college radio techno show with Todd Osborn who I'm sure you all know produces some insanely fucked-up breaks under his Soundmurderer moniker - so dont blame us yanks for watering down your breaks ;)

i still don't think this is strictly true. the thrilling late-period tracks are exactly the ones that reject "the roots" (whatever those are, there's at least as much belgian techno as ragga in the mix) ... we can talk shit about ed rush for destroying jungle but in 1996 ed rush was the shit!! and you have dom&roland, origin unknown, the really good late reinforced tracks ... even producers keeping it roots (i don't know, guy called gerald or dillinja or whatever) were selectively filtering those bits in and out.

i guess i think it's really over when people try to cheerlead for new drum and bass by saying things like "it's getting better, really - there's new 12s with pot leaves and graffiti on the label". i'm not sure the problem here is roots or signifiers or whatever but more an issue of economics: the new d&b is what actually sounds good over a huge system to american kids on drugs. if you come at the scene not from the perspective of a music geek but instead as a dj or a promoter then the direction d&b went in isn't surprising at all.

ps- I like the Ed Rush stuff too, but I still think it introduced the new (easier) style of beat programming that ended up being more popular.

this line of thinking is weak, though, because i don't know if it's a similar situation in the uk, or in europe, and how big a share of the market the us has compared to the uk. i imagine it's not negligible. my perception, though, is that in the uk a similar sort of thing is going on, too - maybe the crossover there is with the breaks/tyrant crowd? (that would explain the ridiculously anal attention to sick acid and bass noises)

the 2-step sound took over because of the massive (i mean, crazy-massive) influence of optical and ed rush (and the rest of the no-u-turn crew) had on the scene. when they started banging out tunes with simple 2-step beats and huge basslines, almost everyone started aping them. it became de rigueur to put out a 2-step track (even though people laughed at alex reece a couple of yrs earlier because all his tunes used the 2step) "alien girl" is like the end point of the "great" years for me. more that any of the other tracks it distilled the 2 step drum and bass sound to its essence. (i like it as a track, not as a whole musical genre)

but EVERYONE started aping that sound. what's really important is that by 97-99, jungle had a huge influx of 3rd-generation producers, people who's year zero was "wormhole" and "torque", not reinforced or deejaay records or genaside or whatever. 2step was their intro to the sound.

now, in terms of its rhythmic fundamentals, a 2step tune is easy: easy to produce, easy to DJ, and easy to dance to. it's also an easy, unchallenging sound that is easy to "understand". (not like when you first hear terminator, and you're still wondering after 4-5 listens what the hell is going on...)so all of this means 2step achives critical mass in the studio, on the airwaves and in the shops. the choppy, breaks sound dies.

so 2 step "becomes" jungle and there's a mass exodus of producers: you either quit (crystl, remarc), change styles (4 hero, ILS), stick to your guns and not get heard (paradox) or conform. you get people like j majik, photek and hidden agenda putting out weak 2step tracks to stay live in the scene while working on side-projects and stuff.

fast-forward to 2004. the scene is now full of that generation of "wormhole"-influenced producers. TeeBees post on DOA, with it's emphasis on EQ ("I spend 6 weeks on that bassline) and mixdown ("the mixdown is the most important part"...) is a case in point: the "science" has moved from the breaks to the "mixdown", and you get a scene full of great sounding shit tunes. (see dillinja in 2000-2004 and disbelieve). it's a shame that that thread was started by teebee, a guy's who's productions straddle a bunch of different styles (more on that later)

the choppage folks (ASC, breakage, equinox etc) are threatening to ppl like teebee because they seem like throwbacks by taking the sound back to its roots in sampled and cut up breakbeats (tho, yes, there are a lot of things that are different to classic jungle in their sound). this is seen as threatening because, crazily enough, only a handful of people in the scene decide where the music should go (more on that below). dnb must be the only centrally-planned music style...

many of us would like to hear a music that combines it all: great sound, chopped-up but still rolling breaks, huge basslines. what's ironic is that teebee himseld produced such a tune last year: his remix of "angel" by goldie. it's got it all and it's just a devastating tune. so i was sad to see teebee act like such an ignorant, stuck-up asshole on the DOA board. of course, he also produced a bunch of second-rate optical tracks for photeks label...

