funky house sceptics, let me draw your attention to this

Also M Sadler's rave-soca sound is really doing it for me at the moment. Reminds me of when reynolds complained that b/c of funky for the first time in ages Notting Hill Carnival might actually sound like a carnival <---- how could that possibly be a bad thing??

also also also what do people think of Donae'o's remix of "In The Morning"?? It seems to miss the point of the song, but enjoyably so. Still I have issues with tracks where the vocals and the music seem oblivious of one another. The "African Warrior"-style drop is heaps of fun though.

Actually the really enjoyable recent DJ Naughty production is his remix of "Bust Your Windows", though as much because the original song is so great. But also more of those liquid nitrogen synth chords and simply delectable rhythm programming.

(did anyone catch the use of the original song on Glee?)

>Reminds me of when reynolds complained that b/c of funky for the first time in ages Notting Hill Carnival might actually sound like a carnival <---- how could that possibly be a bad thing??

considering the first rave I ever went to was a West Indian carnival (calypso pre-soca era, steel band & string band) when I was 7, I see this as a real blind spot for Simon.

when one's critical outlook is peppered so liberally w/blind spots, is the term really appropriate any more

So what's the deal with Jam City? Kiran Sande's written a thesis sized piece on them over at FACT magazine. I guess JC isn't strictly funky but anyways...

'ere

JC seems more on the funkstep side of things. i like what i hear but yeah, not much to do with funky really. all the hype seems to be that hes sort of grime/garage influenced, kinda on the um 'funkno' side of things. but then thats good in a way, the scene around funky can have so many diff artists coming from all angles. fact are bound to be more into a guy like JC than donaeo.

tho guys like jam city are a nice change to me - theres been so much talk about how dubstep has been such a fertile breeding ground/jump off point but grime doesnt seem to get quite the same props anymore...

feeling this guy -
http://www.myspace.com/juliobashmore

i just get my tips from fact lol
i dunno where else to get them from - no idea how you guys find out who makes what...

listening to jam city's lower end spasm mix now, liking a lot

It's alright.

More importantly, the DJ Larizzle's Strickly Funky Vol. 10:

http://www.4shared.com/file/134948100/afa72273/DJ_Larizzle__MC_Ramzee__Stormparties__Strickly_Funky_Vol_10_-_The_2nd_Year_Anniversary.html?err=no-sess

That Jam City mix is great but it doesn't belong here at all, it's much too stiff and mechanistic. It seems to sit somewhere between fidget house, Greenmoney and the Ashley Beedle remix of Township Funk. And something else much techier that I can't put my finger on.

It's a bit DJ Zinc (recent DJ Zinc) actually.

I should say it's probably better than "alright", I'm just reacting to the massive hype-inflation. Not sure why taking this stuff and making it all serious cat automatically = hosannas.

Haha you say that about everything Tim!

I like the idea of taking grimey hooks and making them techy and expensive sounding much more than I like the idea of taking funky and making it serious cat (which Jam City totally isn't doing).

The sheer level of purple prose in that Fact article is embarrassing though.

"Haha you say that about everything Tim!"

I know, but it bears repeating. I'm fighting a losing battle.

it's not a battle! everyone can coexist i feel. also, one purple prosey article does not "massive hype-inflation" make...

never really knew where to put this before but if jam city fits in here, i think kingdom certainly does. he's an amazing NYC dj/producer and massive r&b fan who absolutely smashed night slugs a few months ago; loads of trancey stabbing synths, diva vox, tons of energy and largeness. think it'll be much more to your liking tim - his "mindreader" track ft. shyvonne is astonishingly massive. this mix in particular is excellent - http://dot-alt.blogspot.com/2009/03/kingdom-exclusive-mix-for-lower-end.html

http://twitter.com/kkingdomm is good value too

listening to that mix again now and i cannot stress how much u all need to hear it

I know you think I'm just full of it on this point, but indulge me: name someone, anyone apart from me, who has tried to write seriously about any actual funky artist in the past year not in the following list: Crazy Cousinz, Roska, Cooly G, Scratcha DVA, Lil' Silva.

