originally i was gonna ask 'whatever happened to Jazzanova?' but then i thought maybe the whole sub-genre is dead and that's why Jazzanova seems to have disappeared.
who else was moving that movement? St. Germain? Koop? 4 Hero? Zero 7? where they at?
I think once Gilles Peterson stopped heavily cosigning the movement things got quiet. Its still out there. I wouldnt put Koop, Zero7 and other listed groups under that umbrella (4hero is valid). I WOULD put IG Culture, Alex Attias, Bugz in the Attic and others under the heading.
31. "well then why ask what happened to it?" In response to Reply # 6
>I can't be bothered with it any more.
I don't get it.
It's like, on the one hand you want to know what happened to it, and then on the other you keep insisting that it bores ( bored ) you, and you can't be bothered with it.
4. "i think that dego's solo lp is" In response to Reply # 0
actually about to come out. really looking forward to that. he was def one of the pioneers... dego, ig culture, alex attias, domu, bugz, seiji, dazikue, okp mark de clive lowe ect
i'm gonna have to search for those old broken beat compliations now... phuturistic dancing 1, family planning, co-operation, the new season, the good good... damn!...
8. "the music didnt connect to youth culture in london" In response to Reply # 0
and the best ideas parts of it were absorbed into uk funky house
_______________________________________ When discourse of Blackness is not connected to efforts to promote collective black self determinism it becomes simply another recourse appropriated by the colonizer
23. "RE: well, it connected with us Old Fuckers in America..." In response to Reply # 11
I love dubstep, but VERY selectively. Check out luvstep, a newer offshoot that's more song oriented with touches of house music. Karimso is a DJ that's killing it right now - you can hear/download three of her luvstep mixes on SoundCloud - http://soundcloud.com/karimso
32. "IMO it's almost designed to be a trendy subgenre..." In response to Reply # 27
kinda like Electroclash, Grime, and all those other "subgenres of the week". Shit that came, had a huge rep (and requisite critical reception aka "fawning" ), and died out just as quickly as it came.
Not that there aren't talented artists making it. It just isn't my thing. I have no taste for it, and I've given it an honest listen.
35. "It hasn't really died out though" In response to Reply # 32
>kinda like Electroclash, Grime, and all those other >"subgenres of the week". Shit that came, had a huge rep (and >requisite critical reception aka "fawning" ), and died out >just as quickly as it came.
At it's public peak it spread out into a bunch of splinters, which continue to this day. Some of the vets have released 'classic' dubstep albums this year as well as another branch of dark melodic dubstep based closer on the classic sound. blah blah blah blah blah....
37. "actually "designed to be a trendy subgenre" is inaccurate too" In response to Reply # 32
I mean I doubt you want me to go through the whole history of dubstep here, but the last two years it's been on its radar is only after 5+ bubbling in underground clubs. Marketed to be a trendy subgenre? Sure but not designed that way. ________ Big PEMFin H & z's █▆▇▅▇█▇▆▄▁▃ http://concretesoundsystem.com The Underbelly - http://bit.ly/f5BmBR RIPL - http://bit.ly/e5wzxn Read me write - http://themoshi.tumblr.com/
39. "^^^overlooked the "IMO" part.^^^" In response to Reply # 37
I said "IMO".
Those of us who follow Dance music know how it goes. Somebody had as hit, and it gets hailed as "The Next Big Thing" and it gets copied (usually with shitty results), and the next thing you know there's a ton of wack shit in the marketplace with a cheesy subgenre name.
53. "it does NOT have a history as rich as House music..." In response to Reply # 51
>Dubstep is distinct as a genre, with a history as rich as >house music. Don't do to it what you wouldn't do to house. >Have an opinion about it, sure. But don't write off it's >history.
House Music began in the early eighties. The first "official" house record dropped in 1983. So no. A 5 year old Genre doesn't have a history as rich. When Dubstep becomes a Global phenomenon with a 30 year history, THEN we can talk.
And if you notice, I never said it was wack or anything like that. I said *I* didn't like it. My entire post(s) was solely based on my opinion.
59. "what does twenty years ago have to do with anything?" In response to Reply # 55
You said Dubstep has a rich history just like House music, and that's simply not true. Not matter HOW you feel about Dubstep, it has a LONG way to go.
What do we care about what happened 20 years ago? That's irrelevant to this discussion.
And if you REALLY want to take it there, the irony is, 20 years ago I was an even BIGGER House fan than I am now, and I thought it couldn't get any better. Fortunately, I was wrong. The shit coming out nowadays is unbelievable. Based on my years as a fan, DJ, and a listener, House Music in 2011 is pretty much at an artistic peak. The shit coming out now is killing pretty much anything that came before it.
