In a world where experimental electronic music exponentially splinters into a multitude of rogue genres that slowly shuffle the globe from demilitarized dance floors to sleeper cell bedroom studios and back, a team of disparate scientists tracks this solanum-like pandemic while desperately trying to interpret cryptic field recordings of Samhain’s past, not one day at a time, but from Amen to Zombie…

AMEN

What’s this look like to you?  What country?  What year?  What style of music is blaring in the background?  How old are these kids?  Is that girl wearing any panties?  No, the one with the Air Max shirt on.

Questions, questions, questions.  This week we start off the Cs in the Juno back catalog with 20 records by Cabbie. So my first question is: why is this entire page of releases dedicated to just one artist?  In all the AMEN entries up until this point that has never happened.  Questions of the prolific nature of this artist named Cabbie, his popularity in general, and others start splintering off as well.  But a more pressing question comes to the fore:

Why does Jump-Up suck?

Before we dig into this question, let’s define our terms and reiterate that this blog is opinion.  You may feel offended by the above question, but I hope to show you that, should you choose to dig on Jump-Up, you’re enjoying an inferior product.  Everyone is guilty of this though; it’s what makes art so fun to consume, produce, and talk about.  Everyone can produce a line of logic about why they like something.  Sometimes this line is only two points: you and the thing e.g. “I like it just because I like it.”  And this can again be lumped into two very general camps.  ”This speaks to me in such a specific way that it no longer has any reference to its original form, and so I like it because I like it and it’s the way I feel that I like.”  versus “I don’t care that this is cheesy or that it’s pop, or that it’s very clear that the intent of this thing is to appeal to as wide a range of people as possible, to the point of making it soulless and an empty shell for advertising to stick their names on, I like it because I like it.”  The first one would be something like GEM cream soda (The drink of taste!), the second would be Coke.  Now I enjoy both, got somewhat of a Coke addiction in fact (nothing better than Coke and grenadine) but I think everyone recognizes that as a soft drink, Coke is not the best thing for you.  Something that uses cane sugar and natural flavoring is better for you health wise.  And a company that puts advertising where it belongs (in super markets, on TV, etc.) is better than plastering cities and country sides alike with advertising that you can see a half a mile away, and therefore can’t get away from.  But then again that’s just me, which leads us back to the fact that this blog is my opinion that I’m trying to support with logic and examples.

A good example of Jump-Up would be Pink Socks.  The above link should give you some info on the nuts and bolts of a Jump-Up tune, but the basics are: repetition and LFO baselines.  Repetition meaning that an 8 bar loop (a break) is shuffled to compose a “song.”  Maybe dropping the b-line or a quick buildup of rolling snares is about the extent of composition that you’re going to get in a Jump-Up tune.  A quick run down of the b-line is take a 3 tone, 8 bar sine wave and throw an envelope filter  on it.  Lots of tunes employ call and response as well.  This design serves two purposes I think, one is to be easy to mix.  All the tunes have this template so that you can very easily manipulate anything labeled “Jump-Up” when mixing records.  Two would be that it puts the DJ in more of the driver’s seat.  DJ’s love beatmatching records, to the point where some people think that being a DJ is all about finding a “sound” or record label, collecting those records that sound similar, then mix them together in (un)creative ways.

This is where I find that Jump-Up falls down.  If your source material all sounds similar, you are going to essentially be making “minimal” music when you mix it as a DJ or you try to build a Jump-Up track, meaning music that is mainly concerned with simple changes.  It’s unfortunate that “Minimal” means techno most of the time, but that’s minimal with a capital M.  In my sense “minimal” could also stand in for “lazy” or “minimal effort.”  The dropping the b-line or whatever tends to get abused by both DJs and producers of Jump-Up.  What you also get is a DJ set that has no signs of slowing down.  If you were to look at it visually it would look like a hot dog.  Every tune has an intro, so by default a DJ is going to have to play that to introduce their sound and prepare people for what’s about to come next.  Then it’s just mix the shit out of some tracks (about 34) for an hour.  Let the last record play out and the next DJ can come on.  It’s just fast mixing, slamming down tunes as fast as you can.  They all have similar sounds, so there’s really no reason to let a tune play for more than  two minutes, which again gives the DJ more power, or I should say it makes his presence more know by constantly introducing a new tune to the audience.  But at the same time, it consolidates the DJ’s job to just beatmatching a bunch of tunes that are already designed to sound similar.  You might be saying, “That’s still an important part of DJing, you can’t play House then Breakcore for a bunch of people who want to just dance and drink.”  Good point, and yes DJs should be conscious of genre, but not at the expense of programming or the flow of a DJ set.  Even people rolling on 3 E’s and Grey Goose need a break.  And good DJs don’t wear all your dancers out or the next DJ might suffer from a 20 minute bathroom break at the beginning of her set because a Jump-Up DJ wore everyone out with a solid 50 minutes of energy.  DJs should lead, but also be courteous to those on the dance, as well as other DJs.

