It’s hard to think of a musical style that’s been discussed, celebrated, and borrowed by so many yet heard by so few as drum ‘n’ bass. The music formerly known as jungle has left traces on pop albums like Everything but the Girl’s Walking Wounded and smothered the new David Bowie…but who’s actually got the latest Peshay record? It’s precisely this cart-before-the-horse dilemma that will in all likelihood prevent electronica–the blanket term favored by the music biz for drum ‘n’ bass, along with its older siblings techno, instrumental hip-hop, ambient dub, and trip-hop–from becoming the industry’s new cash cow, despite concerted efforts to milk it.
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It won’t help any that electronic artists tend to hide behind noms de needle on record and behind fortresses of electronic equipment onstage. People who like rock shows are going to be disappointed if they blindly run out to catch the latest drum ‘n’ bass star manipulating turntables and twirling knobs–it’s a studio phenomenon first and foremost. But for those who want to know more about the trend than they can read in the New York Times, on Thursday, March 6, the Smart Bar might be the place to be. At an event called the Summit, billed as “a night of pure drum ‘n’ bass,” six of Chicago’s top jungle DJs–Snuggles, Phantom 45, 3D, U-Sheen (John Herndon), Designer (Casey Rice), and Daniel Givens, some of whom are artists in their own right–ought to provide a vivid scan of this frenetic, high-speed electronic style.
The catalyst for the electronica revolution, such as it is, has been drum ‘n’ bass’s appeal to and appropriation by artists outside the rave scene. Spring Heel Jack and Plug have crafted sweeping, cinematic music that enfolds the rhythms with provocative textures and even reintroduces the notion of melody; guitar improviser Derek Bailey and experimental composer Jim O’Rourke have both used the vocabulary to forge fresh and challenging fusions far removed from club culture. The shame of it is that these worthwhile hybrids are just as likely as their purist antecedents to lose out to the shams.
Art accompanying story in printed newspaper (not available in this archive): illustration by Mike Werner.
