Renegade Snares

Carl Loben, Ben Murphy

Description

Renegade Snares is the definitive book on drum & bass music. Pieced together using original interviews conducted with all the scene’s main players, it traces the history of jungle/drum & bass from its early roots in sound system culture and rave music right through to the present day.

With its hyperspeed breakbeats, warping bass pressure, and vast spectrum of sounds, drum & bass quick spawned a whole new movement in youth culture. What began as an outlaw street reverberation from the inner cities of Britain developed into a Mercury-winning, chart-topping, world-conquering genre in just a few short years. The frontier-breaking sorcery that emanated from its foundational producers and DJs pushed new levels of sonic science into the music world, and it has influenced all other electronic music genres in assorted ways.

From the shock of the new to a global phenomenon, drum & bass has morphed from frowned-upon marginalisation to establishment approval—and back again. A multicultural triumph, it is a story of resistance and resilience that takes in pioneers such as Goldie, Roni Size, Kemistry & Storm, Photek, Fabio & Grooverider, and many more renegade mavericks—even, at one point, David Bowie.

With vivid descriptions of key tracks and a detailed lineage of the scene’s development, Renegade Snares traces the genre’s gestation while also examining its musical twists and turns, worldwide spread, and enduring popularity. And, ultimately, it asks: surely a genre of music with such a significant grounding in black music culture, developed by so many black pioneers in its formative years, could never be ‘whitewashed’ . . . could it?

Sujets

• Musique
• Culture musicale
• Electronic
• Music
• Genres
• Styles

Informations

• Publié par: Jawbone Press
• Date de parution: 01 octobre 2021
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781911036807
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 5 Mo

Extrait

RENEGADE SNARES THE RESISTANCE AND RESILIENCE OF DRUM & BASS BEN MURPHY & CARL LOBEN

A Jawbone book
Published in the UK and the USA
by Jawbone Press
Office G1
141–157 Acre Lane
London SW2 5UA
England
www.jawbonepress.com

Volume copyright © 2021 Outline Press Ltd. Text copyright © Ben Murphy and Carl Loben. All rights reserved. No part of this book covered by the copyrights hereon may be reproduced or copied in any manner whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in articles or reviews where the source should be made clear. For more information contact the publishers.

‘This book is the truth. No holds barred, it lays it down as it is, and shows with concise clarity the tribalism within this beautiful drum & bass culture. This is definitive for me.’
GOLDIE

‘Few experiences I’ve ever had have matched the incendiary, jaw-dropping full-on vibe of walking into the Blue Note in Hoxton and experiencing what was then known as jungle. This brilliant and essential work contextualizes the roots of drum & bass and the work of the great pioneers of this British dance music phenomenon.’
IRVINE WELSH

‘A real drum & bass story, beautifully woven together from the influences to the present day . . . highly recommended.’
JUMPIN JACK FROST

