Bassline/Bassline House etc

if nothing else won't someone else weigh in on tropical?

rtc, you might be interested to know that MJ Cole has now jumped on the bassline bandwagon too, under his old Matlock alias! a clip of "Watford Gap" can be heard here, and... it's rather awful. i mean, if he's gonna do bassline he could at least stick to xeroxes of his Lamb remix from way back, nu-gen bassfarts don't suit him really.

on the other hand, "Love on the Rocks" still sounds wonderful as ever, and Midnight Circus' "MILF" is good for a chuckle or two.

lol i started listening thinking "i will forgive him this if he gets on the paino for the intro" and THERE IT IS! also that is the intro to BoC geogaddi and i claim my 5 pounds.

truce 'treat u right' sunship dub is my stuff.

I'm a total novice here--have a few mix-CDs I've bought and d/l'ed over the past couple months--so can I please ask what you mean by that mouthwatering phrase, "tropical"?

seriously mj i love u but why you're pissing around making ukg and not doing megabucks film soundtracks i'll never know.

matos, tropical was 2006 mix cd side project of, i guess, modern uk garage made apparently on a whim by jme, skepta and plastician. here's the myspace.

boy betta know! i've got tropical and maybe it's more exciting if you've been following all the internecine conflicts, victories, negotiations and defeats in and amongst various speed garage progeny.. i think it's nice, but i have to say it sounds like a less snappily delicious, sparser, more straight-ahead version of 2-step - also the mixing is somewhat shit

yes... those craving for the snappily delicious may well be disappointed.

does seem a little churlish to highlight the mixing of an album of tunes they've specially made themselves (ie not a best of, or retrospective, or anything), particularly when a good few of those tunes suggest that a straight-up partymixx was not quite the intended alpha and omega of the thing. take it on its own mysterious terms, at least.

i mean i'm really not trying to say everyone should subscribe to my take on it (god forbid), but peering through a predictable 2step pince-nez at it and ignoring what it does manage to achieve in being sparser and more driving seems unfair either way.

What's curious about Tropical is that it's simultaenously great and inscrutable - as music it kinda doesn't make sense, almost. In this I'd venture to suggest that it's closer in spirit to the early proto-grime than to 2-step, it feels malformed and unfinished and this is part of what makes it exciting.

I'm kinda fascinated by the notion of sounds that have an early window where they've yet to coalesce and cohere, and everyone's waiting for the moment when everything snaps into place, at which point all the music (including the preceding, seemingly incoherent stuff) all makes sense.

Like, with grime, I think that Nasty Crew set from the beginning of 2003 was (for me) a crucial moment when the music suddenly felt viable (as in "we can make a sixty minute set with a really solid identity"), at which point all the randomness of 2002 made sense as well.

All of which means "could there be a Nasty Crew version of Tropical and what would it look like?"

My comment in the Wiley thread about the potential belated rise of colourful 4X4 grime is partly inspired by "I'm Going Out", partly by Tropical, and partly by bassline (esp. the stuff with MCs). But when rtc brought up juke house it clinched for me the idea of what I want, which is kinda like grime/garage that has a juke structure - slow, lurchy verses, fast bouncy choruses.

Imagine a tune that was like JME & DEE's "Serious Thugs", only instead of just speeding up in the chorus it went 4X4 as well... This would be the best thing ever I think.

2step pince-nez = where can I buy one?

I’m always confused when a promoter says 3,428 DJ’s at 1 venue? Isn’t the single venue a given for a party?

there's a joke in there somewhere. new horizons? tj glasses-cases? cough.

have jammer and some bird vocalling holiday instead, for what it's worth.

also at the time of tropical's gestation i put up this radio clip of logan mixing todd edwards over roll deep's babylon burner, presumably cos i'm just nice like that innit.

most grime is boring now. getting some of that bassline/4x4 type energy is what the scene needs. tropical sounded like old garage to me, not fresh like bassline. i dont know what funky house sounds like apart from one or two songs but bassline has that energy grime has lost.

T2 is becoming a cult hero among footballers

more T2 sports action

alas the audio link doesn't work, but there's always youtube

Apropos of MC-bassline, the DJ Q remix of "Flex" is pretty great. I didn't think it improved on the original, but then I went back to the original and it suddenly sounded too slow...

A good example though of the extent to which bassline's stiff 4X4-ness is slightly over-emphasised. Yeah it's very electrohouse rigid, but like with (better) electrohouse there's lots of scope for interesting counter-rhythm programming. This reminds me a bit of early bleep 'n' bass in that regard.

