It's a cruel cruel summer: the sounds of deep tech / shuffle / cuttin shapes / upgrunt house / etc. etc. in 2014

(this stuff doesnt quite work like funky tho either, the tunes arent made to talk to each other in the same way but idk how to express this clearly yet)

― r|t|c, Saturday, January 31, 2015 9:29 PM (3 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

It's weird b/c with funky the tunes "talking to each other" was both literally in terms of the sonic overlay and the importance of transitions in the mix and also more broadly about the importance of the spectrum aesthetic, the way diva tunes and hard tunes could (by dint of the importance of the transitioning) offer up commentary on the scene itself.

In deep tech I get excited when I start to hear a familiar riff from a tune I love filtering into the mix, but the excitement is rarely due to the frission between the track being mixed out and the track being mixed in. And at the more broad level the spectrum effect (which yeah I was over-emphasising above) is a brute fact but not a noble imperative - a heads-down consistent set is often the smarter way to go than jumping all over the place.

I wonder how much that "talking to each other" effect is really a direct consequence extrapolated out from a starting point of syncopated grooves and the way that influences mixing styles - the DJ styles that feel more syncopated (Jack N Danny, Aaron Vybe) also feel more like funky in that way, the transitions feel more important than they do elsewhere (conversely the literally "deep" sets can be as fun or as revelatory in different ways of course).

wait tim are u using inverted commas future beats to suggest tunes with the same bourgeois factmag perception of strange static etc or just ones that are actually cutting edgy? cos if the latter haha plz rephrase i beg u

wrt "missing the convos" i was thinking the same to some extent when i was reading trilliam's post about s.e.f and switched on records roster, like the names are familiar and the tunes are hype but i try and hear as many mixes as possible and they're not rly showcased like that. feels like we're starting to talk about a double inception underground to the underground now

wait tim are u using inverted commas future beats to suggest tunes with the same bourgeois factmag perception of strange static etc or just ones that are actually cutting edgy? cos if the latter haha plz rephrase i beg u

Both actually. I think the problem is that the tunes that try to be cutting edgy (even with the best of intentions) most of the time run the risk of lapsing into factmag territory anyway. Or perhaps rather they retrospectively take on that quality once the factmag discourse catches up with them e.g. I'd be surprised if "badman" was contrived at the point of creation but it starts to seem that way by nature of how it's received.

When I ask for a "secret history" I mean it less in the sense of "these are the tunes we should be talking about" and more in the sense of "what tunes do people think fit that narrative but factmag is too lazy to know about yet."

Which might yield some tunes that are actually cutting edgy and some tunes that are contrived.

Goes without saying that it's not remotely a useful guide to "what's really good" in the broad sense.

The examples I'd give from funky - cooly g and roska are too obvious maybe - are stuff like "Different Lekstrix" which was a tune I adored from inception but you also know that give it 2 years and it'll have taken on a sad afterlife as a decontextualised Numbers-fans jam.

Real heads know that the secret apotheosis of funky's actual-no-air-quotes tru kult experimentalist vanguard was "Get Off The Wall (Delio D'Cruz Remix)" but I'm not confident that I could spot deep tech equivalents so easily.

"What do you think of strange static's rep in this regard trilliam, they seem to be getting similar jimi-style "oh now this is the exciting deep tech I was waiting for!" reactions from those quarters."

it's not surprising they getting more critical reception because everyones infatuated with this forward thinking/future sounds vibe. im a fan of strange static and they're pushing the boat out a bit more than their peers in the innovation stakes. faster tempos hectic mixing more kind of organised noise. their sound is moving away from the deep tech sound which is only a few poles away (variant) of the popular house sound and if people follow them i wouldn't complain at all.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wIhjUcI4nDU

deep banger works well with your Nasty Crew --> "Gabryelle" --> ??? continuum tim f

https://soundcloud.com/audio-rehab-london/lo-slung-dvinci-playtime-productions-remix-preview

ahh i hadnt realised this had also finally come out on the audio rehab remix ep

pretty sure this was the first ever tune i heard that really caught my imagination with this stuff

https://soundcloud.com/k-master-1/k-master-usd-fm-radioshow-27th-jan-2015mp3

liking k master's shows a lot recently. think he nicely articulates a lesser-heard position in between all the poles we've mentioned, bit of futuristic but just headz-down warehousey too

funny moment when he plays a mr solo tune and then announces that the next one's by RAZZLER MAN (does anyone else remember him? - tribal tech end of funky days 2010/11 guy along the lines of carnao and lr groove). literally just like listening to smoove kriminal or weeksy on deja again

https://soundcloud.com/pathogen-beats/strictly-underground-house-december-edition-mixed-for-wwwlocateyourshootcom

this set by pathogen though, pree the tune at 39:00, the gliding synths, the vocals, some perfect mutant grime house

