funky house sceptics, let me draw your attention to this

!

(btw thanks for that mix, looks excellent)

faze you fuckin hero

Funkystepz's "Trinity Hill" (massive piano number) and "Dancing Scene" (insane 2-steppy xylophone workout) are massive. Love these guys - they seem to master any style they put their hand to. Not sure about their "Just Dance" remix though...

Finally reading this thread this week was a smart idea.

Kyla's Daydreaming is astonishing - a big jump up from Do You Mind.

Wanna hear that. Matt did you ever check the 26 Nov 2008 Marcus Nasty set? With all the DJs? That's probably the most concentrated ravey funky set I can think of.

Jammer's funky track and Lil Silva's "Burning" are probably the most ravey single tracks I can think of outside of "Turbulence".

Fact article here on Kode 9 and why dubstep fans are getting into funky.

Tim - I'm actually downloading it now. Kind of amazed the Sendspace link still works.

I think my somewhat belated love affair with funky stems from the fact that it only takes one rhythmic tweak to work virtually the entire history of dance music* under one umbrella. Pretty sure the producers know this and are having an enormous amount of fun with the myriad possibilities this throws up - how far are we off the appearance of funky trance I wonder? Our Father is most of the way there already.

*Okay maybe not jungle. Lol continuum.

Tranciest (good) funky tune I know is the Arms remix of Tawiah's "Every Step", which steals the trancey riff idea from "Mandarine Girl"/"In White Rooms"/Madonna's "Get Together".

Your general comment though is perhaps the strongest reason for my own enjoyment - that all-embracing ecumenical vibe whereby tricks that would sound tired in their original setting suddenly take on a new life (the unlikely fun-factor of Geeneus's remix of "Show Me Love" is a good example here, although to be honest I always love "Show Me Love" in any setting).

I think there are a lot of tracks, particularly at the "tribal" end, that sound pretty junglistic though. Still don't know the name of the archetypal tribal track that Marcus always plays, the one that sounds like some sort of harvester machine wielding bongos.

The Show Me Love remix was the exact track that made me think that, incidentally, mostly because it appeared in that Faze mix immediately after hands-in-the-air piano house (The Way You Move), no-nonsense minimalist hard house (Takover) and Daydreaming, which is only one step away from being a Body Language bootleg. Funky to me feels most interestly 'read' as a recontextualisation of the past 20 years of house music with a more limber beat that makes it more boozy than druggy - like a reimagining of the way dance music might have progressed if ecstacy had never existed. This might be incredibly wanky but at the same time it might explain why some of the hardcore continuumheads seem to have a problem with this stuff.

That Tawiah track also crossed my mind when I was talking about 'funky trance', I'm not sure it quite fits the sound I'm thinking of though because Arms's own production style is quite chunky and jerky and beat-em-up even when he's being girly.

"more boozy than druggy": maybe part of why I like it a lot?

the funky/champagne connection is as strong as any music/drug relationship there's ever been. bubbly bubbly, so damn bubbly

champagne seemed to be "drug" of choice for UKG during that speed->2 step transitional period '97'98 too

It's funny, because I've been thinking the exact opposite about the this music, that it brings overtly druggy elements back into the continuum. Certainly a lot of the afterparties I was going to two of three years ago were highly drug fuelled, and the audiences and music being played were directly related to the more 'concrete' scene that exists know.

i was THEEERRE

Simply an observation of drug use, still relevant. I give up here now.

naw, that was a good post and I envy your partying

tracks like tell me have always seemed a bit druggy to me.

Fact article here on Kode 9 and why dubstep fans are getting into funky.

― Tim F, Sunday, 15 March 2009 06:15 (2 days ago) Bookmark:

"the seed for funky isn't New York garage, but more dubiously, US house's placeless, post-authentic progeny."

"To less-than-obsessed ears, overlap with common-or-garden varieties generally inspires indifference."

or y'know, house heads

ah man

i think there is too great a range of feeling in funky for one drug connection to explain or define the vibes

Basically I posted that link to demonstrate that my strawmanning isn't purely based on my own paranoia - or, perhaps rather: I may be paranoid but I'm still right. Kode9 comes across rather well in the article; it's the legitimacy-handwringing of the article itself that irritates (some other parts of the article were rather well-written though so it's not all calamity).

