Article Response: Down Down Biznizz Part 2

Great piece, especially for the way it ironed out some of what I thought might be wrinkles in part 1. I'll have to find that Darqwan track, as I've been really obsessed with his "Confused," a pretty startling instance of garage's ability to fan out rhthmically while still congealing around that essential lurching core. Darqwan seems so totally precocious, scientific with a swagger, on that track. It's kind of the way I conceive of what broken-beats should sound like when I'm not actually listening to it and underwhelmed by the reality.

Curious to hear your thoughts on Pure Garage 5 if you've heard it. Pure Garage has been my primary source from the beginning, and there's a good bit on this new one that seems to be hinting at some new rhthmic space, kind of a side-to-side smear of the more typical up-down bounce. Should be interesting to see how that plays out, if at all.

caramel drizzled on peanuts - exactly. this piece is pure belter, well evocative, nice one Tim.

Being totally clueless to the genre, I was about to suggest that Tim supply a listening list for the uninitiated -- only to discover that this is already covered in part 3. Excellent!

lovely article. btw - most of us have been calling "that riddim" just "a soca beat," which is what it is closest to. Mind you, most real soca is poo that i wouldn't wish on anyone. Also, note Agent X's "Decoy," one of last year's biggest tracks which used that beat. It's been around in one form or another since at least late '99- early '00, when it figured prominently in the 10 degrees below remixes of Truesteppers' "Buggin". I also have a few mellow-ish vocal tracks - notably DYNK's "Conversation is the Key" from around that time where it's used.

I also have a strong suspicion that Chris Mac did the "Shake It" remix, but there's no telling.

just a couple more: the original of that Daniel Beddingfield tune is probably the one you're looking for - it holds that bumpy bass riff throughout, whereas the DND remix goes into narsty "uplifting" vocal chorus. also, the return of 4-beat garage! turn on one of the pirates right now and you'll hear lots of tunes, even mc tunes (More Fiyah Crew - Oi!) running on a 4-on-the-floor undercarriage that would sound like a regression to speed garage, if there wasn't such an obvious shift in values from "rave" (such as it was in '97) to hip-hop.

(smacks forehead) Of course it's a soca thing. I was wondering why it was so familiar. I've listened to some but not enough soca to get the connection instantly. Whatever, I love it, especially when you get lots of little frilly counter-rhythms around it. There's a Bump & Flex dub of "Promises" that uses it which is so self- consciously "yardcore" that it almost sounds overblown (I like how Bump & Flex rubs are always a pretty good barometer for where the scene is at).

The soca-style beat is also, if anyone's looking for a non-garage example, the main rhythm in the instrumental section of The Beta Band's "Broke", as I realised to my bemusement last night.

P.S. Andy I haven't even seen Pure Garage 5 around yet, but I was so annoyed at how E-Z managed to make a bunch of largely good tunes sound mediocre on #4 that I wasn't planning to check it out. Is #5 an improvement?

I found Pure Garage 4 utterly depressing, so much so that I sometimes wonder if my love of 5 is more a reaction against 4 than anything else. It is in fact loads better, though. Back to a more seamless mix of the raw and the crystalline. And EZ offers up a slew of excellent tracks of his own. I'm really into it, and the second half of disc 2 is packed with some ideas I haven't come across elsewhere. It's probably worth noting that I'm MP3-incompatible, but nonetheless...

Andy, do you check out dubplate.net? That's pretty much my primary way of keeping up with the underground side of the scene. They have heaps of Windows Media Player files of new tracks, which are very small and don't sound too bad.

Cooper - somehow I've managed to totally miss "Decoy", but if its anywhere as good as Agent X's MONSTROUS remix of Mis- Teeq's "One Night Stand" I'll be well pleased.

Something tells me we're not talking about 60's garage. It's getting confusing, now that good ole garage is flavour of the month.

