Eclectic Minds: A chance for Drum&BassArena to fish around in other genre talent pools to reel in the biggest closet drum & bass fans. And boy have we caught a live one here!
Ladies and gentlemen, we give you… Aswad!
Yup, it seems iconic band Aswad are D&B fans. In fact they’re more than fans; they’ve just formed a bass music super group with Renegade Soundwave and Solomon. Entitled Rhythm Riders, they’ve got a wealth of material to bombard us with on Sub Slayers over the coming months. And it starts this week with Come With The Love.
Responsible for helping reggae reach out to the widest possible audience in the 80s, Aswad’s pedigree speaks for itself. But drum & bass? We gave the band’s Tony Gad a call.
“For us drum & bass always existed,” he explains. “A long time before what we call drum & bass now. All the b-side dubs were drum & bass. King Tubbys, Scientists, all that lot. The dubs on the b-side were stipped back riddim tracks with dub effects, echoes and reverbs. That’s what we called drum & bass. But for actual drum & bass, as you know it now, the tempo was the first thing I noticed. It’s the first thing anyone notices! It’s like ‘what the hell is going on?’”
It’s defining ingredient of D&B that grabbed us ALL by the cahones. Happy-slapping us far into the future, the tempo is what makes drum & bass stand out from every other genre. Tony admits it took him a while to get used to…
“When we first heard the drum machine we thought ‘nah, it’s too rigid’,” he explains. “But you hear it again and again and again and it becomes part of the norm. You readjust yourself – you keep going forward, keep pushing the boundaries more and more. Studios were taken over by the machines. If it wasn’t for machines you wouldn’t have drum & bass. Drummers wouldn’t be able to play that fast! You couldn’t do it live, it’s too fast. But now people have found ways to reproduce that live because there’s been a demand for it, so people had to find a way.”
Evolution, boundary pushing, supply and demand… Tony’s not only summed up the heartbeat of drum & bass, but the human spirit itself. The origins of Rhythm Riders mirrors his theory, too: what began as a one-off studio session to make a few soundsystem specials with Renegade Soundwave, has now developed into a very exciting act that flips the switch on every bass flavour in town.
“We weren’t sure where it was going, we were experimenting,” laughs Tony. “It was an accident in that sense. All the best things are.”
Rhythm Riders – Come With The Love is out now on Sub Slayers now.
Watch out for more Rhythm Riders material coming your way on Sub Slayers very soon. In the meantime, let’s catch Tony’s top three drum & bass tunes…
Aswad’s Eclectic Minds Selection…
Firefox & 4Tree – Warning
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qfMepn9dzn4
“This is the first drum & bass tune that registered with me. We were on tour somewhere and I had some drum & bass CD with me. I hadn’t listened to it but we were getting up early. Too early! I think it was to make a video or something and I thought I’d wake myself up with this CD. This was the first track on the mix and, after hearing it before breakfast I was ready to do anything!”
M Beat Featuring General Levy – Incredible
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mL2Bgj-za5k
“Levy is one of the old school boys. We all go way back, all the English boys. Levy, Pappa Levi, Sweetie Irie. Most of us have done drum & bass at some point, we’re the last to get involved! Levy was one of the first to move over from reggae to drum & bass, though, and he did it really well; he knew what was going on. This is a special track.”
Urban Knights feat Daddy Freddy – Jamaica to Miami (Black & White Remix)
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I8a9Xq-jO6o
“I only heard this the other day and it blew me away. The sonic presence is just overwhelming for me. Back in the day, the early jungle days, you could hear tracks were made in public studios. But now you can really hear the power in the sound. It’s got so much more presence. And with Daddy Freddy, this one is particularly powerful!”