"A mind with no ceiling" (RIP Roy Ayers) (It's "Daylight" Raving Time!)

I love Roy Ayers...

But when I say that I mainly mean I love RAMP, a Roy Ayers Music Project composed of other musicians and singers, with Roy producing and co-writing the songs, mostly with Edwin Birdsong.

And when I say I love RAMP, I mainly mean "Everybody Loves the Sunshine" and the title track of their single solitary album Come Into Knowledge. 

And mainly, even more so, I love "Daylight". Love it to the bone, to the marrow.

In the main body of his work I've not found anything I like as much as this tune - which I must have played hundreds of times at this point. 

Nate White's bass alone is miraculous... those keyb chords.... the whole track glows, it's like glistening honeyed strands of sound cross-hatching and wrapping round your head.  

My gateway drug for "this kind of thing" - the less-Milesy, smoother end of fusion, where it turns into  jazz-funk - was of course jungle.  

Jungle paradoxically enabled me to build up a tolerance for this kind of mellow mystical-tinged sort of warm-glowing softness 'n' slickness - rather than the other way around.

And with "Daylight", it was this specific track that was the gateway. 

Roni Size and DJ Die and the Bristol lot did this rather often - take a slice out of a rare groove / jazz-funk tune and build up a whole track around it. 

Here's a non-Roy example: 

Which became

It's like a combination of zoom lens and time dilation - the Good Bit is so good, but also so almost thrown away in the original track, or at least rapidly left behind - the track just goes off somewhere completely different, never to return to the Good Bit... instead it develops and builds and is, you know, good-bitty all through in its own right (stellar cast of players, arranged and conducted by Bob James, in this case)  BUT, if you've heard "Music Box" first, then you can't help wondering why does it never go back to the Good Bit? You can't help pining for its return.  Sampling and looping the Good Bit speaks to our desire to arrest time, to make a golden moment last longer.

This mode of sampling and the listening mode that developed out of it - it's a sort of anti-jazz appreciation of jazz. It subverts all the propositions and principles of the original music, the very process that generates the Good Bits in the first place. The sampler chucks away the improvisation and variations around the theme: all the lyrical unfolding and "going somewhere" that happens with the melody and the chords. Instead, the sampler fixates on a isolated section that's cut out of developmental sequence: a cutting (stem is the word, they use, right, remixers -  appropriately horticultural perhaps but is that even the right term, given that there's something axiomatically inorganic about digital logic?). The isolated bit is fetishized for its textures and warm tone, a chord shift maybe, and just the exquisite lightness of touch - but it's removed from where those original human hands took it next. It becomes mechanistic - a loop. Uncanny as a GIF.  It works through flow / anti-flow.

The souljazz sample is like a plush bit of a carpet fabric, a little patch of luxury, that is excised from a larger patterned rug.  

I wonder if Roni + crew heard "Daylight" first as an element in "Bonita Applebum" by A Tribe Called Quest? (A group I've never really got into). 

Here's something I don't recall hearing before - A Guy Called Gerald versus A Guy Called Roy. 

It appears to be  the title track of The Sunshine EP from 1991 - was this ever properly released? 

3/12 update - answer provided by Ciaran in comments: 

Here's a track sampling Roy's own version of "Everybody Loves the Sunshine"  with that thin reedy ecstatic synth-line that 4 Hero and their aliases spent a lifetime chasing... 

Another external project that Roy had a hand-in as co-producer and co-writer is Sylvia Striplin, whose "You Can't Turn Me Away" is another "Daylight"-level favorite of mine. 

This has also been sampled - I think by 4 Hero (a tiny snippet of the blippety groove) and more famously by Junior M.A.F.F.I.A.

Oh and by Smokey Joe here

Great name, Striplin

She was once a member of the group Aquarian Dream....  which is very Roy Ayers-ish.

Did not know about Roy's team-up with Fela Kuti

Ah, well that's where 4 Hero got the name for their broken beat label 2000 Black, then...

Oh and then there was this team-up with the Man himself

This is where it breaks down for me, as something that holds the ear...  the sampling procedure produces the new.... but just trying to do fusion, to play like the 70s bods they revere, or play with them.... it's redundant.  It (re)covers historical ground already covered. And after peak junglizm, it can only sound like a depletion in intensity. 

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

It's funny that the transmitter of such positive vibes played as his principal instrument the vibraphone. 

The Crystl Vision

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? 

Why yes it is!

(I once got sent to review Labyrinth - godawful it was)

the full circumference

 

Some kind of peak for jungle music

the ruff and the smooth, frenzy and elegance 

"big up all ghetto youth" versus silky wafting sounds like the EZ-listening that makes Harry Flowers say "turn it up, I like that tune"

jazzual menace, dubby flickers, "Think" palsy, soundtrackism 

future + retro 

somewhere between Size + Die "11.55" and Kruder & Dorfmeister

I don't know much at all about Hidden Agenda, but I recently saw this Melody Maker mini-feature go up at Nothingelseon

From Newcastle, of course. Gateshead, to be precise. 

The "cutting up grooves" rather than "cutting up breaks' bit is interesting.