Contents
INTRO
01 ROOTS : WINDRUSH, SOUNDSYSTEMS, AND BLACK BRITISH CULTURE
02 RAVE : ELEMENTS OF LIFE
03 SOUNDS OF THE FUTURE : MUSICAL BREAKTHROUGHS AND EARLY PIONEERS
04 RAGE : FABIO & GROOVERIDER INCUBATE THE SOUND
05 TALES FROM THE DARK SIDE (AND BEYOND) : JUNGLE CRYSTALLISES
06 FOUNDATIONS PT. 1 : DUBPLATES, RECORD SHOPS, AND PIRATE RADIO
07 GOLDIE : THE ALCHEMIST
08 RAGGA TRIP : THE RAGGA JUNGLE SOUND
09 INNER-CITY LIFE : JUNGLE’S REGIONAL EXPANSION
10 TOUCH DOWN ON PLANET V : BRYAN GEE, JUMPIN JACK FROST, AND V RECORDINGS
11 FOUNDATIONS PT. 2 : DJS & MCS
12 JAZZ NOTES : RONI SIZE, DJ DIE, KRUST, SUV, AND THE BRISTOL SCENE
13 NEW HORIZONS : THE DAWN OF AMBIENT JUNGLE
14 MILESTONES AND MAVERICKS : PUSHING THE SOUND FORWARD
15 DJS TAKE CONTROL : THE MAINSTREAM, THE MEDIA, AND RECKONING WITH SEXISM
16 STATESIDE AND WORLDWIDE : D&B GOES GLOBAL
17 THIS IS A THRESHOLD : THE TECHSTEP AGE
18 PARALLEL UNIVERSES : OTHER GENRES INFLUENCED BY D&B
19 SHAKE UR BODY : LIQUID FUNK, BRAZILIAN BEATS, AND BEYOND
20 BREAKBEAT CHAOS : ADAM F, FRESH, PENDULUM, AND D&B’S BRUSH WITH THE MAINSTREAM
21 MUTATION AND EVOLUTION : FROM AUTONOMIC TO HALF-TIME, FOOTWORK TO NEUROFUNK
22 THE NEXT WAVE : SHOGUN AUDIO, CRITICAL MUSIC
23 THE JUNGLE RESURGENCE : BREAKBEATS, BASSLINES, AND HYBRIDS
24 OUTRO : FALLEN SOLDIERS, WHITEWASHING, GENDER EQUALITY, AND CHANGES
AFTERWORD
SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
ABOUT THE AUTHORS

RENEGADE : An individual who rejects lawful or conventional behaviour.

SNARES : A set of gut strings wound with wire fitted against the lower drumhead of a snare drum. Characteristics: bright, hard, clear, precise, metallic, shrill, noise-like, sharp, penetrating, rustling, hissing, shuffling, rattling, clattering, dry, cracking.

‘Renegade Snares works on another level. The whole movement of jungle/drum & bass was a kind of renegade movement. It was on the outside of the mainstream, totally independent, and like punk, years before it, it created a minor revolution with its back firmly turned on the establishment.’
ROB HAIGH (Omni Trio)

