roni size & reprazent - new forms

The fact that the Roni Size crew didn't go full-on jazz was probably what kept their output interesting well past some of their peers. There are tracks with some jazzy instrumentation, but they had plenty of tech elements too.

the weird thing abt this album was it kinda crossed over in the states to ppl who had never before or since bought a dnb album

anyway revisted this a couple years ago & love it

― ILX’s bad boy (D-40)

This was the only dnb album I ever bought. Voted beatbox.

The tight snare slaps on New Forms are like Madaleine cakes for me: I go years without listening to it and within seconds of putting it on I'm in dimly lit 4am lounges waiting for the sun to come up.

texturally I get that its taking, like, a surface aesthetic from jazz. but its way more built on this tension of repetition-variation at a macro level that feels closer to dance music

Feel like this is the case 95% of the time when ppl say stuff from a different genre is jazzy

only thing jazz about it is double bass and live drum sound imho

There’s a certain irony that sampled breaks per se kinda disappear from Reprazent’s approach with this album - everything is built up from single hits, which is remarkable given the complexity of a tune like “Share The Fall”

I disagree with this! They had their own in-house drummer to create breaks, but I hear lots of slightly longer phrases from him that get chopped and looped. You can get close to that sound with single hits (especially if you have them all isolated with different velocities etc, and god knows I spend enough time doing that in the early '00s), but that's not what I'm hearing here.

I meant sampled breaks in the sense of “obviously sampled from other records” (e.g. 11.55’s use of the break from blowfly’s “Sesame Street”), but yeah, I had also forgotten the use of sampled live drumming.

I still dig this out every couple of years and am as blown away by it as when I first heard it. I don't think there's much jazz in it either, although parts of it remind me a bit of that first Weather Report album.

I never had the two-disc version, so have never heard all the extra stuff.

The MCing on New Forms is utter cheese

i fucking love it

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btw flopson you're wrong about this being the only good D&b album, though it's definitely one of the best. Leaving aside DJ mixes and compilations, you still have Timeless, Black Secret Technology, the Jacob's Optical Stairway album and Dom & Roland's Industry to contend with (just to focus on the immediate favourites that come to mind).

IMO 4 Hero's Parallel Universe, T-Power's The Self-Evident Truth of an Intuitive Mind, Omni Trio's Haunted Science, and Apache 61's self-titled record are also genuine album-length classics of '90s drum'n'bass, though it is true that the scene wasnt't really album-oriented, and a lot of the best stuff can only be found on singles and comps.

I haven't heard the Jacob's Optical Stairway album in 20+ years, but IIRC it was more like Detroit techno, not D&B? Or am I confusing it with some other 4 Hero side project?

Definitely more of a Detroit Techno vibe to JOS. This was probably the most 4 Hero sounding track

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

There's a 20th anniversary edition of this (2017) that has most of the contemporaneous b-sides (Western, Sounds Fresh) and remixes (Photek, Grooverider, NuYorican Soul).

I think Onnalee is the secret MVP on this, STF and Watching Windows are both ace and her contribution to Brown Paper Bag, though tiny, is one of its signatures - the "mmmmmmm" into the drop.

I'm sure there's another (superior) DJ Die mix of Watching Windows that never got released but got played loads at the time?

btw flopson you're wrong about this being the only good D&b album, though it's definitely one of the best. Leaving aside DJ mixes and compilations, you still have Timeless, Black Secret Technology, the Jacob's Optical Stairway album and Dom & Roland's Industry to contend with (just to focus on the immediate favourites that come to mind).

I logged onto this thread to make exactly this point. You've listed most of the ones I was going to, but I'd also throw in Omni Trio, Foul Play and 4Hero's Parallel Universe as well.

The Jacob's Optical Stairway (4Hero under another name, of course) is mindblowing.

New Forms sounded pretty good at the time and yet I haven't bothered to listen to it in years.

IMO 4 Hero's Parallel Universe, T-Power's The Self-Evident Truth of an Intuitive Mind, Omni Trio's Haunted Science, and Apache 61's self-titled record are also genuine album-length classics of '90s drum'n'bass

Ah, just seen this post as well.

I have to be honest though, the T-Power album bored the arse off me at the time.

Alex Reece's So Far - does that count?

