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Jack Moss - Catharsis [Drum & Bass] (pg. 4)
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| montana |
well, the name drum'n'bass works very well for something that jungleheads call drumfunk. this sub-genre is quite synonymous with dev pandaya aka paradox. it's very chopped up drums, some very minor atmospherics and bass.
like this.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mwxo_A1eCwc |
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| Teezdalien |
| Again I thought this was a very nice mix. Even though it wasn't as diverse sounding as "Excession", it was very well constructed and smooth as silk which to me made the entire set sound like a whole composition itself. As there's not a great deal of this style out there it's most welcome. Thanks for sharing. |
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| Adam420 |
| Very nice mix to my ears. Listened twice to make sure I got a good feel for it. Sure the beat wasn't varied but isn't that more or less what one should expect going into a mix like this one? I thought there was enough sonic variety to keep me engaged throughout. The mixing was tight and the music was both pretty and grooving. Ambient intro was a bit long like some said but I didn't mind it at all, I'm totally down with stretched intros like that. What more to say? I don't have a ton of experience with the genre so this managed to sound very fresh to me. Better than the 2521363462725347654 generic deep/tech house mixes out there. |
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| SYSTEM-J |
| Thanks guys. I do personally think this has some of my smoothest mixing, especially early on. The transition into Within The 9 Dimensions is my idea of a perfect mix - no faders needed at all, just two tracks that perfectly fit together. |
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| Mr Game+Watch |
| quote: | Originally posted by SYSTEM-J
A musical middle-ground between these two clichés was understandably slow in coming, and I think it's only starting to pick up pace now because of the Internet and globalisation of music. When you take drum 'n bass out of its London petri dish and export it to places like Germany and Russia you get a generation of kids who are completely removed from the old conflicts and just make interesting new music. You can see a similar thing happening in prog with all these Eastern European producers on web labels like Mistique - they're bringing prog back because they have no connection to the revisionist ideology that killed it off in the first place. Just one of the many positives the Internet has brought to the music scene. |
You know, I'm actually really interested in you going more into this... I'm American, and as far as I know there wasn't really much of a "prog backlash" here, at least the way you say it. When did the revisionist ideology that killed prog off (I'm guessing it's more of a UK-centric thing?) occur and who were some of the proponents behind that?
I mean, I realize that all of a sudden people were ignoring prog and instead spinning and producing electro, minimal, tech-house. But I guess I missed the whole message :P
BTW, great mix. I really liked the long, drawn out ambient intro and the way things started picking up more in the second half. There are a few great tracks that I'm gonna need to isolate and pick up when I get home, but I can't remember their names ATM. I think I might prefer Excession a bit more than this, but perhaps with time this one will top it. |
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| SYSTEM-J |
I think the context is more UK-specific, because it involves the Death Of Dance Music. This was a pivotal moment in the meta-narrative of the UK club scene. The dance industry had been in decline since about 2000, and by 2004 superclubs had started folding, clubbing magazines were shutting down, sales figures were through the floor and even big artists like The Prodigy and Fatboy Slim were doing poorly in the charts. This article was the official marker: http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2004/nov/03/popandrock
What happened was a period where dance music began seriously unpopular, and the unwelcome excesses of the late-90s superclub era had signalled the end of a cycle. Many of the popular genres of the 90s hit the rocks around 2004, and progressive house took plenty of the impact. Ubiquitous, British and the spawning point of many of the original superstar DJs, it perfectly symbolised the 90s club culture that was so radically out of fashion.
Dance music responded to this crash by shedding its skin. Styles like prog were discarded as uncool, and styles like micro-house, minimal techno and dubstep displaced them. The tempo and the euphoria went way down, as though even E-rushes were too 1999 for comfort. Magazines like Mixmag took to dissing progressive house at every opportunity, others such as Resident Advisor cut out the relevance and influence of the 90s British scene in favour of a revisionist history that reckoned everyone spent the 90s listening to Basic Channel B-sides. We went back to the roots: you couldn't read a blogosphere review of a house or techno record without hearing mention of Chicago or Detroit. Everyone was drawing a 20-year line between 1985 and the present day, completely bypassing that troublesome decade in the middle.
It goes on today. How much prog did you see in Resident Advisor's end of decade list? Considering how massive the style was for the first four or five years of the decade, they've almost totally scrubbed that period from the records. I can't be bothered to find individual examples because coverage of prog is still at a real low, and these snipes and barbs are random occurences set against the backdrop of general neglect. But it's really rare you'll hear any music critic mention the influence of a progressive house record or artist on current material. The only time you tend to hear mention is in one of those jibes about bloated superclub culture, etc. It's a bit like how indie and post-punk journalists have been on a thirty year quest to deny that progressive rock ever influenced anything, when it's clearly been a massive influence on modern music.
Prog was the symbol of the 90s that had to be ceremonially sacrificed if dance music was to live again. Luckily there are plenty of young producers around the world who have no idea any of this ever happened, and so we're starting to see interesting progressive dance music again. It remains to be seen if it's a renaissance or merely a temporary resuscitation, though. |
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| Tangil |
| quote: | Originally posted by SYSTEM-J
I think the context is more UK-specific, because it involves the Death Of Dance Music. This was a pivotal moment in the meta-narrative of the UK club scene. The dance industry had been in decline since about 2000, and by 2004 superclubs had started folding, clubbing magazines were shutting down, sales figures were through the floor and even big artists like The Prodigy and Fatboy Slim were doing poorly in the charts. This article was the official marker: http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2004/nov/03/popandrock
What happened was a period where dance music began seriously unpopular, and the unwelcome excesses of the late-90s superclub era had signalled the end of a cycle. Many of the popular genres of the 90s hit the rocks around 2004, and progressive house took plenty of the impact. Ubiquitous, British and the spawning point of many of the original superstar DJs, it perfectly symbolised the 90s club culture that was so radically out of fashion.
Dance music responded to this crash by shedding its skin. Styles like prog were discarded as uncool, and styles like micro-house, minimal techno and dubstep displaced them. The tempo and the euphoria went way down, as though even E-rushes were too 1999 for comfort. Magazines like Mixmag took to dissing progressive house at every opportunity, others such as Resident Advisor cut out the relevance and influence of the 90s British scene in favour of a revisionist history that reckoned everyone spent the 90s listening to Basic Channel B-sides. We went back to the roots: you couldn't read a blogosphere review of a house or techno record without hearing mention of Chicago or Detroit. Everyone was drawing a 20-year line between 1985 and the present day, completely bypassing that troublesome decade in the middle.
It goes on today. How much prog did you see in Resident Advisor's end of decade list? Considering how massive the style was for the first four or five years of the decade, they've almost totally scrubbed that period from the records. I can't be bothered to find individual examples because coverage of prog is still at a real low, and these snipes and barbs are random occurences set against the backdrop of general neglect. But it's really rare you'll hear any music critic mention the influence of a progressive house record or artist on current material. The only time you tend to hear mention is in one of those jibes about bloated superclub culture, etc. It's a bit like how indie and post-punk journalists have been on a thirty year quest to deny that progressive rock ever influenced anything, when it's clearly been a massive influence on modern music.
Prog was the symbol of the 90s that had to be ceremonially sacrificed if dance music was to live again. Luckily there are plenty of young producers around the world who have no idea any of this ever happened, and so we're starting to see interesting progressive dance music again. It remains to be seen if it's a renaissance or merely a temporary resuscitation, though. |
nice post system-j, interesting thoughts on the downfall of prog. |
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| Mr Game+Watch |
| Fantastic post, SYSTEM-J... really clears up a lot for me. I find it pretty surprising (and sad) that critics still wish to completely deny Britain's place in the dance music scene in the mid 90's - early 00's. Do you think there will ever be a time in the future when the cognoscenti will go back and give credit where it was due? I noticed the lack of prog in RA's albums of the 90's too. |
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| SYSTEM-J |
| They don't completely deny UK dance music... IDM and stuff like jungle and hardcore still get mentions. It's more the globe-trotting stuff that has been violently repressed. I don't know if they'll ever get over it. Like I said, indie rock journalists are still denying the relevance of Pink Floyd, even though the rest of the world sees it very differently. |
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| enydo |
Pretty accurate read of what's currently happening in dance music, at least I'd say so.
Violently repressed is a good way to put it. |
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| Domesticated |
| quote: | Originally posted by SYSTEM-J
I think the context is more UK-specific, because it involves the Death Of Dance Music. This was a pivotal moment in the meta-narrative of the UK club scene. The dance industry had been in decline since about 2000, and by 2004 superclubs had started folding, clubbing magazines were shutting down, sales figures were through the floor and even big artists like The Prodigy and Fatboy Slim were doing poorly in the charts. This article was the official marker: http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2004/nov/03/popandrock
What happened was a period where dance music began seriously unpopular, and the unwelcome excesses of the late-90s superclub era had signalled the end of a cycle. Many of the popular genres of the 90s hit the rocks around 2004, and progressive house took plenty of the impact. Ubiquitous, British and the spawning point of many of the original superstar DJs, it perfectly symbolised the 90s club culture that was so radically out of fashion.
Dance music responded to this crash by shedding its skin. Styles like prog were discarded as uncool, and styles like micro-house, minimal techno and dubstep displaced them. The tempo and the euphoria went way down, as though even E-rushes were too 1999 for comfort. Magazines like Mixmag took to dissing progressive house at every opportunity, others such as Resident Advisor cut out the relevance and influence of the 90s British scene in favour of a revisionist history that reckoned everyone spent the 90s listening to Basic Channel B-sides. We went back to the roots: you couldn't read a blogosphere review of a house or techno record without hearing mention of Chicago or Detroit. Everyone was drawing a 20-year line between 1985 and the present day, completely bypassing that troublesome decade in the middle.
It goes on today. How much prog did you see in Resident Advisor's end of decade list? Considering how massive the style was for the first four or five years of the decade, they've almost totally scrubbed that period from the records. I can't be bothered to find individual examples because coverage of prog is still at a real low, and these snipes and barbs are random occurences set against the backdrop of general neglect. But it's really rare you'll hear any music critic mention the influence of a progressive house record or artist on current material. The only time you tend to hear mention is in one of those jibes about bloated superclub culture, etc. It's a bit like how indie and post-punk journalists have been on a thirty year quest to deny that progressive rock ever influenced anything, when it's clearly been a massive influence on modern music.
Prog was the symbol of the 90s that had to be ceremonially sacrificed if dance music was to live again. Luckily there are plenty of young producers around the world who have no idea any of this ever happened, and so we're starting to see interesting progressive dance music again. It remains to be seen if it's a renaissance or merely a temporary resuscitation, though. |
"We went back to the roots: you couldn't read a blogosphere review of a house or techno record without hearing mention of Chicago or Detroit."
The people who use those kind of references were never into prog in the first place - it's about as relevant to them as trance. So it's incorrect to state that everyone is glossing over the influence of prog. To some people, it almost never existed in the first place.
And as for music critics neglecting to mention the influence of prog, what relevance does it have, unless they're actually talking about a prog record? As you said, it's not a particularly popular genre at the moment, so there's hardly anyone covering it. |
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| DJ RANN |
| quote: | Originally posted by SYSTEM-J
They don't completely deny UK dance music... IDM and stuff like jungle and hardcore still get mentions. It's more the globe-trotting stuff that has been violently repressed. I don't know if they'll ever get over it. Like I said, indie rock journalists are still denying the relevance of Pink Floyd, even though the rest of the world sees it very differently. |
Very interesting and well thought out posts in this thread - kudos to jack.
i would like to mentiona couple of things though.
Firstly, let me preface my upcoming statement by mentioning I literally grew up clubbing in London and the rest of the UK in my teenage years in through the majority of the 90's. I was in to Jungle, and it's variant sucessor D&B right at the time they cam to fruition, and through the period when it again fell out of favour in London to be resurrected later in other parts of the UK. I bought D&B and house and even garage records throughout this period to DJ with.
Barin this in mind, I had never heard the term "tech-step" as a form of D&B until this thread.
not that I doubt it's existence as a label, but I have the very strong belief based off experience and academic interest in EDM as a whole, that this term has been adopted after the fact for journalists to be able to lay hooks in to sub genres (as often happens but has no real baring in the music or scene itself, especially while it was current).
I would be surprised if any of my mates who worked in the industry at the time had either. I think what i'm rtying to say is that even though your analysis is well argued, it is stained by a certain after the fact skew particularly influenced by journalists trying to recount something they did not understand of experience first hand, and therefore use terms that are meaningless to those that were or as a accurate historical reference.
Secondly, I don't really understand the inference that UK has, or would be "denied" prominance in relation to EDM globally in the 90's.
Don't get me wrong, it does not have the claim that say Detroit or Chicago has in music history, but I don't really think any country can lay the sort of claim of influence or scene that the UK had (and dominated with globally) in the 90's. IDK, maybe I misread the intention here but I just don't see any sort of other conclusion about the UK's proliferation of EDM during that period compared to anywhere else.
Anyway, I'm going to DL the mix and thank you in advance for sharing....I miss a good bit of D&B. |
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