Derek Walmsley speaks in depth with DJ Crystl, one of the lost legends - discussing his production techniques and his thwarted career (signed to London, but never made an album) as well as his resurfacing with the sample-pack FUTURIZM and a remixes album.
Derek - "What makes Crystl’s records stand out is the full-frequency attack and mesmerising detail he and his studio buddies created from that break, a bit of multi-tracking, and some reverb and delay. He could make drums sound like whirlwinds, futuristic machinery, or gamelan orchestras. The wildest fantasies of the 20th century pioneers of electronic sound – of how music could be created from noise, and how the use of everyday sounds could take music out of the concert hall and to hitherto unheard places – were realised in jungle and the music of producers such as Crystl."
Crystl on Amentalism: “It’s all sliced up completely, and then pitch-changed, and then different snares are added, and then there’s transient manipulation, and then there’s different plug ins which go on it, and then there’s parallel compression. It’s almost like making a fucking track, on one drum..... It would be displayed over the keyboard in every little segment... I would play physically, manually, all of my drums, all of the edit, record it in, then quantise if it needed it. It’s all hand played. I didn’t ever draw anything.”
Crystl on cartoon physics: "I make the drums animated"
The Hertfordshire/Hardcore Continuum nexus, ahoy! - "By around 1993, he fell into making tracks for North London dance label Lucky Spin. “They were a couple of Hertfordshire brothers. And I was doing the artworks and stuff. I did the first tracks for them and carried on.”
Crystl on his creative wellspring: “Organised chaos, in my head. I’ve got one of those very noisy brains. I find it very hard to organise myself, actually.”
If not the One, then one of the Ones - "Warpdrive" was a track that rearranged my brain, made me see-hear how looping a break wasn't an easier option to programming a drum machine, but a new discipline, an emerging science, a field of competition.
That and the sheer violence of it - that crashing, collapsing break that first comes in at 2.24.
Then "Let It Roll" - incredible cut-glass breaksmanship
Here's a playlist I made that has most of Crystl's tunes in it, in more or less chronological order.
Benny L's remix of "Warpdrive" forthcoming on the remixes project
The rest of the Crystl corpus is good but doesn't quite impact to the same degree as "Warpdrive" and "Let It Roll".
This is an exciting effort
"Here is a group trying to accomplish one thing - that is, to get to the future" - Crystl uses the sample from The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension (never heard of it? me neither) before Nico and Trace do on "Amtrak"
Also nice use of a synth wash from The Black Dog's "Virtual"
Talking of expensive mainstream-movie flops of the 1980s.... now, is that a sample from the Jim Henson movie in there?
7 comments:
I find it interesting how many awesome jungle/hardcore artists were scooped up by major labels only to fail at the album format in the mid 90s. My personal theory is that rather than doubling down on what they were already doing well, many artists made forays into other genres that were being done better elsewhere as part of the album format and arguably diluted their style in the process.
Controversial opinion but I think Timeless suffers from this, much as I like Playford & Goldies early singles.
Yes I agree - I can't think of a major label jungle album that really stands up.
Some of the ones done for independents like Moving Shadow and Reinforced are a bit better. But overall album length is not the format for jungle. You can't bang away full-strength for that duration. But the invitation to eclecticism and stabs at other genres is equally unfruitful.
Rather than a double, Timeless would be better as an EP! Contraction rather than expansion. It would have been another classic Rufige Cru / Metalheads EP in that series.
The great definitive Goldie album would have been Darkrider EP, Terminator EP, Ghosts of My Life EP and Angel combined as one CD.
Omni Trio's first one is pretty great but that is almost a Greatest Hits anyway.
Yep Logical Progression is the best album of the era for me, but that's part compilation of hits combined with new material - so doesn't really count as an album in the traditional sense at least if we're being pedantic.
Omni Trio is a bit of a standout but then he has quite an interesting back catalogue of musical styles prior to jungle.
geralds black secret technology is the best jungle album imho but its gerald doing his thing, plus its re-used, renamed rethemed singles too.
Agree with the first post, timeless would be a good single lp
Oh you are quite right, there's Black Secret Technology, which is fantastic all the way through.
His earlier album 28 Gun Bad Boy is more like Omni's Deepest Cut, a sort of greatest hits of Juice Box, with a megamix like an old skool electro record, Mantronix or Street Sounds comp even.
Ah I go further in my provocation - not the old double album would be better as a single album, I say of Timeless, it could be a cracking 22 minute EP. But which four tracks? (Given that the title track is itself 20-plus minutes long). Okay let's say Timeless the title track is its own EP, then the other one could "Jah the Seventh Seal", "This Is A Bad', "A Sense of Rage" and "Still Life" maybe.
Given that much of the rest of Timeless is composed earlier single or EP tracks, sometimes reworked a bit.... my insulting proposal is not actually that insulting. I'm saying we could do without "Sea of Tears" , "Adrift", "State of Mind", "Sensual". Not that I actually remember any of those tunes, maybe they are good. I do remember "Sea of Tears" and it is not good.
Post a Comment