And on the production side of Jump-Up I think I have an answer to the question of why an entire page of Juno’s back catalog is dedicated to one producer.  There seems to be some cool cache with certain producers and genres with how quick you can crank out a tune.  I was listening to Skream do a lecture at the Red Bull Music academy, and he seemed to be bragging that he had made something like 5000 tunes and only takes 5 minutes to complete a tune.  That’s a little obtuse, but it’s not far from what he actually said.  I really can’t understand why it’s that cool to crank out a tune that fast.  Basically what you’re going to have time to do is quickly get together a 16-bar loop and then shuffle its parts.  That’s about it.  And then you call that a tune.  What it really is is a sketch.  A very quick chunk of musical information that is being specifically designed to be mixed by a DJ.  That being said, the obvious exception to the rule is that sometimes inspiration comes to you and you can very quickly put something together that will stand the test of a few months and people will still want to hear it.  So there’s nothing wrong with working fast, unless that is the one thing you are trying to achieve.  Working on something to work on something fast is a strange thing to wrap around your head.  If the only reason you are doing something (building a track) is to get it done in the fastest time possible, then there is no reason for you to do it in the first place, because the fastest time possible is no time.  But some people DO decide to make Jump-Up tunes in the quickest way possible, using the rhythms and structures as defined by the genre in the easiest way possible.  This is why there’s 30+ tracks on a single page of the Juno back catalog by the same artist that all sound similar (and not similar because they are coming from the same producer, Cabbie, who is substituting a genre and a set of rules for his “sound”)  This is what makes Jump-Up an inferior product.  This is why Jump-Up sucks.

Whew!  I need a GEM cream soda, let’s get back to our club kids.

You might be asking “Who’s this douche?”  But hold on, you lady pants wearing motherfucker, this guy deserves to be heard just as much as you.  The two photos in this post are from Don’t Stay In.com.  Specifically they’re a bunch of people having fun at a Jump-Up gig.  Don’t Stay In is 100 times more vapid than Myspace and is a place for club kids to put up photos of themselves, share info about gigs on a more global level, and chat about how “Fat gurls should get their bellybuttons pierced.”  Harmless really.  I’ll grant you that it’s a bit annoying, but really, harmless.  As is my critique of Jump-Up.  But, just look at the kids.  Who doesn’t want to kick it with their best friends and chat to the opposite sex?  Or the same, whatever.  I’m showing these photos for a couple of reasons.  Partly to have a little laugh at club kids.  Can anyone else tell that the first picture is from the UK and the second is from the US?  But mostly to put a face to the Jump-Up sound.  These kids are having a blast listening to what I consider inferior music.  The incorrect assumption is to say that they’re idiots for going to a Jump-Up gig, because Jump-Up sucks.  For obvious reasons, right?  Not everyone is there for the music, and as long as it’s got some repetitiveness in the 110-160 BPM range everyone can get down and have fun. However they’re not innocent either.  I think they suffer from the same laziness that Jump-Up producers suffer from.  But, here’s where you’re allowed to get a little high and mighty I think.  These kids just wanna get down.  Who makes the decisions on the dance?  The DJ.  Where does a DJ get his cues?  Producers.

Which brings us to: Why not drink JEM cream soda instead of Coke?  Why do DJs choose crap to feed their dancers?  I honestly don’t know, but I’ll bet donuts to dollars that it’s a bunch of answers instead of something simple like “some DJs are stupid and don’t want to try anything new.”  If I had to guess it would be that more complex music has the stigma of being for serious listening.  Which blows my mind. Even as simple as Jump-Up is, it still has syncopation and, lest we forget, is still a sub-genre of d&b.  Which is pretty advanced when you look at Trance, which also sucks.  As a genre that is.  Of course there are some classic Jump-Up tunes.  “Fugees or Not” is a classic and a good tune.  Hell, I love the Art of Trance track “Panorama,” which will bring us to the struggle with music and genres not making complete sense in terms of the other.  But let’s sidestep the “good music is good music” argument and get back to those kids on the dance.

How amazing would it be if the kids in the photos above could be seen brocking out to “Come on my Selecta” instead of some bullshit Cabbie tracks?  Oh yeah, there was nothing on the first page of C in the Juno back catalog that was worth recommending.  There’s so much more to be offered by not only d&b, but other Jump-Up producers.  Don’t bother with Cabbie.  But how easy would it be to slip in some truly next-level bass music to a group of clubbers without getting some chin strokers?  Can you imagine people drinking PBRs and inventing new dance moves to something like “In C” or “Music for Airports?”  On a Tuesday?  And that being the “normal” thing to do?  Why not?  It can’t all be Beer & Pussy.