Photek 4 life tbh

It's a positive that you can easily make a DIY comp of all of these producers respective singles and remixes that would be better than any of their albums. OK maybe not JOS.

Gonna have to dig out Foul Play's Suspected LP later now tho.

Foul Play’s album is good but they’re probably the act for whom this is most true.

Like an album that was:

Open Your Mind (Remix)
Omni Trio - Renegade Snares (Foul Play Remix)
Being With You
Hyper-On Experience - Lord of the Null-Lines (Foul Play Remix)
The Stepper
Omni Trio - Feel Better (Foul Play Remix)
Total Control
Nookie - The Sound of Music (Foul Play Remix)
Music is the Key

... would be the best album ever?

Didn't Foul Play split up immediately after the album came out, because one of them (Steve Bradshaw iirc) had died of cancer or something. Tragic story.

Apparently MS not cancer and died in 98 but yeah awful either way.

The surviving member of Foul Play (after Steve Gurley's departure in early 1994 I think), John Morrow, now has an act called Skeleton Army making house / uk bass type stuff.

somehow i missed this poll but flopson otm this album rules!!!!!

I own a Twisted Individual album and tbh I'm not sure why

I'm sure there's another (superior) DJ Die mix of Watching Windows that never got released but got played loads at the time?

― Twelves, Wednesday, 16 October 2019 09:16 (twelve hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

Do you mean something other than the Gnarly mix?

I haven't heard the Jacob's Optical Stairway album in 20+ years, but IIRC it was more like Detroit techno, not D&B? Or am I confusing it with some other 4 Hero side project?

― Tuomas, Wednesday, 16 October 2019 08:32 (thirteen hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

You might be thinking of Marc Mac's (first) album under the Nu-Era moniker.

Jacob's Optical Stairway is strongly detroit-influenced in terms of the melodies, but no more so than say T-Power's first album. The beatwork is pretty much pure jungle.

I remember when getting into dnb Jess I think recommending the dj hype drum n Bass selection mixes (esp 4) more than any specific album artist albums, also an option flopson

And of course I guess this is more proto dnb but if you haven’t heard “history of our world vol 1” you’ll love it

Also the album art is cool af

https://www.discogs.com/Various-Drum-Bass-Selection-4-Reload-Part-4-Running-It-Red/release/82629

I guess maybe that’s more jungle ... whatevr

Do ppl not recommend remarc any more?

kind of ironic (though not incorrect) that you're caveating that a compilation called 'drum n bass selection' is 'more jungle'.

the remarc comp is very good but there was an element of contrastanning at work, like, 'this relatively anonymous producer who just churned out dancefloor killers is actually more important/consistent/enjoyable/etc. than yr geniuses like goldie' - which is not an unreasonable position to adopt but in that case you may as well just boost comps and dj mixes?

should have said, 'there was an element of contrastanning at work to the critical hosannas that greeted its release'

ya I’ve history, it’s great

what i should do is post an upload link for grooverider's (long out of print) 'hardstep selection vol. 2' DJ mix a/k/a the best album ever made

Do you mean something other than the Gnarly mix?

It seems the Gnarly mix is the one I've been puzzling over, thanks Tim. The commercial 12"/CDS had a "DJ DIe Remix" which is shorter and less good, which is a baffling choice.

It does seem like this is the first time the Gnarly mix has been available on CD/digitally. It's as good as I remembered.

what i should do is post an upload link for grooverider's (long out of print) 'hardstep selection vol. 2' DJ mix a/k/a the best album ever made

― Tim F, Wednesday, October 16, 2019 8:41 PM (two days ago) bookmarkflaglink

pretty sure jess mentioned this too tbf

Jacob's Optical Stairway is strongly detroit-influenced in terms of the melodies, but no more so than say T-Power's first album. The beatwork is pretty much pure jungle.

It is also one of the greatest electronic albums ever made. There's honestly not a single duff or even mediocre track on it.

This would easily make it into my top 20 albums of all time, still listen to it a lot and if anything it just grows on me more. It's a wonderfully tasteful and unique album, of its time but somehow timeless, in that it's very 1997 but hasn't dated at all. Even the artwork doesn't suffer from any of the design tropes of the time.

I went to one of the live gigs for In The Mode, first concert I'd been to where everyone was dancing! Made a change from men appreciatively nodding their heads and drinking pints.