Recommend me some drum'n'bass
 

classic compilations?
must-hear albums?

spill it!

6 pages of stuff already on here:
http://www.sonicyouth.com/gossip/showthread.php?t=35192 = "I'm listening to Timeless by Goldie so reccomend other d'n'b records"
http://www.sonicyouth.com/gossip/showthread.php?t=2376 = thread simply title "drum n bass"

My favorite of all time is Modus Operandi by Photek. My other fav is Diagnostics by Technical Itch.

Some other favs:

Limewax - Scars on the Horizon
Evol Intent - Era of Diversion
Audio - To the Edge of Reason
The Firm - S/T
A Guy Called Gerald - Black Secret Technology
4 Hero - Parallel Universe
Adam F - Colours
Black Sun Empire - Driving Insane
Telemetrik - My Lightyear
RAM Trilogy - Molten Beats
Ed Rush & Optical - The Original Doctor Shade
Black Sun Empire -Cruel & Unusual
Calibre - Overflow
Big Bud - Infinity + Infinity
[anything by] Currently Value (this shit is INTENSE!)
Dom & Roland - Industry
Phace - Psycho
The Upbeats - Nobody Out There
Redko - Back to the Future
Ed Rush & Optical - Wormhole
Goldie - Timeless
Goldie - Saturnzreturn
Grooverider - Mysteries Of Funk
Grooverider - Presents The Prototype Years
Matrix & Futurebound - Universal Truth
Future Prophecies - Warlords Rising
Ed Rush - Torque
Bad Company - Inside The Machine, Digital Nation
Concord Dawn - Uprising
Dom Roland - Chronology
Jacob's Optical Stairway - Jacob's Optical Stairway
Jonnny L - Magnetic
LTJ Bukem - Earth, Vol. 1
LTJ Bukem - Journey Inwards
LTJ Bukem - Logical Progression, Vol. 1
LTJ Bukem - Producer 01
Pendulum - Hold Your Colour
Roni Size - Touching Down
AK1200 - Shoot To Kill
TeeBee - Through The Eyes Of A Scorpion
Raserblade - Streetbeats Present
TGM - You Decide
Pieter K - Everything All The Time
Klute - Fear of People
Kemal - The Master Of Darkness
Metalheadz Presents Platinum Breakz
Omni Trio - Music For The Next Millennium
Omni Trio - Even Angels Cast Shadows
Photek - Form & Function
Adam F - Colors
Roni Size/Reprazent - New Forms
Breakbeat Era - Breakbeat Era
Grooverider - Logical progression
Plug - Drum'n'Bass For Papa
Roni Size / Reprazent - New Forms
Source Direct - Exorcise The Demons
Teebee - Black Science Labs
High Contrast - High Society
Evol Intent - Era of Diversion
Pendulum - Hold Your Colour
Belladonnakillz - Perverted and Proud
Telemetrik - My Lightyear
Chase & Status - More That Alot
Future Prophecies - Warlords Rising
The Qemists - Join The Q
Goldie - Timeless
Fanu - Daylightless
Jade - Venom
Dieselboy - Substance D
Dieselboy - The Human Resource
Dieselboy - The Dungeonmasters Guide

I probably have 1000 of these cd's. A bit burnt out, mainly just into dubstep and acid techno now.

Anyway, enjoy.

I remember hearing that kevin shields was really into drum and bass offshoot called jungle when he was trying to write a follow up to loveless, anyone know what records they might be? the music would be from england 92-94.

ASP's list covers lots of classics but isn't far short of including every dnb album ever released. Narrowing it down, I'd say the following are all great:

Compilations:

Metalheadz - Platinum Breakz vol 1
Grooverider Presents the Prototype Years
Ministry of Sound Presents AWOL - Live (mixed and more Jungle than DnB but still essential)
LTJ Bukem Presents Logical Progressions Vol 1

Aside from those, any single label compilations from the likes of V Recordings, Moving Shadow, Ganja Records or RAM, that have stuff from between about 1993-96, will be good. Things started going down hill a bit after that, IMO.

