It’s time for our second good ol Gem.
this time i will try to bring some tunes that could help us strenghten darkstep and crossbreed.
Dylan & BKey – the Whorror
Label Freak recordings 012
Release Year 2005
This tune is perhaps the first that i’ve heard that melted hardcore kickdrum with broken rythm. It’s even before the 2006 Time like these release of DJ Hidden. the problem is not who is the first cause tune take time to be released and i don’t know who produce the first proto crossbreed tune.
My point is here that crossbreed is better when it’s balanced between both complex breakbeat and hardcore kickdrum. at least for my taste. Distorded hardcore breakbeat complement so well hardcore distorded bassline. It’s like the better of both world, sound design, heavyness and rythmical complexity.
The tune is not that complex but very well crafted. The intro put you in the mood with it horror movies ambiance. Then the drop is built around the oppposition of Hardcore kick overly distorded. it’s not as extreme as what nowadays producer could achieve but it’s still really powerfull. and then you have the madness of dirty breakbeat going mental.
It’s like fire and ice. static heavy kick and rolling heavy breakbeat.
Hope in some way now that people have acquire knowledge about distorsion from hardcore producers that people bring back a bit of the dark breakbeat science darkstep was about. Obviously when you melt both of achieve something that is more that the sum of his part like this tune show it pretty well
I want also to stress the importance of the Dylan‘s Freak label for the expansion of Darkstep. It’s perhaps the first label that focus primarily on the darkside of drum’n’bass. Melting the rythmical madness of drumfunk and the distorded fuckitall attitude of techstep and bring to table the dark art of darkstep
Limewax – icicle
Label Freak recordings 028
Release Year 2008
This tune define for me the style of limewax and why i fell in love with this genre of drum’n’bass. No boring 2 step pattern. Crazy rythm perfectly distorded and crafted. Dark ambiance. and fucking underground attitude of pushing the drum’n’bass canvas to his fucking limit in term of violence, complexity and heavyness.
Of course most people can’t dance of something like this. But we are not most people. At least in each of my set i’m trying to drop some of these complex tunes.
And when it work… when the dancefloor understand this kind of experimental music : it’s so good !!! It’s not random and chaotic like most breakcore. it’s heavy and dark as fuck. just pure evilness. Caution these breakbeat are meant to kill !!! It’s this limit in term of complexity that i want darkstep to achieve. The two last producer that make this kind of stuff are Limewax and Throttler. I’m just trying to push them a little bit the forefront because hardcore kicks and distorsion are really effective and creative stuff to destroy the dancefloor but so do breakbeat. And for me Crossbreed is about both
Satanical Bots Ritual (the webzine of the darkside nation) 