Funny how the standard line now is that New York garage was worthy while "US house's placeless, post-authentic progeny" is not.

Because, y'know, 12 years ago people would have been making the same complaints w/r/t New York garage.

I guess, as so often happens, "worth" in this context really means "it has been redeemed by subsequent developments".

This is the same curious logic by which the only truly bad taste music is that which is no longer popular but hasn't yet been revived.

Anyway surely one of the more fun/interesting things about UK funky is the way in which it takes all of these tricks and techniques that have long since entered the international commercial house music Public Domain and reparticularises them (stylistically/geographically/thematically).

Which, I think, is pretty much the same aesthetic impulse that has motivated much of the best contemporary dancehall.

Generally, the problem with authenticity-discourse is not that it's wrong (this stuff is too complex for such stuff to be "right" or "wrong") but that it sclerotizes thinking: it's one thing to say "let's look for some kind of kernal of authenticity in this music", but quite another to blithely assume that authentic music is that which speaks to, from and about other authentic music - and yet you see people slide inexorably from the first position to the second.

So authenticity becomes about pedigree and blood lineage.

yeh i found the whole tone very conservative, and it was clearly written by someone who hasn't really engaged with and doesn't really feel house.

i find writing that "justifies" contemporary music with reference to its historical links or precedents, or valorises the 'redemptive instinct' you identify very boring and suffocating. sadly it seems to dominate a lot of writing about electronic and dance music nowadays (and probably more broadly too)

its true, 'authenticity-discourse' closes peoples' minds and encourages lazy superiority. but do you think there is value in engaging with the idea of authenticity at all? what would the first type of position or process that you mention actually entail? as time has gone by i have found less and less convincing argument to suggest that any such a position is feasible

"but do you think there is value in engaging with the idea of authenticity at all?"

Well, in truth either very little, or where there is value it's because the search has been reimagined (or the goal redefined) to such a degree that "authenticity" doesn't really fit as a descriptor anymore.

With regard to funky I would put it this way: I think there is value in approaching this scene as a found phenomenon that we accept from the outset is real, has rules and conventions and particular messages or value to impart. Stated so boldly, this is something of a creative fiction, but it's a creative fiction that we indulge in so as to be able to think more clearly or incisively or expansively about the music.

An example: Suges's "We Belong To The Night" is more of a UK funky house tune than Kode9's "Black Sun", even though Suges is Canadian and the track first appeared several years ago. What makes this so? Talking in terms of "more" or "less" at least implies that there is or are some essential truth or truths w/r/t the meaning and identity of funky that tracks can then be measured against. But the fact that "Black Sun" is "less" funky than "We Belong To The Night" does not make "Black Sun" a failure - what we're talking about is simply a quality of the relation of the three terms (Suges/Kode9/funky).

In this sense perhaps authenticity can be defined as a matter of integrity rather than pedigree: what principles or understandings does a given piece of music keep faith with, and how does it do this? The difference being that pedigree is with respect to something fixed and external - royalty are royalty whether you have royal blood or not. Whereas integrity is an internal quality that cannot be abstracted away from the particular piece of music expressing it - after all there is nothing to tell us which ideas or notions must be the focus of integrity in the absence of the experience of that act of fidelity. Indeed in the case of an evolving-in-real-time genre like funky, the relationship is entirely circular: we hear tracks that adjust our notions of what funky "is", which correspondingly transforms our sense of the relationship of that track and other tracks to funky.

interesting. i'm struggling a little to unpack the last paragraph but i think i get what you're saying. definitely agree about redefining the terms, i don't feel that 'authentic' etc is any longer a useful or productive one, because it feels (to me) so loaded

integrity is an internal quality that cannot be abstracted away from the particular piece of music expressing it... there is nothing to tell us which ideas or notions must be the focus of integrity in the absence of the experience of that act of fidelity

by 'act of fidelity' do you mean a producer's act fidelity to an 'authentic' lineage? essentially do you mean that integrity is a better term because it does not carry assumptions about what is 'integral' to a genre?