Single Artist albums:

I don't thing any DnB artist ever produced a really 'great' album but, of the good ones, I'd say these are worth checking:

4 Hero - Parallel Universe
Photek - Modus Operandi
A Guy Called Gerald - Black Secret Technology
Ed Rush - Torque
Goldie - Timeless (Massively overrated but still a 'classic' of sorts)
Roni Size - New Forms (ditto)


Drum n Bass was more an offshoot of Jungle than the other way around. The differences aren't that great except that Jungle tended to have more of a ragga/hip hop influence and was more dance-oriented, while DnB had closer links with stuff like Detroit Techno. Generally speaking, artists like Goldie, LTJ Bukem, Doc Scott and Photek were more closely linked with DnB while the likes of DJ Hype, Randall and Mickey Finn were more associated with Jungle. It's not a very rigid distinction, though.

Typical Jungle tracks:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wx-LoyNO9FI

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AgO75HTs4iY

Jungle ruled!

I love electronic music because much of it is so faceless. I like that. It's almost always enjoyable from the perspective that it's just some guy with a few drum machines and synths. I mean, it's really hard to fuck up that combo.

What I like about d'n'b is that it's typically darker than most other forms of electronic music. DIGITAL HARDCORE is usually pretty dark, but a bit too noisey, and usually too many samples from movies cut up or something. When you hear prime Photek or Technical Itch or Current Value or Omni Trio, it's melodically simple as hell, bassy as fuck, and the beats are just brilliant. Dark, driving, just drilling into your skull... but always changing.. The best d'n'b artists are the ones who are always subtly manipulating the beat. It's easy to treat, say, Photek, as background music; but if you listen close to Modus Operandi, you very rarely hear the same beat in combination with the synths twice, he's always throwing little fills or stutters in. It's actually very intricate and mind-blowing.

Yes. And attitude-less, too. There's not this "rock&roll", "not rock&roll", etc, stuff that's present in a lot of rock music. It's just pure music. And therefore, pure emotion, nothing to do with attitude - whether it be melancholic music or music that just makes you want to blast the dancefloor or whatever. I always hated this "rock & roll" attitude thingy, even when I pretty much only listened to rock music, and I really enjoy the fact that there's no such thing in electronic music. And it can convey just about the whole panel of emotions - I can't understand people thinking all electronic music is automatically cold, etc (most of these people clearly do not know what electronic music really is, I guess). Because to me, it conveys emotions, and in a "purer" way than other forms. That may seem weird, but that's it. Just listen to, I don't know, Boards Of Canada, or Pantha Du Prince, or Burial, or Oneohtrix Point Never: sheer magnificence, and that's it. Whatever the style of electronic music it might be.

(that said, I love hip hop music, though it's filled with attitude, so I might be just tlaking nonsense, I don't know)

Nah, I think you conveyed what I was trying to say. Like I told Glice, electronic music isn't some guy in a pink feather boa strumming one wrong chord on some triple necked guitar and parching his fat lips together and going, "OH BLOBBY AREN'T YOU GREAT?" in some jumbled awful rock n roll tune.

you're delusional if you believe what you just wrote

I probably am. But then again I'm only 19. I'm still in the point where I find my own musical classics. I think everyone's delusional at 19. At least I am, ahah.
But anyway. There's no such things as "you have to take drugs and have a crazy life to be rock&roll" or "you have to be a depressed guy to be an indie folk singer" or whatever in electronic music. You just do. Boards of Canada are just two normal Scottish brothers. Pantha Du Prince is a regular dude from Germany. When Burial unveiled his name and face, nothing changed about the appreciation of his work. Zomby released an album called Where Were U In 92? , while he probably was only like 3 or 4 at the time. And so on. Of course, I'm generalising things, both for rock music and electronic music. But that's the way I see things.

