WOEBOT

Simon Reynolds made the single most perceptive remark made about the spectacularly intense evolution of dance music through the 1990s. Actually he might have been talking more specifically about Hardcore and Jungle, but YES, the journey was more interesting than the destination. Or indeed the destinations, because that's what we have with today's practically static genres. I'm finding Funky House interesting in 2007 because, as I said a couple of months ago, it seems content with the vaguest generic specification.

Musicians go on about not wanting to be pigeonholed. In the past I would tend to think to myself, c'mon kids, get with the program, but there is a balance to be struck. In its defense, generic music is never purposeless. It aspires to be listened-to and to be cared about. It can be made sense of within a field of music, and can be enjoyed for its own particular nuances within that field. However it seems like finally the whole world has grasped this fundamental truism and metaphorically-speaking we are left with a few big walled cities on a barren plain.

I hated Fungle, the music by Squarepusher, Spring Heeled Jack and Plug. Its claims of "outdoing" Jungle seemed hilariously wrong-headed. But over the last couple of years it has been the Dubstep fusions which have been most entertaining, not the real thing. The sublime tom-tom techno of Shackleton, Mordant Music's radiophonica and Various Productions deliberately ill-fitting "un-urban" chansons have bucked the trends for art music feasting on the body of utilitarian dance, by actually excelling their host.

Dance music in that decade was moving so fast sonically that more than a few entities were able to hitch a ride as fellow-travellers without there being a need to haul them out of the train. There was so much noise, so much flux, that if a record had a 4/4 beat people generally didn't ask questions. This week starting tomorrow I'm going to briefly focus on four of those entities.