"Is It Love?" came out in mid-1995

There was another year or so of great things - "Metropolis", the first run of No U Turn, the Full Cycle camp - and then something broke decisively

Seemed like everything became

ruff and nothing but (jump-up)

or

smooth and nothing but (liquid funk)

or 

anxious and itchy with sci-fi technicality (neuro) 

tracks that had "the full circumference" within them - the ruff, the smooth, the futuroid, the technical, the dark -  all within that one track - became vanishingly rare 

As for Hidden Agenda... never quite taken by anything else they did, to the same extent anyway. 

Always felt like they were one of the outfits who should have done a proper album.

Actually, checking, it appears they did. In 2000. With the wry title Whatever Happened To... that seems to acknowledge having missed their moment, taken too bleedin' long

Unless it's a Tynesiders nod to this beloved Britcom

"the only thing to look forward to / the past"

Ah well, certainly they liked to play up the Tyneside thing - naming a track after Get Carter, after all

Sadly one of the Goodings brothers passed in 2016 (Mark) - but it appears the other (Jason) has reactivated the name Hidden Agenda in the last few years and put out some more tunes. 

Platonic

Tracks that represent a kind of formal perfection for their genre-phase, through deployment of only four or five elements, in combo with negative space...  resulting in elegantly sculpted blocs of sound-color that gyrate with a peculiar serene grace (even at frantic h-core tempos) akin to a Kinder mobile 

Up there with Mondrian or Klee or something of that order

air breaks

I was thinking about the ways in which music seems to irresistibly provoke a mimetic physical response. 

Well, for some of us. 

Air guitar, air bass, air drumming - these are the big ones. But there's also air piano, air sax, air  trumpet, air trombone even... 

Certain kinds of music are particularly triggering. 

For me,  it's certain kinds of rock (not indie!), Certain kinds of jazz - fusion, jazz-rock, as opposed to Blue Note.  Music where there's a bit of a swagger, a performative flourish. But also where the music is hard-hitting, has a physicality to the impact as well as the playing.

Now this effect on listeners must surely have died out as music has become more digital - less about manually played instruments and more about click-and-drag, shunting information about on a screen.

There's no such thing as an "air" response to hip hop, is there? The mimetic response would be rapping along, which you'll see-hear in the street when someone is listening to rap or grime on headphones. I suppose one could imagine a mimetic impulse to trap drum patterns. But in practice, I think not - somehow the body knows that it's not a human hitting those drums. The physicality of impact, the pull on the body, is not paralleled by a physicality of execution. 

What got me thinking on this topic in the first place was playing some jungle and succumbing to the urge to mime out drum patterns - to do "air breakbeats".

Resulting, of course, in an absurd parody of actual drumming, based on things I've seen on TV - wrist-flexing, rimshot cracks, ride cymbal flutters...

That made me wonder if jungle really is unique among the digital-era musics in that it still has that capacity.

For instance, I can't imagine the mimetic impulse being triggered when listening to house or techno - anything propelled by a 909. 

Jungle - being based on samples of breaks, of hand-played drum patterns -  retains a musicality and humanity that can still pull at your limbs in this way. 

But with jungle, the mimesis is a bizarre distorted form of mirroring. You're responding to the human player still audible within the barrage of chopped-up, resequenced drum breaks - the ghost in the machine. But these are accelerated and hyper-syncopated beyond what the original player would be capable of, let alone flailing failing you.  So the element of wish-fulfilment is doubled. Two ghosts inhabit your flesh and take possession: the manual, near-automatized movements of the sampled drummer, and then the producer's edits, treatments and other decisions, which override and re-imprint the original performance. You feel the twin pull of funk and of superhumanization, and fall even further short than with regular "air drumming". 

postscript 11.25/2022

The unfinished thought here - the idea on the tip of my brain...

air guitar, air drums, air breaks, air whatever.... are they actually forms of dancing? 

Nerd dancing -  for those too physically awkward to get down.... but  who can model, or self-project, into the role of the one who makes others get down. 

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

postscript 11/22/2022 

Andrew Parker notes that "Maybe air-playing instruments is favoured by those who have no proficiency - their imaginings are unencumbered by technical knowledge." Although proficient in guitar and piano, he never air plays, precisely because  "When I listen to a fast passage.... I'm mindful of the technical demands and what they would require to be developed."  Good point: ignorance is prequisite for air anything! 

He also sends through a video of a drummer doing an authentically hectic and hyper-syncopated simulation of jungle breakbeats, showing that an exceptional human player can equal the "superhumanization" effect of breakbeat science 

If listening blind to this I would probably think it was a jungle track, except 1/ the rhythm switches up too often and 2/ I'd be wondering when the bass was going to make its entrance. After all, it's called drum and bass, not drum and drum...

The Finest

Wondrous epic mix project here from Selectabwoy. Four mixes + a bonus mix makes five, corralling almost everything Moving Shadow compatriots / allies Omni Trio and Foul Play touched during their extended '90s peak. Original tracks (A-sides, B-sides, tucked-away EP gems). Remixes they did of each other's tracks. Remixes they did of other artists's tracks. Remixes others artists did of their tracks. Pearls expertly strung together, brimming shimmering raptures intensified with artful transitions and overlays.

Simply put - the Finest Music of the '90s, all there for the downloading and delectation. 

