funky house sceptics, let me draw your attention to this

So yes, exactly like Louis then.

99 per cent of the time someone's desperate wrangling and "I just don't get this???" is completely stupid, no offence Steve, we all do it. just take a deep breath, put the kettle on, make some tea, and then think "why did I even bother?"

no not really like louis at all, come on. dissing a track because you hear it and can instantly think of ways it could be just as populist and as much if not more fun but also richer and more sophisticated from a musical and technical pov, even taking into account it's context and target audience. pretentious (ok that aspect of it is like louis but so what) but reasonable objection. i wouldn't normally push it this much but i really thought the track just sounded shit and not just because it was on youtube.

That Young Nate/Ill Blu remix jacks the guitar from "Closer", yeah?

Yes I think so.

"that recent 'laavvvly day' geezer tune/remix of his that tim keeps giving the side-eye to i think is okay. well no, objectively it is clearly balls but in context it's doing its thing, honest."

Yeah this is how I feel about it, it annoys me and I want to hate it but the arrangement is top-notch, love all the bits where Roska loops snatches of the vocal "ya-ey, ya-ey" etc.

Roska's past 6 months have been odd, he reminds me a lot of Wookie - amazing initial tunes and then afterwards everything gets better and better produced but the tracks themselves seem overthought and simultaneously hollow - certainly less affecting. Only with Roska it's all these primitive house or broken beat references rather than soul etc. Though primitive house would be a great idea for a reference point in most instances.

Or maybe it's just that they have similar sounding basslines.

"Hey Cutie", the track he gave away on the Rinse site, is good. Also the track on the Fantastic 4 ep is good too. My favourite thing he's done this year though is he remix of Darkus Beat Company's "Promises", which probably wins because the source material was so strong in the first place.

One thing I wanted to note about how "In The Morning" works "in the mix" is that the beat is really jarring and unexpected feeling, instantly recognisable when it starts to come in even relative to funky generally, where the likelihood of recognising a tune by its drum programming alone is very high anyway. And then you get these little shouts and sighs from Egypt to confirm "yes, it's that tune!" before the synths start percolating in the background. I think the intro is edited out of the radio version though.

"(the understatement/familiarity/ nationalism that's naff for you is psychologically massively important to the scene - it thrives on not being a new thing just as much as it does, among other things.)(a lesser point really, just my pet wheeze at the mo.)"

I think this is really important - not just in the sense of being important to how funky works, but in the sense that I think, if you don't get it and appreciate how it works in funky then funky will never totally be "for you".

It's also the part of funky that I find hardest to write about in a way that both pinpoints it and captures its "significance".

what shows/mixes is everyone listening to at the mo btw?

i'm really enjoying the greenmoney ones archived here - http://www.brooklynradio.net/brooklynradio/greenmoney/

as someone who has completely missed this whole scene - where should i begin? any particular mix?

just get disc 2 of the crazi cousins album. pretty much all you need for a starter pack.

Caught the Hessle Audio crew (Ramadanman, Ben UFO and Pangaea) doing a b2b 3 hour set at the Freerotation festival on the weekend. Awesome cross-genre skills, playing loads of funky but mixed superbly with deep house, dubstep and loads of glassic UK garage from Vincent J Alvis 'Body Killin' to 24Hour Experience 'Together'. Awesome stuff.

And they managed to get the usually fairly quiet Room 2 absolutely rammed!

Hessle Audio totally on top of things right now.

I don't think the Crazi Cousinz 2nd disc is that amazing actually. But then I'd probably big up my favourite radio sets over any of the commercially available mixes I've heard.

some of the best funky mixes for me have been the ones that faze has posted on this thread. the trouble with the CC one is that it's a very obvious primer way past the point when any of us (on this thread) need a primer - i'm guessing it'd be an excellent entry point, though no more or less so than the geeneus bonus disc or the MoS comp (actually that last one is probably what i'd go for).

oh yeah and the 'in the morning' thread on the popjustice forum (i know i know, should never go there) will make you want to stab people.

this i gotta see...

