Posted by Budgie at May 27, 2005 06:14 PM

A weekending, an ending, a beginning...

[ Dedicated to the "good guys" (you know who you are) for making the past 7 or so years one of the greatest blags ever. To Weesacks & Johnnyboy, all the best for the future and these tunes are for you. It was tunes like this and talking bollocks that made many a great night shift. Shame it'll never be repeated and it will be missed... Good luck and here's to new beginnings.]

Dedications aside, for the rest of you, enjoy this pair of atmospheric drum and bass rollers.

Track : KMC - "SYSTEM"

I always loved drum and bass when it first rattled onto the music scene. It was a total breath of fresh air from the usual dance stuff that was about. Bassbin bursting basslines, tiny snatches of melody and it all getting the crap beaten out of it by some ferocious breaks - or as my dad once described it, "the sound of someone kicking a biscuit tin full of stones up and down a close".

It was in the mid to late 90's though that my ears were brought to attention of LTJ Bukem and his Good Looking record label. Here was a guy, and his cohorts, who were creating this sort of music but instead of the chopped up drums being the main focus of the tune, not to say that that wasn't always the case, they seemed to lovingly smother the tracks with huge washes of ambience. It was done so well that at times you forgot about the beat and became totally immersed into the layers of sound that were ebbing and flowing over the top.

The LTJ Bukem compiled "Logical Progression" album from 1996, which was full of this sort of stuff, was to become the starting point of a fixation that lasted for years. If a record or compilation came out with either his name or the cheeky wee face logo of the Good Looking label on it, it got bought.

KMC's "System" appeared on Bukem's "Progression Session" mix from 1998. It was a blistering set of spacey drum and bass expertly woven together with Bukem's infamous choppy crossfader style of mixing. Unfortunately, the mix did take a lot of getting used to as Bukem had his mate MC Conrad freestyling over the top. Ok, it was suppoed to make the mix have a certain "live" feel about it, but in the home or on your headphones it sometimes got in the way.

This version, from Volume 8 of the Good Looking retrospective series of albums, "Points In Time", thankfully doesn't have MC Conrad jarring the atmosphere of this excellent track.

Track : MOTIVE ONE - "LOOP PROGRESSION"

"Loop Progression", from Volume 7 of "Points In Time", starts in a more familiar drum and bass style with it's raw break loop. This is soon softened by the addition of long chords and all sorts of production effects, but don't get too relaxed as a typical old skool style break soon joins in and a battle between the rough and the smooth takes place for the remainder of the track. It's up to you decide who you think wins...

Go Visit : Good Looking Records

Go Buy : LTJ Bukem presents Logical Progression Volume 1
Go Buy : LTJ Bukem presents Progression Sessions Volume 1
Go Buy : Various Artists - Points In Time

Feel free to leave a comment about these tracks in The Pipe section of the forum

Ta,
Budgie.