Tim - "Decoy" is very similar to the "One Night Stand" dub, actually, just a little more detailed. I prefer it. That "hard step" dub of Promises has just-this-week been remixed and put back out with MC Harvey from So Solid on it. It's a little more interesting than the original, but definitely not as good as the Zed Bias mixes, if you ask me. I'd also caution you folks a little about dubplate.net - Neil from Ammunition runs it, and he's a little heavy on the dark and gloomy stuff. The best way to check out what's going on over there is DJ SL's stream at www.dj-sl.co.uk. Unfortunately, SL frequently forgets to tune it in during the day - either that or the pirates just haven't started up for the evening yet.

Triple 7, by Horsepower is somewhat on the light side, but I've been browsing around dubplate for awhile now, and I see this in particular as sorta where tim's going. The nu-dark stuff rilly is very seductive, when done right, and has a v. expressive sonic palatte in terms of various moods/locales &c. which it can evoke. Absolute echoes of techstep.

Yeah "Triple 7" is great (their beats are so *luscious*), and I prefer this slightly lighter style to the absolute darkness/ minimalist bent that Cooper rightly warns us away from. One thing that I would have written in my article if I'd done it a bit later (most of it was written about two months ago) is the fear I have of the darker underground stuff converging with the straight breakbeat garage into a supa-bland supa-style. Dubplate.net do occasionally stray in that direction - I usually avoid any tracks whose "darkness" causes Neil to go into fits of ecstasy (I'll check out that radio website, though).

As for techstep? Yeah definitely, if we're talking about my own personal vision of the techstep that never quite happened - more cinematic, more ambiguous in its emotional terrain (eg. Hidden Agenda's "Dispatch #2" etc.). Nu-Dark Swing at its best sounds a lot more open-ended than techstep did/does though, which doesn't necessarily make it better, but certainly they're quite different in feel. I like in particular though how Horsepower Productions sound as much like a 2-step take on micro-house as any other tech-derived sound.

On the whole though I'd prefer if artists were taking their cues from the ragga side of things (eg. "Down Down Bizzniz" itself, which I absolutely love to bits) rather than HP's more subtle work, as I don't know if many others could pull it off with such success - subtlety in these styles is always a double-edged sword. Of course HP have already read my mind - "Log On" ties these two strands together.

(as is patently clear, I could quite happily talk about UKG all day)

talk about UKG all day)
…and I could oblige you.

love the article Tim – you’re just about the only person doing this kind of thing for UK Garage now, y’know? (one fave bit – the Zed Bias “pitch black freefall”, so true. “horribly distend the tightrope” re Oris Jay – also class)

On the Ragga note – my hope is that Garage moves more in direction of Ragga's uncanny, sexydark rhythms. Some other tunes you may want to check out:

Robloe & Kin – Bounce (Original mix - cockney vibes and even a harmonica!)
Frances James – Juicy (High Rollerz mix)
HKA vs High Rollerz – Deeper Darker
Smiley – Tell Me
some of the best basslines of the past year or so (fixing Garage releases in time is often tough: limited-topDJ-only, testpress, whitelabel, official – indie or major/reissue)

plus:

Shut Up And Dance – Moving Up
maaavelous catchy comeback for the duo with MC cheervibes from (2 Ton?)

also:

Shut Up And Dance – Action
Youngstar – TrueVIP!
Don Yute – Bounce Ya Head Back

if all Breakbeat/Instrumental Garage was this good I’d be excited about it!

I see the pop side of Garage as less of a threat than the serious death-to-R&B suburban muso lads.
Maybe cos of what happened in Drum & Bass. Call me pop-ist, ja?

anyway - popWISE:

Calvin Lynch – I Need Your Love
(mislabeled on Pure Garage V) breathless R&B hysteria – a vortex of desire
United Grooves Collective feat Shelley – Madness
just a lovely track
Elena feat MC Tyrone – I Like
almost cheesy but waay fun!
Wideboys feat Robbie Craig and Shola Ama – Your(sic) Mine
deserve credit for making Robbie’s vocals tolerable (as did Gurley on Lessons In Love)
Beth Green Project – It Feels Right (b-side mix)
Frances James & DJ Face – Girls Play Too
Kristine Blond – You Make Me Go Oooh! (D’N’D remix)
these 3 nicely balance pop vocals and dark (bassline + rhythmic- swing) production

there’s loads more – maybe I’ll mention downthread if it keeps rollin’
sorry there’s not more response Tim – I figure lots of folks ain’t interested in or don’t know enough UK Garage to comment
(don’t let it stop ya, people – it’s also Tim’s writing here)

Cooper, great to see one of my fave ffwd 2Step list posters on ILM!