I like the MoS comp best if only because the Footloose mix in particular really starts to get at what makes UK funky so distinctive, esp. all those ravey carnivalesque tracks.

I don't think the Crazi Cousinz 2nd disc is that amazing actually. But then I'd probably big up my favourite radio sets over any of the commercially available mixes I've heard.

Any particular suggestions, Tim?

1) Marcus Nasty Deja Vu FM sets from March - May last year, my favourites being the ones with Shantie & Quincy, and with Shantie & Rankin
2) Hard House Banton & Dubplate Wonder on Deja Vu FM 04.11.2008
3) Hard House Banton & Dubplate Wonder on Deja Vu FM 25.11.2008
4) Marcus Nasty and various MCs on Rinse FM 26.11.2008
5) Marcus Nasty on Rinse FM 15.01.2009
6) Mak 10 with Shantie on Deja Vu 26.03.2009
7) Mak 10 with Shantie on Rinse 22.04.2009
8) Fantastic 4 on Rinse FM 30.05.2009

Toby - I think lengthy Rinse FM sets without tracklistings are all well and good but not the best starting point. I can't vouch for the mixing on that Ministry of Sound comp but there are A LOT of the big tunes on there and as a result it's probably the best place to start. If you don't like anything on there it's pretty much safe to say you won't like funky.

(If I get time this weekend I can send you some kind of Rough Guide yousendit MP3 primer type thing as well, along the lines of the one Lex sent round last year).

i dont think i can ID that lfo sampling mr roach track everyone keeps talking about. i swear ive heard it on sets and on ads (theres some funky ads on rinse at the mo which have some great tracks as the beds but i dont know what they are) but i cant find it on the net to check its the one i think it is.

Don't worry, it's not much cop. People only talk about it because it samples a tune they already know and, y'know, history and such.

Meanwhile, WAD is finally on youtube:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=juzk7MqnrBM

Love this tune so so so much. And feel vaguely pleased by all the puzzled comments from dubstep fans.

thing is, People only talk about it because it samples a tune they already know and, y'know, history and such is also at lot like how people listen to what we term to be the good stuff; it has to be admitted that wonky has its own pleasure principle at play that works much the same way as it does in funky. you might think its clumsy nuum-overdetermination fatally compromises that principle, but then you also seem to think that not going mad over a monsta boy 09 refix doesn't not still mean you have a suspiciously similar lurid 2step bias (aphrodisiax, funkstepz, dark night, this here pearson sound) that falls foul of someone's old "show don't tell" scold perhaps just as equally.

cant DL marcus nasty and crazy cousins' recent sets from the rinse site, typically.

i just got the crazy cousins one, but couldnt get the marcus nasty

this CC show is really good. some really nice mixing.

"thing is, People only talk about it because it samples a tune they already know and, y'know, history and such is also at lot like how people listen to what we term to be the good stuff; it has to be admitted that wonky has its own pleasure principle at play that works much the same way as it does in funky. you might think its clumsy nuum-overdetermination fatally compromises that principle, but then you also seem to think that not going mad over a monsta boy 09 refix doesn't not still mean you have a suspiciously similar lurid 2step bias (aphrodisiax, funkstepz, dark night, this here pearson sound) that falls foul of someone's old "show don't tell" scold perhaps just as equally."

I'm not sure if I have correctly unravelled the Monsta Boy bit? I think i've heard that 09 version but I can't remember if it was good or not. I do have a lurid 2-step bias but I would say in my defence that I admit it and think about it a lot, including the extent to which funky differs from 2-step in very positive ways. Without wanting to get all faux-deep here I would say that everyone has lurid biases in this way and the question is how you make it work for you.

