funky house sceptics, let me draw your attention to this

found it...

http://www.myspace.com/fingaprint

STRICTLY VIBES: UK Funk House Essentials

It does mystify me that there isn't more of a groundswell of support for this stuff. There's, like, 5 regulars on this thread? Grime got much more of a response from ILX/the world at large.

Am I the only one who thinks this music is clearly as exciting as that was? (probaby even more so?)

Where are the epic Simon Reynolds thinkpieces eh.

Am I the only one who thinks this music is clearly as exciting as that was? (probaby even more so?)

Wake me up when the Funky House 'Junior Spesh' rolls into view....

Am I the only one who thinks this music is clearly as exciting as that was? (probaby even more so?)

more so

Marcus Nasty has two new mixes up in his Facebook group, FREE MIX CDS.

I don't like them quite as much as his other recent ones though, partly because they're a little bit more conservative, but perhaps mostly because they're missing Shantie, who I rather unfairly now consider to be the voice of funky house (I'm astonished at how much I love this guy).

Also Marcus has done a 2 hour set for BBC 1Xtra (with tracklisting! Finally!) that I still need to check out. This looks good:

Skepta / Wiley / Donao – Rolex Sweep (Special)
Seasons – Little Silver
Frontline – Eye Blue / Princess
Sirens – Hard House Banton
Reign – Hard House Banton
Bongo Jam – Crazy Cousins
The Way We Get Down – Vibe
Jungle Boy – Intramental
Tell Me – DJ NG (Genius Remix)
Marcus Special – Lightning Exclusive
Would You Mind – Kyla Ft Crazy Cousins
Quick Time – DJ Naughty (VIP Mix)
Piece Of Heaven – Beat Players Ft Lara McClarren
Stomper – Seany B
Gimme That 08 Remix – Mario Productions
Mr Seduction – Seany B
Brazillia – Baby Face J
Post Room Remix – Little Silver (Marcus Nasty Special)
Sheaneka – JP2
General remix – Malice
Liberty – Scotty D
Live Wire – Norris Da Boss
Bad Habits – Marc Ambience
The Music – Hard House Banton
In The Air – Perempae
Yellow Yail – Genius
Mario – Mario Productions
Terminator – JME
Funky Flex – Little Silver
Take Over – VIP Mix (Invasion Recordings)
Devil In A Blue Dress – Doneo
African Warrior – Doneo
Believe In Love – Rosca
Climate Change – Rosca
Speechless – Mystery
Flawless – Malice
Blanka – JME
Bad Habit – Malice
Make You Move – Seany B
Topper 5 Remix – Swif Joy
Im Right Here – MA1 Naughty Remix
Visions – Malice
Mind Body And Soul – TNT
Rock 2 The Beats – Kurupt Rec
Girl Like Me – Naughty Ft Addictive
Rising Sun – Invasion Rec
Level – Fuzzy Logic
Mr Bean Remix – Sypro
Take It The Top – Misa Mix ft Nia
Take It Low – Lev
High – Doneo
Things Have Changed – Mattalic

(TNT's "Mind, Body & Soul" is the vocal version of "Rumba", for those of you playing at home. It's the one with sassy diva going "'cos when the sun goes down my baby got me out of control..")

oi finners chuck us those mix links, i don't do fb

will swap for the wiseguy 1xtra shortcut LIKE SO

rtsp://rmv8.bbc.net.uk/1xtra/allstar_mix.ra

Marcus and Rankin on Deja Vu 28.06.08: http://www.sendspace.com/file/5vk5c5

Marcus, Sharkey P and L.E.V. Ayia Napa Send Off: http://www.sendspace.com/file/710yjc

safe.

mainly wanted cos "a little bit more conservative" strikes me for two reasons: been lazy and catching up, and also that some of the latest developments detailed above i found perturbing wrt their boshing aggression; while there were bits of nasty crew in even the earliest 08 marcus sets they still never cleaved as close to grime as something like 'african warrior' dub - yeah there's polyrhythms there and whatnot, but if you'd called it "any random skepta therapy session (paradox drumfunk remix)" nary an eyelid would be bat. seems a bit besides the point?

