funky house sceptics, let me draw your attention to this

natalie brooms' insane texas-via-birmingham diva elocution - "yr more to me than a faynt-a-see / buhlee me buy-bee ima muyk you seeeee" -somehow managing to redeem this rote tj cases number

I've only just started listening to this week's show and will have to listen to the rest tonight, but:

Yes! The Malice remix of Quentin's "My Joy" is simply massive, too-too-intense but also very respectful to the original track.

"On & On" is excellent also.

" i agree with your original assertion of footloose as master juxtaposer, but then the idea that he's only like, creaming off the top of boring old house - i mean would you really have noticed 'we belong to the night' as something special if it were in a less kaleido context? i wouldntve."

Yeah this is a good point. But I think that, because Footloose appears to consider soulfulness/deepness as a category of house music rather than the other way round, his US selections shore up rather than work against the essential diversity of the UK stuff.

Like, that Suges track is soulful and deep, and as you note it's deliberately used as a counterpoint to stuff like "Unfinished Business" which is at the other end of the spectrum. But beyond that, in and of itself it has a "something else" quality to it - a rhythmic irrepressibility perhaps - that makes it seem more than just a soulful/deep track. But you're right that it's the context in which it's spun that draws that "something else" quality out.

Even the all-US-house show seems to cover a really broad range - like, he uses the "all US" tag to justify playing stuff like "Who's Afraid Of Detroit".

Whereas sometimes with someone like Supa D you get the feeling that the devotion to the US stuff operates only insofar as US can be considered to be synonymous with a certain notion of soulfulness/deepness. This issue becomes especially clear when they do play the more obviously UK tracks because it's like there are two different vibes at work. Whereas the skill of Footloose's sets is that he makes it sound like one vibe.

I guess another way to look at it is that Footloose's particular style of wide-ranging "house" produces an aesthetic that portrays all its constituent parts - becoming house as it appears under the light of redemption.

I genuinely believe this: the thinking-about-house that this genre implies (at least when not too beholden to either extreme of US house traditionalism or the kind of post-dubstep parsimony that can see value in Apple and Roska but no-one else) is pretty much the ideal aesthetic take on the form, or the best since early Chicago.

Which is I guess what you're saying rtc when you say "young, hungry and free enough to giddily embrace chicago tradition until its not tradition anymore".

true enough about different dj vibes; perhaps when i lauded the health of the house scene i meant this, more than anything. mac 10 for instance - who i wasnt aware of even being into this stuff until i heard him sitting in for marcus last week - seems like he might be the median of marcus and footloose, with sort of a slightly chunkier grime kid sensibility. (havent put on the vu set yet mind.) quite interesting considering he was reknowned as a don of intensely focused jeff millsy micromixing when a grime dj.

The Malice remix of Quentin's "My Joy" is simply massive, too-too-intense but also very respectful to the original track.

yeah - how apposite to all this that some midlands fella's impure funkymix should also be the closest thing in forever (from what i've heard) to like, the essence of "house is a feeling" transcendence.

becoming house as it appears under the light of redemption

when you were wondered earlier why all this wasn't getting the exposure & exegesis of grime/2step/jungle i tried to imagine what the average punter was thinking, and haha the furthest i got - for all the innovations there've been, subtle and overt - was "just house music, innit." and then i realised that only a rattle-headed dissensian fool could ever consider this anything but a great thing.

Karizma – 33rd Street

haha, this is my carl craigy epic. you can find it on... GILLES PETERSON IN THE HOUSE EXCLUSIVES!!

http://www.amazon.com/Gilles-Peterson-House-Exclusives/dp/B0012JFCR4

which, jokes aside, actually looks like it might be banging.

ooh tawiah's 'every step' has a zed bias remix - anyone heard it?

Yeah I think that's right. So many people are getting stuck on the name in an almost entirely fetishistic manner - like, "I will not listen to this music until it comes up with a new name for exactly what it already is."

x-post Yeah Zed played it on his allstar mix the other week, i was deliriously tired when I listened but I think it was very much a Maddslinky kind of affair.

I just picked up a promo copy of the Peterson comp, but haven't listened to it enough to take in much apart from the annoying promo disclaimers.

i keep forgetting to register my adoration for the name "hard house banton".

It would be so awesome if those guys were like big Public Demand fans or something...