Here's the tracklist (including a few things I'd somehow never heard)

 SIDE A 

Foul Play - Open Your Mind (Foul Play Remix)

Omni Trio - Feel Good (Original In Demand Mix)

Foul Play - Dubbing You

Omni Trio - Renegade Snares (Foul Play Remix)

Foul Play - Survival

Omni Trio - Original Soundtrack

Foul Play - Murder Most Foul

Haute Control - Future Stylin'

Foul Play - Screwface

Omni Trio - Stronger

4 Horsemen Of The Apocalypse - We Are The Future

Omni Trio - Mainline

Foul Play - Feel The Vibe (Again)

Splice - Falling (In Dub)

Foul Play - Finest Illusion (Illegal Mix)

Omni Trio - Step Off (Gold Blend Mix)

SIDE B

Omni Trio - Nu Grooves '94

Foul Play - Strung Out

Omni Trio - Rollin' Heights

4 Horsemen Of The Apocalypse - Drowning In Her (Phantasy & Aphrodite Remix)

Foul Play - Total Control (Origin Unknown Remix)

Omni Trio - Renegade Snares (Foul Play VIP Remix)

Omni Trio - Thru The Vibe (Bongo Mix)

Foul Play - Ignorance

Foul Play - Chrysalis

Omni Trio - Living For The Future (FBD Project Remix)

Omni Trio - Soul Promenade

Omni Trio - Feel Good '95

Foul Play - Being With You (E-Z Rollers Remix)

Foul Play - Cuttin' Loose

SIDE C

Haute Control - Dream Series (Volume 1)

Splice - Hold Me

Foul Play - The Alchemist

4 Horsemen Of The Apocalypse - We Are The Future (Darren Jay Mix)

Omni Trio - Feel Better (Foul Play Remix)

Splice - Bus In (Strawberries)

Foul Play - Dub In U (Remix)

Foul Play - Ragatere

Foul Play - Open Your Mind (Nookie Remix)

Foul Play - Survival (Remix)

Foul Play - Ricochet (No Stopping The Remix)

Omni Trio - Future Frontier

Bug Kann & The Plastic Jam - Made In Two Minutes (Foul Play Remix)

Haute Control - Drum & Bass Collision

Omni Trio - Renegade Snares (Original Mix)

SIDE D

Nookie - The Sound Of Music (Foul Play Remix)

Omni Trio - Be There

The Terrorist - Sing Time (Foul Play Remix)

Omni Trio - Nu Grooves '94 (Deep Blue Remix)

Foul Play - Karma Pt. 2

Foul Play - Being With You (Foul Play Remix)

Foul Play - Being With You (Van Kleef Remix)

Omni Trio - Soul Freestyle

Omni Trio - Ghost Rider

E-Z Rollers - Believe (Foul Play Remix)

Omni Trio - Renegade Snares (Rob's Reconstruction Mix)

Omni Trio - Soul Of Darkness (Promenade '96 Rollout)

DJ Pulse - So Fine (Omni Trio Remix)

Foul Play - The Stepper (Remix)

Omni Trio - Torn

BONUS MIX

Foul Play - Artificial Intelligence

London Steppers - Nu Grooves

Omni Trio - London Step

Foul Play - Beats Track

DJ Pulse - Stay Calm (Foul Play Remix)

Hyper On Experience - Lord Of The Null Lines (Foul Play & Randall Remix)

Omni Trio - Shadowplay

Omni Trio - Rollin' Heights (More Strings Attached Mix)

Omni Trio - Soul Promenade (Nookie Remix)

Omni Trio - Living For The Future (FBD Project VIP Remix)

Foul Play - Being With You

Foul Play - Cuttin' Loose (Remix)

Foul Play - Re-Open Your Mind '95

4 Horsemen Of The Apocalypse - We Are The Future (Two Dreads In A Dub Mix)

4 Horsemen Of The Apocalypse - Drowning In Her (4 Horsemen Mix)

JMJ & Richie - Hall of Mirrors (Omni Trio Remix)

Rap attack

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

rewind revival

Michaelangelo Matos reports on the resurgence of D+B for the Rinsin' Stone

 "Some of this is due to TikTok, where artists like the young British vocalist PinkPantheress — who sampled Adam F’s drum-and-bass classic “Circles” for her viral hit “Break It Off” — and piri, whose sprightly, slinky liquid D&B single “soft spot” has now passed 12 million Spotify plays, got their first boosts."

But DJs are playing it out in the clubs too apparently. 

"The surge is worldwide — from Indonesia to Australia — but the U.S. has been particularly voracious for drum and bass." 

Fun quote from Goldie:

 “I’ve just been on a film shoot, and somebody said, ‘My dad played me this music", proving, sez Mr Rufige, that that D+B is now “the new Motown.”

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Meanwhile Rob Chapman drops another full-phat slab of back-in-the-day pirate thunder 'n' joy from the Manchester area - Sting FM's Bushman & Shadrac (probably) from June '94, 2 hours of rufftuff mix madness

Stop press: and here's another superphat slab from Mr Chapman dropped today - from July 1994, the Love Energy Revolution Crew deejays, including DJ Direct plus a Spin Inn Jungle top 10   - "better believe"

Energy Flash blogg - where it's always '94 (and '92, and '93, and sometimes '91 and '90, and occasionally '95, '96, or '88 / 89) - no reviving here, it's never stopped rotating 

Bigging up all Incus cru (drum & Bailey / Derek 'n' bass)

Some years ago I posted here about Derek Bailey's jungle CD with DJ Ninj - Guitar, Drums n Bass, from 1996 - and how it was a bit underwhelming, not because of DB's contributions to the fray, but really the other chap (not exactly the junglistic equivalent of Bennink or Bailey himself for that matter) 

What was really exciting about the whole surprise of "DB into jungle!" thing was that Bailey had  discovered jungle by accident, just through stumbling on the pirates while scrolling down the radio dial, and there was the mind blowing revelation that he liked to jam with the ruff 'n' rugged choppage coming out the speakers. 