Just one article, anywhere.

Having said that, this Kingdom mix sounds excellent. Much better than the Jam City one IMO.

Yeah that Jam City mix is pretty fun for sure. Beat wise it seems to have that loose backbone I associate with a lot of funky I've heard. But whether it belongs on this thread or not I'm not expert enough to say. Good luck to the lad though...

" Crazy Cousinz, Roska, Cooly G, Scratcha DVA, Lil' Silva."

earlier in the year you could be forgiven for only concentrating on those guys though. seeing as they WERE the biggest names and most exciting.

now, things have moved on to yknow, jam city.

who else should people be writing about though? i cant say at this point. half the tunes are like arent even made by people 'in' the scene. theyre from other places.

Perempay & Dee? Donae'o? Geeneus? Ill Blu? Just picking the first four who came to mind with actual distinguishing features.

perempays put out maybe ONE tune this year. buss it seems an age ago. donaeo should have gotten more hype, yeah, he made a good album. but hes not seen as 'serious' enough for fact types. geeneus isnt exactly underrappreciated. though he maybe could be more rated for his productions, yeah.

lol all of these people have been written about over the past year, as have a lot of the vocalists and mcs. i mean, the whole heatwave ja/funky post for one thing?

how often (and where) do people even "write seriously" about funky anyway?

Yes but that's not Serious Crit For Serious People About Serious Music though Lex!

(xpost)

how often (and where) do people even "write seriously" about funky anyway?

if these 'serious' muso writers only wanna talk about the stuff that sounds like techno then cool. who gives a fuck. not the ravers. not the artists. not even the djs. seems like even if you wanna praise the cooly g types you cant not talk about the more populist strains of funky anyway. so hey, everyones happy. and funky has its own policing strategies as everyone is aware and this issue really is not one of them from the looks of things.

i don't even know which funky acts tim thinks should be covered by (fact? xlr8r? i have no idea!), or which would prove his point, given that crazy cousinz through to cooly g is a pretty damn wide spectrum already. geeneus has gotten loads of attention. marcus nasty will get loads when his rinse mix drops. ill blu are perhaps underappreciated but they don't have any live rep to speak of.

besides, im fine with the 'auteury' types being singled out, if it means the rest of the scene can bubble along unpertubed. cos WITHIN the scene, these guys that xlr8r and fact etc like arent really as big as donaeo etc.

also, if anyone WAS just writing about Crazy Cousinz, Roska, Cooly G, Scratcha DVA, Lil' Silva, that IS a pretty great range of diff funky styles.

im all for the thoroughly reynoldsy thing of 'must champion the populist songs/artists and belittle the leftfielders' cos the mainstream/serious techno musos are so prone to the opposite, but i think tim is just looking for a fight. something to create some sort of serious critical discourse/axe to grind w/r/t funky.

http://www.dummymag.com/txt-reviews/

Floating Points
Vacuum Boogie
A smooth ride through the cosmos. This is funky at its most refined.

Why is Vacuum Boogie considered 'Funky'? Sounds more like the Mark E/Theo brand of slow-house than Funky.

Don't sound like no funky to me either.

its not.

not sure about this kingdom mix. sounds like something someone down with diplo would do. bassline-y trancey house, lots of R&B vocals/cut ups, post bmore shit, all over the shop.

oh yeah, fact x night slugs @ egg on 23 oct. reaching.

http://profile.ak.fbcdn.net/object3/577/122/n138217572263_753.jpg

After listening to the 3 mixes linked/discussed above, I can conclusively say Jam City kills them all. The SFV10 mix is ruined by a repetitive and pointless MC, the Kingdom mix is good but not nearly as engaging as Jam City. Glad to have heard them all though. Thanks for the links.

heartless crew on rinse fri 7-9
sounding good and fun so far

im all for the thoroughly reynoldsy thing of 'must champion the populist songs/artists and belittle the leftfielders' cos the mainstream/serious techno musos are so prone to the opposite, but i think tim is just looking for a fight. something to create some sort of serious critical discourse/axe to grind w/r/t funky.

