Wednesday, December 27, 2017

it was 20 years ago today

A cool find by Tim Finney (currently annotating his yearly run-through at ILM of 2017 tracks literally nobody else in the world has heard) in the form of some classic-era styled (but somehow not exactly retro)  drum + bass by OneMind



Here's what he says about it:

"There are many things I miss about mid-nineties jungle, but one aspect that’s hard to put into words is the curious emotional ambivalence its best tunes so often imparted, that oxymoronic mix of steel-eyed alertness and paranoia with melting dreaminess. At its expansive mid-nineties pinnacle, in exploring literally-never-before-heard sonic hinterlands, jungle also frequently pioneered what you might call emotional between-states: violently happy, gently murderous.“Early Daze” - a tune which seems happy to call back to just about every era of jungle’s history - channels that ambivalence in part through its frequent return to that most inscrutable of breaks, Apache, those high-pitched, quicksilver bongo hits somehow evoking (or invoking) the unbearable lightness of being even as they slugs you across the jaw. It’s a broader theme, the tune expertly navigating the intersection of light and dark previously trod by Photek’s “The Water Margin” or Metalheadz’ “Angel”: disembodied diva sighs swirl around airy rave chords and compressed, late nineties d&b bass bleeps. But most of all this vibe resides in the rhythm, delicate but sharp, and endlessly mutating; the way it ceaselessly cycles between motifs, seeming to up the ante with each frenzied hop, as synth riffs sizzle and fall like acid rain around it."

YouTube then promptly took me to another Metalheadz release from this year that also had that "future frozen" feel   - somehow paused / poised in 96-97, at that (arguable) "Metropolis" / Source Direct peak of the genre: the evolution of a form not taken any further, but not really outflanked or surpassed either... the Movement immobilised...  just hovering there/then, perfectly.



Funnily enough I've been digging some contemporary D+B that fell into my earshot more or less by chance - more on that later

1 comment:

in ate said...

from 2014 but amazing breaks and vibes on this
https://youtu.be/Bb5KDMAZZMI