So it goes.

In a world where experimental electronic music exponentially splinters into a multitude of rogue genres that slowly shuffle the globe from demilitarized dance floors to sleeper cell bedroom studios and back, a team of disparate scientists tracks this solanum-like pandemic while desperately trying to interpret cryptic field recordings of Samhain’s past, not one day at a time, but from Amen to Zombie…

AMEN

This marks the last entry for the Bs.  It has been a long — and some would say fruitful — passage through the sinuous curves of the Bs.  And, absolutely, I’m trying to make a boob joke here.  So to wrap it all up for the second letter of our alphabet, let’s take a look at some of the albums up for grabs on Juno.  This last time around I guess I’ll just go ahead and put up all the links to the Juno release pages so that you can click away and check out the music that I’m so fond of blabbing about.  I’ll just say a few things about what’s up with the releases and then let the music do the talking.

Notable Releases

Black Sun Empire – Cruel & Unusual

I’ve talked a bit about BSE in a previous A to Z and here’s a good way to get a bunch of cuts from them that don’t suck.  This release is a 4-piece vinyl.  I don’t usually tell non-heads/DJs to grab d&b albums on vinyl, but you get what you need and no unnecessary mixed CD like in so many other d&b packaged albums.  ”Masquerade” is a stand out track.

Blame – Two Revolutions

Kind of a shocker here.  Old head Blame still holds his own with an old-ish release on the influential 720 Degrees label.  Not an album, but a compilation of some nice Drum Funk and “intelligent” cuts on the label.  This time a 3-piece vinyl.  By the way: buy more vinyl.  Especially these old releases from the late 90s/early 00s.  It’s nice to listen to the production on the tops and tails of tunes when it’s done right.  Usually they get chopped or mixed when you buy electronic music compilations.  Also know as mixed CDs.  Boo to that shit.

9th Wonder EP – mixed by Breakage

Except when you have a mixed CD that’s mixed by someone who knows how to mix a CD for home listening.  Dieselboy comes to mind.  Most of the mixed CDs you get will make the error of trying to recreate the way a club set works.  Breakage does a nice job of balancing tempos and moods with his mix.  The first CD nicely brings together a label showcase of Progress and includes some hard to find cuts from their LTD sub-label.

Breakage is also worth a specific mention here, in that he just released his new album Foundation.  I’ve given it a few listens and I’m not entirely sure it’s that good.   Everyone’s zoomed in on the Burial co-lab.  It’s way hyped right about now so I decided to not include it in a list of some things that would get you used to the idea of listening to d&b.  And it’s mostly a dubstep thing.

Blu Mar Ten – Natural History

Now, before anyone says that the link above is broken, they sold out of the CD of Natural History and the link is to two bonus tracks from the album.  That being said, this album is very musical and absolutely showcases the producers’ talent.  If you track down one album off of this list make in this one.  Blu Mar Ten are also old guard and have tons of releases.  This was put out last year; Blu Mar Ten has been releasing 12″s for I’m guessing 15 years and this is their first album proper.  And it does not disappoint.

There was two other things that were on the page from Bizzy B and a Good Looking comp called Earth 7.  Not albums in the true sense of the word but still worth checking out.  I think I stretched the limits of an “album review” entry enough by including the Progress and 720 Degrees comps.  But it does illustrate a good point and gives you a rule of thumb.  Good d&b albums are few and far between.  Also, if an album has an unmixed as well as mixed CD that goes with it, don’t bother.  The mixed CD is there to filter out all the crap that only DJs require from the unmixed versions of the songs.  And you don’t want to pay double for some shit that the very people who are putting out the music are saying is 75% unnecessary to listen to.  Of course there are exceptions, but very few.  If you can go for the vinyl of an album, do that.  You usually get the critical cuts and since they’re kind of pricey to sell to the public (five pieces of vinyl can sometimes be like seventy bones) that serves as a filter for half baked b-sides.  Onwards to C!

So it Goes

In a world where experimental electronic music exponentially splinters into a multitude of rogue genres that slowly shuffle the globe from demilitarized dance floors to sleeper cell bedroom studios and back, a team of disparate scientists tracks this solanum-like pandemic while desperately trying to interpret cryptic field recordings of Samhain’s past, not one day at a time, but from Amen to Zombie…

ZOMBIE

Somewhat of a departure from our modus operandi, but still apropos I think.  This time of year is when a very special radio station WFMU holds their annual pledge drive.  If you’re familiar with the station get off your butt and give up some cash.  They are, I think, the longest running independent, community-run radio station in the country, and at the very lease the oldest free-form station.  The station is funded solely from listener support, which allows them to run commercial-free and indulge in a lot of nonsense.  I recommend The Best Show on WFMU, Tale of the 12″ (which is a podcast only), and Airborne Event as entry points to all the goodness of WFMU.