In some senses yes. I guess I just can't help but let my reactions be clouded by my sense of disappointment there seems to be this roar of indifference w/r/t actually checking out funky and writing about it - okay not "seriously", but, you know perhaps slightly more in depth than just "this track is big". Because I like reading to find out about new music, and I like the sense of excitement I feel when I can share other people's enthusiasm, and I can't go to these raves so it'd be nice to at least get that sense of shared enthusiasm somehow. And it seems that grime was the recipient of a massive, even disproportionate outpouring of writing (purply and otherwise), and I'm not even asking for that, but, y'know, just that maybe some people might give a shit and, like, help me out. But instead I'm mostly reduced to painstakingly assembling my knowledge of the scene by myself, using radio sets and myspace pages and a whole bunch of guesswork, because otherwise the internet is offering me very little assistance.

But clearly this is a good thing - no way do any of these producers want to be the beneficiaries of well-written, enthusiastic and informed media.

Tinchy even says upthread "no idea how you guys find out who makes what..." and then you all say "oh but are there even any producers worth writing about anyway...?"

There's no connection there, you don't think?

Re DJ Larizzle - yeah to be honest i was still downloading it when I posted the link, I was just assuming it'd be as strong as Vol. 9 and (particularly) Vol. 8, it comes in a bit below those though.

the amount of attention given to grime was, at least in the states, largely about ppl who wanted to like rap without actually listening to rap from their own back yards

the funny thing to me about ppl's large scale ignorance of funky in this country is that, when compared to grime or even 2step, it seems like it would fit in w/ a lot of existing dance scenes -- like, funky anthems dont really sound all that out of place in a set of house or pop music here! except for the ones w/ weird or quirkily british hooks (i.e. "too many men")

but obv the kind of ppl who seem to be taking to funky here are dubstep fans tired of dubstep who want 'beat science'-y nerd shit

It's the same in Australia.

And they all seem to read Fact.

"but obv the kind of ppl who seem to be taking to funky here are dubstep fans tired of dubstep who want 'beat science'-y nerd shit"

I think that kinda describes me, actually. What is wrong with that path to liking Funky? I'm genuinely interested in the reasoning.

<--- also reads Fact, fwiw.

Nothing wrong with it. A lot of these people are my friends, with whom I enjoy talking about music. They seem mostly interested in funky when and to the extent that it starts to resemble the other beat sciencey nerd shit they like, though, as opposed to, say, "Inflation" or "Gabryelle Refix" or "In The Morning" or "Pull It Wheel It" or etc.

Okay, positive vibes. "Jungle" on this Swift Jay website is surprisingly epic:

http://www.isound.com/swift_jay

Love Swift Jay so so much, though this doesn't top "Revenge" or "Toppa 5" or "Tribe" for me (though that's not saying a huge amount).

Wish I'd known that my second favourite diva anthem of the year had been up on youtube all this time:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hiM5sPSMWSM&feature=related

The use of Roger Rabbit for the visuals is surprisingly successful.

because otherwise the internet is offering me very little assistance

well yeah, "the internet"!

idk. i have stopped really writing on or for the internet. i'm tired of enthusing to little response, and when 90% of internet people default to indie in crunch time why even bother, you know? the thing with uk funky is that it's so in flux and malleable and all-encompassing that it's kinda impossible to put into an internet-friendly summation. which is how i like it.

'funked out' on the jam city mix is very nice.

Ha ha Lex that "it's the internet!" argument is the same thing that infuriates you w/r/t pitchfork though.

Really FACT is just the dance music Pitchfork. I'm more attuned to things about it that annoy me owing to the narcissism of small differences I guess.

(to the extent that, despite writing for Pitchfork, I feel "closer" to FACT in terms of my tastes)