Introduction
Hardcore
Jungle
Drum & Bass
Techstep
The Millennium

Introduction

Drum & bass (also known as "drum and bass", "drum 'n' bass", or simply "DnB"), like hardcore, has its roots in the UK rave scene of the late 1980s and early 1990s. The most distinctive element of drum & bass is that the focus is on fast breakbeats and deep basslines, which often form the main musical elements of a track. Any accompanying samples, sounds or instruments are often provided as a background to the beats and bass.

Hardcore

The roots of this music date back to around 1990-91, as UK rave and underground techno producers began experimenting with hip-hop breakbeats instead of house rhythms. Most of these early tracks featured either a combination of the 4/4 house beats (usually comprised of Roland 909 drum samples) and breakbeat loops, which backed the hard rave synths and samples, rather than being a focus for the tracks themselves. This music became "hardcore" (today often referred to as "old skool"). During 1991, some producers took the breakbeat idea further and began making tracks without any 4/4 house beats at all, instead using a continually looping breakbeat sample as the rhythm section. Artists such as Rennie Pilgrem, A Guy Called Gerald and The Prodigy led the way with breakbeat music at this time, which initially remained at the same tempo as house music, and a lot of DJs blended a combination of the two styles. An early example of what was to become drum & bass was Lennie De Ice's "We R Ie" (1991), which featured a looping breakbeat, throbbing bassline, and little else. By the end of 1991, some innovative DJs, such as Grooverider, were playing music with an emphasis on breakbeats, rather than the techno elements, although this was still relatively unusual practice. The name jungle originated around this time, a reference to the tribal like complex rhythmic grooves created by looping breakbeats, however early tunes described as jungle are more likely to be referred to as "old skool" or "hardcore" today.

The birth of Jungle

1992 was the year that rave music went commercial, and to bring the music back underground the more experimental producers and DJs began to ditch the techno elements from the music. The tempo of the music also got a lot faster during 1992, moving from a steady 135bpm at the beginning of the year to a racing 150 - 160 bpm by the end. At this stage, however, there was still only "hardcore" - it was just faster. 1993 saw this change, however. The music had became ever faster and darker, with a lot of DJs now playing music which consisted of just fast breakbeats, very deep sub-bass and the occasional vocal snippets. This disillusioned some of the ravers who were used to the happier, techno sounds; this in turn prevented the more experimental producers from taking things further. During the summer, some producers began to add the rave elements back into the music and this style kept the hardcore tag. Other producers went in a different direction; some started experimenting with adding reggae samples and ragga MC vocals into the music (this became "jungle"), others keeping the emphasis on the breakbeats, which were cut up, reversed, timestretched and pitched up.

Most early jungle and breakbeat tracks featured the "amen" break, a drum loop sample from the track "Amen My Brother" by The Winstons, a '60s soul band. This track was actually a B side to their 1969 single "Color Me Father", and is an instrumental cover of a classic gospel track. The drummer concerned was G. C. Coleman, who has the honour of probably being the most sampled drummer in history.

Intelligent Jungle and Drum & Bass

Jungle took off in a big way during 1994, with artists including M-Beat reaching the charts. It soon became clear, however, that only so much could be done with this distinct style of music, and those producers and DJs who did not wish to focus on the vocals began to experiment further. This led to "intelligent" jungle, which was pioneered by the likes of LTJ Bukem, who married the breakbeats to lush, warm analogue pads and haunting synth effects. Around this stage, much was done with the breakbeats, which were by now the main focus of the music. The music was also now being known as "drum & bass", a distinction from jungle.

Keeping up with the experimentation, funk and jazz influences began to creep in during 1996 and 1997. On the darker side of things, Roni Size had great success keeping the main elements of the drum & bass and adding instrumental double bass, sparse instrumentals and interesting vocals. Size won the Mercury Music Prize in 1997 with his group Reprazent's album "New Forms". Other artists such as E-Z Rollers added more instrumental funk with analogue rhodes style synths, bass guitar sounds and even trumpet stabs. Adding acoustic instrumentals to the music became popular during the latter part of the 1990s, and 4 Hero received critical acclaim with their album "Two Pages" (1998), featuring the sounds of almost an entire orchestra. Tek 9 also experimented with hip-hop and rap on the album "It's Not What You Think It Is" (1996).

Techstep

Instrumental drum & bass was great for home listening and got the music noticed by those who had previously given it little attention. Some ravers, though, wanted something more danceable; a rhythmic beat rather than heavily cut up breaks, and a deep moving bass rather than orchestral intelligence. Enter techstep, which began to dominate the drum & bass club scene during 1998 and 1999. Artists such as Dom & Roland and Bad Company stripped down the music to a rhythmic, regular breakbeat, and added modern, heavily filtered bass sounds and distortion. Drum & bass producers being what they are, however, did not ditch the creativity; techstep may have been designed for the dancefloor but its producers did not stop pushing forward the boundaries of the music. Techstep also managed to push the tempo faster still, reaching 170 - 180bpm around this time after a few years of remaining slower than its hardcore counterpart. Grooverider, one of the original pioneers of the music back in the early 1990s, was one of the many DJs to embrace the techstep sound in his sets.

Millennium

Unlike hardcore, which declined in popularity at the end of the 1990s and has recently had a revival in fortunes, drum & bass has remained popular throughout. Towards the end of the 1990s, industrial and metal bands such as Pitchshifter were using drum & bass and breakbeat influences. By 2001, it had clearly become an accepted form of music, with elements of it being heavily used by pop artists (an example being Puretone's "Totally Addicted To Bass" which was released that year). Artists have continued to extend the boundaries, with drum & bass adding disco elements in the early part of the millennium. Given its wide possibilities, it is hardly surprising that drum & bass has developed many sub-genres over the past decade, and this is likely to continue, as is the spread of drum & bass influences into other genres of music.

© John Dalling, 2006

While every attempt is made to ensure the information on this page is correct, the author cannot accept responsibility for the accuracy of the information provided.