when the discourse is moved into the realm of trying to understand why or how music is defined, and establish ways of recognising and understanding what we mean by 'funky', its a totally different exercise. i think this is also different to trying to understand why or how funky means or feels anything to anyone, which i think is probably the most interesting discussion to be had in the journalistic / academic realm, although it probably also has a fairly high kill-joy potential!

i guess the fundamental problem i have with authenticity as a concept (and it may not feel the same to many people) is that as a term it feels so bound up in and loaded with a (lazy) discourse that is about value, in a purportedly objective sense. i think there is still a broadly held assumption that one's subjective sense or understanding of authenticity translates to a universally applicable norm, necessarily conferring value. that assumption irritates me quite a lot, although it shouldn't!

random q - who has the best radio shows in funky apart from marcus nasty? mak 10?

I find Crazy Cousinz on radio unlistenable - horrible mixing plus too many rewinds and a slightly hysterical appeal for missed calls add up to a totally dud experience...

DJ NG not bad, but Footloose is probably the best after Marcus for me - good percentage of new stuff in all his shows but not nearly as energetic as a marcus set. Honourable mention to Perempay.

The real problem with Crazy Cousinz shows is the way they constantly switch off the music to make their shout-outs etc, it's very jarring.

Ben I'll be responding to your last post soon - stuff to think about!

cool Tim, no rush! its something i'm interested in talking about cos i think my thinking on the matter is still quite muddled, so its always good to explore

i really like Mak 10's shows, esp in the bits where he plays it a bit housier / vocal, i've found the tuffer bits he's playing of late a bit tiring though. Footloose is always great. i've not checked CC for a while but i do actually usually enjoy their shows quite a lot, so much energy. i really like Dubplate Banton/HHBanton, and the one Twista show i have is wicked. need to check more of the Rinse lot more regularly i think, MA1 and such

interview with Tippa from Circle...

http://futurenextlevel.blogspot.com/2009/03/dubbage-interview-with-tippa-from.html

explains the dubbage things I was asking about upthread

that geeneus show you linked to is pretty good actually. gets interesting about half way through. his comments about grime djs are kinda otm/funny too.

which geeneus show is that?

the most recent one. 18th march i think?

cool, will check it out :)

So basically Circle are funky's Tuff Jam, right?

I have nothing against the style of music they play - I like it a lot actually, basically they're doing Jerome Sydenham/Dennis Ferrer/Quentin Harris style deep-tech yeah? But they're kidding themselves if they think they'll create a new genre out of this sound now, when there's already been such intense activity in this area for the past couple of years.

to some extent, but they don't (at least yet) quite have the same musical capacities as Tuff Jam did... but i am a total Tuff Jam fanboy so maybe not offering a neutral perspective! from a more social perspective it seems a good comparison though

i think their selection is a bit more expansive than just that NY deep sound though, loads of quite maximally arranged techy but housey european stuff, some more trad. UK deep house guys etc, broken beat plus chicago/US deep. funnily their selection is probably broader than most UK guys, just with much more explicit boundaries and exclusions.

strikes me that much of their position comes quite a lot from social sides rather than music or sound in abstract, more so than many others. it seems that wanting to be as far from grime, the vibe that came with it and the mentality that dominated it is almost the defining factor of their perspective and musical choices

it does actually seem like more broadly the whole nursery rhyme / chant trend is splitting the scene in half, or at least polarising it, i've seen a lot of very, very impassioned critiques of that stuff of late, even from ppl like Marcus Nasty

"i've seen a lot of very, very impassioned critiques of that stuff of late, even from ppl like Marcus Nasty"

where?

heard a lot of chanty crap i hadnt heard before out on saturday, seems a lot of half baked producers are hunting the next 'heads, shoulders..' (which im unsure of) style vocal hook. I don't think ive heard an mc led funky track yet which i didnt think was gash

i hate all these mc/dance tunes.

im kinda hoping that they all bomb and everyone just ignores them.

it really brings the most pathetic get rich quick trotter elements to the fore. fuck doing the work lets hope the birds are thick enough to latch on to this one and ride the 5 minutes of fame

where?