10. "it's still alive and well..." In response to Reply # 0
>originally i was gonna ask 'whatever happened to Jazzanova?'
Working on New shit. ( and for the record, a few of them Stefan, in particular, do shit under aliases. So if you know where to look, you can always find something Jazzanova-esque to check out)
>but then i thought maybe the whole sub-genre is dead and >that's why Jazzanova seems to have disappeared.
nah, and I hate the whole "so-and-so is dead" steeze. People shouldn't stop looking and then declare something dead. When you lose touch with an old friend, you don't automatically assume HE'S dead, do you?
> >who else was moving that movement? St. Germain? Koop? 4 >Hero? Zero 7? where they at?
Most of those cats are just Dance artists, and not exclusive to Broken Beat. ( especially Zero 7. Whom I'd just call 'Downtempo Electronica ' at best.) but Koop and STG just make good old fashioned Dance music.
And as for 4 Hero? That group ( and it's many offshoots )are pretty much in HEAVY rotation in my shit right now.
Silhouette Brown 2000 Black Kaidi Tatham and a couple of other related artists all have new ( or fairly new ) releases out.
Be sure to dig for DKD and Deborah Jordan too. And you can't really miss with anything with Bembe Segue's name on it either...
and don't forget about Shuya Okino, Jazztronik, Bakura and MdCL, Domu, and all the other cats that drop heat....
But short answer, there's a TON of new Broken Beat shit out. Mattafact depending on the label, many new releases tend to have a Broken remix on the flipside.
Dj Joey Joe Member since Sep 01st 2007 13770 posts
Tue Mar-29-11 10:11 PM
14. "That's The Same Thing I Was Thinking Too" In response to Reply # 10
>>but then i thought maybe the whole sub-genre is dead >>and that's why Jazzanova seems to have disappeared. > > >nah, and I hate the whole "so-and-so is dead" steeze. >People shouldn't stop looking and then declare >something dead. When you lose touch with an old friend, >you don't automatically assume HE'S dead, do you? >But short answer, there's a TON of new Broken Beat shit >out. Mattafact depending on the label, many new >releases tend to have a Broken remix on the flipside. >Broken Beat is doin' juuuuuuuuust fine.
Word, that's what I thought as well, I think most music listeners get in that mind set of if it's not quickly or readily in earshot of their usual listening areas then it most be a dead fad or movement when basically it's still going on whether or not they don't know it.
A lot of broken-beat joints aren't even labeled as so these days just like a lot of pop tunes are automatically dance/techno tunes but not labeled that way though.
--------- "We in here talking about later career Prince records & your fool ass is cruising around in a time machine trying to collect props for a couple of sociopathic degenerates" - s.blak
>nah, and I hate the whole "so-and-so is dead" steeze. People >shouldn't stop looking and then declare something dead. When >you lose touch with an old friend, you don't automatically >assume HE'S dead, do you?
Soul II Soul made like 6 albums, but people didn't go any further than "1990: a New Decade" and just assumed Jazzie B was done, i.e. "Soul II Soul is dead".
That shit gets old.
The Great Negro Poet Sir Talib du Kweli said it best:
"Everybody says we're back...but we ain't go nowhere, tho. Where YOU been? YOU back!!!"
15. "the main distributor (Goya) went out of business among other things" In response to Reply # 0
Besides Goya closing down, I think there are other reasons why that style fell out of favor.
1. Many people moved on to the next "hot" dance subgenre. I guess that would be UK funky or dubstep, but things move so quickly now that I could be wrong.
2. Some artists (I'm thinking 4 Hero in particular) felt like the popular definition of broken beat had gotten too limited for what they wanted to do. Some, like Kaidi Tatham, are more jazz-oriented musicians. Others went into hip hop, drum n bass, house, or electronic soul, instead of fusing all of that together like broken beat originally did. One of my favorite producers, Domu, apparently quit recording altogether.
3. It was a somewhat insular scene. At one point I felt like all the major players (media and artists) knew each other or lived in the same area, which made it kind of hard for people not in the clique to get attention.
4. That mainstream breakthrough act did not emerge. I suppose you could say Bugz In The Attic, but I always got the impression their album did not sell as well as anticipated, and industry interest died out.
There are still releases being dropped here and there, but it is not like it once was.