― joeyshoshoshabadoo, Thursday, January 8, 2015 1:27 PM (1 month ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

looooove this set

https://soundcloud.com/k-master-1/k-master-usd-fm-radioshow-27th-jan-2015mp3

liking k master's shows a lot recently. think he nicely articulates a lesser-heard position in between all the poles we've mentioned, bit of futuristic but just headz-down warehousey too

funny moment when he plays a mr solo tune and then announces that the next one's by RAZZLER MAN (does anyone else remember him? - tribal tech end of funky days 2010/11 guy along the lines of carnao and lr groove). literally just like listening to smoove kriminal or weeksy on deja again

was feeling that set still

losing my shit @ some of the tracks on this soundcloud https://soundcloud.com/studio37music

ya this is interesting

was just thinking about that d'vinci/playtime remix i mentioned wondering if a sense of that kinda dubby space could come back a bit, this stuff sounds like a possible answer

gonna listen to some of their modefm podcasts now.... never realised just how many guys mode actually had on btw! http://www.modefm.com/timetable/

http://blissout.blogspot.co.uk/2014/12/two-thousand-and-fourteen-part-two.html

right or wrong a hunch/bias as it may prove to be it did seem kinda odd that grimey simey's quite pointed deep tech tune selection here went unremarked

not necessarily an encouraging sign obv

also like did these brehs really have to call themselves things like pathogen beats and xylon genesis, i meannnnnn....

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PSMcuOoVgMw

just to even up the scores i listened to the audiowhore4 promo mix today and enjoyed this one :]

haven't properly tried to get into this stuff yet - ie have not listened to a single MIX - but i've enjoyed various bits i've heard through various channels and am feeling ready and willing to take the plunge, so i'm gonna check out that oft mentioned Jack & Danny set and... what else is essential? gimme some homework please ;)

https://instagram.com/p/zYY6dAx1QS

can i replace every time i've tried to explain this stuff itt with this instead plz thnx

https://soundcloud.com/imagemk/february-2015-mix

fave mix i've heard in a bit. very nasty very acid very new wave very good

gimme some homework please ;)

Some essentials imo:

Warehouse LDN Presents Frequency 13-09-2014 Promo CD Mixed by Nightshift - https://soundcloud.com/djlancemorgan/warehouse-ldn-presents-2
Calle Lebraun - 100K Promo MiX - https://soundcloud.com/callelebraun/calle-lebraun-100k-mix
Aaron Vybe - Destruction Mix - https://soundcloud.com/aaronvybe/aaron-vybe-destruction-mix
Definiton Audio Presents Various Audio Volume 1 - https://pro.beatport.com/release/definition-audio-presents-various-audio-vol-1/1403504
Audio Rehab Vol 1 - https://pro.beatport.com/release/audio-rehab-vol-1/1294510

https://soundcloud.com/djjaypower/jay-power-london-live-fm-2712015-3-hour-special
http://londonniggatimeline.tumblr.com/post/109728120495/ite-so-this-that-car-crash-music-right-here-if

this set was everything the man said and more

relentless, incredible, all the power tunes, a masterpiece

so disgustingly filthy in fact that a mysterious advert for dettol magically appears half way through

https://soundcloud.com/pathogen-beats/strictly-underground-house-december-edition-mixed-for-wwwlocateyourshootcom

this set by pathogen though, pree the tune at 39:00, the gliding synths, the vocals, some perfect mutant grime house

― joeyshoshoshabadoo, Thursday, January 8, 2015 1:27 PM (1 month ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

looooove this set

― lex pretend, Tuesday, 10 February 2015 19:26 (1 week ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Yeah agreed - my interest in this stuff had been flagging lately (prob down to me being my usual flaky self rather than any actual drop-off in the music) but this set has def. restored faith a bit. Going to give the K Master USD FM set a spin next.

simon's taste in rap v dull & uninspired. "coco"??

anyway

whats he gonna know about rap honestly

https://soundcloud.com/imagemk/february-2015-mix

fave mix i've heard in a bit. very nasty very acid very new wave very good

big looks for this, this guy flies under the radar had a couple bangers b3 used to play think he put suttin out on eastside as well

https://soundcloud.com/imagemk/february-2015-mix

fave mix i've heard in a bit. very nasty very acid very new wave very good

― r|t|c, Sunday, February 22, 2015 3:20 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

my god the 39 min mark

come thru with a big bass <3

listening to dj jay power on the radio right now on london live

no words

if i was saying before how deep tech might be a funky without a marcus then forget that cos HE IS RISEN

http://www62.zippyshare.com/v/rbwW82CU/file.html

here's the 37 minutes of it that i taped, benevolent don that i am

hopefully this will be unnecessary very soon but there's previous weeks shows that never did turn up on soundcloud so

trouble is i'm not usually around tuesdays :<

This is fabulous.