Anyway this:

i tried to imagine what the average punter was thinking, and haha the furthest i got - for all the innovations there've been, subtle and overt - was "just house music, innit." and then i realised that only a rattle-headed dissensian fool could ever consider this anything but a great thing.

...is exactly the reason for the Seamus Haji/freed from tradition stuff in the review. Because when I put up the Kyla review under the genre 'funky house' all the comments were basically in that vein e.g. "funky house? I didn't realise it was still 2002."

In fact I can't actually decide if I even WANT to convince these types of the worth of UK funky.

Anyway "Bring back the routemaster" is getting a proper release shortly. Reckon it'll be a novelty hit?

yeah man, fuck a pyrrhic victory.

Anyway "Bring back the routemaster" is getting a proper release shortly. Reckon it'll be a novelty hit?

hah i imagine lying-ass boris johnson hopes not.

Tim, is there any set I could hear the Roska remix of Footloose's Just Leave on?

I'm really struggling to keep up with this scene, its been producing so much good stuff in such a short time. Really reminds me of how lost I felt when I first starting downloading grime vinyl rips off of DC++ in 2004.

I'm glad I can buy this music, took me forever to track down some of that grime on vinyl.

I've been pretty one note on this thread haven't I.

I'm off to listen to as many radio sets as my roommates can stand.

Um it's been on the last few Footloose sets on 1xtra but I don't think it's on the new one. It's surprisingly subdued, although very Roska sounding - sorta halfway between "Just Leave" and the original "Feeline".

I really want to hear the Fingerprint remix though!

The DJ Jazzcool mix of Aaliyah's "Rock The Boat" is just lovely. The beats on this insane, but they complement rather than undermine the prettiness and fragility of the original.

Remixes of old tracks are quite useful from a critical-taxonomic perspective as well because they really train yr ears to the points-of-difference in the groove and production.

What is interesting re funky vis a vis 2-step (compare/contrast this remix with, say, "Stone Cold") is how, despite the greater proximity to house, the more avant end of funky often has less of the smooth "flow" I associate with 2-step. This remix feels arrested almost, like the producer has seized on a particular moment of groove-tension and turned it into an entire track. Probably something to do with the tempo: at the slightly slower speed the beats are heavier, so any syncopation has a deeply satisfying air of portentousness to it. You can't get past it. So a (relatively) smaller amount of syncopation has a greater impact.

I'm really not making sense. Listen to the track on Footloose's show and maybe some of what I'm trying to articulate will come across.

OMG "Cuban Linq"! Fuzzy Logic just seems to burst with ideas doesn't he. His "Polyfunk" is amazing too. These tracks (and "Leader" and "Twiss" obv) are just so restless, he can't resist piling new ideas on top of one another.

Probably the producer who makes the unacknowledged Basement Jaxx heritage most explicit.

Wookie & Ny's "Fallen" - so lush! (I guess Galleon deserves the credit for that though). Too too much goodness here.

"What is interesting re funky vis a vis 2-step (compare/contrast this remix with, say, "Stone Cold") is how, despite the greater proximity to house, the more avant end of funky often has less of the smooth "flow" I associate with 2-step. This remix feels arrested almost, like the producer has seized on a particular moment of groove-tension and turned it into an entire track. Probably something to do with the tempo: at the slightly slower speed the beats are heavier, so any syncopation has a deeply satisfying air of portentousness to it. You can't get past it. So a (relatively) smaller amount of syncopation has a greater impact.

I'm really not making sense."

i think it makes perfect sense. to expand on what you mention, a great deal of 2step dealt with micro-samples for percussion... tight and clipped fragments which built incredibly slick grooves. obviously you had some exceptions but broadly this was the case. wheras funky producers seem to relish a chunkier, lengthier, more clumsy sample palette. this automatically introduces a greater degree of 'arrest' or wonk, as rhythmic emphasis within any given hit is spread further away from the rhythmic grid. maybe im not making sense any more now!

another thing i was thinking about in a more technical sense is that most of these tracks have their drum programming set 'straight' rather than with the swing settings we associate with 2step. i think that by doing this, but of course with the syncopated echoes of garage and beyond in their minds, the producers are opening up many new possibilities of grooves. in this sense grime has obvious relevance, in its angularity and stiff rhythms

i think also in both of these (and many more) senses Wookie was a visionary

Hmm do you mean Wookie's old tracks? Cos yeah I can see how stuff like "Down On Me" really sets the tone for funky's rhythms in a lot of ways.

