Day: March 30, 2004

While you’re waiting, here’s some music to keep you entertained. It’s a UK Garage mix I did last year, focusing on the more abstract, chthonic elements of classical UKG. It’s funky as fuck and has some of my favourite 2step tracks on it.

It’s here at http://www.grievousangel.net/Abstract_2_Step_Mix.mp3.

Track listing:
Dem 2: Keep It Coming
Dem 2: Bad Funk (Big Time Scary Dub)
US Alliance: All I know (Dem 2 Dub)
El B: Digital
Leee John: Your Mind Your Body Your Soul (MJ Cole Mix) /
Wideboys Feat. Rusty: Somethings Got Me Started (Wideboys Breakbeat Dub)
MJ & Rob D: Cum Cakes!
El B: Urban Myth
Headtop: The Matrix
Dem 2: Baby You’re So Sexy (Dub)
Groove Chronicles: Black Puppet
Groove Chronicles: Holiday Da Vybe
M Dubs: For Real (Grievous Angel Twisted Dub)
Top Cat: Gal Dem Sugar
Lady Saw: Bump’n’Grind
ATFC Bad Habit (Grievous Angel Edit)
Artful Dodger / Robbie Craig / Craig David: Woman Trouble
Artful Dodger / Craig David: Drop the Funk

It’s 73 minutes long, and weighs 84Mb. More mixes are coming.

Yes I know no-one’s reading right now but I just wanted to pop this in here so it’s in the archive at least… There’s a lot of discussion right now about whether we can have, or need, a “proper” magazine. There’s a lot of rumination on the glory days of the NME. Eden talks about France having three reggae zines, wheras here we have none. K-Punk and many others would really like a proper music/ culture publication. But Luka suspects such a beast would be poor. Here’s my take:

I certainly agree that the NME in the 80s was better than now. It had much better writing then, which it could afford, because it had a much bigger readership. It was physically larger, and it loomed larger over the cultural landscape to a far greater degree. (Pace Reynolds — MM never had the same kudos or clout. Never had the design or photography of NME either.) People forget what a paucity of media there was then: barriers to entry meant there was little scope for voices other than the big players. It was physically and financially very difficult even to do a fanzine. This was actually rather a good thing — the fanzine underground was very healthy then. Eden first became aware of me through my writing in zines like Grim Humour.

None of this is arguable or nostalgic. But it might be nostalgic to say we can go back to that. I’m not saying it’s nostalgic to want good writing about music and culture; not at all. But it might be nostalgic to want good writing that is supported by a SINGLE substantial medium, whether print or digital. The world is different now; not better, but different.

And probably worse, which is why it’s worth us old timers whingeing to people like Luke about how it used to be. We now have fewer large magazines, and a dwindling number of specialist titles, all owned by an ever smaller number of conglomerates. Worse, mainstream titles like newspapers cover the scene. Far from promoting the scene, as one would expect, this satiates many people so they don’t need a “proper” magazine, and even if it doesn’t, it captures loads of advertising revenue from smaller titles. It’s a lot like the revenge of bars and pubs on clubland: keep the punters drinking with ersatz DJing and they no longer have an appetite for real clubbing.

I suspect that we DO need a magazine — as in US lot, blogging round here. But it’s difficult to say whether THEY need a magazine — the non-bloggers, the uncommitted.

While you’re waiting, here’s some music to keep you entertained. It’s a UK Garage mix I did last year, focusing on the more abstract, chthonic elements of classical UKG. It’s funky as fuck and has some of my favourite 2step tracks on it.

It’s here at http://www.grievousangel.net/Abstract_2_Step_Mix.mp3.

Track listing:
Dem 2: Keep It Coming
Dem 2: Bad Funk (Big Time Scary Dub)
US Alliance: All I know (Dem 2 Dub)
El B: Digital
Leee John: Your Mind Your Body Your Soul (MJ Cole Mix) /
Wideboys Feat. Rusty: Somethings Got Me Started (Wideboys Breakbeat Dub)
MJ & Rob D: Cum Cakes!
El B: Urban Myth
Headtop: The Matrix
Dem 2: Baby You’re So Sexy (Dub)
Groove Chronicles: Black Puppet
Groove Chronicles: Holiday Da Vybe
M Dubs: For Real (Grievous Angel Twisted Dub)
Top Cat: Gal Dem Sugar
Lady Saw: Bump’n’Grind
ATFC Bad Habit (Grievous Angel Edit)
Artful Dodger / Robbie Craig / Craig David: Woman Trouble
Artful Dodger / Craig David: Drop the Funk

It’s 73 minutes long, and weighs 15Mb. More mixes are coming.

I don’t think there’s anything in there from after 1999, but there might
be one or two nuggets from 2000 I forgot about.

That last, Indian Summer, golden period of dance music before it
collapsed as a creative force… but god did it go out on a high point.
2step was for me the absolute pinnacle of dance music’s creativity.
Techno’s intelligence, house’s propulsive grooviness, r’n’b’s
sensuality, d’n’b’s harshness, ragga’s itality, breakbeat’s sheer poppy
silliness. And if there was ever a better record than Something’s Got Me
Started — soul + abstract breakbeats + plane-taking-off noises — I
never heard it.

There’s a big contrast between this and grime. For one thing, as the new
orthodoxy suggests, grime isn’t dance music. For another, Grime is
pretty monotonous in comparison, cos the backing track is downplayed.
Here, there’s scarcely room for an MC. There’s scarcely room for vocals.