Chapter Twenty-Three

Crisis and Consolidation

7 records, in the order the book names them

• 001

  You’ve Come A Long Way Baby

  Fatboy Slim

  You’ve Come A Long Way Baby is how Fatboy Slim titled his album of that year, and there was a palpable feeling that rave, having travelled so far so fast, was now stopping to take stock, looking back at the journey to date.

  Skint/Astralwerks
  album Open ↗ YouTube
• 002

  Rollin

  MA1

  Their 1996 debut album Homework ranged from kitschy retro-tinged hits like ‘Around The World’ and ‘Da Funk’ to gratingly raw drug-noise like ‘Rollin’ & Scratchin” and ‘Rock ’n’ Roll’.

  Formation
  track Open ↗ YouTube
• 003

  I Feel Love

  Donna Summer

  Soul classics by Stevie Wonder and Curtis Mayfield got dropped next to seventies disco obscurities and nineties Afro-house full of Fela Kuti-like percussion and dubby FX. It wasn’t all spiritually healing vibes and organic earthy textures – sometimes the DJs would play thrillingly chilly electrodisco like Donna Summer’s ‘I Feel Love’, while they were fond (some would say, overfond) of a technique called ‘crossover’ which cuts whole frequency bands out of the music and creates violently lurching, staccato dynamics.

  Casablanca, 1977
  track Open ↗ YouTube
• 004

  M6

  Maurizio

  On tracks like Maurizio’s ‘M6’ and Resilient’s ‘1.2’, riffs were miniaturized to the point where they became two-note sub-vamps, texture-ripples and tectonic sound-shudders so contourless they were at the lowest threshold of memorability.

  track Open ↗ YouTube
• 005

  1.2

  Resilent

  On tracks like Maurizio’s ‘M6’ and Resilient’s ‘1.2’, riffs were miniaturized to the point where they became two-note sub-vamps, texture-ripples and tectonic sound-shudders so contourless they were at the lowest threshold of memorability.

  track Open ↗ YouTube
• 006

  Juggling

  Ragga Twins

  On Terror Danjah tracks like ‘Juggling’ and ‘Sneak Attack’, the intricate syncopations, texturized beats, hyper-spatial production and ‘abstracty sounds’ (Danjah’s own phrase) reveal the producer’s roots in drum and bass.

  track Open ↗ YouTube
• 007

  The Bouncer

  Kicks Like A Mule

  The coiners of the term, The Klaxons, covered Kicks Like A Mule’s hardcore hit ‘The Bouncer’, peppered their tunes with rave-alarm siren noises, and talked of their high-energy guitar/bass/drums sound as being an attempt to get ‘that early nineties euphoric feeling’.

  track Open ↗ YouTube