"my hope is that Garage moves more in direction of Ragga's uncanny, sexydark rhythms."

This is the thing I love (well, *one* of the things I love) about "Down Down Biznizz": the way the drums sound almost quite random and off-the-beat, like they're being played live by some enormous robot-ape. That energetic live-feeling (also present on "Boo!") gives it a captivating sense of urgency which I luv.

One bit that I didn't end up including in the article was a discussion of how, whereas in 2000 the beats didn't really change that much but every track *had* to have a b-line interlude, in 2001 there was much more focus on not only new riddims but also an attention to much more intricate and interdependent beat-bass interplay. "Down Down Biznizz" did inspire that bit on isotopes though. The whole thing sounds like it's literally disintegrating before your ears. (also on the Ayia Napa comp, UGC's "Mic Tribute (UGC Remix)" - a minefield of beats and percussive bass hits that is so deleriously well- programmed I inexplicably get quite emotional listening to it)

On the pop end of things, most of the tracks that did well in the scene I loved. What annoyed was hearing so many crappy obligatory remixes on all the non-UKG pop and dance singles I have to review. Sunship in particular irritated me with his range from brilliance (Mis-Teeq) to mediocrity (Posh), though at least he saves his best work for the most deserving. If I were to make a criticism of the pop end generally, it'd be that the really uncompromisingly "up" stuff sounds a bit forced now. I far prefer the pop + dark groove undercarriage approach of "Gotta Get Thru This" or The Underdog Project's "Summer Jam" - both as catchy as "Rewind" if not more so, but equally aware of the advances made elsewhere in the scene. Even the MisTeeq-Sunship stuff has an air of ravey hysteria that's a few steps removed from, say, "Flowers".

Thanks for all the recommendations, though! I'll be looking for them all.

thanks for the props, paul - my music crit. leanings were needing an outlet, so i've started showing up here for UKG talk when i can.

I think one of the most interesting things to happen so far - say the last 8 months - is the backlash against the hard'n'dark - El-B, even, has been cranking off bouncy not-dark 4-beat things in the past couple of months. I've heard people like Francis James and Matt Jam Lamont complaining about the MC crews and how they play jungle in their sets, construing it as selling out.

What's really going on here is another turn in the ongoing young vs. old battle in UKG. Originally there was Grant Nelson, Ramsey & Fen, Tuff Jam, etc. (though Grant has adapted to the new dancehall style - and obviously Todd Edwards, but Todd doesn't seem to give a rat's ass what goes on in the UK - or what anyone else is up to at all. Ever heard him dj? 60 minutes of his own tracks.). Then we have the jungle implosion and the resulting shift into garage, producing the mass move into 2-step in '98. The next assault to the old guard has come from the MC crews (an idea borrowed from hip-hop!) - So Solid, Pay as You Go (the EZ radio show where he interviews them has some poorly-concealed jealousy - PAYG:"yeah, we've only been doing stuff for 2 or 3 years" EZ:"mate, it took me about 11 years to get where i am now, ha ha ha.")

Now there are people getting involved who are much younger than the original UKG crowd, which Reynolds described as being ex-ravers who tended up toward 30. PAYG are all under 23, the message boards are overrun by young folks who have the symptomatic SMS-corrupted spelling. They're all discovering the older garage, the material from '97, '98, '99 even. They've never heard any of the old jungle that's being thrown down, so they think this is the freshest stuff out there. It's a lucky way for UKG to hold its productive tension, and hopefully this will lead to a hip-hop-like permanent establishment for the genre.

Let’see, promised to keep this goin’ didn’t I?