― Yellow Carded (titchyschneiderMk2)

Marcus sez:

I AM NOT SUPPORTING FUNKY MC TRACKS THAT ARE REALLY GRIME TUNES OR OTHER PEOPLES TUNES THAT YOU HAVE MC'ED OVER AND ARE NOW PASSING OFF AS YOUR OWN.

IF YOU CANT MAKE IT AS AN MC YOU WILL DEFINATELY NOT MAKE IT AS AN ARTIST!
IF YOU ARE AN ARTIST YOU SHOULD KNOW BETTER!
AND IF YOU ARE AN MC WHO IS JUMPING ON THIS TING YOU SHOULD KNOW WHAT YOU ARE DOING OR "LEAVE IT ALONE".

IM NOT SAYING THAT THEY ARE ALL SHIT IM JUST SAYING THAT WE NEED TO KEEP IT FUNKY TO REALLY ESTABLISH OUR SCENE AS AT THE MOMENT THERE IS NO CONSITENCY OR ANY SORT OF LEVELS WITH REGARDS TO THE MC TRACKS FOR INSTANCE DONAEO & VERSATILLE IN COMPARISON TO THE CRAP THAT HAS BEEN SENT TO MY INBOX.

THE HEAD, SHOULDERS, KNEES & TOES TRACK WAS ORIGINAL SO IT WORKED BUT EVEN THEY STRUGGLE TO PERFORM TO THE LEVEL OF AN ESTABLISHED MC ON A LIVE SET.

MY ONE OFF MC SHOWS ARE LIVE "RADIO SHOWS" TO SHOWCASE THE TALENT FROM WITHIN OUR SCENE AND ARE NOT TO BE TAKEN AS A GO AHEAD TO INCOURAGE OTHER DJ'S/MC'S WHO LACK IDEAS OR TURN THIS SCENE INTO A TALENTLESS HYPEFEST.

P.S

I HAVE NOT AND WILL NEVER PLAY THEM ON MY SHOW!!!!!"

http://ukfunky.free-forums.org/marcus-nastys-view-on-mcs-vt1252.html

+ further...

http://queenofsheba84.wordpress.com/2009/02/22/its-not-funky-its-whack/
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=131519630155
http://www.itsalotmagazine.com/ (p32)

this is funny:

http://profile.ak.facebook.com/object3/1045/64/n131519630155_4038.jpg

OMG, on the new Mak 10/Shantie set Ach (Benjamin?) posted on the dissensus thread (and btw welcome back Shantie MC!), the second track is JAWDROPPING. I think it's a remix of J-Will's "Deja Vu". Sweet but dark hi-tech robo-pop, with a rhythm as memorable as the tune.

just swinging by to register the fact i saw Harry Hill singing Bongo Jam on Tv Burp in a funky house related gag last night.

i wish i knew what more of these tracks were called. im def converted full on to this now though. need to get down to more funky events.

I'm Ach. I've just checked out the J-Will original, that's a very good video, especially with Wretch who I've always liked. Pretty sure the funky mix is by Soul Tonic Sound System. I can't find their myspace as yet but there are a number of tracks by them on ukfunky.com

Thanks Ach! Soul Tonic Sound System did an excellent remix of a Doctor tune too I think - it's on one of Faze's mixes. I can totally believe this remix is by them.

I know that i've touted the secret black dog --> uk funky connection before, but Mos' Wanted's "Frozen" (on the new Marcus Nasty set) really does sound like something off Temple of Transparent Balls. But it's also smashing. I like how a lot of the time this music seems utterly oblivious to its own oddness.

was listening to a dj ng set on rinse the other day, with mc versatile (i think). he seemed a bit self conscious about some of the softness of the tunes that were being played (it was more typical funky house rather than funky), constantly repeating 'this is the new garage' in between almost defending the tunes (if only to make himself feel better lol). i like 'funky' but half the other shows on rinse seem to be playing the usual watery proper funky house. makes you remember this this sound is still in its early stages.