BHK Neuro Funk Breaks
Linda Berens
One of my more successful coinages - strangely - is neurofunk. Unlike the even more flourishing post-rock (a term that existed for decades prior to me repurposing it) as far as I know I came up with that term whole-cloth. And what's more - I discovered recently - I actually came up with it almost a decade before applying to a phase of drum 'n 'bass. In this live review of Meat Beat Manifesto from 1989.
"The neuro-funk ideas of the early Eighties" - well, that makes sense because one of the things that I said about neurofunk the drum 'n' bass substyle in The Wire nuum-piece is that its dank fixated aura, its clinical feel and (f)rigidity, reminded me of Cabaret Voltaire, Front 242, et al...
Once re-loosed into the world, the term achieved traction. And still has currency even now - I believe there is a forum dedicated to the genre online; producers make neurofunk tracks; exponents and fans debate what's neuro and what's not neuro.
Take this discussion at the Dogs On Acid forum. This fellow Gilius wants to get a debate going on what defines the genre kicks off with the parameters of the style as he sees them. A key one is that true neurofunk expunges the Amen breakbeat from the music completely (Amens had continued to be an element in techstep, the immediate precursor to neurofunk)
"In late 1997 Optical - considered by many to be one of the greatest DnB producers/pioneers - began experimenting with what we now know to be the Neurofunk style of DnB. And it's worth mentioning that he was one of the few artists at the time to have been producing DnB music without amens since around 1994.
"What is interesting about the early history of Neurofunk is that contrary to Techstep only a few artists appeared to have had the technology (what exactly?) and perhaps skill(?) required to produce such cutting edge experimental electronic sounds. This fact alone means that Neurofunk is a cut above Techstep, and so it should be easy to differentiate between them...."
There follows a long list of exponents, year by year emerging in increasing number, as well as the key tracks ... but we'll skip that as the music is almost certainly deadening shite, and get on to the interesting bit, which is when the commenter takes issue with, well, with moi - only the bleedin' coiner of the term!
"In 1999 Techstep began to change as Amens were dropped from most productions, but that did not mean every Techstep track automatically became Neurofunk just because they had funk sounds without Amens. Most tracks in the Simon Reynold's article (in hindsight) simply do not qualify to be called Neurofunk
"It's around 2002 that Neurofunk suddenly starts to gain tremendous popularity - coinciding with Russian (and other European) producers appearing on the scene after TAM record label was established the previous year, etc. These guys contributed so many ideas to the experimental aspect of Neurofunk, with tracks described as "Future sound", and (one might argue) too ahead of their time to even be considered for release by mainstream record labels. We are talking about artists like..."
"With so many producers on-board globally and with greater separation from Techstep than ever before, the number of productions began to soar exponentially in 2003 onwards, leaving behind a treasure trove of forgotten dubplates for the period 2003-2010 (if they were not lost to hard drive crashes).
2010/11 is considered to be the golden year of Neurofunk with tracks like "The Hammer" by Catacomb, Morebeat & Kantyze - but that would not have happened without the Eastern European involvement IMO in the years leading up to it - and it would certainly not have happened without Corrupt Souls from the US, formed out of Sinthetix, who came on the scene in 2004. The rest is history!
Note: after 2011 Neurofunk sadly began a steady decline, but there are still producers out there, and the sound has been described as evolving further into Energostep/Electrotech (unofficial terms for now).
Of course, I hadn't noticed any of that - the waxing and waning of neurofunk. Its prime occurred long after I stopped paying attention. I wonder if any of it could possibly be worth hearing? I'm almost tempted to check it out... but nah!
See the joke of it is that I fastened on the off-putting clammy-sounding term - which resurfaced in my brain and seemed like an all-new word that had come to me, but clearly not, as I've discovered recently - in the anticipation that some label would promptly issue a Neurofunk Flavas compilation and this would help to hasten the supersession of the sound, which left me cold, and that everyone would move on to some other direction hopefully more to my liking.
In the interest of historical accuracy, Sinthetix hit the scene way before 2004. I personally passed their humble demo CD-R to Kemal from Konflict in early 2001, who then got it into Trace and Nico's hands over at the mighty No U-Turn hq. Within a week, contracts were signed and Sinthetix promos were quickly in the shops. Rob F and Impulse were quite prolific in the international neuro circuit, which is worth mentioning as they hail from the very white, middle-class suburbs of Northern Virginia!
actually neuro has always been huge in England, although a part of that is your old sasha/eurotrance/free party boys developing more sophisticated tastes (no doubt a diss in your book.) Another part of it is people who got into garage who then went back to dnb when the garage scene petered out circa 2002-2003 for your clubbers not familiar with emerging grime and dubstep (you have to remember that UKG's double-edged sword was that as a sound it had nation-wide appeal.) Don't forget Fabio and Grooverider's residency on radio 1 which did a lot to internationalise the sound. Haven't been a fan of what they have played for a long, long, long time but they are superb radio presenters, enough of the London banter for even someone like me to remain engaged.
I quite like that obsessive, stalkerish feverish production, but I'm not sure how this poster sets a clear demarcation between what he sees as techstep and what he sees as neurofunk. For me the true neuro innovator of the 90s was Krust.
I like some of that European and Russian gear, this Dissident production from 2008 is simply mindblowing, it gives me a similar sort of otherworldly out of body psychedelia as dub, but instead of alchemical burning it's more being dissolved into the inner circuitry of digital machines. A kind of sinister yet surgical cleanliness. Some of the stuff like Phace is so block rocking metal in its intensity, it has all that techstep bombast, but with those baroque basslines of brostep you love.
The thing is this stuff can't really be appreciated with the value set of jungle because it's really diverged from it and whilst that might of course be problematic from a cultural studies pov that shouldn't preclude aesthetic appreciation. But you know, if we are going to criticise people because techno is an anti-essentialist project, then we have to accept this evolution of jungle as to a degree inevitable, especially given that one key lineage of jungle was belgium/new york (via Beltram) from day one.
Dissident - Society of Silver Skeletons (great title or what!) =zzHI51uuHGI
Funnily supreme bland man blando scuba is on the other side of that release.
That Phace tune. pretcel bassline galore.
=VEudg6bInpE
Although the original is actually not tight enough for me (which is kind of the way i can appreciate certain neuro in relation to classic jungle, dialectically) and the drum sounds get on my nerves. The Black Son Empire though turns it into a cyborg switched up monster. =TXHAQpI5i_Y
Now I am not saying that I could listen to a night of this stuff (let alone two hours) but when varied up it can really take you into an alien, posthuman future.
This one is on the cusp of gabber. Switch Technique - Intelligence (VIP.) =tUBlN9LmeqI
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