it's difficult for outsiders to understand how the whole (and i mean the WHOLE) scene is dominated by a handful of tastemakers: grooverider, fabio and those guys. they don't expand on the scene the way a gilles peterson does: they narrow it by playing stuff that focuses on a smaller and smaller amount of musical building blocks. sure, they'll move the focus every 6 months or so (like 2002 was all about trance and brasil, 2003 was all about the "rolling" marcus intallex sound and clownstep, 2004 looks like it's all about clownstep and whatever the next flavour will bew) i really wish the choppage kru could break through like the brasilians did in 2002, but it ain't gonna happen. brasilian music in general just can't be resisted so it was natural that brasilian dnb would make waves...

finally, jungle is a scene that combines a lot of things that appeal to young fellas: technology, black music, the "street", techno, video games etc. these dudes want into the scene, and the only way they'll get in is by conforming to what they hear on fab and groove's show. so you end up with copy after copy of the latest thing. i'm sad to say that dnb just isn't a genre that attracts maverick, genius, creative musicians anymore. it attract technicians and geeks.

BUT

one of the reasons this debate is percolating upwards is that the outsider "choppage" crew are finally making headway into the scene. they have their own labels, their own nights etc. they also have a high profile champion in the form of metalheadz dj bailey, who's got a show on 1xtra (streamed online) and plays everything. so they no longer need to conform, they can just do their thing... but people like klute and teebee have made one valid point: focusing on the breaks isn't in iteself more innovative than being an EQ god... mo maybe there is not hope...

oh well, off to listen to "so vain" by breakage, the best dnb tune of 2003

ah the "they" i was talking about was djs, not producers. how much uk d+b is bought by americans or europeans?

it's also an easy, unchallenging sound that is easy to "understand"

this seems oversimplified to me. at least in old d+b tunes there were tunes, sort of, that you could latch on to. all my friends got into drum and bass because they liked the pretty strings or the ragga samples. ram trilogy just sounds like a bunch of angry robotic insects!

they don't expand on the scene the way a gilles peterson does

are you for real???

what i meant was that it's easier to dance and DJ 2step than really choppy stuff: easier to mix "alien girl" into "warhead" than "london sumtin" into remarc. your average raver will find it easier to dance to an optical tune than to something by rufige kru.

*snicker*

doesn't sound very "dangerous" to me!

i don't see much difference between the two - the latter inspired the former let's not forget

also: no difference between optical and rufige kru?

well, goldie has never (to my knowledge) put out a 2 step track. almost ever track ever released under the r.k. guise has been a classic. he's still at in in 2004 too: coming with an album in a few months.

optical on the other hand has been banging out the same 2step junk for 7-8 years. i haven't heard a good break from him since he called himself "arteq"...

the key to "choppage" with more than just choppage may be whatever influence the marginal producers have on the mainstream ... there are chopped up tunes signed to Valve, Metalheadz, Freak (Dylan) as well as Bailey's own Intabeats label and there is considerable bass pressure in those (seriously check out the Loxy & Ink remix of "Angel").

some of which are being made by Remarc, Bizzy B, and DJ Crystl who are feeling the vibes again

http://bustede.com/techpics/mansdem.jpg

if you are bored you should go to my broken beat thread and write a 1000 word diss of the genre.

*possibly a lie

please tell me about:

invader / temper d & k-fire
defcom / leon switch & kryptic minds
dj fresh
technical itch

anything else that's good.

NOW

When is any 0=0 stuff ever gonna come out in the UK too? Is all/any of it as good as 'Soda411'?

i like some of that 0=0 and Soundmurderer shit too, it's all gizzood in the hizzood :-O

i've been listening to a lot of dj fresh singles lately, and they're great! they all have weird breakdowns and strange bass frequencies and lots of switched-up percussion bits, but there's a real POP thing going on there too (not afraid to be retarded for the dancefloor). someone said they remind them of breakcore and they're not wrong in a way. i think my real problem is how this stuff is mixed. it's all way too fast and the dj's (at least on CD) mash it into a flow that plays down the breakdowns. which makes no sense to me, since they've gotta be in there for a reason. check: "floodlight", "submarines", "kingston vampires", "tomb raider", and "dead man walking" for starters.

xoxo,
strongo

dj fresh also has a mix cd out called bass invaderz, it's not really a huge improvement over the dj hype school of super-fast mixing but it appropriately draws out the rushy mentasm parts.

i like the breakcore comparison!