TS: 2-step Vs. Grime

I think UKG has loads more great tracks, but no single UKG comp is as thrilling as the N.A.S.T.Y. mix or Run The Road.

Also UKG is like the ultimate pop music. Grime is screwface bass pressure. I was never that crazy about MCs on 4x4 tracks (with a few exceptions), I like the pop stuff. Different strokes!

dude sound of the pirates totally slays either of those.

I have to respectfully disagree! Though they come close. I have trouble getting all the way through Either Sound Of The Pirates sometimes. They sound amazing when you I put them on, and then halfway in...I always feel like a change.

I'm sure that the greatest UKG comp is somewhere in my head.

the first song i ever downloaded on napster was "destiny"!

me too.

(not really)

ALL of them, you mean? :)
xp haha

xpost: yeah, the "uncollected gems" ratio is probably still much higher for ukg than jungle at this point.

Haha well I could make the statement that UKG never topped "Soundbwoy Burial" but that since I don't believe that I won't court controversy by doing so.

BTW this is patently untrue. There is a still a great deal of ridiculously good uncollected jungle (as I learn everytime I take the chance on a rare 12" on Awesome or whatever.)

np: henchmen - "ring the alarm"

Welcome to the wonderful world of "debating with Alex In SF"! ;)

Some largely unheralded but AWESOME UKG tracks:

Yardcure Cru ft. Lady Saw & Wayne Wonder - Life That We Livin (MONSTER TUNE!)
Doc B & Eagle E - Pure Rumours (DOUBLE MONSTER TUNE!)
Ray Hurley - Ride The Storm (Y2K Mix)
Zoom & DBX - Coming Again
T.J. Cases - I Like To Cut, I Like To Play
Treadin' New Territories - Easy Lovin' You (which i've still yet to track down in its original form)
Babu Stormz - Electricity (ditto - I can barely remember what this sounds like except that it was brilliant)
Matt Darey - Beautiful (Dubaholics Dub Mix)

Really though you could say that most UKG is un(der)heralded - people might know Bump & Flex tunes and remixes but they aren't likely to talk about them that much - a lot of the rhetoric among both critics and participants is/was focused around a couple of names like Zed Bias, Steve Gurley, Dem 2, Wookie etc. These people deserve the hype of course but it's not like there aren't a lot of people who don't - but you'll never see Bump & Flex/Dubaholics/T.J. Cases being celebrated because at the end of the day there's nothing to point to apart from the astonishing music itself to suggest that they're anything other than generic craftsmen.

Grime is in some ways more approachable as a whole, owing to the double action of a) the personality-focus of the MC component, and b) the relative concentration of production talent among a few key producers (Wiley, Jammer, Target, Danny Weed, Rapid, Terra Danjah, Davinche, Wonder, Skepta) who are then linked to particular MCs and groups.

UKG has definitely been responsible for more great music; on the other hand, Adam is right that no single document of UKG (to my knowledge) can match the Nasty Show/N.A.S.T.Y. This is symptomatic of the fact that grime has produced greater artists - not just on the MC side but producers as well. Even the real innovators like the aforementioned Dem 2, Steve Gurley, Zed Bias etc. would really strain to match those key grime producers for singularity of vision (UKG, like dancehall on the last year, is more about sonic scenius than sonic genius). Maybe this is structural though: maybe the incestuousness of the producer/MC relationship in grime prevents other potential talent from coming up the ranks and obscuring the perceived individuality of the big guns.

Haha hey at least I am CONSISTENT in my obfuscation! ;0

I think what you meant is that you have to take into account how they're different.

that was the tune that made me start to buy other vinyl besides d&b.

When did destiny come out? 98 -99 ?

that was the tune that made me start to buy other vinyl besides d&b.

When did destiny come out? 98 -99 ?

This thread has made me nostalgic for how excited I was when e.g. I wrote my FT article about the first Artful Dodger mix. The fact that there wasn't an equivalent to the entrenched grime-focused blogosphere gave the whole process of listening to, thinking about and then writing about UKG a certain sense of urgency and zealotry.

― Tim Finney (Tim Finney), Saturday, July 9, 2005 6:18 AM (3 years ago) Bookmark

>>where can i read that article, tim?

I don't think it's on the internet any more. My 2001 round-up is still on the Freaky Trigger site though.

Tim, email Tom about it - they're reposting 'classic' FT articles for the ten-year anniversary round about now, and they've only just cleared 1999.

Ha I wouldn't call it a classic. I cringe a little bit when I read some of the stuff I was doing in 99/00, and this review was basically me straight ripping simon reynolds and tom, two parts to one.

I'm interested to read that article because I've just listened to the first CD of that Artful Dodger mix and I can't say that I'm impressed.

??? The first cd has "Destiny", "Re-Rewind", "Moving Too Fast", "Enough Is Enough", the Stanton Warriors remix of "Jump & Shout", "All I Know (Da Grunge Dub)", "Girls Like This", "Try Me Out", "Got Myself Together"... These are all massive massive classics. If you don't like those then I probably wouldn't bother with 2-step garage per se.

If you like early dubstep though you might like the Sound of the Pirates comps - especially Zed Bias' first one.

Don't get me wrong. I absolutely love tracks like "Movin' Too Fast", "Straight from the Heart", "Try Me Out", "Sweet Like Chocolate", and especially "Flowers". But I don't know, it's their mixing maybe (sudden jump from track to track), or because it's the first time I listened to it. Now I'm listening to it for the second time, hehe.

Yeah if I recall the mixing is fairly perfunctory on the whole (though I remember really liking the way "Moving Too Fast" gets interrupted by "Jump & Shout") - but this is actually rather common with 2-step because longer transitions are fairly hard to pull off.

I've always felt that Shanks & Bigfoot's The Sound of Ayia Napa 2000 comp was the best of the big commercial 2-step comps of that era. Timmi Magic's Pure Silk: The Third Dimension was also fabulous.

big cosign on that Shanks & Bigfoot mix -- i play that allll the time still & started copping the originals on vinyl

What's the difference between the original mix and the Sunship remix of "Flowers"? They sound the same to me. And how come there's no mention of Shola Ama's "Run to Me" on ILM at all?

The Sunship remix of "Flowers" was so much more ubiquitous than the original that when people refer to "Flowers" they almost certainly mean the remix - it got top billing on the single. The original was a rather wan R&B number.

In much the same way pretty much no-one has ever heard the non-2-step versions of Mis-Teeq's "Why?" or "All I Want".

The 2-step remix of Shola Ama's "Run To Me" was lovely but I think it competes for attention with a lot of equally or even more lovely tunes in a similar vein and so gets lost a bit - see the Groove Asylum Remix of Kristine Blond's "Love Shy" (one of the most amazing tunes ever), the Dreem Teem Dub of Dionne Rakeem's "Sweeter Than Wine", the Wookie remix of Gabrielle's "Sunshine".

xpost: So much love for Pure Silk: The Third Dimension. Many an after school night nodding away to this badboy.

Actually just checked and it was Pure Silk: A New Dimension mixed by Karl 'Tuff Enuff' Brown that I had. When I say Ayia, you say Napa?

I remember going to the End the week after someone was shot at Pure Silk and it was cancelled (I think).

Pretty much all the Pure Silk comps were great - I have Pure Silk in Ayia Napa and that one's fantastic too.