Drum & Bass History |
> Electronic Music History > Drum & Bass History | |||||||||
ELECTRONIC MUSIC | |||||||||
> Late 19th cent. early 20th cent. > 1940s to 1950s > 1960s to late 1970s > Late 1970s to late 1980s > 1980s to early 2000s |
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Drum and bass started in the UK cities of London and Bristol around 1992 and mainly came out of the house/hardcore music scenes with predominant musical influences being dub music and hip-hop. The drum and bass genre has gone through numerous mutations and sub-genrefications, making it one of the most diverse styles to rise out of the rave scene of the 1990s. It is played all over the world and is considered by some to be at its most progressive and cutting edge in London. | |||||||||
Beginnings in the UK | |||||||||
> Post-rave
fusions > Growing commercial interest |
Early jungle music was referred to as breakbeat hardcore, which was an offshoot of uk rave music that focused on the breakbeat. As a more and more bass-heavy and uptempo sound developed, jungle began to develop its own separate identity. After being further developed by MC Jonny Waines of the Leeds Massive, the sound took on a very urban, raggamuffin sound, incorporating dancehall "ragga" style mc chants, dub basslines, but also increasingly complex, high tempo rapid fire breakbeat percussion. By 1995, a counter movement to the ragga style was emerging, dubbed "intelligent" jungle, and was embodied by LTJ Bukem and his Good Looking label. Intelligent jungle maintained the uptempo breakbeat percussion, but focused on more atmospheric sounds and warm, deep basslines over rough vocals or samples. At the same time, the ragga jungle sound mutated into a more stripped down hard percussive style, Hardstep, and its more hiphop and funk influenced sister style Jump-Up, while other artists pushed a smoother, dubby style of tune, referred to as Rollers. | ||||||||
> Styles
of ambient : music * Organic ambient music * Nature inspired ambient music * Isolationist ambient music * Ambient electronic music * Ambient dub * Ambient groove |
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Through 1996, Hardstep and JumpUp sounds where popular in the clubs, while Intelligent jungle was pushing a sound more accessible to the home listener. Stylistically things kept getting more and more diverse, as well as crossbreading with other styles of jungle. In 1997, a funky, double-bass oriented sound came to the forefront, and gained some mainstream success with Roni Size's New Forms album winning the UK's Mercury Prize. On the other end of the spectrum, a new dark, technical sound in drum and bass was gaining popularity, championed by the labels Emotif and No U-Turn, and artists like Trace, Ed Rush and Optical, and commonly referred to as techstep. Techstep took new sounds and technololgies and applied them to jungle. It is characterized by sinister or science-fiction atmospherics and themes, cold and complex percussion, and dark basslines. | |||||||||
> History > Musicology |
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As the 1990s drew to a close, techstep came to dominate the drum and bass genre, becoming more minimal, and increasingly dark in tone, and the funky, commercial appeal represented by Roni Size back in 1997 was waning. By 2000, there was an increasing movement to "bring the fun back into drum and bass". There was a new revival of rave-oriented sounds, as well as remixes of classic jungle tunes that brought things full circle back to the origins. Although techstep continued to dominate, other substyles have gained ground over the first several years of the decade, including the highly techno oriented style of Konflict, the dub sounds of Digital and the house meets drum and bass flavor of Marcus Intalex. | |||||||||
HOUSE MUSIC | |||||||||
> Late
1960s to early 1980s > Early 1980s-Late 1980s : Chicago years > Late 1980s-Early 1990s : British Connection > Social aspects of raves > Late 1980s to early 1990s : United States > Early 1990s to mid 1990s : " Summer Love" > Mid-1990s & beyond > The rise of the UK "superclub" |
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Drum and bass outside the UK | |||||||||
One country to have recently developed a drum and bass scene is Brazil, with DJ Marky and DJ Patife amongst many others. The rhythms are strikingly similar to Latin music and putting a Latin sample to breakbeats works well. This has been somewhat commercialised with Shy FX's tune: "Shake Ur Body" taking the cliched latin piano from TV program Sex and the City and getting it into the mainstream (UK) charts with some pop sounding production. Another successful tune along similar Brazilian lines is "Don't Wanna Know" by Shy FX & T Power, but the artist is from Essex (North of London), not Brazil. | |||||||||
> History > Musicology |
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