Electronic Music 3, Who got the breaks?

We've got to start off by doing some disambiguation. The basic breakdown in breakbeat is first, fast breaks, and second, breakbeat. Breakbeat ought to run at just about 110, which gives it a little bit of a lazy feel and also tends to confuse even a good drum-machine. That is sort of the marker for a true breakbeat style.

The next problem is fast breaks. There are two basic breakdowns here, and the first is drum and bass, which is usually just about 210, and that makes some very good drum machines real unhappy as well. Drum and bass is a very specific kind of breakbeat. It's a two-step beat, not dissimilar from what you might hear in Reggae or New Orleans Creole music, punched into double-time. Most people call it a "drop-kick," rhythm. The snare stays happily on 2 and 4, which is normal in any breakbeat style, and then the bass drum kicks on 1 and the and of 3.

With DNB, a problem is getting good variety, because the drop-kick rhythm is pretty constraining, and further, at that speed, and in a sort of just under-keel place, your drum machine gets unhappy real durned quick. Most people have to run multiple drum-machines plus a pro-tools setup to get any work done in DNB, and it can get worse than that on you. Your day generally gets worse when you actually have a good idea.

The other form of fast breaks is a breakbeat that would be typical of what we might call, "electro," and you bump the count up to about 130 or 140. Chemical Brothers, who do have some good tracks, or The Crystal Method, a real killer Latino-Vegas breaks group, are probably the two best at that style. The thing is, you would assume that the DNB would be the real tweaker, since you're running at 210 or so, but the reality is that you dance to DNB in half-time, so the real tweaker is the stuff running at 130 or 140.

Now let me be controversial here, but I want to give some proper respect in the right direction. Every tribe gives the other tribes some heat - right? - but generally unless someone is acting like scum, you give them a hard time - and an adult can take a hard time. I don't mind even being "dis'ed," as long as I'm not being "dis'ed," sick, and I've given heat to guys for dissing competing tribes sick. That isn't the way you work the game.

Hip hop started out as an African-American movement, and I've heard a little of the real stuff, just some pieces here and there, but hip-hop is black. Period. Don't try it. Eminem means something different than you think, and it did before "MC Eminem," took that name. However, lots of people all over the world, some as Aryan-looking and Latino-acting as yours truly, have gotten the breaks, and they've worked out their own way of looking at that kind of music.

That music ought to be called "electro," and in general it has a more complex and sometimes even baroque sound to it than true hip-hop does. That doesn't mean that "electro" is better, it is just completely different. Period. Not even similar to true hip-hop. Further, no black guy from America will give you anything but a piece of the "real" hip-hop, if he "has got the hip-hop," and if he has even an ounce of self-respect. It is a totally closed door. No one would ace his face literally unless they were scum, that isn't the way to play the game, but he would be a total leper if he gave anything away in the wrong way.

So, I'm going to highlight some of the better tracks I've got, but we here at this blog, Gwyd's place, are not going to poke our nose where it don't belong, and we are going to stick to "electro." What some people don't get is that it is fun to give the guy a little "hard-nose," but another part of the game is to give the guy a proper respect when he deserves it. Some people call that "praising," after the gospel term.

So, we are going to stick to electro, and there is "black-DNB," and that is an argument, but I know the hell out of electro, no matter where you're setting the drum machine. "Electro," is generally a huge dis', but it doesn't have to be, and I'm adult enough to take a little hard-nose for being a whitey who does breaks. Just remember, to me music is a religion, or part of it, and I figure if music is sacred to me, then I might want to stay off someone else's altar. I also love praisin' more than dissin', although it is fun to knuckle even a valuable artist's ribs from time to time.

Further, just remember, even with all of this EDM talk, my final destination is, "new music in the classical tradition written for instruments in the classical repertoire." I love dance music, and who doesn't? - and classical music is all listening music these days. So I love the EDM, and also, EDM is cutting-edge, and its enjoyable for me to hang back and groove to a break, or hit the house music I love, and I love that gay house to, and that will get you more than a little hard-nose. I can handle it though, and I'm not a thug about it.

With true breakbeat, in terms of electro, the stuff I work over and study is Massive Attack and Tricky, DJ Shadow, Doctor Octagon and Cypress Hill. Massive Attack generally runs the count at maybe as low as 96, and no more than maybe 100 or 102, and most people call that "trip-hop." Massive Attack got started mid-90's, and was run by a couple of brilliant Austrian guys and was a real mixed bag - Scottish, Jamaican - and a very large collective at that time. Massive Attack can outproduce anyone on the planet by and large, and they manage to get a sophisticated sound without it turning overly busy. There is a lot of different stuff there, some vocal breaks, and a sort of low-key "talkie"-type of rap. Just an endless catalogue of incredible music.

