31st January 12
RECOMMENDED: DJ Q – All Junglist EP/Brandy & Coke [UTTU/Local Action]
Posted in Reviews
Bassline music is a bit mad one in all honesty. The sound originated up North some time ago, created in the wake of garage and, well… the intrinsic need to rave like a bastard. The guys from Night Slugs where deep into it for a time, you’d find Bok Bok and L-vis dropping it in sets, and Jackmaster’s pre-Numbers Dre$$ 2 Sweat label was built on a similar energy – just check the 12” by Starkey’s evil nemesis Moves and the mighty ‘Giggle Riddim’ by Piddy Py for evidence of that. But despite these little inroads, bassline has never really been the ‘in’ thing in the London club scene. People like WIFEY booked a few of the scene’s shining lights, but mostly It just bubbled under, with tracks shooting around the fringes.
Maybe it was the overly whiney bass tones, the producer’s penchant for cheesy samples (see T-2’s ‘Heartbroken’) and obvious soft synth presets that hindered it, but the energy of the music can never be denied. There’s never any let up; tracks flex and bubble like a particularly jubilant thief in the night, but recently bassline has been flirting outrageously with skippier rhythms – check out TRC and DJ Q who have both found themselves house on pioneering grime label Butterz with some big tracks. Palace and 5kinandbones5 have been turning that warped bass thing inside out on Hot City’s Unknown to the Unknown label for a time and Walton’s 12” release on Hyperdub even dipped its toe into Sheffield’s Niche club heritage.
In fact UTTU, the label run by Hot City, has been a rowdy imprint of late, consistently dropping single after single that cover all dancefloor angles. Marcus Mixx hit wax doing his fucked up house thing and the afore mentioned Palace has pushed his zombie hammer vibes over recent singles, but BBC Radio 1xtra’s DJ Q’s All Junglist EP finds one of bassline music’s standout artists, diving even further into all out rave mode. Sinuous basslines play off pianos and glow stick energy across the title track that would be straight out of ’92 if it wasn’t for the whiny synth tones. It’s all builds and drops, peaks and troughs, no nonsense, pure hype – it makes you want to reach for your Zero B records. The flip ‘Rocky’ takes that vibe into the proverbial ring with some serious sampling of the film its title references and um, baby giggles. Its purpose built for a rewind; when that intro is spent and the sliding ‘bass’ synths hit you’re already reaching for the platter.
Q’s on a serenely different plain for his upcoming 12” on the Local Action label though, he indulges his love of R&B and garage in one sweet movement on ‘Brandy & Coke’. It’s bumpy, slinky and raw with that vibezin’ 2-step beat made prevalent under those Brandy vocals. Yes, you know she’s the lass every other goon this side of dubstep has been sampling since forever but that over familiarity isn’t really an issue here – just like it wasn’t on Blawan’s ‘Getting Me Down’ last year – and the reason for it is that it just bangs. It’s a simple yet often forgotten trait in some Brandy sampling circles: if you get the beats to knock hard and the hooks to lodge deep in your brain and your more than half the way to forgetting where the vocal chops come from and that’s just what Q does on ‘Brandy & Coke’. Pushing slinky garage percussion, subtle yet hooky organ and the best chopped’n’vibe’d Brandy vocal this side of Blawan, Q hits his sweet spot relentlessly, making sure to stick to bassline’s core principles of keeping your body active.
Words: James Balf // Out: Now/20th Feb 2012
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