Well, someone's only gone and found a cassette of him doing exactly that! And they've put it out (at a name-yer-price rate). Hat tip to Jon Dale for alerting to me this archival gem - wittily titled Domestic Jungle. 

Here's the Scatter Archive release rationale from Bandcamp, which starts with the same Stefan Jaworzyn interview transcript that I used in my blogpost :

DB plays with radio for a while - horrible noise drowns out our voices on the tape) 

"The station's not there now - usually they've started by 5.30... They've no announcements - when they go off it just stops, when they come on it just blasts in... It's enormously loud - I get it accidentally sometimes when I'm just fucking about.

"So I've been listening to it, and I really like the way they do it on the radio - I have to say that in recent times it seems to have got softer, a lot less abrasive in some ways. There are more vocal samples, for example... But what I like about the radio is the live quality - although the stuff is records, they don't leave them alone - they'll talk over them, advertise gigs, order a pizza - the music's constant but with interruptions. It's very live - and with that sustained pace, which of course is inhuman... And it's nice to play along with, particularly as opposed to free jazz situations where the pace is often very slow.

"I've found it fantastic to practice with. So for a long time I've been doing that...

:I've always liked the parts where the music stops and drifts along - you get some ridiculous string orchestra, then it just slips a bit, the pitch goes or they slow it down or something. Then the drums come back - it's completely meaningless! I like that...

"What is a pain and can sometimes dilute it is the repetitive - looped or sampled - vocals... The funny thing is, I've never heard a jungle record, all I've heard has been off the radio..." Derek Bailey [talking to Stefan Jaworzyn]

these are private home recordings which were copied (on Derek's frequently idiosyncratic cassette duplicator) and posted out to interested individuals

except for tracks 08 and 09, which were originally released on David Toop's compilation "Guitars on Mars" [1997], the collection here comes from two different tapes and the sound quality is [inevitably] wildly variable, but does allow a fascinating and valuable historical insight into a particular period of Derek's domestic practice routine

audio restoration by Jim McEwan

with thanks to Karen Brookman, David Toop and Stefan Jaworzyn

^^^^^^^^^^^^

How funny that Bailey doesn't care for the ambient jungle / artcore drift into musicality - "I have to say that in recent times it seems to have got softer, a lot less abrasive in some ways. There are more vocal samples, for example... What is a pain and can sometimes dilute it is the repetitive - looped or sampled - vocals".

He prefers it ruff and rugged. 

Also likes the MC element - the random everyday demotic banter and nonsense

The Dark Enshitenment

More neuroshame!

Exhibit 1 - the Graphic Language of Neurofunk

 

The gas mask / chemical warfare protection imagery seems to be a bit of a visual trope signifier thingy with this genre - wonder if it some kind of slippage of nerve gas / neurochemical

also fits the "military are the avant-garde of science" type vibe as clearly part of the fantasy self-conception of neurofunk producers (see quotes below in Exhibit 4)

Interesting to see that you can get samplepaks with all the drum sounds, bass tones and synth pads to get the correct neurofunk finish to your tracks. Even Industrial Strength - a gabber label - getting in on the action there. 

Exhibit 2:  The Neurofunk Canon - a selection

from the Dogsonacid thread, tunes commonly agreed to be zeniths of the form 

Konflict - Messiah

 

Rregula & Dementia - Humans

 

N.Phect - Voices 

 

Catacomb feat. Kantyze & Morebeat - Hammer 

 

Sinthetix - Cryogenic

 

Corrupt Souls - Torque

 Insecticide · Proktah and Future Signal

 

Glitch and SST - Ten Plagues

Sinthetix and N.Phect strike me as the ultimate neurofunk names

Exhibit 3

A comp that 8 or 9 years later fulfilled my fantasies of Neurofunk Flavas, more or less: 

DJ Step – Neurofunk Pleasures

Label: MacroVision Records – MV-169

Series: Drum'N'Bass Vision

Format: CD, Mixed, Digipak

Country: Russia

Released: 2006

1              Unknown Artist–              Queen Of The Night        3:22

2              Rawtekk–            Open Borders    2:40

3              Jade (10)–           Bitch      3:46

4              Amex & Kaiza–  Sourcream          2:30

5              Kryptic Minds & Leon Switch–    More Like You (Unknown Error Remix)

6              Current Value– Mind Bullet         3:44

7              N-Phonix–          Transfix 2:08

8              N.Phect, Dizplay*–          Outspace             3:33

9              N.Phect, Phace–               Confront              2:07

10           Mayhem (7), Codex (9)– Conform?            3:22

11           Unknown Artist–              Untitled               4:14

12           Stakka, Skynet* & DJ Red–           9000 Series         2:26

13           Munk– Spearhead          2:09

14           Optiv–  Circa      1:45

15           Silent Witness, Break*– Hollow  1:57

16           Break–  Catch Off             1:45

17           Afghan Headspin–           Stay Young          1:56

18           N.Phect, Dizplay*–          Brute Force         1:56

19           Gridlok–               Fifth Dimension 1:13

20           Brainfuzz, Kenei–             Welcome To The Game 1:56

21           Prolix–  Choke   2:27

22           Budoka–              Whiplash (Remix)            1:24

23           State Of Mind (8)–           Money Train       2:06

24           Nico (4), Rukkus–             Smartbomb        1:24

25           Noisia & Phace–               Thrillseekers      1:55

26           Rob F & Impulse (3)–      Fallout  2:31

 

