The fusion con

[slothrop]

A bit of Simon Reynolds' writing from the days when he was actually relevant. Might be of interest to dubstep producers. You don't have to agree with him, but he's making good enough points that even if you disagree it's good to think about why you disagree.

(Apologies to the tl;dr crew, by the way.)

Why did so many artcore junglists avidly embrace the most conventional and middlebrow signifiers of 'musicality' - sax solos, over-melismatic singing? The reason was that underneath the bravado and the futuristic rhetoric, a secret inferiority complex lurked. Jungle is the most digitalized and sampladelic music on the planet. No acoustic sound is involved, nothing is recorded through a microphone. Jungle is composed from data derived from recordings, video or sound-modules (Pop Tart sized encyclopaedias of samples and synth-tones), and it is assembled using programs like Cubase VST (virtual studio technology), which presents loops and motifs in visual form on the computer screen. 'You feel like a conductor with an orchestra,' one producer told me. But because jungle relies so heavily on production and effects, many producers secretly believed that 'musicality' involved moving away from digital technology.

By the end of 1994, some producers in the intelligent sector of drum and bass had started to abandon samplers for old-fashioned analogue synthesizers and sequencers as used by the early Detroit techno and Chicago house pioneers; these instruments were felt to be more hands-on and 'musical' than clicking a mouse. And many began to talk wistfully about working with 'real' instruments and vocalists. Omni Trio's Rob Haigh complained to me at the time, 'There is nothing worse than seeing house artists trying to get into that live muso vibe. The live element of our music occurs on the dancefloor. House and jungle are sequenced musics, created on computers.' But few heeded the warning.

When a genre starts to think of itself as 'intelligent', this is usually a warning sign that it's on the verge of losing its edge, or at least its sense of fun. Usually, this progressivist discourse masks a class-based or generational struggle to seize control of a music's direction; look at the schism between prog rock and heavy metal, between the post-punk vanguard and Oi!, between bohemian art-rap and gangsta, between intelligent techno and 'ardkore. Often, the 'maturity' and 'intelligence' resides less in the music itself that the way it's used (reverent, sedentary contemplation as opposed to sweaty, boisterous physicality). The majority of 'intelligent jungle' tracks were no smarter in their construction than the ruff ragga-jungle anthems. 'Intelligence' merely indicated a preference for certain sounds - bongos, complicated hi-hat patterns, floaty synth-washes, neo-Detroit string sounds - over others that were harsher, more obviously artificial and digitally processed.

<snip>

Fusion-jungle wasn't an unmitigated calamity; tracks like E-Z Rollers' 'Rolled Into One', Hidden Agenda's 'Is It Love', PFM's 'One and Only', Adam F's 'Circles' and Da Intalex's 'What Ya Gonna Do' showed that it was possible to incorporate smoother textures from seventies soul and jazz-funk without forsaking jungle's polyrhythmic exuberance. But too many second division drum and bass units followed a formula. Start with an unnecessarily elongated, teasing intro; roll into the heavy-on-the-cymbals breaks; layer some wordless female vocal samples (measured, tasteful passion only, no helium-histrionics please); drag out the track, through percussive breakdowns and wafting synth-interludes, for eight minutes or longer; rinse the mix to get that airy, 'just brushed freshness' that sounds good on a really crisp hi-fi. Pursuing 'depth', but lacking the vision it took to get there, too many intelligent junglists washed up in the middlebrow shallows.

[jblake]

Great article.
I'd say though, when someone with musicality pours their heart into something and it happens (intentionally or not) to be an intelligent piece, it comes through in the music and will be a credit to the scene (Venetian Snares for example).

Often though you get people doing incredibly complexed things to the timing/arrangement of things because they haven't a clue what they're doing, harmonically or otherwise. In other words, making up for something they can't contribute by making their music inaccessible in other areas, generally looking intelligent but having nothing to show for it except a tired, overused vocal / bass line and some complicated drums that nobody can relate to, not even drummers. Play to your strengths and you shouldn't end up in this situation.

