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Autechre – Amber (1994) The whole IDM/Warp thing passed me by at the time (with the exception of the Aphex Twin – I kicked off with LFO and then lost it…). I think I’d spent so much time listening to really quite considered electronic music on the industrial side that I just wanted to let rip by the mid 90s. So the more experimental “head” stuff got lost in a haze of dub, breakbeat, “Dead by Dawn”-esque hardcore and (ulp!) acid trance. That, and being off my face. 🙂

So I got this about 6 months ago from a mate at work, and it’s right up my alley. (For the purposes of this entry, my alley is bleak, filmic, droney and yet strangely warm). It works really well as hangover music, which probably means that it works really well as comedown music, but there ain’t much of that in my life these days.

My understanding is that Autechre are now a bit more impenetrable, but I find this really emotionally involving – not in a “tears streaming down your face/soaring strings” kind of way, but a more contemplative meandering, thoughts and feelings running off at tangents…

I guess I’ll check the new stuff out in another 9 years. How’s that for not being on top of things?

Digital – Dubzilla (2001)

Some of Digital’s 12″ releases are the best drum ‘n’ bass I’ve heard for years, so I was looking forward to checking out his LP. Unfortunately it took a while (losing the edge which I never had) but I eventually turned up a second hand CD copy. Not the ideal format, but cheap compared to the 5×12″ set. Plus most of my listening gets done on the walkman these days to and from work.

So… I dunno. Most of the bass seems to get lost on my tinny headphones, but I just feel that this suffers from “d ‘n’ b LP syndrome” – it’s not a rockist genre (Bad Company’s thrash antics aside) so a “straight” LP flattens the whole dancefloor mash down/mix up biz. The 2nd CD is a mix CD, which is pretty cool, but a bit samey (as you would expect cos it’s all by the same artist, which again defeats the point somewhat).

Some of the individual tracks are great – Digital does his thing of combining reggae and ravey tinges. However, I do get a bit disappointed with it because I think I want it to be a futuristic version of Congo Natty stuff, whereas the whole point about Congo Natty is that it is formulaic, classic and retro.

So at its best Digital’s tunes are incredible drum ‘n’ bass productions with a nod to jungle, hardcore, ragga and reggae – the sort of thing which sits really well in a mix of other stuff. At its worst he doesn’t quite pull it off – it’s 99% drum ‘n’ bass with other licks grafted on top.

That said, I’m going to have to listen to this again at high volume. Preferably in a speeding car. At night. Really, really stoned.

various artists – On-U Sound Reggae Archive (compilation 1993, tracks late 70s/early 80s?)

Excellent comp of early Adrian Sherwood productions – where the Hitrun label finished and On-U Sound began. Sherwood often gets dissed for not being authentic (i.e black? jamaican?) enough – which is fair enough if you check out the more experimental On-U releases like African Head Charge et al. But this is serious “proper” reggae which fits in well with other UK productions of the time.

First track is Carol Calphat’s “African Land”, which unfortunately includes the couplet “Africa is a land of love… we don’t have to wear no boxing glove” but is otherwise pristine roots…

The dub version of the New Age Stepper’s “Some Love” sounds all the better for the absence of Ari Up’s vocals (this is possibly sacriledge in some circles, but there you are). Bim Sherman’s “Stormy Ghetto” is wicked as well.

I guess this cuts into Matthew Ingram’s thing about the London crew taking on reggae and walking off with bits of it. That’s part of the story, but there is another part which is white geezers who have been accepted into the fold – Sherwood is one of them (or was at one point), Russ D from the Disciples is another (getting his dubplates played by Shaka), plus there’s the multi-racial nature of a lot of soundsystems like Jah Tubbys, etc.

I suppose it’s the split between being experimental, and being experimental within the genre of reggae. Clearly there’s room for both, as long as the results of the experiments are worthwhile. Perhaps we need to avoid being judgemental, tho – as Kevin Martin said:

“I remember the editor of The Wire wrote a really snide review of Macro Dub Infection 2. As soon as I read it I marched straight off to their office, but luckily managed to keep calm. He had banded me, Bill Laswell and two of the other artists as people who had just got into reggae through punk and therefore there was an inference that it wasn’t authentic, or reverential enough. And that people like that were just picking up on the headfuck area or the chaotic aspect and didn’t enjoy the beauty of the music or whatever. It was a ridiculous argument and it said a lot to me about the sort of reggae purist we’ve been talking about. Increasingly it’s white people – I know more white people who are snobby about reggae than black people. It’s white people who are rewriting the history of reggae and telling you whether or not you should be doing this or that within reggae.”