Tricky got started in the Massive Attack collective, and he did his early solo-work with his wife, who had the stage name Maria Topley-Bird. Tricky was what you might call a "warp-head," and that would usually be a bad thing, but it doesn't have to be. His best album is called "Maxinquaye," his first release, and I think the pick track on that record is "Aftermath." Tricky is not easy on the mind, however you slice the pie, and also, at one point there was a great live performance of a tune called "Vent," by Tricky on youtubie. It is worth a look if you're interested. The whole thing was played live without any programming, and it is unreal. Tricky was out of his skull- crazy, but he knew where it was at. I don't know any other way to say it.

Shadow is a different kind of story. Shadow generally only did instrumentals. He worked with two digital Technics and a standard mixer, and then a drum machine and a sampling module. Apparently his record collection was massive, and he would just grab cheap records and find sounds and sample them or spin them in.

His best two instrumentals are called "Mongrel... " (that is a mis-tag but that is the tag on the Gnutella network) and then "Building Steam with a Grain of Sand." Mongrel is one of the best phunckateck's ever dropped, a "phuncakteck" being an incredibly phat-electro beat. The instrumental runs at about 3 minutes, and you'd like Shadow to just spin it over and over it sounds so good.

Cypress Hill is a Latino group from the mid-90's, and the DJ for the group was a guy who is still running records named DJ Biggs. The pearl track is called "Insane in the Membrane." Biggs runs a real short piece of "Duke of Earl," off of a Motown 45, and keeps gripping the 45 backwards to a real tight place, and you wouldn't know what you were hearing really, if you really didn't go over the track real tight. I don't prefer to MC really, but I can body-slam the Insane in the Membrane flow better than the recording. It isn't necessarily that hard of a flow, but it is something I can do virtuouso, and I am a bit crazy, even after all these years of recovery - I still am.

Finally we get to the OCK. Doctor Octagon started out with a group called Jurassic 5, before Jurassic 5 went pop and fur-flopped, and that is all it is now, and I am not afraid to say it. Back then he went by the handle Kool Keith. OCK hooked up with a DJ named "Qbert," and OCK is so ill, that "whack," might be a good term. Ill can be a compliment, but it still means you're crazy, and "whack," is really never a compliment. Thing is that Doc Ock runs things so tight in spite of all that, and also, Qbert warps your head almost worse than Aphex Twin, if not worse. The tracks are "Doom," and "Blue Flowers," and "Earth People." "Earth People," should be reserved for a special occasion - we have those too - and is just as bad on the gasket as Aphex Twin's "Come to Daddy," except that it isn't "DEAD WRONG."

This is another point to make. Being hard and showing some machismo is fine, but "dead wrong," is never a compliment. There is warping a head, there is being goth, and then there is unadulterated, raw evil. "Earth People," warps your head just as bad as "Come to Daddy," without the pint of raw evil. If I ever catch sight of RDJ, I might actually ace his face, even considering the bid time I might do. If I catch him on the 'Net I'm going to ruin him. Period. He was also at one time one of the best producers in the world. It's called crystal meth' people, and a pint of raw evil is the result. Don't tweak.

The thing is, that warping your own head can be enjoyable, kind of like watching "Amityville Horror," or something comparable. Even people that aren't much into head-warping enjoy a warp on the right occasion. The thing is, you don't run a freaker. You might actually get killed for doing that. If you play out a warp, (the lingo makes itself, that is part of it) then you do it and then give the people a break from the action. Boy, that "stuff," makes me angry. If I was running a show, one of those Ock tracks would be more than plenty, and I'd get some walk-outs just for that one. That is considering that Ock is kind of a hero of mine.

So the basics of it is, that my breakbeat tribe would be what is called "geeza," generally. What still goes on, is that there would be these old guys that would squat in these tenements in these crazy areas of town, and they would slang poetry all the time, and people would bring them food and clothes and liquor and other gifts so they could sit and hear the slang poetry. So if you're working a "geeza"-style, you've sat with one of those old men.

It is usually an incredibly unpleasant experience, as the "geeza," usually tries to break you down, and most people don't sit with a "geeza," more than once and then usually not for more than maybe an hour or so. It's a kind of initiatory experience, and the product is something real ill, like Ock. Still, those would be my tribal collections, Shinobi, the KLF, and the Geeza.

Look, trust me, I am not trying to be threatening. I don't like violence at all really, even though I have my bad days. I'm too absent-minded to even own a legal piece, as absent-minded professors lose body parts even to legal pieces. I can fight, but I've fought one time in my adult life, and not even one time more. The guy didn't land a punch, or even touch me. Have to throw that in for the sake of machismo.

Still, I may be hard, but I like living straight and even kind. I want to have love. Even though the Shinobi and the Geeza are ill, and I am kind of nuts, nobody is going to get more than their feelings hurt. I try to even hard-nose with some manners. Also, the KLF may sound real pretty, but it is way harder than you can imagine, and I'm still learning from 3 tracks after listening to them for 3 or 4 years. I don't perfeck' garbage. Anyway, we need to make a cut and talk about fast breaks - both versions - in the next article. Then we'll maybe hit some of my own thoughts about EDM.