Meanwhile "Holiday" is fab, thx rtc.

That's Dizzee's "Flex" I'm referring to there.

but not the Glasweigan DJ Q?

dj q's remix of flex is quite brilliant.

wut's crackin here?

Can anyone name top 10 essential bassline tracks? So far I like:

T2 - Heartbroken
Delinquent feat. Kcat - My Destiny
H Two O - What's It Gonna Be
TS & 7 - Smile

So basically I like bassline with catchy female vocal in it.

like most people here and elsewhere, i've stopped checking bassline some time ago... but i've discovered this incidentally few days ago and it's fantastic:

Love Assassins - The Boy Is Mine (Rebel Bassline Mix)

This is still some of my favourite music to dance to ever, although I still feel like I could do with a decent primer on the style's peak years.

Couldn't give a primer, but yeah this stuff is still great. I hear new tunes every so often but no idea what kind of scene there is. DJ Q and Burgaboy still produce some good stuff.

Dj beez April! Excellent mix.

I think in theory I like poppy bassline best but then often the spooky stuff is erm prettier? If you accused me of doing the classic herb listener of imposing values from other genres I'd be hardpressed to defend myself - probably there's some hallucination of hyper-on experience vs terra danjah vibes at work.

― Tim F, Monday, 16 May 2011 22:42 (52 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

Will make people retch on principle but the bassline remix of Katy perry's "E.T" also is very pretty.

― Tim F, Monday, 16 May 2011 22:55 (39 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

ok let's take it over here.

yeah beez april is good innit! i don't even think it's a more-than-sum-of-parts mix that especially articulates anything about bassline particularly wonderfully, it's just competently got all the tracks of the moment and THEY'RE ALL JUST REALLY QUITE GOOD.

i will say that all the lady vocal cuts are pretty much my favourite things in the world.

generally i am very glad to have anyone else cosign some bassline because it's very much like an upside down lunatic alice in wonderland rabbit hole once you get hooked in and i pretty much no longer have any idea if my ramblings on the subject are socially acceptable - meaning i don't really judge maximum sugar/maximum darkness inversions and perversions like the katy perry and ussy tracks by any other genre's standards but bassline's, and they all make the most perfect gleeful nonsense here.

haven't heard that mix in full yet but the 3 tracks off the girls love bassline ep are fab.

yes! taking advantage of the collection format that ep is probably my favourite single release of the year. shame the accompanying mix wasnt quite as good, but still of use as a refresher course i'm sure.

dj beez february mix is my favourite of his i think, it really runs with the gibbering provincial juvenile truant angle throughout (save for a big bouncy mix of gaga 'telephone' slap bang in the middle obv)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UpiycgtX4Lo

like you don't question for a moment that this is the actual national anthem of the uk

and in more ~musical~ terms i really loved dj apostle's sounds of the new skool vol 30 - from january so probably a tiny bit dated now but it's just excellent

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c-v6LieeMY8

i mean really now how good is this!!!

Really like that. Emvee is a bit good I don't think I've heard much of his more bassline style stuff, I'm pretty impressed. Those drums are madness.

sickness.

what are some new bassline mixes?

DJ Q has done a promo mix for his set at Fabric w/ Butterz: http://www.fabriclondon.com/blog/view/butterz-dj-q-fabriclive-x-butterz-mix

doesnt look like much bassline on there tho

Its kind of all over the spot innit, it might give someone a way in though if they're feeling the grimy bits or whatever.

http://www.basslineblog.co.uk/?p=1584

thumbs up, get it down ye

pantha 32 is out as well if you like that sort of thing :)

nothing quite as good as emmerdale riddim on there though

http://soundcloud.com/dj-pantha/dj-pantha-emmerdale-dub

Wowzers:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C91uemYZi60&feature=related

<3 <3 <3

https://soundcloud.com/clb_sounds/dont-walk-away-free-download

Any of you guys would happen to know if this compilation would count as bassline?

https://www.discogs.com/Various-Bassline-Classics/release/400947

Considering it was released in the year 2000 it might be too early, but it has the name for it, so I don't know.

it does not

that counts as a pretty basic selection of 2-step tunes with a bit of an emphasis on tracks with particularly heavy basslines

bassline is 4x4 music

that said, if i saw that in a charity shop for a coin i would snap it up.

yeah it's not a bad selection

https://djmag.com/features/history-bassline

Matt Anniss does a history of bassline house, nothing new in there for anyone interested in this stuff but it's nice to see it being talked about seriously.