really could not have ended more persuasively than with a scottie d refix of 'be your girl' :)

https://soundcloud.com/djjaypower/jay-power-london-live-fm-2712015-3-hour-special
http://londonniggatimeline.tumblr.com/post/109728120495/ite-so-this-that-car-crash-music-right-here-if

this set was everything the man said and more

relentless, incredible, all the power tunes, a masterpiece

so disgustingly filthy in fact that a mysterious advert for dettol magically appears half way through

― r|t|c, Sunday, 22 February 2015 17:40 (3 days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

YES loving this, totally lives up to the hype. Put it on last night not really meaning to listen to all 3 hours in one go but just got caught up in it - so many great bits I'd never heard before, and it just keeps pushing the energy levels/intensity right through. Ace.

really could not have ended more persuasively than with a scottie d refix of 'be your girl' :)

― r|t|c, Wednesday, February 25, 2015 8:45 PM (2 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Was gonna come back and O_O at the final draw

https://soundcloud.com/djjaypower/jay-power-perch-mc-london-live-fm-2422015

I'm in London tomorrow night, what are the odds of there being a deep tech night on?

no one could help the man?

I saw that there was the Frequency - 3rd Anniversary at Warehouse LDN on Sat, but wasn't in town (also that one seemed like more of a mixed bag). Couldn't find anything else, but nevermind. I'll have to plan it properly and come back through another time.

motion on the 28th
ministry on the 21st
audiowhore like this week or next week

Nice, thanks! Motion looks possible. Anyway, I should just email next time rather than planning my clubbing through the board! ;)

Looks like Motion is on the 20th btw.

I am obsessed with how relentlessly percussive and shuddering these Jay Power sets are. On the one hand he can be quite diverse (love it when he drops Sami Sanchez's "Dirty Trumpet") but there's an underlying aesthetic consistency and vision and purpose, he has a very specific notion of what it is that these tracks are supposed to do.

Like this fractured KG3 track he plays:

https://soundcloud.com/kg3-carlitosway/kg3-dont-know

It's like the groove is shaking itself to pieces.

And this tune! Jamie De Von "Let Us Commit":

https://soundcloud.com/metronmusic/jamie-de-von-let-us-commit

circa 20 minutes in the latest jay power mix is some kind of peak

lets not rush to congratulate jay power while denigrating the work of guys like mark radford, b3 and more

I'm not!

i listen enough to know the difference and i am more than happy to give jay and kg3 the auteurist shine that i wouldnt anyone else

as a veteran of scenius vs genius fights from the uk funky days, I think there are a couple of spins on this issue:

1. People bigging up one or two artists at the expense of just about everyone else - i.e. jimitheexploder on Hugo Massien. Anyone who approaches a style in this way is unlikely to have much of use to say about it, given their starting rebuttable presumption is that the style's underlying formula is a straightjacket that needs to be transcended.

2. People bigging up artists with only tangential connections to the scene as if they're the leading lights of it. This is not really a problem in isolation except when it distorts the conversation, and of course it gets frustrating when it's repeated endlessly. Not sure what would fit this mould for deep tech at the moment given that outsider-crossover seems to happen on a tune-by-tune basis. "I love that Sam Shiba tune" is a fairly harmless variant. I haven't seen any outsiders trying to set themselves up as key diplomatic envoys to the world of deep tech, excepting Brackles perhaps (and he doesn't seem to have rebuilt a public rep around it, yet).

3. People investigating a couple of artists and going no further, assuming that this is all there is to know. Whether this is a problem depends on how it distorts their notion of what the music is: if you premised your entire notion of uk funky on Crazy Cousinz then you might get a somewhat partial view of the genre (though not as partial as might be assumed, I'd wager), but if your laziness was not venturing beyond Marcus Nasty radio sets then I think the "problem" would be fairly minor: yes, you'd be missing out on certain artists and certain approaches to the music but your take would still be pretty well-rounded all things considered. For deep tech I think the same would be largely true of someone who had only listened to Mark Radford sets, though I'd be more inclined to qualify that a bit.

Importantly, I think selective bias is always less of a problem when what you're paying attention to is exemplary of the scene.

If Jay Power was to become a Marcus-like figure (which obv remains to be seen) I suspect it'd be in large part because of the sense in which his sets lock into a vision of the scene that feels very true to both its sense of identity and its creative possibility.

i do chat a lot of unneeded shit sometimes so apologies fellas

jay is def top 3 atm

Like this fractured KG3 track he plays:

https://soundcloud.com/kg3-carlitosway/kg3-dont-know

So so good.

boop di boop

https://soundcloud.com/soulsity/sous005sd3-a-mp-th-body

Hello everyone and welcome to channel genial, if you've just joined us tonight there is convivial atmosphere and there have already been a few early vibes in this woodland encounter

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dCZp0V5QzeE

I believe i have disembarked at the wrong station