|
|
|
|
|
|
Drum'n'Bass in the demoscene |
|
|
|
by Dipswitch of Black Maiden
|
The drums and the bass are rocking the demoparty halls again. Some say that DnB was never gone, but in any case now it's back and it's stronger then ever. 1st places at major demoparties and superb DnB soundtracks speak for themselves. One can drop many names of demoscene DnB afficionados... People like Muffler/Haujobb (who, in fact, made an amazing carreer in "real life" with DnB music), rjv/Matt Current, Lug00ber/Spaceballs, Little Bitchard/Kewlers, and also new shooting stars like dq/Kaki^Arts...
But let me concentrate on musicians that people don't recall directly. Drum'n'Bass, Jungle and related genres have a long tradition in the scene, and sadly many of the protagonists are forgotten and/or not getting the appropriate recognition. So, let's head to some random picks!
First one to come to my mind is Krii a.k.a. Resound a.k.a. one half of Causes and Forces. A freaking talented multi-instrumentalist, he did some music for the PC demogroup Purple (don't know though if he was a member actually), and he was active in the netlabel of netlabels - Tokyo Dawn Records (probably the netlabel with the strongest demoscene roots -- for example, the first Evoke was held in 1997 by four groups, including TDR). As Resound, Krii rocks the DnB dancefloors worldwide by now.
See his discography at www.discogs.com/artist/Resound
I'm proud about the fact that he did the soundtrack for the first Black Maiden PC demo, Funkysexy, in 2001.
As a demo it was probably everything but than strong, but I consider Krii's track to be one of the best scene-located DnB productions.
[/b]
Next... we are talking about demoscene related tracks, right? Not neseccarily demo soundtracks? What could be more related to demoscene than the PC tracking scene of the mid-late 1990s. There are so many forgotten DnB/jungle gems to discover. Just drop groupnames like [b]Theralite, Mo'Playaz, Tehdas, Aurinko, Rebound and and and... and I will dwell in sweet memories about when I recorded .XMs to cassette tapes. Those people and groups fed my interest in good electronic music in general and DnB in particular, and motivated me to do stuff myself.
But no group mention would be complete without the mighty Mono. You can get all their stuff from
scene.org/pub/music/groups/mono - go dig in the 1996-1999 folders! MONO had all kinds of stylish musicians around who did spuerb Jungle/DnB tracks - Mortimer Twang, Dreamfish, H0lo... but the undisputable king of jungle was rAM-ONe. Sadly, died in 2001, but I will always remember him as a nice contact and a great musician who influenced me like no one else.
Well, no one else, except Bomb20. This guy was freaking hardcore. A member of the legendary PC demo/music crew Radical Rhythms (http://rr.rockz.org), he made breakcore before breakcore was even invented. Back in 1997, when I listened to his crazy mashed-up breaks done in XTracker, I knew that I want to "be just like him". Well, probably not in the aspect of landing in jail (the guy was quite notorious), but as in going against the scene mainstream with amen breaks massacre.
In the late 90s, the guy disappeared from the scene, but for good: he started to release on Alec Empire's legendary DHR label (some years before that, he actually did an interview with Alec and spreaded it over BBSs as a scene release - ftp://ftp.scene.org/pub/resources/docs/b20_dhr.zip More recently he was, together with hardcore legend Patrick Catani, behind the crazy puppet-hiphop project "Puppetmastaz".
Another guy who should be mentioned is Mefis from Germany's mid-90s' finest - Funk!.. He was the master of size-tracking - check out his StadtUmMichHerum for an excellent minimalistic yet athmospheric little DnB tune in just slightly over 30k. And, of course, one can not pass by Raytrayza of Kolor. Releasing DnB tracks as "Big Bang University" on Gyration Records as early as 1998, he left quite some, sadly very underrated, scene legacy - go and listen to the excellent techstep soundtrack of Kolor's demo Herbst77 to hear what I am talking about.
And, last not least, there is Teis of Spaceballs/Bypass/UpRough etc. fame -- an undisputed master in the jungle territory. His soundtrack for Bypass' Drastik 64k is the quintessence of brutal straight forward DnB in a size-coding context - even with real amen breaks squeezed inside there.
Well, I'm not here to write the history of Drum'n'Bass in the demoscene -- just wanted to deliver some personal favorites, being triggered off by a thread on Bitfellas. Now go and listen to music!
Go back to articlelist |
(click here to comment the article)
| 001 |
A personal recommendation is lug00ber's "out the exits" from the Spaceballs demo "Hog" - http://lug00ber.m0f0.net/demoscene/tracks/lug00ber-out_the_exits.mp3
Posted 28/8 2007 - 8:04 |
| 003 |
I would also like to point out that Irvin^Outracks has done several great tracks for Outracks' demos. While a lot of the artists on the scene (including myself) usually take the dark and hard route, Irvin manages to balance on the border of cheesiness with great stride. It's refreshing to hear some dnb with actual melodies, not just dark and distorted basslines with amens on top :)
Posted 4/9 2007 - 22:32 |
| 004 |
lug00ber: Welcome :)
Posted 5/9 2007 - 18:10 |
| 005 |
Thanks :)
Posted 5/9 2007 - 18:21 |
| 006 |
hey, i just got some tracks and live of Xenophobe/Neurotoxin - this guy does great dnb !
Posted 3/10 2007 - 6:25 |
| 008 |
fab article!
Posted 7/4 2008 - 7:29 |
| 009 |
randall / suburban base made some excellent mods - step into darkness is pretty damned fresh even by todays standard in 4ch! :)
Posted 7/4 2008 - 7:46 |
| 010 |
Ah, step into darkness.. That's a fucking gem.
Also, "masive song" [sic] which I also think is by Randall is great stuff.
Those tracks were a big inspiration for me when I was a kid :)
Posted 10/4 2008 - 22:29 |
| 011 |
oh, just saw that the artuiclke is online.
"Download his work at www.discogs.com/artist/Resound[/link]." is of course terribly wrong and i don't recall writing anything like that. discogs is a discography database, not a download portal. whoever can fix this, please fix to smth like
"See his discography at www.discogs.com/artist/Resound."
Posted 18/4 2008 - 17:34 |
| 012 |
Fixed
Posted 18/4 2008 - 20:07 |
| 013 |
Wow coming from a drum and bass head but not so much demoscene fan, Out the Exits is a pretty amazing song...
Posted 6/7 2008 - 2:41 |
|
|
|
|
