September 12, 2003
Flex Records, Jump Up and me me me...
Something at Technicolor got me thinking. Jess asserted that Gerald never appeared to get his dues. He even invoked my lurve for Juice Box. I didn't leap into the fray because I didn't REALLY agree, but there was a kernel of truth in what he had to say. I'd suggest that Gerald didn't get the kind of blanket media coverage Goldie got in part because he seemed to the media to be old hat (no hat was older than Goldie!) but mainly because he was based in Manchester.
It's that old London-centric problem. UK Garage IS London, with the freak exception of crews like Laid Blak from Bristol, while Jungle was a nationwide phenomena. Many of the major labels were dotted across the country: Formation were in Leicester, Full Cycle were from Bristol, Juice Box were in Manchester and Flex were in Huddersfield. The London-centric bias of the media is a drag and something pan-UK culture warriors have waged war against for aeons. Flash on that Post-Punk sampler: "Hicks from the Sticks" and it's impassioned anti-London rhetoric. Often the best this country has to produce comes from the parishes throwing London 2 fingers. We're here, and we're gonna do our own thing, screw you. The Specials in Coventry. LFO in Sheffield. Postcard in Glasgow. Black Sabbath in Birmingham. The Soft Machine in Canterbury. And all their attendant scenes.
Actually my experiences of raving "back-in-the-day" were often outside London. I saw Rhythmatic in St. Pauls in Bristol busting out da bleep and bass (Mugged at gunpoint too! Well it could have been a concealed carrot but I wasn't about to argue!), I heard Dominator caned at Moss-side in Manchester, I saw Derrick May in Bath in 1990 (spooky), I raved incessantly at Pure in Edinburgh, open-air raves in Yorkshire, Terry & Jason in Glasgow etc. I was at that age when you just trucked around and fucked about (aah!) Being stuck in London is a drag actually. When I've enjoyed Auspicious Fish, it's been through Nick's (less swaggering) evocative descriptions of lingering on the Dawlish seafront with his mini-disc or getting a parking ticket at a nature reserve. Glad the photo's gone mate ;-) London-centricism is just the first wave of the effect of the USA sucking all the life out of UK culture. It's the first step towards homogenisation.
While I think Gerald got a pretty good crack of the whip, one geezer who I thought got next to no props at all was L Double. So it's kind of heartening to see that he's got a show on 1Xtra. Not that I'm endorsing the current Drum'n'Bass scene ya get me! This mini feature makes no claim to being comprehensive but these are among the best tunes which that crew put out. Starting of course with Unique 3:
Classic record. The Theme up there with Ability II's "Pressure" and LFO's "LFO" in the Bleep'n'Bass terrain. I root for the Original Chill Mix (not the Rob Gordon edit) which is propelled by that distorting morphing filtered bassline. And what a sweet cover. Loads of spirit! That's the kind of crap illustration which warms my heart.
More ham-fisted techno. But that's the point of this stuff. It's crude. It's not got the multi-tracked breathless drama of Detroit. It's base and heathen. As I type this, the rave-style horns kick in ha! I hear you fellas! Once again BASS in full effect. Rolling!
Urban Gamelan fer'real! A chopped up Italo-House Piano. None of the L Double stuff is particularly tuneful or hummable. I'm not about to make up breathless claims for it's gorgeousness, in a way for instance many of the Juice Box records have sumptuous lavish harmonies, but it's incredibly fascinating for it's obtuseness, directness and unearthliness. Wiley's stuff springs to mind as a very strong comparison.
Presumably the deal with London ran it's course.I remember mags like i-D (which once used to have good writing about music) complaining about the surplus of Bleep'n'Bass, surely the first rumblings of the media onslaught against Ardkore. L Double presumably on his own. This from 1993 not very good, though check the nutty/loony/mental cover and great titles like "Drugtalk '93". Every cloud etc.
Flex records springing to life in 1994 with this one. Marcus Intalex's classic. This is quite oooooh gourgeous. I love the (squares hands like a film director) BRANDING of this label. The Flex logo really captures the mechanical cold avowedly futuristic bent of the music. Shades of Giger. Very k-punk!
The Dubster is an awesome Cutty sampling monster choon! The Jump-up revival which is happening apace across "the-crew-that-used-to-be-drill'n'bass" Vibert/Paradinas (who angrily thumbed the 94 bin in front of me at the Soho M&V a few years back) as well as with the new Ragga-Jungle mix CDs issuing from the Indie-tronica axis have left me a wee bit puzzled. It's not that it ain't AMAZING music (viz the new Remarc reissue) but wasn't everyone on board at this stage? Weren't we all, them included, fully-fledged consumers of the stuff by this point? Why then the all-too-sudden retro turn-around? Am I missing something?
When this record came out I went to see Roni Size and L Double play a tiny club off Regent Street called "Ah London Someting". It was brock out, which you'd not expect for a central London club. People were going mad! The race ratio was about 90% black. This was at the time when there was a massive influx of interest in Ardkore from (gonna have to be careful here) mainstream black UK culture. When Jungle was tearing it up at the Notting Hill Carnival. Definitely one of the three best nights of music in my life. Guys jumping in the air throwing off 3 metre-long trails of flame from their lighters (you wedge a pin in the nozzle). Sexy gals. And the most pulverising all-encompassing body-numbing BASS. Totally dread. Roni (circa "The Warning") at the peak of his powers.
This came out soon after, which for my money is alongside Dillinja's "The Angels Fell" the best on Metalheadz. I was mad about Metalheadz early on (up to Hidden Agenda) I had even had a Metalheadz logo cut into my hair. What a twat! (ha ha) Cut to Richard "Big Beat" Fearless laughing AT me at a dinner party over this (humorously-delivered) anecdote . (Coo aren't I dropping names today!) I don't care. Loving music's not about being "cool". I remember Fabio giving it the nod though!
Great. Stop-start G-Funk sample. Lurking Reese bassline. Gunshot ricochets. Amen drums leaping into the fray. Booyacka! Then the think drums on top. Polyriddimİ!
I'm a sucker for a 10". I have another of these I couldn't find. The hastle it involves digging up tunes for these specials! I have ABSOLUTELY NO FILING SYSTEM WHATSOEVER you might be surprised to know. Tried it once, bored the living shit out of me. Martin Denny will rub shoulders with Fred Locks until such time as them get shuffled around/hooked-out. Anyway, great track.
Which brings me to this (and "The Shit" to follow) which are just STUNNING. It's always nice to see artists actually get BETTER. Not "mature" but actually come closer to incandescence. This track covers every square inch of available flesh with ice-cold goosebumps. I'm gonna break into Dillinja's house NOW and put it on his sound-system. TEARING! From that time when Jungle's drums were it's calling card now they're flaccid/lite/fail to engage. This track opens with a tabla! Then a Leviticus-style "swaying" harmony loop. The drums take off. It's very linear, like those late-ish Philly Blunt tunes (Firefox and Glamour Gold) and also fast like them, before the rhythmic tabula rasa that constituted Tech-step. It grips you and won't let go.
And look at that picture disc. Both sides presented here. (Quick everyone get the FBI labs on that stretch of white wall, where does this Ingram-feller live? Bust down his door!) BTW earlier comments about the Flex phuturistik aestetic.
"The Shit" indeed! Less psychedelic than The Rider, and later, so things are being stripped-down and cleaned up about. Still, this is AWESOME 1996 Jump-up.