Needless to say, I love WFMU.  Both well archived and always on with something interesting, the radio station is like the best parts of all the college and public radio stations all over the country.  But you don’t have to put up with Car Talk or some freshman trying to work the board and play three hours of garage rock from the 90s that you’ve already ingested ages ago.  No, WFMU plain and simple is just cooler than you are.  They’re in Jersey so they’re close enough to NYC to get out-of-towners in the studio.  There is an endless list of culturally important artists that appear on station, from Daniel Johnston to Patton Oswalt.

Now before you think, “Not everything can be cool about the station,” what I mean when I say that the station is cooler than you is that they have been a grassroots organization that has carefully balanced freedom of speech and democracy to ensure that their content is both representative of the individual DJs and their specific aims and goals within the context of a radio show and that those who wish to be heard over that radio station are given opportunity, access, and support to develop their goals and aims.

And they also have the Free Music Archive.  The idea is that because of the way publishing and the music industry in general is these days, a radio station that is sitting on the edge of extinction and being supported by listeners propping in up from the void might not always get to play some of the music that they do.  Granted, they do play very esoteric and underground music that they don’t have to pay to play, but they are a radio station.  And you’re going to have to pay to put on some ABBA.

So the brilliant solution to the problem of not being able to pay to play any of the music — or even if the situation were worse and WFMU could only pay for the electricity to keep them on the air and literally nothing more — there would still be the FMA.

The Archive is full of original content — live, recorded or found.  And it’s all free.  Royalty-free and free to download.  Their slogan “It’s not just free music, it’s good music.” is absolutely true.  In-studio performances by Yo La Tengo?  Check.  Interviews with pioneering artists like Morton Subotnick?  Check.  EPMD live at ATP?  Check.

And what’s more is that you can get yourself a little user account and make playlists.  For the big boys, you can also apply to be a curator and throw up your catalog should you actually own a record label.

And, speaking of which, we’ve made our way to a little gem on Happy Puppy:

Music for Vampires

Music For Vampires features eight artists and groups, each with their own unique interpretation on the subject of vampires. The only rule given to each participant was that the music remain instrumental (with a minor exception here and there), and the results are very reminiscent of scores and soundtracks.

Fittingly, starting out with a clock tower striking midnight and some spooky chords, the album holds very tight the instruction to make the results reminiscent of scores and soundtracks.  Mostly Jon Carpenter soundtracks, but I’m so down with that I’m… in… the… BASEMENT!

I hesitate to put too much thought into this review because, after all, the music is free to you.  Just go download it already.  It’s a soundtrack to an imaginary vampire movie.  What more do you need?  That’s an amazing thing to think about, let alone organize eight different tracks from eight different musicians.  And to help you along with the plot of your imaginary film, there is a nice story arc in the music and programming of the album.  Those bells starting out the album come from Nevermore Eleanor.  I would have preferred that no names or track titles be used, because they are all as hookey as that.  But the content is there.

There are stops at moonlit windowsills for quiet contemplation of an everlasting life in darkness.  Motorcycle punks doing doughnuts in mall parking lots biting pretzel stand hotties.  The hot breath of a vamp jutting into the stone hallway of a castle’s ruins as victims scramble to escape.  Fighting amongst the ranks of vamps, before a hasty retreat from sunrise and the survivors stuporing around in the morning light.  A hot dusty trail back into town.  Regrouping, explaining, and night falling again as the album ends with “Underground” by M. Patuluci, which would fit nicely on a Halloween sound effects CD.  But one with way more class than I’ve reviewed here.  Think of a CD with a cranberry velvet slip case.

Goodnight out there, whatever you are.

LTJ Bukem

AMEN

Back into the Juno catalog, just about finished with the Bs. The sands of Juno are ever shifting, so my new strategy is to actually go through one letter at a time, instead of looking at the whole catalog. Hopefully I won’t miss as much of the new stuff as the changing stock list pushes or pulls records in their position in the catalog with this new strategy. And speaking of new stuff…

Loads of new albums coming out this spring. On Hyperdub, Ikonika‘s debut long player, the mighty ASC with the first album on the impressive NonPlus+ label, and Fly Lo comes back to Warp with a new album and headlines MAH’s stage @ the Sonar festival with a live PA gig. It’s always sort of a naive thing to say that this year will be a big year for music, but any fan of underground electronic music would be excited about any of those albums. Let’s hope that the album will continue to be a viable format for electronic artists.

