stepping to the front in '95 - DJ SS + Formation

in sideways tribute to Man like Droid's Dissensus thread which argues for 1995 as jungle's imperial phase -  when jungle was most like itself and unlike anything else, as he puts it -  and strews many, many gems to prove the peak-year thesis... here is a vintage '95 featurette about one of that year's most imperial producers plus an album review of a compilation of the cream from his label Formation. 

DJ SS

Melody Maker, 1995

by Simon Reynolds

                

1995 was a banner year for DJ SS. 25 year old Leroy Small dropped a bomb-load of  monster tunes-- "Hearing Is Believing", "The Lighter", "Smoker's Rhythm", "The Rollidge", "95 Rampage"-- that tore up the hardstep dancefloor.

Then again, there's never really been a slow year for SS. He's been at the frontline of  hardcore since 1991, both as co-founder of Leicester-based hardcore label Formation and as a prolific tunesmith operating under myriad aliases (Sounds of The Future, International Rude Boys, Rhythm For Reasons, MA1 and MA2, etc). As Formation's in-house producer, he's had a hand in all but 5 out of the 65 releases to date.

SS started DJ-ing at the age of 13, working his way up through school discos, soul, hip hop, early house, in a "natural progression" that took him to hardcore rave. "In the rave scene I saw so many hooligans I knew that were happy and dancing". This rave-revelation co-incided with SS's alienation from hip hop: the British rap crews weren't really happening, while "Public Enemy and NWA were preaching the wrong things, harking on about past crimes against black people, captivating the audience in the wrong way. Recently I've got back into the more groovy stuff in rap, like Wu Tang Clan, and I've always had hip hop flavour in my music, with the breakbeats. But I don't like the gangsta element, that's too like the ragga gunshot thing".



Ragga-jungle is something that Formation have consciously distanced themselves from. "In '94, the ragga thing was big but I wasn't  into it. I took the basslines and a stab of ragga vocal but I refused to do a full-on ragga chat over my tracks". SS doesn't like the vibe ragga creates. "Jungle just got too dark, too intimidating. There's been a lot of trouble in the Midlands, shootings. People don't want to worry about treading on someone's toes or giving someone a funny look. It's the promoters' fault, they should bar them kind of people from coming to their clubs, but they're just interested in money. DJ's and producers are to blame too, for putting gunshots in tracks."

Definitely no gunshots, then, but boombastic B-lines, eerily warped vocals, portentous hunting-horns and shlocky intros of classical music all figure as hallmarks of SS's style. "Hearing Is Believing Remix" and "Rollers' Convention", in particular, brilliantly reconciled avant-garde edge with crowdpleasing groove-power. As such, SS is a prime exponent of 'hardstep', Grooverider's term for the purist drum & bass style that cuts a middle path between rudeboy ragga and 'intelligent'. "Hardstep's got no ragga in it, but people step hard to it," says SS. "See, my only qualms about intelligent is that musically it's wicked but often it's sounds weak on the dancefloor. Formation tracks have got to be rolling." As his hardstep peers, SS gives the nod to Roni Size & Krust,  Dillinja, Hype, Andy C, Pascal, and Ray Keith ("his stuff is so simple, but it works!").

That said, SS is looking for Formation to get more "musical" next year, with real vocals and songs, as with the forthcoming cover version of "Free".  "People buying our stuff know what they're getting, we've got a little predictable and it's time for a change". Okay, but don't get too 'musical', SS, please! Because right now Formation have hit their stride with a perfect blend of complexity and minimalism, which can be heard on  Highly Recommended, a compilation that revisits and drastically remixes highlights from the label's brilliant '95. 

"Highly Recommended" is out now on Formation, new SS tunes "Free" and "Sense of Direction" are set for early 1996 release. SS's remix of DJ Krust's "Set Speed" is out now on V Recordings.

VARIOUS ARTISTS

HIGHLY RECOMMENDED

Formation

Melody Maker, 1995

by Simon Reynolds

DJ SS, in-house producer of Leicester's Formation label, is one of jungle's

most undersung figures. 1995 was a banner year for both SS and Formation. They

dominated the drum & bass dancefloor with a series of killa trax--MA2's "Hearing

Is Believing", Sounds of The Future's "The Lighter", SS's "Rollidge" and In

Between The Lines' "95 Rampage"--all SS-produced, and all revisited/revamped on

Highly Recommended.