“Down Down Bizzniz” is fo sure one of the best tracks of the past year. I believe Vincent J Alvis, Ras Kwame and Demolition Man are involved in it (as London Dodgers). They also were responsible for earlier classic “Body Killin” (1999 - feat Freddi Funkstone?) which in its original non-M-Dubs remix is still one of the ultimate UK Garage BASS tunes (see Reynolds: "evil basslines").

Ras Kwame (who I think is half of M-Dubs, along with Dennis who runs BabyShack records shop) is hot at the moment – last year’s “Shimmy No.1”, the Jon Cutler remix on Tim’s lists, plus remixes of B-15 – “Games” which feature a sample from Roy Ayers’ “We Live In Brooklyn, Baby”.

Demolition Man is a name that goes back into Drum & Bass – if same guy (like who’s gonna rip the name?) – he’s on Prizna’s track “Fire” and others.

More later…

couldn't be bothered to start a new thread, and this one is apposite...

wot is going on with oris jay?! he's gone off the deep end, v. v. dark indeed recently. check "acid flex", "said the spider" etc is this the blunt darkcore emergence you'd been fearing above? i mean it's incredibly fun in a mosh way but not for long. in general is it me or are all ukg's offsprings slowly starting to codify?

it's lost me - I bet there are a few good tracks out there if you're willing to dig, but honestly I'm not feeling it at all
and that's a bad sign - cos I want to...

hope I'm wrong

Yeah Oris Jay's gone a bit crap lately. I haven't heard much amazing garage bar Horsepower lately but I'm not terribly concerned. Stuff always turns up.

Every now and then a great site with few hundreds of UKG mp3s comes up, and within weeks/months get shut down by BPI. So, if you want to catch up with good new stuff (especially if you're worried that garage's going too dark thru exposure to dubplate.net), try this one while it's not too late:
http://www.2step.isonfire.com/

All the D'n'd remixes are a must - these guys absolutely rule right now, reaching effortless ever-mutating heights of Bump'n'Flex. Everyone's raving about their excellent Blazin' Squad + Elephant Man remix, but I'm puzzled as to why no-one seems to big-up the '4 On Da Floor' remix of Beverley Knight's "Shoulda Woulda Coulda", surely the sexiest, sleekest, most gorgeous slice of nu-speed garage so far. (In fact, it's so good that they've ripped themselves off on the 2 Man Gang remix, which is also great).

Also, be sure to check out Sticky's mix of Slum Village's "Climax": fierce speakerquaking bassline ballet. On the other hand, his latest, bollywood-tinged "Golly Gosh" (somewhat disappointing to these ears), can be found here
http://www.ukgmp3s.cjb.net/
along with a new Fyrus track.

Haven't been able to hear any of those tracks (I can never get AntiLeech to work - why the hell do all the sites use it?), but I'd forgotten some of the great tracks I'd heard lately:

Babu Storms - Electricity
Blowfelt ft. Slarta John - Back Up Back Up (Mr. Shabz Remix)

Both fantastic dancehall-garage biznizz.

SEARCH: Craig David - "What's Your Flava (El-B Dub)"

SEARCH: Paleface - "Dutty"

SEARCH: Flo Dan - "Big Mic Man"

tim is that the one where hes like 'i feel fantastic boombastic etc etc', listening to that song is like having ass sex while eating sorbet!!

c david i mean

Trife that's not a Craig David track! That's Artful Dodger's "Woman Trouble", with wossisname on lead vocals and Craig on backing. What is his name?.... Robbie Craig. That's it.

oh i heard dude on the track say craig and i figured the sound was right, anyway that song is pretty ill huh, im kinda sad though now because i want to like craig david!!

Trife you should hear the Wideboys remix of that track. Best! Tune! Evah!

i may have!

does it go RRRRREMIX about a minute in??

the only worthwhile thing craig david evah did was the stuff he did with artful dodger. apart from that he's just bland beyond words. what's your flavah? well, it ain't the starbux pop you make, mate. apparently he's doing something with justin timberlake.

id like to do something with justin

AND WORK WITH HIM MUSICALLY TOO

aha ha ha ha.