Exhibit 4 - from the horse's mouth

From a UKF feature by Dave Jenkins about how 2015 was a great year for neurofunk

quotes presumably from leading producers and/or deejays

"Neurofunk to me: you wake up, it’s 2pm it’s already dark, you get your breakfast and sit in front of a big computer. You don’t talk to anyone, all you can think of is yesterday’s frequency and you start working around it. It’s a lifestyle that’s similar to hackers; you’re surrounded by technology, you’re obsessed with searching. You’re inventing and you’ll never stop. You’re not social too much. You’re more of a scientist”. – Billain

 "To me neurofunk is a way of life, since I’ve been producing it I’ve been no longer able to listen to the music in a “standard” way, you become a kind of scientist who analyzes and makes experiments in laboratory daily, you become the neurofunk”. – Maztek

 

also from the feature 

 Neuro: the church of sound design

The key characteristic of neuro: sound design. Noises you’ve never heard before, mixed at degrees of clarity previously unknown to producers before. We’ll let the masters explain why sound design in neuro is so exciting….

 

Exhibit 5 - Noisia - the most noisome sound in the world!

 

Noisia - Noisia - Split the Atom 

Noisia - Mantra (Official Video)

How strange to think that a genre that once meant things like Dillinja "Sovereign Melody" or Code 071 "London Sumting Dis"  could end up with this rank wank....

Exhibit 6: The Neurofunk Canon

The Dogsonacid dude Gilius's list of the neurofunk canon and the chronology of the genre's emergence and consummation 

1997

 

Ed Rush & Optical - Funktion

Ed Rush & Optical - Razorback

Jesus Jones - Chemical #1 (Optical Remix)

Optical - The Shining

 

1998

 

Absolute Zero & Subphonics - The Code

Bad Company - The Nine

Calyx - Distopia

Calyx - Octane

Calyx - Reaction Time

Calyx - The Root

E-Z Rollers - Weekend World (Calyx Remix)

Ed Rush & Optical - Compound

Ed Rush & Optical - Slip Thru

Ed Rush & Optical - Splinter

Ed Rush & Optical - The Medicine

Fibre Optix - Sin

Optical - Can U Read

Origin Unknown - Sound In Motion

Psion - Reverse Engineering

Ram Trilogy - Scanners

 

1999

 

Acetate - Nyquest '99

Bad Company - 4 Days

Bad Company - China Cup

Bad Company - Morphine

Bad Company - Refuge

Bad Company - Seizure

Cause 4 Concern - Phat Cap

Decorum - All Mighty

Decorum - Contrax

Decorum - In Sanity

DJ Reality - Music Maker (Shimon Remix)

EBK - Vision

Ed Rush & Optical - Bacteria

Ed Rush & Optical - Funktion (Remix)

Filibuster - Don't Give Up

Fortran - Sardines (Bad Company Remix)

Fresh & Vegas - Meekon

Grooverider - Where`s Jack the Ripper (Origin Unknown Remix)

Grooverider feat. Optical - Where's Jack The Ripper

Hopa & Bones & DJ Phantasy - The Crow (Stakka & Skynet Electronic Dub Mix)

Karl K - Synapse (Konflict Remix)

Karl K - Synapse

Kemal - Animation

Kemal - Mechanism

Konflict & Usual Suspects - Contact

Konflict - Bad Acid

Konflict - Cyanide

Konflict - Outpost

Konflict - Phobia

Konflict - Roadblock (Matrix Remix)

Konflict - Roadblock

Konflict - State of Mind

Kraken - Analogue Spikes

Kraken - Meatball

Kraken - Side Effects

Magnetic Media - Robotics

Matrix - Six

Matrix - Sleepwalk

Matrix - Temperament

Optical - The Shining (Ed Rush & Optical Remix)

Pantera - Fucking Hostile (Kemal & Rob Data Remix)

Pressure Rise - Let Go (Usual Suspects Instrumental Mix)

Pressure Rise - Let Go (Usual Suspects Remix)

Pressure Rise - Stranger (Bad Company Remix)

Psidream - Dystrophy

Ram Trilogy - Flip the Traps

Ram Trilogy - Human Future

Ram Trilogy - Iron Lung

Ram Trilogy - Snake Bite

Ram Trilogy - System Error (Y2K)

Ram Trilogy - Terminal 2

Ram Trilogy - Time Chamber

Shorn Doda - Merky

Shorn Doda - Red

Spy - Vapour

Spy - Z-Plane

Stakka & K-Tee - Synthesis

Stakka & Skynet - Pathogen

The Playboy Revolutionary - Burning Chrome (Matrix remix)

