Liquid funk/Jazzstep/Atmospheric/Sambass appreciation

[Trot Shuffle 3,599]

I guess just liquid dnb. Anyone else into these styles? 

Some examples of what I mean:

Nu:Tone - Millie's Theme

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D.Kay & Lee - Manipulate The Universe

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DJ Marky & XRS - LK

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Calibre & Zero Tolerance - One Word

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Calibre - Think On

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Intense - Natural Progression

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Jazz Cartel - Blue Haze

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4hero ft. Imani Uzuri - 9 by 9 (Marcus Intalex & ST Files remix)

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Lady Blackbird - Collage (Calibre remix)

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High Contrast - Twilight's Last Gleaming

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LTJ Bukem - Rhodes To Freedom

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Peter Nice Trio - Harp Of Gold

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PFM - The Rough With The Smooth

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Makoto & Kabuki ft. Deeizm - Look Of Love

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Keeno - Communications

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DJ Marky & Makoto ft. Deeizm - Free

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Random Movement - Goblin Jazz Banquet

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DJ Patife ft. Cleveland Watkiss - Overjoyed

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Lenzman - Ever So Slightly

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Calibre - Up In Smoke

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Calibre - Latin 2000

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Artificial Intelligence - Soul Good (Stress Level & TC1 remix)

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Solid Principles - Sunshine Funkula

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Calibre - Mr Right On

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[Samurai Equine 45,980]

...So basically, music with a fast drum and bass sound. 

[Trot Shuffle 3,599]

39 minutes ago, Samurai Oni said:

...So basically, music with a fast drum and bass sound. 

Well I guess kinda yes and kinda no?

This is a focus on the more "soulful" and "traditionally musical" side of DnB rather than purely techy, heavy, or "dark". It being "fast" or "slow" is of no concern, as long as it's somewhere between 160 to 180 BPM.

It's gotten overshadowed by Jump Up, Neuro, and Festival DnB (and modern Liquid), which is what people think of when they hear DnB. Which is pretty much the screechy synthesized basslines and punchy drums, which IMO are also cool in their own right.

In contrast, the styles on this thread are relatively toned down, with the basslines being less aggressive and drums leaning towards a more realistic playing style. Any melody or vocals are the primary focus and takes inspiration from jazz, soul, bossa nova, samba, disco, blues, and more.

This style influenced a lot of video game soundtracks from the 90s, alongside Trance, Big Beat, and House.

There's a lot of interesting and humbling history to all of it, even down to individual artists. But that's an entirely different and lengthy discussion. 

[Samurai Equine 45,980]

19 hours ago, Trot Shuffle said:

There's a lot of interesting and humbling history to all of it, even down to individual artists. But that's an entirely different and lengthy discussion. 

Commence the stories. 

[Trot Shuffle 3,599]

On 2023-10-14 at 12:12 AM, Samurai Oni said:

Commence the stories. 

Well okay  It's not well documented as half of it is heresay and the rest is a mix of old magazine articles, forum posts, and interviews scattered across the years. This is also for some of them that I can get information on (some that I'm still learning about).

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For starters, DJ Fabio is one of the earliest forces behind this style of music and seems to be dubbed as an "originator" of liquid DnB alongside Grooverider. He grew up with a lot of jazz, soul, etc. but his mates at school weren't into that stuff. So to fit in he just did whatever with them (gangster things and getting into trouble along with the opposite of the music he grew up with) until school was done and dealt with, blah blah blah some time passes, he meets Grooverider and they were playing more soulful DnB at their sets and on the radio. They got a bit of flack for it because some ravers thought they were "gentrifying" the scene or whatever, but quickly realized they were just doing their own thing and the media was coming in being like "Wow this is intelligent music!" and all that. Not sure about Grooverider right now, I'd have to look a little more about him.

LTJ Bukem, I don't know too much about him, but he was also a powerhouse in the more atmospheric DnB stuff of the 90's. His record label "Good Looking Records" and it's variants and sublabels were huge back then. He has a background in "[classical piano] and jazz fusion" at least according to his Wikipedia entry.

Tony Colman originally did some stuff with an acid jazz band called Izit, but he was screwed out of money from the record label they were signed under so he backed out of that group unfortunately. He met Chris Goss, where the two would establish Hospital Records and also their duo act London Elektricity, which later became a solo act only consisting of Tony because (from what I can tell) Chris decided to spend more time managing the business side of Hospital Records. Hospital Records was established because of that bad money deal and it was sworn from that day that they would never do that to their own artists. So far, it's been successful as they're the largest independent DnB-focused label in the world today. They've shifted over the years to be more pop-heavy, but they have a huge back catalog worth checking out.

Marcus Intalex, I don't think he is traditionally trained in music(?), he spoke in an interview that he just uses his ear but doesn't know specific keys (that's a really old interview though, around 2003). However, there's a specific song that was released by him and ST Files called "How You Make Me Feel" (linked below) which brought life back to DnB at the time. It'd gotten very technical and dark at the time which was a long cry from where it started at. Some old ravers will say something about there being no girls to flirt with in clubs though, since all of the girls went to clubs playing UK Garage etc. instead. This seems to check out when DJ Rap (an early jungle/DnB producer/DJ) moved to the U.S. for a variety of reasons, which included not just the major record deal she signed with (I think it was with Universal), but also the music getting away from being musical and overly technical. It helped to drive her away from the scene early on. Anyways, Marcus established the Soul:R record label and it's offshoots to help promote the more soulful and funkier side of "2-step" DnB. It actually influenced the sound of Hospital Records a lot too early on.