"Lighter" starts daftly with the rinky-dinky melancholia of top classical

piano tune "Fur Elise" (better known as "Theme From 'Love Story'"), then drops

into a ragga-tastic swagger and pummel; the VIP remix injects a feverish stutter

and stammer into the rude-boy "lighter!!" chant. The LP mix of "Hearing Is

Believing" adds a squelchy bass-drone that mimics or maybe even samples "Public

Enemy Number One" from PE's debut album. The original's portentous

hunting-horn fanfares are timestretched so they wilt and waver like Salvador

Dali's melting clocks, while the irresistibly surging bass-flow has been

displaced by a metallic, sproinggg-ing B-line, like a bouncing, giant-sized ball-

bearing.

The revamp of "Rollidge" is astonishing; the breakbeats ripple and undulate

like they've been liquidified, and the original's reversed-diva is slowed and

processed 'til it's like a baritone drowning in the bath.



Even more startling are the voice treatments on "95 Rampage", where the diva-vocal is extruded into a long thin streak of laser-intense light, then a single syllable is isolated and

oscillated into a spasming percussive tattoo. 



Less familiar tunes are also given a vicious going-over.  Black's awesome VIP Mix of "Black" features some ear-confounding dub-FX--a snatch of MC chatter is shattered into syllables, each

of which is scattered through a sonic hall-of-mirrors.

While 'intelligent' drum & bass (Goldie, Photek et al) seduced the ears of

non-junglists and music press readers, Highly Recommended is an essential(ist)

document of where the real action was in jungle '95, i.e. the purist

strain of drum & bass known as 'hardstep'.  This compilation's title says it all.

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

Scattering of gems from the Formation / SS back pages













Formation tunes feature heavily on this great DB selected-and-mixed compilation of 1994 as one of the UK's  Big Five hardcore/jungle labels alongside Moving Shadow, Suburban Base, Reinforced, and Production House

only you slow down (donut is a feeling)

this lovely slice of smoov-jungle



has the same gorgeous mellow house-infused vibe as this even lovelier tune - one of my all-time absolute faves of the era  - so slinky



And as if recognising the vibe-ual affinity, YouTube segued straight into it before I even made the selection myself

Met Gavin Cheung aka Nookie early in '94 -  round at Goldie's England's Lane tower block flat

Immortal for this tune above all  - another all-time fave



"you know House is a feeling"

Keeping the house ancestry alive within the hardcore and the junglizm - that was his thing, Nookie / Cloud 9



But he also did tunes like this - whence the "hardcoouooor" whimper-vocal as used in Mark Leckey's Fiorrucci Made Me Hardcore - although he might have got from another track that used it, I think there were several....





And this goofy one



Never noticed before that the daft vocal lick is human beatboxing



Man like Gavin could do that bliss-2-dark distraught-diva ecstasy-edging-dysphoria hectic-histrionic fever rather well

But lover's jungle (perhaps that's why he chose the alter-ego Nookie) was his forte

Did a lot of very nice piano-based tunes that are just a little bit too uplifting maybe



That one is faultless though.

Remodelled for 94



These are a bit too bright 'n bouncy






Ooh but this next one is a classic - and gets the balance just right



And he weren't just about the pianos - the breaks on this are awesome



I suppose he's only a notch or two behind Omni Trio when it comes to the piano-uplift style of jungle.

Rob Haigh's vamps are just a little more bittersweet, more fleeting and spare. Nookie's a little too florid at times.

Here's a great mindmeld of the two piano-core gods - fabulous Nookie remix of Omni's "Soul Promenade", with a great push-me, pull-you swaying rhythm




Of course he actually done a tune called "A Drum A Bass A Piano"  - shades of the Red Crayola tracklisting for Coconut Hotel, demystifying their means of production or something

I like the fact that an early Nookie alter-ego was Windy Milla




Also like the way the bpm actually written after the track titles on this one - DJ friendly!

Ooh some very early indeed Cloud 9



sampled from Scientist / Jackie Mittoo?

mother's little helper

Two songs about a housewife zonked out on tranquilizers

The Orbital video falls into that category of videos for blisstastic euphoric dance songs that undermine the vibe totally (see also the Jonz video for "Praise You" by F.Slim)

The whole of Other Channels is a concept album about a housewife woozy on anti-depressant and anti-anxiety meds watching TV through a glassy-eyed haze.

Other songs on this theme:

Rolling Stones "Mother's Little Helper"

The Fall  "Rowche Rumble", "Industrial Estate" ("when you get depressed, get some valium" or lyrics to that effect), and (to an extent) "Underground Medecin"

And then there's a lot of recent rap that's about percoset and xanax of course

Bristol Pirates

Cassette edition of Death Is Not The End's contribution to the Blowing Up The Workshop mix series. 

"A trip across the frequencies of Bristol's pirate radio stations via cut-ups of broadcasts, taken from the late 1980s to the early 2000s ~ also a love-letter to my childhood, an audio document of the years I spent growing up in the city."

[via Jon Dale]