 

2000

 

4 Red Eyes - Signal

Absolute Zero & Subphonics - The Code (Usual Suspects Remix)

Absolute Zero & Subphonics - The Code (Usual Suspects VIP)

Accidental Heroes - Sirus

Acetate - Genetic Engineering

Acetate - Platinum

Andy C & Moving Fusion - Foul Mouth

Appleseed - Please The Keys (Rascal & Klone Remix)

Arkane - Fever

Bad Company - Brain-Scan

Bad Company - Colonies

Bad Company - Dead-Side

Bad Company - Navajo

Bad Company - Night-Train

Bad Company - Rotor

Bad Company - Sentient

Bad Company - Son of Nitrous

Bad Company - Trick of the Light

Black Sun Empire - Skin Deep

Black Sun Empire - Voltage

Boomish - Philly Steak (Matrix Remix)

Budoka - The Unseen

Calyx - Catapult

Calyx - Decompression

Carlito Ft. Rascal & Klone - Like it Like That

Cause 4 Concern - Angel Dust

Cause 4 Concern - Develop

Cause 4 Concern - Epox (Remix)

Cause 4 Concern - Future Funk

Cause 4 Concern - Just Cause

Cause 4 Concern - Projection

Chris.Su - Angel

Chris.Su - Time Warp

Decoder - Bountyhunter

Decoder - Defender

Decoder - Scissorhands

Decoder - Silent

Decoder - Tag

Drum Kru - Thin Air

E-Sassin - Wireframe (TeeBee's Total Transformation Mix)

EB1 - Mamba

EB1 - Shiver

Ed Rush & Optical - Crash

Ed Rush & Optical - Fastlane (Alternative Mix)

Ed Rush & Optical - Syringe

Gridlok - Dilusion

Gridlok - Soul Sucker

Hybridz - Eyewall

Juju feat. Lisa Talev - B-Juice - (Skynet Remix)

Kemal & Paul Reset - Kontempt

Kemal & Rob Data - Hybrid

Kemal & Rob Data - Konspiracy VIP

Kemal & Rob Data - Konspiracy

Kemal & Rob Data - Lime

Kemal & Rob Data - Star Trails

Kemal & Rob Data - Test Tube

Kemal & Rob Data - The Mummy

Kemal - Animation (Konflict's Re-Animation Mix)

Klute - Phone Call (Matrix Remix)

Konflict - Celestial

Konflict - Maelstrom

Konflict - Messiah

Konflict - New World Order

Konflict - Obsidian

Konflict - Pendulum

Konflict - The Beckoning (Usual Suspects Remix)

Konflict - The Beckoning

Kosheen - Demonstrate (Decoder & Substance remix)

Kosheen - Empty Skies (Decoder & Substance Mix)

Kraken - Side Effects (Stakka & Skynet Remix)

Kraken - Spinal Chord

Kraken - Spinal Cord (Remix)

Matrix & Fierce - Climate

Matrix & Fierce - Tightrope

Matrix, Fierce & Ryme Tyme - Light Sleeper

Mo-Funk - Slipstream

nCode - Traction

Profound Noize - Luminous (Remix)

Profound Noize - Nu-Level (Remix)

Q Project - Champion Sound (Bad Company Remix)

Ram Trilogy - Incarnate

Ram Trilogy - Reflection (Shimon Remix)

Ram Trilogy - Reflection

Ram Trilogy - Undergrowth

Random Soundz - Pulverize

Rascal & Klone - Love Story

Rascal & Klone - The Source

Red One - Hotwire

Red One - Kung Fu Fresh

Red One - Playground

Red One - What You See

Sonic & Perfect Combination - Structure

Sonic - Aspect

Sonic - Dark Star

Sonic - Destination

Sonic - Hostage

Sonic - Nautilus

Sonic - Octagon

Sonic - Termite

Stakka & K-Tee - Auto Ignition

Stakka & K-Tee - Synthesis (Remix)

Stakka & K-Tee - Territorial

Stakka & Skynet - Clockwork

Stakka & Skynet - Global Report

Stakka & Skynet - Logistics

Stakka & Skynet - Molecular

Stakka & Skynet - Nightlore

Stakka & Skynet - RF Freq

Stakka & Skynet feat. Keaton - Isolation

State of Play - Poor Mans Deal (Konflict Remix)

State of Play - Searchin (Matrix Remix)

Static-X - Love Dump (Optical Remix)

Stratus - Let's Go Crazy (Skynet Remix)

Substrata - Sunlight Into Shadow

TeeBee - Future War

TeeBee - Gathering Of Developers

TeeBee - Gravity Distortion

TeeBee - Let Go

TeeBee - The Execution

TeeBee - The Gateway

TeeBee - Unknown Approach

Tha Countamen & Alley Cat - Payload (Konflict Remix)

UFO! - My Personal Blackmail (Konflict Remix)

Usual Suspects - Killa Bees (Konflict Remix)

Usual Suspects - Shrapnel (Stakka & Skynet Remix)

If someone was to  make a playlist of all this stuff, then I would... probably listen to the Caravan box set instead. Much better use of my time. 