I'm glad you understood the point I was trying to get at! Yr reference to micro-samples is spot on, 2-step grooves could be astonishingly detailed without all that details necessarily interfering with the slickness o fthe groove.

The extent to which funky house mediates between 2-step and grime is very interesting in this regard: retaining grime's angularity but reinjecting it with sensuality. (it was perhaps the attempt to render the stiffness of grime sensuous on a groove level that makes KT Pearl's "Mr DJ" another obvious ancestor to this stuff in my opinion - in a way that, say, "Leave Me Alone" or Terra Danjah's productions aren't)

yeh precisely, Down On Me was the main track I had in mind, but some others apply too i think. on an anecdotal level, i've always been struck how it is near impossible to get Down On Me to sit in a mix with other 2step, then the other week i mixed it with Feeline VIP and it was like the grooves were built for one another..

another technical aspect to the rhythmic comparison is that wheras with 2 step (and much 90s/00s house) the emphasis was on fidgeting or jacking hihats and light-touch, minute syncopated ghost hits, mostly in the higher frequencies, with funky the hats seem to play a largely seconday role, while weightier (both in frequency and 'size') percussive elements take precedence in the groove.

Spyro getting mucky on Rinse right now.

"Wookie was a visionary"

Absolutely, and he rarely gets the credit he deserves, not least from dubsteppers who've somehow written him out of the liturgy. But the man conquered wonky+rude years ago and his rhythmic sense is incredible. Even on a 4x4 the bassline will be tugging at all sorts of odd angles. I haven't heard much of his post-2004ish material, but he certainly foreshadowed aspects of the English take on Funky with some his Manchu beats.

I would love to hear Terror Danjah get on this stuff! Talk about mucked up riddimic sensibilities. And he has a sense of humour too.

My GOD the Malice remix of "My Joy" is probably the greatest house track ever. It's like the skies open and you can suddenly see through time. It has actually made me tear up in response to its metaphysical largesse.

So OF COURSE Footloose mixes straight into "Feeline (VIP MIx)". I'm starting to think he gets a kick out of making his transitions as ostentatious as possible.

i wish i had time to listen to these sets, they sound so hot :(

yeah, the way footloose uses feeline vip - last week after delio d'cruz, equally insane, equally amazing - as like, an ideological swiss army jackknife is pretty much the crux of what's been said recently. funny really how you almost wanna keep a wary eye on feeline, given the way it rubs the continuuist belly so jarringly, but deploy properly and it's undeniably devastating. (still hope no one ever makes another one, though.)

malice's 'my joy' reminds me of 'knights of the jaguar', a bit.

cos if
i
thought
youuuuuu were the end all
and my be all
i would never have left you alone and i wouldnt be on my own and i'd never left you alone and i wouldnt be on my own and i'd never left you alone and i wouldnt be on my own and i'd never left you alone and i wouldnt be on my own and i'd never left you alone and i wouldnt be on my own and i'd never left you alone and i wouldnt be on my own and i'd never left you alone and i wouldnt be on my own and i'd never left you alone and i wouldnt be on my own and i'd never left you alone and i wouldnt be on my own and i'd never left you alone and i wouldnt be on my own and i'd never left you alone and i wouldnt be on my ownand i'd never left you alone and i wouldnt be on my own and i'd never left you alone and i wouldnt be on my own and i'd never left you alone and i wouldnt be on my own and i'd never left you alone and i wouldnt be on my ownand i'd never left you alone and i wouldnt be on my ownand i'd never left you alone and i wouldnt be on my own and i'd never left you alone and i wouldnt be on my own NO WAY NO WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY

like, how can it be that it sounds both ever stronger AND ever weaker at the same time? tru sorcery

siah alan, here's a bit of footloose v roska:

http://www.zshare.net/audio/16356255b57530b3/

actually fucking hilarious that this of all tunes gets the dubstep treatment!!

