A pretty thorough backgrounder on the spread(ing) of the broken beat and
electronic fusion (aka - West London) sounds was brought to my attention...
sorry if this has been discussed already, it's from late last year -- Broken
Beats of the Underground - Days of Future Past, by Denise Benson.
There are 2 passages here that I find quite parallel to Detroit, from a
collaboration perspecttive, especially the broad collaborations and rich
"borrowing" of people for productions/labels sessions/remixes that really
reminds of the formative early days of Detroit techno with the UR camps as
centers of activity, plus all the happenings on Gratiot St. area w/ Metroplex,
Transmat, Fragile, KMS, etc. etc. A lot of shared talent going on, people
teaching and learning from each other. A really rich mixture of talent all
helping each other out and just fostering some really concentrated areas of
creativity and innovation:
"It's also making challenging music within the context of community and
collaboration: Attias, I.G. and Dego all work in studios in the same building.
They also all work together at times, giving input into one another's
individual projects, coming together as duos (I.G. and Dego as Da One Away,
Dego and Alex as Plutonia), doing remixes, and frequently releasing each
other's music. Two things you learn quickly about this broken beat scene:
everybody works with everybody, leading to more pseudonyms and project names
than fathomable, and it seems like every other producer or crew runs a label of
their own."
and here the writer ties some more direct connections to a central distribution
hub like Submerge as I mentioned above:
"One of the main sources of accurate release and project info is the web site
of Goya Music (www.goyamusic.com), the key distributor for labels such as
Archive and Neroli, Dego's 2000 Black, Attias's Visions, and Bugz in the
Attic's Bitasweet... Goya acts like the scene's central nervous system,
supporting and distributing music from 20-plus indie labels. It's a scene
founded in friendships, trust, and a shared spirit of musical intrepidity. It's
little wonder that many heads draw parallels to Detroit-based kindred spirit
Mad Mike and his Underground Resistance label and distribution network. In both
cases, underground scenes with a sense of urgency and purpose. Both have
contributed to minor paradigm shifts in dance music."
I know some on 313 are more into this sound than others but I think the
reverberations are being felt in techno lately a lot more, with artists like
Aardvarck 'find the cow' on Delsin turning in some stuff like this, and Tom C's
Emoticon label even reaching there with the latest Future Beat Alliance 12"
('Head Ways ep' is absolutely brilliant techno I might add) leaning towards
some broken beats and more experimental things, all with still a warm deep
Detroit feel.
The lowlanders have been keeping pace too, Rush Hour distribution and family of
labels also contributing in great ways too to the expansion of this sound, even
a Domu remix of Aardvarck, etc. Carl Craig seems to have picked it up (check
out some of lineup from DEMF last year! P'Taah, Mark de Clive-Lowe, Degiorgio,
& Orin Walters DJ set at Planet E after party was mad!!) and now Recloose is
getting name checked with a lot of these W. London folks, as is the
detroit-based Omoa label. Nubian Mindz always feels more Detroit/UR to me
than anything else I would compare it to in London... and finally I for one
would also like to see more collaborations with 4Hero and Mike Banks !
Good stuff spreading out globally and creativity is teeming again in techno
when you smash out the "genre" dividers-- something I've always been a big fan
of...
the full article is here:
http://www.exclaim.ca/common/display.php3?articleid=877
Cheers,
Matt MacQueen
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