type beat

what wouldn't i give for an official instrumental of "Motorsport"?

it doesn't exist, so I must sate the craving with ersatz - the "type beats"

none of these re-productions quite capture the ethereality, the mistiness  of the original by Murda Beats & Cubeatz  -  like systems music screwed, a few bars of Michael Nyman looped in a deep tranquilizer trance

but fun to listen to all in a row - or even simultaneously














likewise what wouldn't i give for a vocal-free "Goosebumps" beatscape?

















What would Adorno say about this?

Or about the phenomenon of loop-makers  -  hustling cottage-industries churning out not even beats but sub-beat components, in hopes of a way into the biz

Theodor's concepts of pseudo-individuation and part-interchangeabilty fit the way almost all contemporary pop is made, where there isn't even a singular hit factory but multiple sites of constructions. Component elements are developed in different studios round the world, by people who never actually meet;  extreme specialization rules (a guy whose only job is working on the vocals, another on beats, yet another on the mix of the final assemblage).  The loop-maker sweatshop-of-one is  the ultimate extension of these Adorno-ite principles -  somewhere between vagabondage, longshoremen crowding the dock in hopes of getting some work that day, and unpaid internships

The sample packs with kick drums etc on peddled by labels or producers with a rep are related, but from the other way around: a name selling off their trademark sounds, FX, etc to hopeful aspirants. 

I think also, on the subject of type beats, of the ceramics sculptor Ken Price and his remark: "A craftsman knows what he's going to make and an artist doesn't know what he's going to make, or what the finished product is going to look like."

Strong Island

one of the first tunes I heard on pirate radio - way way before ardkore - in the late '80s, when the fare on the air was soul and reggae and a bit of hip hop

i'm not sure if I heard it first there, though - might have actually bought it as an import... may even reviewed it

perhaps that's why i didn't catch the pirate bug then -  there wasn't the same sense of "you can only hear this music through these illegal channels" or "these stations are already broadcasting from the future"





the stabby sample-riff is quite hardcore .... you can hear the transition from UK b-boyism to breakbeat house as a pregnant potential already

in fact there's a H-core tune or two that always remind me of "Strong Island"

is this it?



no actually i think it's this one - the riff-blare that comes in at about 1.40



much more manic though, obviously



going back to the mid-late 80s rap  - lots of odd little one-offs in those days



ah never realised that was a Marley Marl production

rainbows

never knew this video existed!


from Droid's ongoing great Dissensus thread on 95 as jungle's peak year 


more rave rainbows













no mention of rainbow in the title but a rainbow colored video for a sky themed rave masterpiece

Burning Bells

used to love these tunes - perhaps even more than the Mantronix stuff




interviewed T La Rock - but i don't think I ever wrote it up (possibly because disappointed by his third single in that sequence)

here's one my comrade at MM, Frank Owen, did - also appearing, Arthur Russell




I suppose this tune is why he has a footnote in the Official History of Rap - as sampled later by Nas








Don't remember this one at all




the album



seem to remember he had a thing about how LL had bitten his style


Ah he went hip house, Todd Terry on production



and before that there was a track with the word "Ecstasy" suspiciously prominent