"Pursuing 'depth', but lacking the vision it took to get there, too many intelligent junglists washed up in the middlebrow shallows."

Well put, and it applies to all scenes, dubstep included, except dubstep has a level of cross-genre-compatibility that i've never seen before, which almost makes up for the shit you have to wade through whatever genres you listen to.

[FSTZ1]

back when we were cavemen we danced to basic rhythms from drums alone

too much "musicalilty" can convolute a good dance tune

[junglist]

Rob Haigh is a legend, he's released so many tunes under the moving shadow record label.

[setspeed]

that article is bang on, all the way through.

so many tunes just rinsed out bland a dominant 7th chord for eight minutes under the pretence of 'intelligence'

[apathesis]

True say to the max lol

[Tangka]

Oi!

this happens to have been where I started out

and now i make 'intelligent' dubstep (or try to)



yes, good article!

[crytek]

Great article.
.except dubstep has a level of cross-genre-compatibility that i've never seen before, which almost makes up for the shit you have to wade through whatever genres you listen to.

hip hop does (or should I say did) this. During the golden era, there was a lot more influences from other genres. Same with drum & bass. Now, it's rare that you find a tune with outside influence. Simply because things are formulated now.

I haven't been into dubstep that long, but the same will happen to dubstep too. It's just a matter of time.


Regarding the op. Good article. Although I love melody, I don't hear tunes with just drums & bass (A good rhythm, solid bass melody) anymore. It's just simple patterns and everything is dilluted with musical elements on top... probably just to get the girls involved.

I've been trying to get back to the raw/tough sound, especially with my d&b tunes.

[slothrop]

Wow, that was a more positive response than I expected!

I think the big thing that I get from the article isn't so much about sticking to the basics and not trying to be clever as about not fooling yourself into thinking that something is clever when it's actually just bland. If you want to be experimental and different and off the wall then do whatever it takes and use whatever you want, but don't just dab a generic dubby chord over a basic techy garage beat and then congratulate yourself on being mind bendingly experimental and totally unlike the zombie halfstep hordes...

I think the fusion thing is less about the mishmash of influences and techniques, which I'd say is definitely one of the cool things about dubstep, and more about consciously trying to evoke Fusion (as in 70s jazz) or other older styles as a sort of signal that you're sophisticated and cool, and importantly, on the flipside, that all the people who haven't got around to working with Courtney Pine yet are club swinging cavemen who'd dance to a tumble dryer if it was at 170bpm.

[james fox]

interesting read, cheers

although it does seem to be saying that if you prefer making slightly deeper music then you are guilty of trying to be intelligent and should be burnt at the stake, which i'm not sure i agree with. what if you just prefer less abrasive sounds and don't give a shit about intelligence or stupidity even?

or maybe that's just missing the point completely. it's early and i haven't had coffee yet

[lilt]

a tumble dryer if it was at 170bpm.

would be more exciting/interesting than the current state of drum n bass

[d-T-r]

hmm as great as it was to read, i think the thing with music and art in general is that sometimes people look too into it. not saying that the points arent valid or existant but sometimes they need not even be considered when your physically in the context of where and when the tunes get played.

if your constantly listening to any type of 'dance' orientated music looking like this:



then your possibly overlooking something.

im guilty of it occasionally when i cant help but listen to something with 'producer' ears rather than just 'listening' ears.

music is all kinds of art and math essentialy. shit you dont even have to try too hard to calculate cos its abstract in its own nature.

granted that some self proclaimed 'intelligent' dance music isnt all that 'intelligent' in comparriosn to the diversity of alot of the inner workings of classical for example, i dont think its completely fair to say that the music is all of a sudden too shallow.

sometimes you just gotta put all mental refrences aside and just vibe to the music thats there.

theres a time and a place to read between the sounds.

edit: also, the people that still complain about the current dnb scene out there. please take a moment to actually sift through it some more. not denying alot of it has become 2 step forumalted stuff, buttheres still alot of cutting edge shit happening in there. you just reallllllly have to search the outskirts/and 'under the under-ground' of the scene to find it.

the people that call for the 'dnb is dead' card are the same cancers killing it.