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In a world where experimental electronic music exponentially splinters into a multitude of rogue genres that slowly shuffle the globe from demilitarized dance floors to sleeper cell bedroom studios and back, a team of disparate scientists tracks this solanum-like pandemic while desperately trying to interpret cryptic field recordings of Samhain’s past, not one day at a time, but from Amen to Zombie…

ZOMBIE

Here’s two words that you might not expect to see on the same insert of a CD jewel: “Famous” and “Horrors.”  This week’s redux of otherworldly transmissions highlights one in the Drew’s Famous series of Halloween recordings.

A little ribbing is in order here.  From the Drew’s Famous website:
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In a world where experimental electronic music exponentially splinters into a multitude of rogue genres that slowly shuffle the globe from demilitarized dance floors to sleeper cell bedroom studios and back, a team of disparate scientists tracks this solanum-like pandemic while desperately trying to interpret cryptic field recordings of Samhain’s past, not one day at a time, but from Amen to Zombie…

AMEN

Bit of a hiatus, went to Miami for the weekend and did Miami things.  Let’s just leave it at that… Got a hot tip on Dirtybird Records.  Saw Justin Martin at the Electric Pickle in Mid-Town Miami and he tore the fucking roof off of the place.  Think House, but with a Miami bass/hip hop vibe to it.  If you are at all familiar with Hip House it’s a bit like that, but retro-updated.  Banging 808 bass and all updated production values with the kind of breakdowns that make you wave your hand in the air with a smug ’88 grin on you mug and go “Fuck yeah!”  Plus the place was all good vibes, had a bunch of friends in from out of state/country and was the perfect party music for an international reunion.  Plus, if you’ve never been, Miami is another country, hands down.  We are all very square here up in the north compared to any random person on the streets of Miami.  Also got to hear the new Four Tet, which is worth purchase, but moving on…

I noticed while in Miami that most boutique clubs are all CDJs.  Not a record player in sight, except me.  Not even a Serato set up.  Which got me thinking on the pull and push of technology and electronic music culture.  Which, if you haven’t picked up on, is one of my favorite topics to space out on.  But it really hit home that I might be becoming even more of a Luddite.  I DJ with records. I’ve been trying to learn Ableton Live, but I’ve yet to “find” a key gen so that I can save my work, so playing out live with it is close to impossible.  And it used to be that most clubs would have both, Techniques and those chunky Pioneer CDJs.  And it offered the best of both worlds, not only in a technology or fidelity respect, but you had the ability to play just about any piece of music that you could get your hands on.  Fresh dub plates or a CD-R that some bedroom producer passed you, all bases covered.  But it blew me away that Miami went all CDJ.  The hotel I was staying in even had a CDJ deck set up in the lobby.  The irony of that, they were playing DJ mixes and every once in a while the bartender or owner would walk over and use the jog wheel to “scratch” the record.

There’s a bunch of technology that I think is being neglected there.  I’ve seen people do some pretty cool stuff with setting creative cue points, phasing, and beat matching with CDJs.  I could go on and on about how I love records or how some DJs are being lazy, but in the end it was interesting to see that even in certain DJ communities, technology is still being used to simplify tasks, instead of dissecting the art of playing back music and re-imagining that.

It’s like Lego blocks.  DJs use records, CDs, etc. to build sound.  The smaller you can make your blocks, the more intricate you can make your set.  But you could also use it to easily paint every block red.  And really, how fun is it to play with Duplos anyway?

Notable Releases:

Brightlight – Latex/Vain Dream

Nice vibes on this one.  New Russian vibes, but with a kooky cover.  Very rarely do you ever see a d&b cover that has an Olan Mills type vibe, that’s completely serious, and expect to find anything good on the inside.  But the fact that it’s on a Russian label, Headway Music, I guess you should be looking for that “glamor shots” vibe.  Brightlight has released some minimal stuff back in ’05 on a Dutch label, so not sure if he’s Russian or just releases on a Russian label.  I hope he is Russian though; his cover photo will read “Mad Russian” instead of “Techno douche-bag.” And yes, the music is there.

Brockie & Ed Solo – Mars / Echo Box

Huge 12″ this one.  From all the way back in ’02.  Mars was featured on DJ Zinc’s Fabric mix.  Man, what to say about this one?  It’s got a nice, rolling vibe to it.  Tough skanking ride cymbal work.  Just a big, big tune.  Meaning dramatic, funky, and well produced.  Echo Box is more on a Reggae trip.  But the tune is on True Playaz, so that’s to be expected.  B & E S use a lot of stock voice emulation programs also.  Which is fun and sort of futuristic at the same time.  It’s the sort of sound you might find on Tim & Eric or TGTTM, but everything is well balanced so their tunes come out sounding nice and heavy, not cheesy or pastiche.

