New column in Pitchfork from me, trying to pull together all the strands of the different funky-catalysed 130 bpm movements.
"It's a 130 ting right now..."
In addition, here's part one and two of an interview I did with the photographer of the Skream Keysound 12" a-side, Greg Tuck.
Love it! I particularly like the wobble forcing people to push into faster and slower bpms.
ReplyDeleteRogue State did a lot of 178 last year and now is bang on the 130 vibe, definitely adhering to the rule.
I still reckon there's some very positive stuff happening in the 40s, Kryptic Minds set in Sheff a couple of weeks back was deep!
tbh Addison Groove, the Swamp81 camp and Double Helix (LHF) are the only guys that make me interested in "dark" as a musical flavour right now...
ReplyDeleteThanks for writing this piece about all the "new" styles.
ReplyDeleteI think we live in an incredible time. I can't remember it has been produced so much good music since the mid 90ies! New producers pop up all the time with amazing sounds.
Overall, an excellent and insightful summary...
ReplyDeletebut I've been motivated to comment because I think you've misrepresented and possibly overlooked dBridge & Instra:mental's efforts under the 'Autonomic' name they created for themselves.
1. You incorrectly referenced "dBridge's Rinse FM show" without crediting Instra:mental at all - they host the show together, sometimes all in the studio, sometimes on rotation.
2. Referring to "dBridge's Club Autonomic halfstep drum & bass" is completely unfair and underselling them in a stroke. I can't believe you'd write that if you've really listened to any of their Rinse shows/Autonomic podcasts/live sets in recent months. Their approach is entirely NOT about micro-genre tunnelvision! "Halfstep drum & bass" maybe a fair (although cheap) description for just some of the material they've been playing, chiefly in the 170/85bpm area. On the one hand though, they've also been playing an increasing variety of different tempos throughout their sets, whilst on the other, much of the 170/85bpm material they've been playing seems to have very little to do with traditional notions of "drum & bass" other than the tempo itself.
3. I'm really surprised you've completely failed to mention Instra:mental in any context whatsoever despite the fact that they share so many links to the other artists you've mentioned! They've produced tracks with Skream and Loefah recently as well as dBridge, have signed material from Skream, Scuba and Kyle Hall to their label NonPlus+ as well as getting their own tracks on labels like Applepips and Naked Lunch.
It's true these guys have very different roots from the others in your piece but I think you've completely missed out on some of the most exciting AND influential operators out there right now, whatever the tempo.
If you've chosen to leave them out of the picture for some reason, fair enough. At least though, please give them credit for the 'Autonomic' sound alongside dBridge (not D:Bridge) :)