Intro
It’s July 2015. The buzz of the South Bank in London is a long way from the South Bronx in New York, where a quarter of a century previously, one Clifford Price was hanging with the TATS CRU of graffiti writers. Graffiti still adorns the skatepark underneath the concrete gables just along from the National Film Theatre, but Goldie’s work today is taking place in rather more salubrious surroundings: the prestigious Royal Festival Hall.
It’s the ultimate endgame for a style of music that Goldie played such a big part in shaping. In 1995, his Timeless album catapulted jungle/drum & bass into the mainstream, and Goldie with it. An aural masterwork that still stands up decades later, it’s now being revisited by Goldie in a new form.
We’re here for the second show of Goldie’s full orchestral interpretation of Timeless with The Heritage Orchestra. It’s the most powerful refutation imaginable for the haters who said drum & bass was too fast, ain’t gonna last. ‘Vindication,’ Goldie would call it later. Drum & bass has been derided and overlooked, written off and ridiculed, but has grown from underground roots to now be perceived as high culture. It never needed this kind of affirmation, but it’s still, finally, been embraced by the establishment. It’s in the Royal-fucking-Festival Hall. It’s transcended functionality.
Inside the venue, with its boxes up the walls straight out of a 70s sci-fi movie, there’s a breathless expectation about the crowd. Despite the odd junglism T-shirt, many don’t look like old ravers. It’s a mixture of theatregoers and classical concert fans, mingling with a fair share of headz.
There’s loads of kit onstage, and when The Heritage Orchestra emerge from the shadows, all wearing Timeless T-shirts with a twisted Metalheadz skull design on the front, clutching violins, cellos, and other instruments, they’re greeted warmly. Goldie stands nonchalantly at the side of the stage before emerging right on cue.
There aren’t many musicians in popular music who have the chutzpah to harness the immense power of a full orchestra and simultaneously rock the joint to its foundations like a sweaty rave. But Goldie is that man, and just one of the key players in the formation and evolution of modern music’s last completely new language. This live performance tonight is elegant, fierce, explosive, reflective; exquisitely organised chaos, the paradoxical balance that defines jungle.
The crowd are on their feet; the two drummers smack the skins for all they’re worth; the horn section conjures the vengeful spirit of darkcore rave synths. In the quieter moments, the musicality of Timeless unfurls through the massed string section. It’s a stunning spectacle, and, in the eye of the storm, Goldie vacillates between meditative reflection and crazed concert conductor, egging on the players to ever-greater feats. His faith in the power of drum & bass is infectious. And, today, the influence of that genre is the most powerful it’s been in many years.
UNIQUE LANGUAGE
Taking root at the beginning of the 1990s from seeds sown in the previous decade (and even further back), drum & bass was the first completely original form of electronic dance music to develop in the UK. Though constructed from a motley assortment of pre-existing styles—hip-hop, reggae, hardcore, techno, house, jazz, soul, synth-pop—its rapid pace, mesh of samples, and black origins in London quickly developed into an unmistakable, unique language. As the music writer Simon Reynolds notes in his 1998 book Energy Flash , ‘Jungle is where all the different musics of the African-American/Afro-Caribbean diaspora (the scattering caused by slavery and forced migration) reconverge. In jungle, all the most African elements (polyrhythmic percussion, sub-aural bass frequencies, repetition) from funk, dub reggae, electro, rap, acieed and ragga are welded into the ultimate tribal trance-dance.’
Thirty years since its beginnings, drum & bass is more influential than ever—and now on a worldwide scale. Though it’s been mostly dismissed by the mainstream during its lifetime, this form of music has been able to achieve extraordinary things. In more recent times, drum & bass has not only filled London’s enormous Wembley Arena (courtesy of DJ Andy C) but also topped the pop charts for the first time (thanks to Fresh and Sigma). It’s inspired hugely popular dubstep acts like Skrillex in the USA; fostered homegrown scenes in Brazil, The Netherlands, the Czech Republic, the USA, and Japan; and given rise to an increasing number of international festivals that see dedicated fans flying out to enjoy their favourite beats in the sunshine.
‘Drum & bass has probably never reached those commercial zeniths that other genres have, because it can’t get assimilated into 4/4—the tempo doesn’t fit in with other genres,’ says Andy C. ‘We’ve had our popular moments, but we’ve always kept it real and kept it true on an underground level. When you’re drum & bass, you really are—you get it. The BPM is unique, there’s no other genre like it.’
Drum & bass is instantly recognisable in its mixture of elements. Hyper-speed drums that hover today around 170 beats per minute; bass tones designed to be felt as well as heard when played on a big soundsystem; electronic riffs or samples arranged in minimalist fashion. Yet within that definition, drum & bass and jungle are almost infinitely malleable and adaptable, and they can draw from such seemingly polarised genres as rowdy dancehall and blissed-out new-age ambient—sometimes in the space of a single track. The genre’s cultural mix, flowing from predominantly black and working-class producers and DJs, has been inclusive from the beginning. It’s open to input from all ethnicities and walks of life, as long as the music made or played is true to the genre’s core ethos.
‘The music’s endured because it has been so multicultural for years,’ says DJ Flight. ‘Obviously it was inspired and took elements from all these other music styles that came from other countries, a lot of it from the States—jazz, hip-hop, soul—but it’s a very British sound, and there’s a lot of history in it.’
Drum & bass is partly a by-product of growing up in an imperfect, sometimes racist society. In its early days, seething polyrhythms offset with moments of beauty and soul were the epitome of the late-twentieth-century inner-city blues. ‘A looking-glass of proud blues,’ as Goldie surmised on his album The Journey Man in 2017.
Other styles of underground UK dance music influen