(this... this is the world's 1st funky formalist audition right?)

One of the things I should have talked more about in my blog post above (but I was kinda feverish and just wanted to finish it) is how even the most grimey of, say, Marcus's sets have heaps of relatively more conservative tunes, falling into two basic categories:

1) The diva vocal tunes ("Do You Mind", "Tell Me", "I Tried", "Dirty Thoughts", "I See You", "Make Your Move", "High Heels" etc.) - there's no necessary correlation between the vocal and the ruffness of the groove (hence "Rumba" becomes "Mind, Body & Soul") although yeah we're not likely to see vocal versions of Roska or Apple tunes any time soon.

2) The deep house tunes, which (in Marcus's sets) are mostly along the lines of Jerome Sydenham/Dennis Ferrer/Quentin Harris (not that these three guys all sound the same, but that's the space in which these tunes fall) - tunes like Perempay's "Hypnotic", and heaps of others I can't name. Lots of simple but sexy 4X4 beats, spare piano chords and strings.

At the moment as far as I can tell no-one's really playing sets that are wall to wall harder tunes from Apple/Roska/Footloose/"African Warrior (Dub)" etc. And heaps of producers fall on each side of the line, like Seany B has made "Stompa" and "Make Your Move", "Dirty Thoughts"; Footloose has his hard remixes and "Just Leave", same for Fingerprint with his recent remixes and "The Print".

"African Warrior (Dub)" isn't as good as the vocal version for the precise (and rather boring coming from me) reason that it sacrifices that perfect balance between singalong vocal tune and hard as nails groove.

yeah ok, that seems fair. funny to think of it now but i almost feel like i'd wrestled with similar demons whilst wondering if it was right that i should enjoy 'what goes around' that much more than 'leader'. innocent times.

anyway 4 those in the gallery seats, here to illustrate these points is dj naughty's 'tough luck', sandwiched between said 'african warrior' and 'tribal warfare' by a little "but only a very little" bit funky, taped off footloose:

http://www.zshare.net/audio/146008334ca80c19/

ps. 'tough luck' is the good one.

pps. i should add that i am in no way unsympathetic to the socabeat theology as is.

I guess i feel like I'm torn between the two emerging polar positions here. There are some people who say "oh yeah funky house is worthless except for Apple".

Which seems like the argument you'd make if you'd been into dubstep and grime but never got garage itself.

Conversely though I think the scene became really interesting at the point where its range expanded to include light vocal house tunes at one end and Apple at the other. It's the range itself, and the way all of these things are blended into one coherent genre, which I find interesting.

On one of the Marcus/Shantie sets Marcus mixes straight from "Hypnotic" into "Climate Change", and it's a spectacular feat of mixing both technically (the solitary string flares in "Hypnotic" slotting perfectly into an empty space in "Climate Change") and erm thematically - the transition is an embodiment of the openness in this music that possibly can't/won't last.

Yeah I guess that paradox-bosh sound on "African Warrior (Dub)" and "Tribal Warfare" sounds a bit oppressive in the context of two out of the three tracks, but are there any other tracks that even sound like that? They make the ominous-soca of Footloose or Baby Faced Jay's "Tribal Zone" sound a lot more peppy and girly by comparison.

Some of the tracks on DJ Naughty's myspace (not specified as they're mixed together as a segment from a live set) are verging on Germanic deepness, very much Innervisions meets Liebe*Detail.

Ha ha I could sorta imagine funky house audiences liking Ed Davenport's "Eyepspeak" or Tiger Stripes' "Hooked" actually.

the transition is an embodiment of the openness in this music that possibly can't/won't last.

haha yeah it's like what you were saying on the tropical thread about proto-paradise interregna and such, only now it's almost as if there's already an immanent strain of of melancholy there for whatever disappointing compromises that lie ahead once this all ossifies.

for my part, i guess my vector is still gonna be that marcus set i attended - but then the spare tautness of that whole vibe, and the interplay with the mc, is always unlikely to fashion itself a foothold in any kind of realworld record sale product. 'do you mind' is actually probably the one vocal tune that's gripping yet unobtrusive enough to stay true to that side, somehow. but it still sounds fantastic on daytime radio.

also, that glint of dancehall in there hasnt really panned out has it. links of what i thought mightve been abrew in a sec!

http://www.zshare.net/audio/1460480207997596/

munga's 'early morning' on corleone's atmopshere riddim (which sank without trace) - trace of lonely compulsion in there a bit like 'push the feeling on' or something maybe?

http://www.zshare.net/audio/14604826acab64d7/

ding dong's 'go away'... won't spoil this one.

Re: roughness...

Actually for me the most exciting thing about this scene is the over 'sexy' element to a lot of it. There's been this weird and persistent de-sexualising of dance genres for ages, and you could see funky as being the turn of that tide. And I particularly like the fact that the sexiness here isn't the self-consciously 'adult' kind but quite often feels a lot rawer and more teenage - something that you could argue only 2step and disco ever nailed before (with obvious exceptions of hip hop/rnb and jamaican styles).

I'm obviously lacking any first hand experience of clubs/raves that play this stuff, but it seems to me that being in an environment where you hear primarily DJ Naughty, Perempay and vocal tunes might actually be more unique and different than one in which it's all hard percussive Apple-style stomp...

I have a question. How mainstream/underground is this stuff in Britain?

omg we were just discussing this in aol chatroom's 'chatz'!

omg motherfucker!

Well, 'wearing my rolex' charted...

I'd tend to think 'underground' is kind of an irrelevant descriptor for this stuff. It's populist music that isn't popular yet.

Woah, Skykicking revived!??!?1?/!?!

I'm thinking that it might be worth reviving just to post stuff about funky house.

"proto-paradise interregna and such"

rtc this is surely in yr top twenty or so. Though "driven home in the somnambulance" remains number 1 always and forever.

It's at least gonna be interesting to see what happens with this stuff. It's not necessarily a case of light&sexy-->hard&masculine, although that's one obvious trajectory for it. Garage is an interesting example here: when 2-step took over the music actually got more lighthearted and poppy than it had been in speed garage's immediately preceding boom boom bassline era, as if the revelation of the 2-step beat itself gave the rest of the music some temporary breathing space in which it didn't have to busy itself with wowing the headz.

If we're gonna isolate syncopated stompadelic producers then I prefer Roska to Apple, but I still don't want Roska's sound to take over the scene. Would much prefer the dominant sound to be a kind of R&B Mark II - only with a more viable/accessible rhythmic basis than R&B Mark I. A tune like Diamond's "Champagne Dance" is as WTF groovewise as anything else but it is also great singalong material. And if tunes like that became the common ground you could see the current arrangement whereby sets can also accommodate both deeper housey tunes and frantic soca-inspired tunes, at least temporarily.

x-post: i would say still pretty underground - i dont see much stuff written abt it or advertised at many club nights. but i'm in london - is london meant to be the centre of the scene?? or is it elsewhere.

o and great to see skykicking back!

is london meant to be the centre of the scene??

Yes.

The one place very near me that did put on this kinda thing has just changed to an indie night instead.

:(

haha tim i will never fathom yr fondness for that terrible jamaican patient spiel.

appears malice is our 'gabreille' dubber btw:

http://www.myspace.com/diamondindaruffproductions

Wake me up when the Funky House 'Junior Spesh' rolls into view....

-- linea, Wednesday, 2 July 2008 15:15 (Yesterday) Link

roll into view you say?

Well, 'wearing my rolex' charted...

I'd tend to think 'underground' is kind of an irrelevant descriptor for this stuff. It's populist music that isn't popular yet.

-- J@cob, Thursday, July 3, 2008 8:25 AM (12 hours ago)

It is very underground. It doesn't have much of a foothold anywhere outside of London at all and even their it's not the main thing going on.