Makoto got a synthesizer from his parents when he was 14. Not sure of any specifics on his musical background though. Later he heard some stuff from LTJ Bukem (and probably some other GLR releases too) and wanted to make it too, so he tried to copy it before learning jazz and soul a bit better. I think his favorite musician of all time is Ryuichi Sakamoto, he cites him quite a bit in his Reddit AMA when people ask for recommendations or about his inspirations. He got picked up by LTJ Bukem since it was a very unique sound that he was developing, and was being taught how to DJ despite the language barrier. He also composed some songs for games like Gran Turismo and is currently signed to Hospital Records.

Other artists like Calibre and DJ Marky were also kinda like "outsiders" from the 90s/2000s DnB scene just like Makoto.

DJ Marky brought his Brazilian music influence to DnB while Calibre had a bit of a culture shock from what I can tell when he went from Ireland to the U.K.

DJ Marky, not sure on his background yet. I just know he's one of the best DJ's that I ever heard, he goes nuts on wax! Love his energy too!

Calibre is a bit simpler as a DJ though, but it's clear it comes second to him since writing music is more his style. He has an insane workflow. When he was picked up early on by DJ Fabio, he drowned him in songs in preparation for his Musique Concrete album, and has kept writing music ever since in whatever style he wants. He's one of the only DnB artists to never have an official remix done of his songs, which was unintentional. He spoke of when he was still a huge alcoholic, I think it was Dylan (the one from Dylan & DJ Ink) who asked him if he could remix one of his songs. They kinda had a (drunken) laugh about it, but even if Calibre wanted the remix to happen, he'd already destroyed all of the recordings necessary for any remix to be done. Destroying his own work was his biggest enemy early on in his music career, DJ Fabio talked about a song he heard way back then that was one of the best things he'd ever heard, but when he wanted to release it, Calibre already destroyed it and there was no backup for it. He grew up listening to a huge variety of music genres and still does to this day. He's also the only music artist, period, that I know of who intentionally doesn't release his work within the upcoming months. There's lots of songs of his that's been played out 20+ years ago which are now seeing the light of day as an official release instead of a DJ set rip or radio rip, usually through his Shelflife albums. There's apparently thousands of songs he's made that he never released, and I do believe it.  DJ Fabio said that Calibre could literally quit making music now and just release every song he's ever made every day from then on and be well off. Calibre also does some painting, which can be seen in his album artwork. I think that's what his mother taught him, or at least encouraged him to do creatively before he picked up the whole music thing.

There's loads more people I could bring up, but I don't know their history too well right now to speak on them and this is getting suuuper lengthy already 

 

Anyways enuff rambling or whateva, here are some more tuuunes 

Marcus Intalex & ST Files - How You Make Me Feel

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Shapeshifter NZ ft. Ladi6 - Move With Me

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Mika Nakashima - Stars (Makoto remix)

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Kool And The Gang - Summer Madness (Rowpieces bootleg remix)

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Artemis - Elysian Fields

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Makoto - You Make Me Feel

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Seba - Valley of the Moomins

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Little Dragon - Little Man (Marcus Intalex remix)

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Adam F - Circles

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Drumagick - Easy Boom

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Calibre - Peso

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Greg Packer - What About You

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Greg Packer - Into the Groove

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Random Movement - Eighty Hours

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Hugh Hardie ft. GLXY, 3-Card & Zoë Phillips - She Moves

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Nu:Logic - Sanctuary

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LTJ Bukem - Atlantis (I Need You)

AKA: Apollo Two - Atlantis (I Need You) (LTJ Bukem remix)

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The Chameleon - Links

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[Trot Shuffle 3,599]

I ran across this a few days ago, love it! Some swing, bossa nova, wrapped into DnB! 

DJ Suv & DJ Patife ft. Tali - Inta Outta
AKA: DJ Suv & DJ Patife ft. Tali - Inta Outa

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Another one I ran across, I'll definitely be looking into their back catalog more now 

Influx Datum - Back For More

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Some others as well:

Syncopix - Soul Secure

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Digital Native - Been Ages Since

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Calibre - Domeron

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Sunny Crimea - Shining Lights

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High Contrast - Everything's Different (Calibre remix)

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Total Science ft. MC Conrad - Soul Patrol

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Hugh Hardie - Love Troubles

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Kuba Adamek - Sunset Glitter

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John B & Digital - Time Goes By

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Fusion Forum - Summer Mist

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E-Z Rollers - Bellagio

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Makoto - Take My Soul Baby

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Rowpieces - Jazzmerising

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[Trot Shuffle 3,599]

This is a really nice one from Submorphics that I ran across by accident! Fairly recent release too 

Submorphics - Taurus World

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Edited November 24, 2023 by Trot Shuffle
Darn auto correct

[Trot Shuffle 3,599]

An older one I wish was released digitally. Which is weird because the other side "Fire & Water" was! Not sure what happened there..... 

Definitely one I have to get on vinyl and while they do repressings, this one (SOULR002) doesn't get that treatment. 

Calibre - Interphaze

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[Trot Shuffle 3,599]

Ok, this one is very exciting (to me)! Some underground DnB classics are re-released!

"Badmarsh & Shri - Signs (Calibre remix)" and Calibre - Soul 80" got remastered and re-released both digitally and is getting repressed after 20 years!

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Had to buy it, mostly for Soul 80. Not the vinyl though this time. 

Calibre - Soul 80

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On the original press, the flipside is also quite nice.

M.I.S.T. (Mist:i:cal?) - Love Thing (there's conflicting information online about who it's by, but it's on the A-side)

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The 'Signs remix' is also very good, but some warning: it has some explicit lyrics!

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Here's the original if interested: