Engine Block

Alright, I'm done touching grass for the summer. Time to brainstorm.

One of my main criticisms of drum 'n bass after the late 1990s is that, after the release of "Wormhole" by Ed Rush and Optical, the biohazard stamp from Virus Recordings simply won't come off. This comes in handy when you have an entire floodgate's worth of jazz samples and “intelligent” drum 'n bass dishwater to distance yourself from. However, what happens when, around two generations later, that same biohazard stamp comes bundled into a new generation of DAW junkies with no concept of this particular bit of creative tension? What function does it ultimately serve, other than another calcified trope bogging down talent in the studio?

As Simon Reynolds wrote in edition 300 of The Wire, neurofunk has always sounded more or less exactly like the ultra-clinical, labor-intensive and squeaky-clean digital environment it was produced in (the age of DAWs has done little to mitigate this). One of his arguments is that neurofunk in many ways represented the resolution of a particular point of internal creative tension: when you're stuck in the quagmires of jazzy noodling and bare-knuckle, bone-dry techstep backlash, the only way out is through. That way through was blasted open around ten years later by labels like Renegade Hardware and artists like Stakka and Skynet, in large part thanks to the steadily increasing momentum of the osmosis of dystopian and industrial themes from adjacent media.

The problem, however, is that neurofunk as a meme is so alluring that it keeps accelerating the same old process, even after the aforementioned way through the quagmire has long since been established, and even after the creative utility is all but spent. In the wake of a mega-globalized drum 'n bass scene (the Let It Roll festival in the Czech Republic being perhaps the greatest example of this), music production tech that's been “democratized”, the death of the author and the hammer of deconstructive death smashing the same bent and corroded narrative nail over and over, the late 90s neuro pilgrim seeking a way to a different place is dead and buried. Despite this, neurofunk as a genre still keeps screaming down the EDM speedway, stacking waveform upon waveform, twisting basslines into jarring pretzels and contracting dynamics to such an excruciating degree that one would think the portal out of drum 'n bass hell is closing. Why? Which destination does the portal lead to? Do producers even know where their M.O. is from at this point, or are we watching another sub-genre turn into a terminally online mimetic zombie?

You don't even need to zoom as far in as neurofunk, either. The problem affects virtually everything musical connected to a breakbeat, because you're not "there". Not "there" as in being a person with the right classicist mindset. Not "there" as in being a person whose studio exploits and artistic expression are rooted in a concrete and specific scene. Not "there" as in being a person with the right experience with and lessons drawn from the same social phenomena that are themes in drum 'n bass as a whole. You're not "there" because you've long since ceased to interact with and internalize culture in the same manner as the people whose musical legacy you're trying to build on. You didn't listen to this EP to become more familiar with the workings of an engine block, or because you'd come out on the other side of it with more automotive knowledge, or because the concept of the EP would bridge some kind of creative gap and drive your own personal development forward. You listened to it because it makes up another well-fitting piece of your own brand-fueled aesthetic puzzle. There is no "there" to speak of when you come out on the other side, because really, once music has been sapped of as much value as it has, its role is relegated to that of another brick in the aesthetic wall on your personal island. Is it any wonder that half the reels of big EDM shows you see on social media get flooded with comments on how dead the crowd is, or how the crowd cannot put their phones down?

A common counter to this line of reasoning is that once cultures, scenes and their forms of expression are divorced from their regional/physical anchoring, the aforementioned osmosis really is just a process of liberation from stodgy classicism and sour-faced gate keeping. You probably should not look to this EP to back up that argument, however. Audeka advertise the EP as a link to the mechanical function of a combustion engine, but once the overall glitchy framework gets established by the first two tracks, the link becomes increasingly tenuous. The glitchy elements used and the rhythmic dynamics draw heavily on music from artists that did not use anywhere near as specific of a reference to concrete automotive concepts (the first couple of tracks, particularly, owe a lot to Monolake and the dudes over at Raster Noton). So, setting aside how impressive the technical handiwork on the EP is, would you recognize the different components of an engine block through the music without the track titles holding your hand? How vague could Audeka have made the visual elements before the “sound design porn” accusations would start whizzing around the room? Who, ultimately, gets to call the shots on merit and creative vision after said “liberating” process is complete? Is it really you?