The female Aphrodite (yes I know, doesn't work in mythology, but it makes sense in jungle). By which I mean - trampoline B-lines, pretty melodies, taking the increasingly narrow and unpopulated path of jungle-as-fun and jungle-as-pop (but in truth, production-wise just as sharp and technical as any Photek or J Majik tune - hence the alias Engineers Without Fears)
I mean listen to this
As a DJ she could play as hard as anyone - I remember her bashing brains alongside Hype, Darren Jay, Randall down Paradise
Tuff little B-side
Should mention sidekick Aston of course - credits often say written by Rap, produced by Rap and Aston
I'll tumble 4 ya
Don't know this remix by Desired State
Nor this mix
These neither
As DJ Rap, this is terrific
Reese bass - before or after "Deadly Deep Subs" / "Terrorist"?
More than solid stuff via an alter ego
There was a misguided 'pop' oriented album, with her vocals prominent...
But before that a whole album with Voyager (aka Pete Parsons), with the okay agreed rather yukky title Intelligence, but likely more than solid contents-wise (I've not delved and have no recollection ever hearing at the time).
Few years ago I saw Rap do an in-store at Amoeba the performance connected to an Ableton conference in LA that I participated in. It wasn't great, mainly because the volume was feeble - the set-up seemed worse than your average 1980s music center - and there wasn't enough of a crowd or the right sort of audience responses in the brightly lit store. But I bet she still kills it when playing the nostalgia circuit.
DJ Rap rockin da Amoeba massif
the stuff she did with Pete Parsons is proper underrated. I know you're not the biggest fan of housey jungle but this is incredible ruff but soulful elegance. Similar sort of vibe to the Blame and Justice records of the era, the way the breaks roll to approximate the jazz drummer augmenting the cymbals. Really makes sense on a randall show I have where it's overcompressed through the fm signal. Also the soul diva palliatives utilised as ghost voices, a kind of hypersexuality. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZYQoQ7Sp5P4
ReplyDeleteHonestly the 'artcore/intelligent/ambient' whacha you want to call it) jungle could have had more of a lease to it if jungle by that point wasn't kind of priming itself for maximum club functionality. In a way it's funny looking back at your argument where you contrast hardstep and techsteps aggressive amusicality to the jakuzi like Bukem vibes. In general I'm in agreement with your argument but it does make me think (and I've said this many times on dissensus) that 93 is just that much more of a pinnacle year for me. Where you had the ambient and bad trip coexisting in the same tune. In a way then it's funny we tend to have these sorts of arguments with IDM types because we too also venerate those eras of club/dance music where it isn't solely tied to the club. With hardcore, jungle and to an extent garage that was the black economy of mixtapes and pirate radio. So the senius matrix isn't just that which must work in the rave (functional hard techno, gabba or even regressive house can do that) but that which beams the impossible through the fm transmitter. This is why I can see a perfectly logical arc between 4heros avant-prole darkside cut ups of 92-93, parallel universe and well, er, broken beat/the West london sound. The reinforced boys have never made music solely for the dancer, the flanging contradiction is precisely between the demands of the gridlocked dancer and the listener who wants to have his brain blown. Which explains why djs (even those who championed sophistication, rarely played the jungle they released in 95-97.) It was just too weird, too pirate when drum n bass was conquering the nation and going international. Can you dance to architecture is a bit of a false equivalence in this sense, cos yes dancing to geometry engages both faculties.
I've told this to droid before but he doesn't seem to quite get where I'm coming from. In a way it's true that the average clubber (middle class, bohemian, materialistic, Blairite) finds it much easier to dance to house or even the linear fastplod which came later. Cos it is pharmacologically the case, esp when in an overpacked room sweating your bollocks off on E. This is not to say that one can't dance to complex break edits when pilled up/drunk, but the psychic coordination is better suited to ganja and the occasional drink. There's too much emotional abandon in MDMA for dance as something stylish.
Oh yeah, the pirates often played stuff that you would never hear in a rave, because it worked for the audience which was at home or driving in a car, so not physically engaged, and if drugged, probably mildly. Same with 2step.
ReplyDelete93/94 is the peak for me, this sort of journey into musicality but not quite fully arriving there... the dark/twisted and the ambient/jazz intermingling. by the second half of '94 the warning signs are audible though.
Re dancing to complex breaks - I remember this one night when my average-level dancing ascended to a higher plane of expressive intricacy and fluidity and that was when 4 Hero were in NYC and playing the most rhythmically complex Reinforced stuff circa 98. This without the benefit of drugs or even much booze. However one reason I could do it - a alongside their brilliance as deejays - was the room was almost entirely empty. Lot of free space and no crowd-swarm-herd effect. See, 4 Hero were playing as part of the CMJ festival, CM stands for College Music - they'd had added a bunch of "electronica" things to their usual lineup of indie etc. So none of the usual jungle audience turned up but the regular attendees didn't know who they were and were off watching some alt rock group. Even more incongruously Deep Dish played to the same almost empty and large cavernous room.
Nice article. It might tickle you to know the obscure sample source used in the QBass Dark Remix of 'Vertigo'. Remember seeing this ad as a kid, and so the sample spotting began. https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=zUISJZI7crU
ReplyDeleteFully agreed on her being a great producer and dj; I actually did a tribute mix of her tracks two years ago; if you've never heard it, it's here:
ReplyDeletehttps://sonicrampage.org/blog/2019/03/pearsall-presents-intelligente-frau-a-dj-rap-tribute-mix/
Great to see you commending DJ Rap's "Abyss" on here. I was unable to catch the majority of the big names up here in Aberdeen (couldn't be further away from the action!!!), but I was an ardent devourer of all things breakbeat back in the day and have very fond memories of the track. That lush combination of of rugged breaks, cavernous bass and heavenly vocal samples always got me in the feels. Still own the album to this day.
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