There are obv. lots and lots of tracks that fall into this broad category of past-resurrection in some fashion - be they song refixes (e.g the great Footloose remix of "Celebrate Life"), tracks that sample iconic tracks (Grievous Angel vs Riko's "I Love This War" - samples "Ice Rink") or simply tracks that sound highly reminiscent of a particular era and seem designed to seduce fans of that era. Dark Knight definitely - and unsurprisingly he's also now overrated by certain types. He appears to have done quite a bit of drab stuff (I wouldn't put Aphrodisiax/Funkystepz/Pearson Sound in those categories though... the extent to which any of them resemble 2-step is no greater than their resemblance to a dozen other things - plus Funkystepz like Fuzzy Logik don't really have a "category"). All of these can fall on either side of someone's show/tell dichotomy. But I don't think my own dichotomy is hypocritical: I've always supported "Different Lekstrix" as the "proper" archetypal bleep-revivalist track, and I can't see how any of the 2-step-reviving stuff is more "tell" than that.

Mostly it just comes down to success though: "I Love This War" does the same thing as the Mr Roach track and I approached it with some caution, but it's a really great track. The thing that bugged me about the talk about the Mr Roach track is simply that no-one seemed interested in whether the track was actually any good.

"Grievous Angel vs Riko's "I Love This War" - samples "Ice Rink"

hes an amazing dj but this track is just terrible. weirdest idea to sample a gun lyric for a funky tune, and not very well either. sounds like a beginners mashup. but ill allow it just his mixes are superb.

OMG THIS VIDEO CLIP. Already liked this song heaps but now a bitch all in love:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JvkrnPHzv90

ha. great. :)

omg

oo shit damn

@ tim

well, before i say anything else i should say i was more of the impression that that roach track was actually being enjoyed by its fans, and was not just used solely as a handy critical placeholder; perhaps a misapprehension on my part tbf, and if so then everything's a bit null and void and accordingly much of what you say is correct.

naturally i've also no personal qualms about "how you make it work for you", or indeed most of your valuations (aside from the 'ice rink' thing, which titchy is otm about - dissensus' own version of the curb your enthusiasm theme tune right there) but i will continue to allow myself a wry one as regards the other tracks we're talking about not catering in particular to a 2stepper's palate; if we take that pearson sound for instance then yeah sure, it does have loads of stuff going on (the main uh, "woo woo, woo-woo" refrain a bit grimelike in its insistence too, almost) yet it seems obvious to me at least that all these strands coalesce around the satisfaction of the classic vocal science that appears midway through. probably this is sufficiently internalised in the track to just about achieve show status rather than tell (tell being something like what i meant by the monsta boy), but it's hardly brain surgery either. which is fine whichever way, cos regardlesss i like the tune and what it stands for, and cos blatantness is a big part of funky enjoyment anyhow; like i say, if i've the wrong end of the stick about the roach track then you're not laying it on as thick as i thought you were to have warranted my bloodsport. (tsk! - the irresistably ripe zing mangoes that groan down from every palm in hypersubjective protoparadise eh.)

your 'different lekstrix' write-up besides was SPOT ON btw - placing that tune's, i dunno, air of construction was driving me mad. when mcs come across it they really do briefly become a bit like kids playing with lego set or whatever, little furrowed brows trying to work it out. also yeah, "4x4 awning" obv.

scotty d tunes always somehow escape my memory too often to comment on how ardkore applies to them as an oeuvre, but i do love 'sound' for exactly that reason - the wicked great lack inbetween the sense of anticipation that old "this is a journey into sound" sample dredges up and then the brutally stark groove that follows, seemingly almost just to fuck with you.

fuck, is this 'blackberry hype' hardhouse banton remix that footloose opens this week's show with new? it's awesome.

skepta ft jay sean - lush :(

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A5WHUMcWkfg

skepta ft jay sean - lush FUZZY LOGIK REMIX :DDDDDDDDDD

http://www.zshare.net/audio/64618378e8ad30cc/

i'm sorry, there is no way this guy one day just hatched out of a fucking egg in some bedroom somewhere HE IS TOO GOOD.

them basement jaxx dudes mustve had a baby together or something.