 

 

"I curse-christen thee... Neurofunk! May you go forth and wither"

One of my more successful coinages - strangely - is neurofunk. Unlike the even more flourishing post-rock (a term that existed for decades prior to me repurposing it) as far as I know I came up with that term whole-cloth. And what's more - I discovered recently - I actually came up with it almost a decade before applying to a phase of drum 'n 'bass. In this live review of Meat Beat Manifesto from 1989.

"The neuro-funk ideas of the early Eighties" - well, that makes sense because one of the things that I said about neurofunk the drum 'n' bass substyle in The Wire nuum-piece is that its dank fixated aura, its clinical feel and (f)rigidity, reminded me of Cabaret Voltaire, Front 242, et al...  

So the term must have lodged itself in the back of my brain after that one use in '89, waiting latent to be reactivated when it was next needed. 

Once re-loosed into the world, the term achieved traction. And still has currency even now - I believe there is a forum dedicated to the genre online; producers make neurofunk tracks; exponents and fans debate what's neuro and what's not neuro.  

Yes, I'm as surprised as you are.

Take this discussion at the Dogs On Acid forum. This fellow Gilius wants to get a debate going on what defines the genre kicks off with the parameters of the style as he sees them. A key one is that true neurofunk expunges the Amen breakbeat from the music completely (Amens had continued to be an element in techstep, the immediate precursor to neurofunk)

"In late 1997 Optical - considered by many to be one of the greatest DnB producers/pioneers - began experimenting with what we now know to be the Neurofunk style of DnB. And it's worth mentioning that he was one of the few artists at the time to have been producing DnB music without amens since around 1994.

"Optical appears to have been the only artist to have produced Neurofunk in 1997 - perhaps in collaboration with Ed Rush. The first Neurofunk track is often considered to be To Shape The Future (or it's remix), but I personally think that only The Shining (released 10/11/97) and Funktion (released 16/12/97; with Ed Rush) qualifies.

"What is interesting about the early history of Neurofunk is that contrary to Techstep only a few artists appeared to have had the technology (what exactly?) and perhaps skill(?) required to produce such cutting edge experimental electronic sounds. This fact alone means that Neurofunk is a cut above Techstep, and so it should be easy to differentiate between them...."

There follows a long list of exponents, year by year emerging in increasing number, as well as the  key tracks ... but we'll skip that as the music is almost certainly deadening shite, and get on to the interesting bit, which is when the commenter takes issue with, well, with moi -  only the bleedin' coiner of the term!

"In 1999 Techstep began to change as Amens were dropped from most productions, but that did not mean every Techstep track automatically became Neurofunk just because they had funk sounds without Amens. Most tracks in the Simon Reynold's article (in hindsight) simply do not qualify to be called Neurofunk

"The laymen's definition of Neurofunk might be Techstep with funk sounds albeit coupled with a few more clauses:

*A whole new quality of sound compared to the "tinny" sounds of Techstep, with specially engineered bass

*An engine of "rolling" (and not so much "stepping") that is very consistent from start to finish instead of just momentary injections of funk sounds

*Predominantly non-amen

Dude then starts going into this whole golden age of neurofunk that starts when the already neuro-Euro-sounding genre gets taken up by European producers: 

"It's around 2002 that Neurofunk suddenly starts to gain tremendous popularity - coinciding with Russian (and other European) producers appearing on the scene after TAM record label was established the previous year, etc. These guys contributed so many ideas to the experimental aspect of Neurofunk, with tracks described as "Future sound", and (one might argue) too ahead of their time to even be considered for release by mainstream record labels. We are talking about artists like..."

Again we'll skip that list and later lists too:

"With so many producers on-board globally and with greater separation from Techstep than ever before, the number of productions began to soar exponentially in 2003 onwards, leaving behind a treasure trove of forgotten dubplates for the period 2003-2010 (if they were not lost to hard drive crashes).

2010/11 is considered to be the golden year of Neurofunk with tracks like "The Hammer" by Catacomb, Morebeat & Kantyze - but that would not have happened without the Eastern European involvement IMO in the years leading up to it - and it would certainly not have happened without Corrupt Souls from the US, formed out of Sinthetix, who came on the scene in 2004. The rest is history!

Note: after 2011 Neurofunk sadly began a steady decline, but there are still producers out there, and the sound has been described as evolving further into Energostep/Electrotech (unofficial terms for now).

Energostep  - good luck with that one, mate! (Although neurofunk is honestly not much better)

Of course, I hadn't noticed any of that -  the waxing and waning of neurofunk. Its prime occurred long after I stopped paying attention. I wonder if any of it could possibly be worth hearing? I'm almost tempted to check it out... but nah! 

See the joke of it is that I fastened on the off-putting clammy-sounding term - which resurfaced in my brain and seemed like an all-new word that had come to me, but clearly not, as I've discovered recently -  in the anticipation that some label would promptly issue a Neurofunk Flavas compilation and this would help to hasten the supersession of the sound, which left  me cold, and that everyone would move on to some other direction hopefully more to my liking. 

Instead, neurofunk only goes and prospers, propagates, enjoys another 13 or 14 years of vigorous and fecund life.  Pah!

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ 

As it happens, someone recently asked me about neurofunk for a project they were doing - here is my memory of how it came to be and what defined it, in my eyes / ears. 

What were the key stylistic differences between neurofunk and techstep?

Techstep, in the No U Turn sense, was a more bombastic, blaring sound  - something like “Squadron” is archetypal techstep. Doomy and with this simmering sense of latent explosion.  