Brooklyn – Zissou / TC rmx

Another conundrum.  So with that title you’d expect a Steve Zissou quote or at least one by Bill Murray right?  Nope. Bob Marley.  Still nice jazzy Rhodes licks and some classic hip hop samples.  The flip is by Jump-Up hood rat TC.  Never one for TC, but even when you ruin ice cream by melting it and putting a dodgy base line on it, it’s still ice cream.  You can fuck it up completely. A solid release on Spearhead, a record company synonymous with boring Reggae flavored d&b.  Not the B team leader, but still worth a listen.  Mostly here because I’m a Wes Anderson fan, and yes, my record buying habits can be that vain.  Just so happens that the music is passable.

It’s been a while since I’ve combed Juno, so I’m going to take this chance to reboot my place in the catalog.  The original page I was looking at has now been split in two because everyone is getting ready for the WMC, so there’s a huge amount of new music out there.  So my apologies for only throwing up 3 good records this time around.  I can’t take all the blame though.  A large portion of the page was Brooks Brothers releases.

Here’s another cautionary tale: I had a conversation defending d&b to someone who was a big House fan.  As stupid as that sounds (House is like a buried spinning glow stick right now) all of the music that I’ve been listening to and been posting here I would classify as d&b.  I hope to share with you some of the more musical and interesting sounds out there as well as certain tracks that define the genres with loose borders, but all anyone can remember is how d&b turfed out in 2000.

Speaking of Fabric once again, Martyn and the Autonomic crew (dBridge & Instra:mental)  have put out the last two Fabric mixes and they’re amazing.  Here’s a quote from the press release for Fabric 50:

“Despite the genre’s future-forward and experimental beginnings in the early 90s, drum & bass’ rigid uniformity over the last decade has made it a stifling environment for many producers. For dBridge, with his background as a former member of the drum & bass heavyweight champions Bad Company, the pressure of dancefloor expectations and DJs’ desire for club smashers has been experienced and rejected once in his career already.”

And that brings us back the The Brooks Brothers.  The problem with The Brooks Brothers is that, yes, they have an incredible smooth style, but it’s fucking BOOORING!  It takes a specific talent to be just about spot-on with the melodies in a tune and be completely fucking dumb when it comes to the rhythm.  I’m dumbfounded.  It’s a genre that has it’s roots in interesting rhythmic patterns, and you manage to fuck it up by distilling the whole program into a fucking 8 count and then expect that we be satisfied by you changing up the sound of your snare drum?  FUCK YOU!  Ok, I’m better now.

So it goes.

In a world where experimental electronic music exponentially splinters into a multitude of rogue genres that slowly shuffle the globe from demilitarized dance floors to sleeper cell bedroom studios and back, a team of disparate scientists tracks this solanum-like pandemic while desperately trying to interpret cryptic field recordings of Samhain’s past, not one day at a time, but from Amen to Zombie…

ZOMBIE

This time around we’re going to dip into the vast back catalog of Disneyland Records.  Normally I would have nothing to do with the Disney Corp. as I find what they’ve done since the beginning to be repulsive.  But this is not a blog about bashing Disney or the way the company has managed to exploit copyright law and co-opt public domain.  No sir!  This is going to be about how I wish I was a young lad working at the fringes of music in the 50′s, 60′s & 70′s at Disney.  Sure there were a lot of theme songs and bear necessities flying around, but beyond that Fox and the Hound picture disc you still have, what records would you really like to have out of the Disney back catalog?

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In a world where experimental electronic music exponentially splinters into a multitude of rogue genres that slowly shuffle the globe from demilitarized dance floors to sleeper cell bedroom studios and back, a team of disparate scientists tracks this solanum-like pandemic while desperately trying to interpret cryptic field recordings of Samhain’s past, not one day at a time, but from Amen to Zombie…

AMEN

Future sound for future time.  I can’t tell you how excited I am for it to be 2010.  I’m sure it happens at the beginning of every new century, but this new year,  what with it’s abundance of ones and zeros somehow feels more futuristic that 1010.  The underground press has been all aglow with praise and admiration of underground bass music in 2009, calling it a watershed year.  Let’s hope 2010 is alight with interesting sounds that we’ll choose to call music.

A couple of things before we get to the goods: It occurred to me the other day — what with underground electronic music exploding with the cross-pollination of genres, tempos, and sounds — it seems to me that it’s also about to be crushed by the weight of it’s own desire to coin new terms for these newly built beats.  Last year saw the rise of UK Funky and Purple as sub genres of dubstep, which itself is a subgenre of UK Garage, which itself… you see where I’m going.

For those prone to shorthand, think of UK Funky as stripping down and updated-ing House music.  Purple is like if the Dazz Band were from Detriot, not Cleveland, and sang exclusively through vocoders.  The interesting thing about Purple is that it does have this very rough early 80′s synth funk feel to it, but the epicenter of all things Purple is Bristol in the UK.  Which is what I mean when I saw that the weight will crush us.  When you say some thing is Purple, you really mean that it’s a super specific splinter of dubstep that’s usually built in Bristol.  Something close to an artist or band defining their sound so well that they’re synonymous with it.  But in this case, it doesn’t quite work, because people like Joker and Gemmy are working with the broken pieces of whole genres, and not the sound of their instruments.