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=AH3DM3HA

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=8DCPTR5L

ok here's last weeks and this weeks footloose shows for dl - plz excuse any slight skipping in there, did my best. MATT DC, RONAN, EVERYBODY, COME ONNNNN. blueski put away your lacrate nonsense, you too.

i know the track that started this thread is old news now, haaa, but i played it out last night (segue from cece p. 'finally') and it held the crowd the whole time ^_^

Yeah but "The Whole Night" is the gift that keeps on giving - I mean, I've hardly heard a set that doesn't have it, still.

"malice's 'my joy' reminds me of 'knights of the jaguar', a bit."

This is spot-on. It's "Knights of the Jaguar" blown up into a massive diva anthem.

Reynolds weighs in on funky house.

damn. uptown had hard house banton's siren ep for about 8 hours today. already sold out :(

What's the tracklist?

i have avoided this so far because i do not get the love for Crazi Cousins stuff at all altho it's interesting that 'Jaguar' is mentioned because i realised the track that 'do you mind' remix's bassline was reminding me of was octave one's 'blackwater'

Re: Hardhouse Banton tracklist - A side was 'Sirens' and 'Reign' for sure. Less sure about the flip. Possibly 'The Music' and then one more. It said test press so hopefully there'll be more.

Of the four Hard House Banton tracks I know - those three plus "Turn It Around" - I reckon "Sirens" is probably the weakest actually, although still pretty good. Love the gothic backing vocals on "Reign".

One of my favourites for some time has been the bootleg remix of DJ Spen & DJ Technics' 'Gabryelle' by Diamondz In Da Ruff. I'd heard other official remixes of 'Gabryelle' being played for ages by funky DJs, and I think the original came out a few years ago now, but this mix is absolutley incredible. I think what appeals most is the almost menacing swagger of the beats in this refix.
Once again, like Steve Gurley in jungle/ukg and Macabre Unit in grime before them, these guys are somewhat north of London (bedford/mk) but are making crucial contributions.

I've just found this Funky site too.

btw I'd like to take credit for some of the marcus nasty adoration due to my post here a while back!

Yeah I love those synth choir stabs on Reign. They remind me of 1991-ish Hypnotist. I see what you mean about Sirens but I really like it in the mix - seems tailor made for Frontline too.

I really hope that Gabryelle version comes out.

How about "bongle"?

eurgh

damn. uptown had hard house banton's siren ep for about 8 hours today. already sold out :(

yeh i know! i was ready to sprint out of work on friday but they sold out so quick. definitely just tps though, that tune is going to be one of the biggest this year i reckon. i like Sirens a lot, its simple but so muscular, the most ridiculously powerful groove. looking forward to checking the rest of the EP

simon reynolds - "few things irritate me more than soca"

?! unbelievable.

although seriously does anyone know what that tune is he chats about from Marcus Nasty April?... that one is too much, haven't heard it anywhere else yet though

also, many thanks r|t|c, very much appreciated :)

also on the Wookie as visionary thing, African Warrior is pure Wookie / Exemen

That tune is by grime producer Chunky Bizzle, Ben. Not sure what's it called.

I aint even that huge into soca but simon reynolds wtf

now jamming: bongo jam

-- The Reverend, Sunday, May 11, 2008 9:35 PM (1 month ago) Bookmark Link

-- deej, Thursday, June 12, 2008 5:17 AM (Thursday, June 12, 2008 5:17 AM) Bookmark Link

I need to jam some Apple but I can't find mp3s of his shit

unpleasantly redolent of reggaeton unpleasantly redolent of reggaeton unpleasantly redolent of reggaeton unpleasantly redolent of reggaeton unpleasantly redolent of reggaeton unpleasantly redolent of reggaeton unpleasantly redolent of reggaeton unpleasantly redolent of reggaeton unpleasantly redolent of reggaeton unpleasantly redolent of reggaeton unpleasantly redolent of reggaeton unpleasantly redolent of reggaeton unpleasantly redolent of reggaeton unpleasantly redolent of reggaeton unpleasantly redolent of reggaeton unpleasantly redolent of reggaeton unpleasantly redolent of reggaeton unpleasantly redolent of reggaeton unpleasantly redolent of reggaeton unpleasantly redolent of reggaeton unpleasantly redolent of reggaeton unpleasantly redolent of reggaeton

^^^^^ complete incompatability of tastes

i mean fuck, half of what I love about funky is that it sounds like reggaeton

and soca too