I went away and thought about it and I think I agree with yr original intervention anyway.

My beef with "LFO" is at least partly what I imagine is behind the reactions of people saying "woah can you believe a funky track that samples LFO?!?! Nuum baby yeah." Somewhat like my beef with Cooly G it's all overthought meta-criticism. And yeah if anything it applies even more to the Grievous Angel track (though I do like the latter in the context of the Heatwave sets I've heard it in). In both cases it's like these tracks had to come into existence so that people can satisfy their overarching theories without engaging with the music.

One of the things I like about the Geeneus remix of "Show Me Love" is that a) "Show Me Love" is far too widely loved a track for a funky version of it to prove anything except that the scene knows a classic anthem when it hears one; and b) Geeneus actually does the minimum amount necessary to render it "uk funky". So it evades my show/tell dichotomy with a kind of shrugged shoulders "who the fuck cares" indifference.

To some extent I'd put stuff like the "Monsta Boy" or "Celebrate Life" refixes in this category as well. The revival of a vocal anthem has a different logic to the revival of an identifiable sound or sample or etc. If someone hears the Monsta Boy remix they're as likely to think "oh yeah I used to have that as my ring tone" as they are "hey remember 2-step? Good times." It's closer to garage reviving "Teardrops" or "Back To Life" than it is garage reviving "The Way" and "Lighter" and "Hurt You So".

Looking forward to checking that Fuzzy track!

crackish needs a release soon as.

woke up relieved that fuzzy logik remix still existed, haha. urge everyone to play the game and suffer the original version first if theyre not familiar already, funner that way.

has there been any biographical info on him turn up somewhere that i've missed btw? - thinking about it, the sample of buju's 'champion' on 'twiss' could perhaps put him down as a dude of a certain age, or even as an ex-junglist cos there was that big mix of it around too.

or it's just the usual older brother/dad in soundsystem randomness, youths be unsecondguessable. like ok 4 instance did you know the hook on wonder's 'what have you done' is a sample? cheeky bugger.

cosign on 'crackish' as well, it's great; the way it implies the carnivalesque of something like naughty's 'quicktime' but is unmistakably still immaculate statesmanlike geeneus somehow is ultra-compulsive. crackish is a good name for it.

http://www.zshare.net/audio/64633393a494105c/

here's the blackberry hype banton mix. epic bigroom trance drama!

oh also i have a track id request after rereading mention of vocal science etc; it's been around for a bit but what was tune with the thunderous trashcan percussion and then an aguilera 'genie in a bottle' sample -

"you - gotta be - gotta rub me the right way YOUWANNABEWITHME?"

with that last bit unleashing some terrifying indignant banshee fury that no cartoon badgyal jamaicanism can ever hope to approximate.

Ha you'll be shocked to know it's called A Little Bit Funky - "Wanna Be With Me".

Amazing how that's about a gazillion times better than the version with out xtina.

this will prob be met with silence but does anyone have that fwd set from earlier this year where geeneus first played the crackish instrumental, pre-vocalling?

wasnt too into that last fuzzy logik ep but the first one is great. and in the morning, yknow, isnt too bad ;)

has anyone else noticed that there are barely no male singers in funky to rival donaeo? or have i just totally missed some important people?

i really need more aaliyah funky remixes btw. so so perfect.

funky remix of birthday sex is also good.

there was also a good cockney-girl-singer vocal tune i heard a week or so ago on some anonymous pirate but ive totally forgotten the title.

"dissensus' own version of the curb your enthusiasm theme tune right there"

waiting for descriptions of how it applies boisterous rude and raw, cheesy and raucous bonhomie to funky's dominant rules of feminine pressure or something similar ;)

also, these trg and mj cole mixes on fact are really good.

also (2), theres this d malice remix that marcus nasty played last week that was fucking nuts.

it was like some old davinche grime beat gone superpowered funky.