And "Wearing my Rolex" doesn't really have much to do with this to my ears (just straight up electro-house really, surely?).

ozzie b checks in

(tune sounds a lot better in the middle of the "Marcus, Sharkey P and L.E.V. Ayia Napa Send Off" set above)

unless it's real... jungle funky i don't wanna hear it. i can't stand that fast fake ass dance music that sounds about 10 years too slow

i want a jam i can shake my shoulders to and circle around moving weight. vibrate, etc. i don't want some corny shitty breakbeat alternating while some fag samples horns without any high complexity much less meaningfun resolution. i hate this genre

http://img389.imageshack.us/img389/9821/bongomadnessrg2.gif

want

Loving Apple's "Bean Get Well Soon". The track on his myspace labeled "SAMPLE of wots to come" is interesting with its combination of funky-styled drums and bassline-style...bassline.

suppose it would be shortsighted to find mc versatile's work on TEH FUNKY ANTHEM (aka 'gabryelle' x crazy cousinz x shout-pouts to everyone in the scene) a tad embarassing huh

haha 'shout-pouts'... shout-pouts to all my homies 4real

maybe it's just cos marcus then follows with the gorgeous murk of geeneus 'piece of heaven' right after

also yeah, what is that hott analogue dialtone salsa bubbler that goes "get on - the floor!"

Trying to think of a track that could actually be described as a series of "shout-pouts".

Maybe Skepta's shock claim "Soulja Boy can't dance like me."

Isn't Teh Funky Anthem really an MC version of Crazi Cousinz (superior) "High Heels" - the one that goes "I got my high heels on, and the DJ is playing my favourite song. I'm sipping on JD, and i admit I am feeling a little tipsy..."

Hoping I never live to see a house track offering a shout-pout to Jim Beam though.

xpost: RTC that's Delio D’Cruz ft. K Cat – Get On The Floor

duh ok! still terrible with names right now... don't recall that 'high heels' being quite as stabby but i shall defer.

http://rinsefm.blogspot.com/2008/07/ma1-28th-june.html
http://rinsefm.blogspot.com/2008/07/dj-ng-27th-june.html

been enjoying these most recent ma1 and ng rinse sets also. they are not nearly as kaleidoscopical as the prime marcus cuts or anything, but still some good head-down deep snaking skanking business i feel.

hah i think between funky and riding for bbe and whatnot on the other thread i might be going thru some sort of "once and future king of west london" jazzy herb phase.

btw if anyone missed that marcus 1xtra allstar mix from last week i done nicked it and can put up if need be. ooh hello it's a mj cole mix now!

If it would not be too much trouble that'd be rad. I only got to the first hour.

here

here also is a vid from the frontlines of the dangerous living room afterparty scene.

(busy signal 'step out' over 'leader' though :DDDDD)

smoovie t linked to this thread on his myspace blog

although yeah we're not likely to see vocal versions of Roska or Apple tunes any time soon.

there's at least this version of 'apple bubble'

Marcus and Rankin on Deja Vu 28.06.08: http://www.sendspace.com/file/5vk5c5

Got a track id on the ravey one about 15 minutes in?

It does mystify me that there isn't more of a groundswell of support for this stuff. There's, like, 5 regulars on this thread? Grime got much more of a response from ILX/the world at large.

Am I the only one who thinks this music is clearly as exciting as that was? (probaby even more so?)

Where are the epic Simon Reynolds thinkpieces eh.

-- Tim F, Wednesday, July 2, 2008 10:00 AM (5 days ago) Bookmark Link

to be honest, i think its probably good we dont have these things??

Deej the issue here is genuine enthusiasm for what's being discussed. Reynolds' piece on 2-step for The Wire in 1999 was so good that I've spent the last 9 years writing roundabout homages to it.

Yes but arguably 2step in 1999 was at the culmination of 2-3 years of development and refinement of its basic structures and sounds. It was so much more fully formed as an aesthetic and a scene than 'funky' is right now.

Right now it's much more like when people were talking about 'sunday scene' and 'RIPGroove' first came out and the potential that had to eventually evolve into 2step.

Also, re: dubstep - if you place the origins of the sound with Horsepower and Ghost and Hatcha then it probably didn't get its 'media break' until at least 2 years later, once Skream broke big...

I mean don't get me wrong I think funky does suffer from being too girly/commercial sounding for most crits/bloggers to get excited about it, but it's also early days.

that song on the 1xtra marcus nasty mix @ 54:20 is great - anyone got a title?

this is a totally ilx-ish reference but it reminds me of luciano's "madre mother mere" or whatever it was called