18. "the bugz album was tipped to push them through into mntsm" In response to Reply # 15
but it leaked and they lost moment, also alot of it didnt sound as good as it should have done imo
i still heard the lead single in big commercial venues tho but the song 'no more' shoulda been a big summer hit.
the uk funky scene took some of the elements from it and injected youthful vigor and grew, i'd still take the best broken beat tracks over the best uk funky tracks
_______________________________________ When discourse of Blackness is not connected to efforts to promote collective black self determinism it becomes simply another recourse appropriated by the colonizer
25. "I didn't know the album leaked ... but I thought it was alright" In response to Reply # 18
I mean, it was different than the stuff they'd do on Main Squeeze/People/2000 Black singles, but I expected some commercial touches, since they were supposed to be The Mainstream BB Artist.
In the aftermath of the album, I was surprised to learn that they ususally didn't work on cuts together. I thought they were a group in the traditional sense, but it was more or less 2 to 4 people cutting specific tracks. I suppose Bugz was just intended to be a collective brand name.
26. "yeah, Goya was crucial. To me they stabilized the scene." In response to Reply # 21
They were the ones putting out the majority of the records, and did they run the Co-op club night? I trusted them to the point I would buy stuff without hearing it beforehand.
I quit buying new vinyl releases after they closed.
BigSlickMick Member since May 11th 2005 2081 posts
Wed Mar-30-11 03:10 PM
28. "RE: yeah, Goya was crucial. To me they stabilized the scene." In response to Reply # 26
I trusted them to the >point I would buy stuff without hearing it beforehand.
me too. goya, along with gamm/raw fusion, were the only labels where i'd buy their records without hearing them. i had that much faith in their product(s). when i'd play the record at home for the first time, i'd think to myself, "these guys are on some next shit." imo, they're still ahead of their time.
34. "about that Domu thang..." In response to Reply # 15
I've been finding MAD Goya sides and a bunch of Domu stuff recently. And since the world didn't get to hear a lot of it, I've been running it like it's new. I don't think it matters if a track is 2 or 3 years old. If it's good, I'm still gonna play it.
People need to get over that "Hot shit for 2011" mindset.
BigSlickMick Member since May 11th 2005 2081 posts
Wed Mar-30-11 05:01 PM
40. "RE: about that Domu thang..." In response to Reply # 34
speaking of domu. in february, daz and j-justice from the city soul crew tweeted that domu is back to making music. he put out Umod (Vol. 2). here's the tweet w/ a link to the download.
42. "4 Hero is drum n bass, and that shit is still on and popping" In response to Reply # 0 Wed Mar-30-11 05:26 PM by all stah
They dabbed into brokenbeat, but they will always be known for DnB because they pioneered the shit.
As far as brokenbeat, it just has a new title ...Dub beat or Dub step, and it is still on and popping.
Nothing has changed. Still the same shoes, just different logo.
And a lot of that stuff is also listed as/under eletric beat. It pretty much split into particles and fused with other sounds, especially when fly lo and a lot of other eletric beat artists came on the scene.
Basically, it is still here.....
That shit has always been electric beat or downtempo electric beat...Im glad that most of the electric, downtempo beat sounds of today are being put under one name or one roof......
What makes 4Hero's music 'electronic'? Because they use drum machines? Shit, there's a ton of 4Hero material that was all live instruments.
My entire point is that it's kinda silly to put artists into any genre, though I would argue that there probably is no artist that it would be more foolish to pigeonhole into a single genre or style than 4Hero.
"Broken Beat" is more a sound than anything. All of the artists who either came of age making it or were leaders of the 'movement' were certainly making different styles of music before it emerged and have been making different styles of music since.
All of the 'sub-classes' are annoying.
"Those who think "Transformers" is a great or even a good film are, may I tactfully suggest, not sufficiently evolved. Film by film, I hope they climb a personal ladder into the realm of better films, until their standards improve." Ebert
54. "RE: whatever happened to broken beat?" In response to Reply # 0
i'm partly tempted to chime in on this thread but i'm wiped after a long ass day. that there's 50-some replies is encouraging - like it or loathe it, there's enough interest out there to get a conversation going
for me broken was always a creative ethos more than a template style or way of programming. creative music making with the essence of everything i've loved. that's something i carry forward now and always hopefully. whether i'm making a house joint or a boom bap soul thing. playing an acoustic jazz gig or on stage rocking a dancefloor with the live set, the same ethos and creativity applies.
two albums you will want to check... dego's solo LP and my own new solo LP (due out early summer).
on the darker tip, check altered natives. consistently putting out demented broken flavor dancefloor carnage.
67. "That 2000Black "A Next Set Of Rockers" was 2008" In response to Reply # 0
...and that album was a killer. That's the most recent release I can think of. So I don't think the genre is dead. I'm not as well versed with the genre as I tend to follow albums over 12" releases, bit there's good stuff out there.
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