There’s a funny scene in an old documentary called Talking Headz which interviewed various producers and Blue Note scenesters about the impending take over of dnb and Metalheadz.  The scene is with Ed Rush, from Ed and Op fame and Ben, his real name, is talking about various producers and their distinctive sound/way of production.  He says something like, “I could listen to a beat and say, that’s Carl!”  referring to Dillinja, and I think he was trying to get at something like, this music which you think is noise or, if you’re a little better educated, sounds like just a mash-up of earlier genres has it’s distinctions and it’s luminaries that not only define their sound, but carve out the rules for the genre as well.  It was also precious to see Ben say “Carl”  and not to refer to him as “Dillinja”  or say that the “Dillinja sound” is what is immediately recognizable .  That’s the one thing I’ve always liked about dnb: it is a sub-genre, and it does have its rules and conventions, but there is still more room for experimentation than in other genres.  Those other genres would likely split off into other areas and boxes as a record shop, but anything remotely dnb always goes in that bin at the shop.  Not sure if that’s just cause shop owners are lazy when it comes to dnb, or that the other genres have better PR.  So now on to the

Notable Releases

Blocks & Escher – Heartshaped / All In Good Time

A common trend that is a sort of oxymoron in dnb is the b-side.  A traditional b-side being the not quite sure tune for a band or a spot to put something that didn’t pass muster for the album.  Both sides could be b-sides depending on who you ask, or they could be both a-sides due to the similarity of the tunes.  Nevertheless, a new twist on the trend is to stick something dubsteppy on the b-side of some well known dnb labels.  Here we have Blocks & Escher on Horizons Music.  I have a love/hate relationship with Horizons Music.  They have their own website, plus.  The Yearning and Nectarines + Penicillin classic tracks.   They usually think they have to spoon feed a normal dnb track to you so that you’ll go for the spaced out a/b side.  Not the case here.  Both sides well spaced out and riding that line between dnb and dubstep.

Blu Sonix – Luv Me (Logistics rmx) / Moving the Transit

Maybe I’m just getting old or my ears are getting worse, no big bass, no tricky snare work, just simple syncopation, and summer time vibes with nondescript female utterances.  If you need a little piece of summer in your ears.

Bogeyman – Pick It Lick It Roll It Flick It / Guess Wot, Snot

I hate Grid recordings, and Twisted Individual.  Same tired jump-up bullshit for years.  Seriously tired sounds, like your dufus little brother who likes to watch Family Guy for the poop jokes, and laughs hysterically at every one of them.  But this release will I think shed some light on the general hazy culture of underground bass music.  It’s in the dnb section, but it’s a dubstep 12″ It’s listed as being on Grid recordings, but it’s a sub-label called Guinea Pig Records.  The a-side is some carpetbagging drivel.  But the b-side is worth it if you’ve got 10 extra bucks. Prolly $4.50 in the discount bin by now.  Good orchestral samples and a vocal of some high society broad going “You’re disgusting.”

Boycee’s Beats Vol. 3 – Bossy / I Wonder

I like Only Fools and Horses and that air horn sound.  It’s a nice little jazzy roller on the b-side as well. You plonker!

There’s two Bong Ra releases on this page also.  Not necessarily recommended listening, but worth a spin if you want to be out of your comfort zone.  Style surfing edits and tongue firmly in cheek, Bong Ra is just something that you’ll have to make up your own mind about.  I always imagine that Bong Ra is Mum Ra’s older brother who never left home and still lives in the attic of the Black Pyramid.  He pulls this massive tube then blasts out of the top of the Pyramid and is all crazy talking like a rave-stoner-Jamaican-mummy “GRwaWOWwoaawa!  Check out me new ‘ardcore beatz!”  It tickles me everytime.

So it goes.

In a world where experimental electronic music exponentially splinters into a multitude of rogue genres that slowly shuffle the globe from demilitarized dance floors to sleeper cell bedroom studios and back, a team of disparate scientists tracks this solanum-like pandemic while desperately trying to interpret cryptic field recordings of Samhain’s past, not one day at a time, but from Amen to Zombie…

AMEN

Not no Parkay, strictly butter.  Moving along here with the B’s.  Couple of sundry items before we get down to the next page of the saga.  This past November The Upbeats release “Big Skeleton”  I’m never one for D&B albums.  I’m convinced that the genre should stay single or mix oriented.  Audible: has anyone else noticed that most electronic music podcasts are getting back to more of a radio format?  If you listen to anything worthwhile on Sub FM the DJs will keep you up-to-date with what tracks being played.  D&B Arena et. al do the same thing.  It’s kind of a weird circuit that underground electronic music on the radio or some sort of broadcast has run.  It began with just endless mixes on public radio and heads trying to frantically track down what track is what, to the saturation of producers and splintering of electronic music into a genres within genres and the DJs now have to announce who’s producing what so that even other high profile DJs can keep abreast of hotness.

Getting back to The Upbeats.  This is one of the best albums I’ve heard period in recent years.  Maybe it’s possible now that d&b has shrunk the average track time from ~7 minutes to about 4.5-5 minutes, for there to be a good d&b album that isn’t filled with epic tracks with stupid sketches or loops thrown in to make it album-ish.  And this is no simple collection of singles.  I think it’s gotta go down as one of the milestones or warning signs that the album is still relevant in a 50 minute incarnation/completely dead now that a genre of music that should have nothing to do with albums can put out something so good.  It’s all there, every flavor of d&b, some dubstep, big bad bass, and The Upbeats very fine tuned studio production.  Highly recommended.

Notable Releases

Paul Blackout: Simulated Demons / Psychic Experiment Rmx

Hard fast edits from Austria.  Never heard from the one like Paul, but he’s trying to push the breakcore/d&b line further with the remix.  Original is pretty standard tech-step stuff to start out with, good but nothing special, breaking into some Slayer riff-age at the first break, paying around with some amen edits.  Not great.  But the Rmx is like short bursts of hard edited beats that’s pretty visceral.  Not for the weak of heart, or for people who can’t see music in noise or vice versa.

Black Sun Empire

The rest of this particular page of Juno was monopolized by the triumvirate know as BSE.  Dutch, prolific, and ubiquitous with d&b.  Chances are that you’ve heard a BSE track at some point.  Techstep, Neurofunk if you want to lump them in with the splinter genres, but there’s something more to their music than that.  How can I explain, when I say ubiquitous I really mean that.  They’ve somehow managed to make their music distinctively theirs, but without any of the huge signposts that other producers have.  Like Photek‘s Asian drum work, or Ed Rush & Optical‘s Reese work.  It’s hard to put in words, its some sort of audio illusion.  If you listen to a lot of d&b, you’ve most definitely heard a similar style in other producers, but there’s something unique about BSE that denotes it as the real deal.  BSE are also ones to point to when people listen to d&b on iPod headphones and go “I don’t like this, it’s the same thing over and over again.”  This music was built to be played on a louder than hell sound system, or at least your home ghettoblaster on 10.  Try an experiment: download one of the tunes below and listen to it on your computer speakers first.  Then play it on as proper a sound system as you can find.  See the difference?  Speaking of the music, this time around instead of choosing individual records, I though I’d skip around a bit and do a little pick and choose with all the records up for grabs at Juno.  So I’m just going to list of a mix of BSE tunes that would be a good intro to the sound, and I think would make a nice little d&b mix.  Any one of the tunes is worthwhile, but investing in the mix will give you the width and breadth of what BSE is about d&b wise.  Here we go:

BSE & Noisia: Winter War -> BSE: Fearless -> BSE: Potemkin -> BSE: Boris the Blade (Optiv Rmx) -> BSE: Stone Faces -> BSE: Are You There? -> Dance 4 Life: Breathe (BSE Rmx) -> BSE: Unfamiliar -> BSE: Crash Bunny

Finally this month, I did want to make one comment on Jungle/Reggae/Dub samples.  Things like “when it come, it come like a blood clot heart attack”  are no longer necessary.  At least not at the level that these samples find their way into tunes these days.  Knock it off d&b.  I understand paying homage to your roots, but lets move on.  I had to plod through some rough sounding Jungle stuff on this page.  It’s like if a House producer would start talking about Jack in the middle of some record that came out today.  Yes, it’s that embarrassing and your referents are even older than that.  It’s a spice people, and a rare one you don’t cook with as often as you do salt & pepper.  Like mace.

So it goes.

ZOMBIE

Thank you all for you patience, now back to the program.  Brought to you by Lipton Tea.  There’s no better way to insert the British idea of “Tea Time” into American culture then by suggesting during this radio drama that you enjoy the brisk taste of Lipton Tea.  Yes, that word “brisk” describes the horribleness of bitter tea straight from the mother country.  A brisk flavor that has its flavor profile rooted in the history of English trading routes and the East Indian spice market.  You see, in getting to and from India, sailors would actually sail down to the tip of Africa where their tea would dry out on the decks of pirate ships.  And by gum that brisk sun flavor would be scorched in by the time they had sailed back to England.  So enjoy Lipton Tea.  Enjoy the “brisk” flavor.  And now we return to our story…

Noah is a mild mannered, even tempered typist at the Campbell and Scotch offices.  We join him now at… the water cooler…

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