Nico the maestro / engineer of No U Turn fed the bass through a guitar-distortion pedal and some of their tunes actually remind me of the apocalyptic postpunk / Goth group Killing Joke, particularly their sound circa Revelations.

Neurofunk evolves out of techstep – the chugging, simple beat is the same – but in neurofunk it becomes more rigid  - the way it makes your body move is like jack-knifing at the waist. And the whole feel of the music is more neurotic and inhibited. The archetypal track would be Jonny L’s “Piper”.

Neurofunk also had this kind of scientific aura – you could see that shift come through in the artist names and track littles – Genetix, Virus, Wormhole etc.

If techstep has an aggressive punk energy (as well as K.Joke's doomfunk I also think of Black Sabbath, the Stooges etc), then neuro is closer to the danceable side of industrial and Electronic Body Music – groups like Cabaret Voltaire, Front 242, etc.   Lots of cold, slimy electronic textures.

I feel like techstep rocks out, whereas neurofunk is more repressed and clinical. The ultimate neurofunk name is Technical Itch. That perfectly captures the mentality of the makers of the music, and how it makes the listener feel.

 How much was neurofunk's formation and evolution away from jungle a representative of changes in society and the community that it grew up around?

Well, it feels fairly obvious and undeniable that the music was becoming whiter. You had the dropping away of any reggae element in the music (no more rolling roots reggae basslines or dancehall bouncy kind of B-lines), no more samples from Jamaican singers or ragga MCs.  But also hip hop gradually dropped away, in terms of vocals samples. The breakbeats got simpler and the whole feel of the music was linear. You also didn't get the very musical syncopated relationship between the half-speed basslines and the breaks anymore. 

 “Linear fastplod” is how I described it on my blog once. The feel was less internally turbulent and polyrhythmic, and more like an endless chase scene.  Words like “rinse out” and “mash up” no longer applied, that feeling of collapse in the music.

I think this must have something to do with the gradual demographic shift with drum and bass picking up a following among students. It also became more of a nationwide scene in the last years of the ‘90s. Before that it had been clustered in London and a few other cities with a multiracial population – Bristol, Coventry, Leicester, etc. It started to become an international phenomenon too. So you get this kind of feedback process – the DJs pick up on what the audience is responding to, and this governs both the productions they make themselves, if they produce tracks, or the kind of tunes that they make into dubplates when offered tracks on DAT by their coterie of producers. It costs money to make a dubplate, you’re not going to bother if it doesn’t sound like a track that will work in a dance. And the audience, by their reactions, govern what tunes get repeat-play. Plus it affects sales too, which is another form of feedback that influences labels in their A&R decisions and what tunes to make the A-side of a release.  So it becomes a kind of cycle -a gradually whiter audience, leads to a whiter sound, which then draws more white people (and pushes out black listeners, who might drift into other scenes that still value groove, syncopation, diva samples, licks or tonalities derived from ‘70s fusion and 80s soul-funk etc –  they migrate to UK garage, broken beat, R&B etc).

 How much has neurofunk's evolution from the late 90s to the present day been a representative of the technological shift in terms of production that the music industry has seen?

I haven’t been following drum and bass very closely in the 21^st Century so I couldn’t say anything about that. It does seem like generally with electronic music, the level of intricacy in arrangement and production has gone through the roof, and there’s a huge emphasis on sound design – a lot of beats that feel 3D, like the kind of sounds you get in CGI-heavy movies or in videogames.

I am just surprised that the term “neurofunk” has stuck. I came up with it partly because I needed a name for the piece and I wanted to capture what I felt was the defining quality of the music – this neurotic, anxious,compulsiveness. While I could recognize the technical accomplishment of the music and was really impressed by a few examples of it (Jonny L’s stuff, a few things by Grooverider, Optical) for the most part I didn’t really care for it as a direction.   I think semi-consciously I hoped that someone would rip off the term and do a compilation with Neurofunk in the name – and it would help to hasten the end of that direction! 

I guess Bad Company were kind of a move away from neurofunk back to a more aggressive, riff-based sound (a bit like No U Turn but less blaring and bombastic) and the fact that they shared their name with a ‘70s rock megagroup that played arenas seemed really appropriate.  But generally it seemed like by the early 2000s your choice was either the linear fastplod sound with increasingly baroque basslines OR a much smaller scene of pretty tepid sounding liquid funk Fabio type d&B.  There was a little micro-scene of “back to chopped-to-fuck breakbeats” that recovered my interest a little, but it didn’t seem to go anywhere. Oh and running parallel but really a different scene altogether, there was breakcore – but that was just mostly too daft to dance to.  

 Although being founded in London, why more than any other sub-genre of drum and bass, has neurofunk found such a global appeal, particularly in Europe, while in England its appeal has stagnated?

I’m just speculating here but the fact that it's a whiter sound and connects with the sound palette and vibe of other genres like industrial, hard techno, even trance to a degree, would help to explain why it’s become international.  In a similar way, dubstep went international when it gradually lost most of its sonic connection to roots reggae and dub. It became this cold, hard sound with these blasting basslines that sounded very inorganic and 21^st Century.

 ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

an earlier post of mine marveling at the uncanny persistence of Neurofunk (showing my own static churn maybe)