[slothrop]

interesting read, cheers

although it does seem to be saying that if you prefer making slightly deeper music then you are guilty of trying to be intelligent and should be burnt at the stake, which i'm not sure i agree with. what if you just prefer less abrasive sounds and don't give a shit about intelligence or stupidity even?

or maybe that's just missing the point completely. it's early and i haven't had coffee yet

Nah, you've got a point. I think Reynolds is a bit quick to come up with his idea of the inferiority complex - to some extent, if you've been working with an Atari and an S1000 in your bedroom in east london and someone says "do you want to come and do an album in a nice studio with a bunch of top session musicians", or even if you just start to make a bit of cash so you can afford some new kit, you'd need to be pretty determined to stick with your old shit setup.

But there is a risk, which I think is the core of his point, of getting snobbish and starting to associate some tropes with 'good music' and other tropes with 'unacceptable music', and starting to produce or seek out tunes that sound like they should be deep and original but are actually just pushing a different set of cliches. I dunno, maybe you don't do that but I certainly have done in the past and I think it's an important thing for producers to consider...

hmm as great as it was to read, i think the thing with music and art in general is that sometimes people look too into it. not saying that the points arent valid or existant but sometimes they need not even be considered when your physically in the context of where and when the tunes get played.

if your constantly listening to any type of 'dance' orientated music looking like this:



then your possibly overlooking something.

Not sure I see your point to be honest - the whole point of the article (and the whole point of most of SR's early writing on rave, come to that) is that from a musical point of view people who say "oh yes, that's very clever and sophisticated, so much better than all that stupid stuff that people are raving to" is risking missing the really interesting stuff. He was one of the first writers to get into the sort of dance music that involved getting off your tits and raving rather than sitting at home listening to Leftfield albums and that comes out to a fault in his writing.

[tanadan]

Start with an unnecessarily elongated, teasing intro; roll into the heavy-on-the-cymbals breaks; layer some wordless female vocal samples (measured, tasteful passion only, no helium-histrionics please); drag out the track, through percussive breakdowns and wafting synth-interludes, for eight minutes or longer; rinse the mix to get that airy, 'just brushed freshness' that sounds good on a really crisp hi-fi.

I gotta say, this is like the perfect description of a lot of 95/96 Photek tracks, especially the Sentinel stuff. And KJZ, even tho I love it.

Btw, Slothrop, who are the 'tl;dr' crew?

[james fox]

tl;dr means too long, didn't read - it's shorthand for 'i am a lazy oik with the attention span of a goldfish'.

i don't quite see how describing the way that these 'intelligent' tracks are usually put together means anything, i mean you could very easily do the same for the ravey stuff as well. what he is actually saying is that overly formulaic music is bad, and i would have thought that was utterly obvious.

so, yeah

[slothrop]

i don't quite see how describing the way that these 'intelligent' tracks are usually put together means anything, i mean you could very easily do the same for the ravey stuff as well. what he is actually saying is that overly formulaic music is bad, and i would have thought that was utterly obvious.

It's more saying that people who complain about 'boring formulaic dancefloor tracks' are often missing the fact that their tunes are equally formulaic. (And while a formulaic dancefloor track is at least decent to dance to, a formulaic 'progressive' tune is pretty pointless almost by definition.) That 'tasteful vs cheesy' isn't the same thing as 'innovative vs predictable'.

I dunno, I actually disagree with him on a lot of the specific tunes he rates as overly insipid and boring - in fact, I cut out a load of that stuff to avoid getting into a load of side arguments about which Bukem tunes are any good - but I think he makes a lot of points on 'functional' versus 'artistic' music and 'progressive' tunes versus 'cheesy' tunes and similar stuff that it's good for a dance music producer should at least think about.