Insofar as there are obviously exceptions to it, sure, but I do think it's far easier to have a successful career within dance music and remain quite anonymous to the public compared with Rock music. There's far less of an emphasis on interviews and live performance, for a start. Sure, the (largely Rock-oriented) media will pick up on certain charismatic figures (say Goldie or UR or Derrick May or Aphex Twin) and turn them into figureheads but that's often contrary to their actual status within the scene's they come from. There's artists that sell shedloads of records within the house, techno, hardcore and dnb scenes who I'm sure half their fans wouldn't be able to recognise, even if they happened to be standing next to them.

and sonic youth are just a bunch of people from new york, there's no rock n roll lifestyle with them either. but on the other hand dance culture is easily as drug fueled as rock if not more so, in 10 years of rock shows i can't recall ever someone trying to sell me drugs, on the other hand if you go to a dance club someone will be offering you pills or coke within 10 mins. if it wasn't for ecstasy then it's questionable as to whether the whole dance scene would have kicked off in the first place to the extent that it did. getting fucked up is integral to all forms of popular and unpopular music since the dawn of time.

also to state that one form of music is more emotional than another is just daft, especially when you support this by saying that it is more emotional because it is less driven by personality, that's completely backwards. and thirdly this "no attitude" stance of dance music (and other scenes like improv, and certain art movements) is as much of an attitude in itself as anything gg allin ever did. although i will agree that dance music places no requirements on it's artists to also be performers, that is the crowd's role.

I agree with T&B.
I'm surprised that, with that much music you've gone through (which you clearly have, looking at your last.fm) you'd state an opinion like this, SYRfox

yeah, but on the other hand dance music only tends to come across well live when it's a huge production of the kind that only very popular acts can afford to put on, and there's no zine culture around dance music so people don't really get interviewed. on the other other hand when you get outside of the mainstream in any form of music it would be quite possible to stand next to your favourite musician and not know it.

no rock&roll lifestyle perhaps, but you can't say there's no attitude behind sonic youth music. i could argue that they always have had this "arty" thingy going on, for instance, or that there was this grunge attitude in Goo and Dirty, etc. And then again, I did say I was generalising. But I wouldn't say Sonic Youth are just a bunch of people from New York.

Yes, but my point wasn't that there wasn't drug in dance music. My point is that you don't have any judgement, or at least, less judgement on being "true" or "false" for taking drugs. Of course I've been offered acid many times at electronic shows. But I've never been judged because I didn't do drugs; while I've been criticized numerous times as "not rock&roll blahblah" by rock music fans because I don't do them.

I didn't say it was more "emotional". I said the emotion was conveyed only - or mainly - by the music itself. There's no such thing as feeling Kurt Cobain's rage, or Kevin Shield's spleen, or whatever - the emotion is only conveyed by the music itself. While Boards Of Canada wrote many desperate tracks, I'm not sure they're really sad guys themselves. Which is what I was trying to explain with this "pure" thing - I didn't mean to say it was more emotional (though electronic music personnaly touches me more). But it's the music alone that conveys the emotion. Obviously, I'm once more generalising, but that's how I feel.

Probably. But I happen to prefer that "no attitude attitude" to another "attitude".

Eh, it's just a point of view, I don't mean it to be a universal truth or anything. Obviously everyone has a different reaction to different music. And it's not like I only listen to electronic music because of that - I still listen to artists from any "genre". My point is not to "diss" rock music, or to claim electronic music is superior - though I find myself more of an electronic music fan at that point -. I love rock music, I love hip hop music, I love jazz music, I love classical music, whatever. I'm just trying to explain why I happen to be usually touched by electronic music more. That does not mean I feel no emotion when listening to Sonic Youth, Slowdive, Double Leopards, etc.

Rock people take more of an interest into music that isn't just rock than electronic stuff only people. I have millions of examples to illustrate this.

Is one of those examples this?

I'd just like to point out that listing Pendulum in... well, anything... is very similar to saying "I like heavy metal, like Nickleback". Fucking abysmal band.

Oh, one last thing - I think the best DnB recommendation is get a load of pills and go out dancing. I used to love DnB, but it's something I'd never want to listen to in my bedroom. I honestly think it only works if the bass is loud enough to make your liver prolapse.