![]() Man Machine 'Animal (Primordial Jungle Mix by DJ Martin and DJ Homes)' While the style had long ceased to exist as a movement by the time he made the track, its alluring combination of metronomic sub-bass, outer-space chords and computer bleeps sounds like it could have come straight out of the studio of Warp co-founder (and sonic scientist) Rob Gordon. Dig through his early catalogue and you’ll find a number of cuts that reference or repurpose Bleep & Bass, with 1993’s “Baby Interphase (Remix)” being far and away the standout example. ![]() They told me that the sound really resonated in Norway – or at least within the country’s then microscopic underground rave scene – and had a particular impact on Geir Jenssen AKA Biosphere. This particular mix is not “Bleep” in the traditional sense, though the bass is druggy and weighty, while the track’s famous top-line melody is as ghostly and otherworldly as any Yorkshire-made Bleep cut.Ī few years back I got into conversation with Norwegian electronic music legends Per Martinsen (Mental Overdrive) and Bjorn Torske about Bleep. Infinitely better though is this summer 1990 remix of “What Time Is Love?” by Moody Boys man Tony Thorpe – a South London producer rooted in soundsystem culture who regularly released records that had more bass-weight than most dance music made in the city. That came in the chart-topping “Live at S.S.L” version of “3AM Eternal”, where the famous bleep melody from Sweet Exorcist’s “Testone” can be heard at a number of points. Given their reputation as sonic magpies – or, if you’re a little less generous, thieves – it’s perhaps unsurprising that the KLF would at some point doff their cap to Bleep & Bass. The KLF 'What Time Is Love? (Moody Boys Vs The KLF Mix)' Blessed with insanely low, weighty sub-bass, typical Bradford bleeps and a crunchy, snare-heavy beat that sits somewhere between hip-hop, dancefloor reggae and electro, it’s a speaker-busting workout that deserves far more props. Fusion cut “Digicality” is, in my opinion, criminally underappreciated. In other words, if you listen to it from start to finish, you’ll not just hear weighty Bleep anthems such as “The Theme” (the record that started the movement), but also cuts informed by hip-hop, dancehall, dub, electro, Chicago house and Detroit techno. In 'Join The Future', I described Unique 3’s debut album “Jus Unique” as, ‘the only album to mix the key elements of the style – the bleeps, the rumbling sub-bass and the skittish percussion programming – with the sounds that influenced its creation’. Incidentally, “JazzOut” is accompanied on the same EP by “JazzIn”, quite possibly the only Bleep cut ever to boast jazz guitar solos. Somewhat irritatingly, the sound quality of the original pressings is dreadful – or at least nowhere near as bass-heavy as it should be. It was created by Bahar sometime after he parted company with Unique 3 (he worked with them on “Only The Beginning” and “The Theme”) and appeared as part of a white label on Huddersfield’s Tribe Records, an imprint that vanished almost as fast as it appeared. “JazzOut”, a rare and hard to find solo track from Bradford producer The Mad Musician (real name David Bahar), is a fine example of this. One of the things that marked out early Bleep & Bass cuts – aside from the bleeps, bass-weight and raw production – was the way that the bassline was often used as either the main riff, or shared the same pattern as the top-line melody. On a different day I would have picked an entirely different set of tracks!' This is what Test Pressing is all about. As he said, 'there are tons of others I could have picked – these sprung to mind. This is a sound both myself and Piers love so I'm discovering track after track plus it was also a perfect excuse to get in touch with Matt and ask him to make us a list of the tracks he thinks people might have missed. Journalist Matt Anniss has written a superb book 'Join The Future' subtitled 'Bleep Techno & The Birth Of British Bass Music' which we can't recommend enough.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |