Barry Ashworth, one half of the mighty big beat pioneers The Dub Pistols is heading to Devizes in November for a DJ set at our fantastic Caribbean holiday at home rum bar, The Muck & Dunder….
Dance music in the UK came of age in the mid-nineties. Subgenres blossomed from the rave scene, but left maturing ravers adrift. Appeasing an upcoming generation, ‘hardcore’ rave separated into “happy” and jungle, while house music began to get tiresome. It was, as it ever is, up to the UK to progress dance music, and they’d use the indigenous breakbeat house, a fusion of hip hop and reggae.
What Coldcut, the Prodigy, Norman Cook, and acts like the Chemical Brothers laid down next was a phenomenon, naturally, the next stage, and filled a gap. Big Beat would accommodate our love of hip hop and dub reggae, fuse them into a universal party style. This is where The Dub Pistols fit into the story.
Formed as a DJ duo around 1996 in London, Barry, and Jason O’Bryan, created a fluctuating collective and began recording tracks by 1998. No strangers to Wall of Sound, The Social and Brighton’s grounding, The Dub Pistols are prolific, amassing seven studio albums to date, and working on numerous film and video game soundtracks.
Aside my Uncle Albert moment, what we can expect from The Dub Pistols isn’t akin to my retrospective waffling, though Jason left the collective fourteen years ago, Barry and the band has continued to progress the sound to suit contemporary dance music, collaborating with UK rappers like Rodney P, and remixing tracks from Ian Brown, Limp Bizkit and The Crystal Method.
I think we’re in good hands for a large night, and again, The Muck & Dunder bucks the Devizes stalwarts of particular musical genres to provide us with quality dance music acts. The Dub Pistols’ Barry Ashworth comes to The Muck on Friday 8th November. Tickets are not available yet. Follow them on social media for updates, I’ll share the news on ours or pop into Muck for a Piña Colada or three; you’re worth it!
A figure appears through the labyrinth of florescent drapes, strobing with ultra-violet lights. She’s void of expression, hypnotised in her individual realm she perpetually gyrates, wearing a black figure-hugging bodysuit, highly decorated in costume jewellery constructed from glowsticks. It’s not the image families would conceive of when thinking of Longleat, rather a cheeky posse of rhesus macaque monkeys ripping the rubber insulation off their Volvo.
Yet the Wiltshire raver of yore will note, and reminisce, to trek to Swindon’s Brunel Rooms would be to face happy hardcore, jungle or house, whereas there was a tribal movement of tranced techno-heads, a conglomerate of Wilts and Somerset rural ravers in the basement of the Warminster manor, and it took on a wildlife of its own; the UFO Club at the Berkley Suite. Memories of it flood what’s left of my neurons, I’m halfway into Trowbridge DJ and Producer, Neonian’s debut EP Vaxxor, released this coming Friday (5th March.)
Not before the opening title track, that is, which detonates a more breakbeat house prose at you, something for the peaky middle of a set by Plump DJs in a glasshouse club off Brighton beach in the latter nineties. There’s a lot going on here, for a four track EP, and it’s having all subgenres large.
Released through Weatnu Records, there’s parts of Vaxxor where I thought a more conventional and contemporary danceable beat might rear its head, but it doesn’t, it solidly rides a wave of classic electronic dance music with a penchant for the techno-trance feel, hence my memories of the UFO Club. That said, Vaxxor, as a tune contains definite traces of punky chemical beats, akin the Prodigy or Chemical Brothers, yet rather than a gimmicky vocal or sample element for possible mass-appeal, Neonian seems aware pop has detracted from this trend of recent, ergo its concentration is on perusing a consistent beat and sonic hi-hats.
This leaves you semi-prepared for the more trance-techno sound of the following tune, Glow. For this it is thumbs up as the most poignantly danceable, in the four-by-four psytrance fashion akin to Goa trance. Hypnotic Jerk takes elements of this, and slides into a downbeat “hypnotic cocoon teetering on the edge of normality.” Imagine Nightmares on Wax if triphop hadn’t been invented. We’re in the chillout tent, Eat Static are playing a Sunday morning set, that’s where it is; yeah, I’m with you, mate, got a flyer I can roach?!
All these four tracks were recorded during the lockdowns, and together are a glorious testament to the psych-subgenres of the UK underground dance scene. But if you’ve any misgivings to the variety of the melting pot, I’ll confirm Neonian blends and crafts it with distinct precision. To affirm he’s clearly nodding to his influences, the testament comes to a finale like a returning migratory bird to its nest. Proof to the Tower finishes this short journey off with something, though layered with aforementioned influences, strips the sound back the subgenres’ combined roots.
Proof to the Tower drips with elegant attributes of post-punk electronica, aligning New Order, Depeche Mode and even the stiffer originators, Kraftwerk and The Art of Noise. The EP is getting radio plays from BBC Radio Wiltshire, Kinetic7Radio (Bleeps & Beats show), Radio TFSC and Radio Wigwam, and I’m far from surprised.
Neonian is the work of Ian Sawyer, who has previously released a few singles, a mini LP ‘Treasure’ and provided remixes for Frannie B, NNYz?, Sergeant Thunderhoof and James Harriman. “I make music, for myself,” Ian explains, “I can’t really describe it but it’s mainly made with synthesisers, loops and samples. Influences include New Order, Boards Of Canada, Coil, Pye Corner Audio, Factory Floor, and Russ Abbot.” Unsure about citing that last one, though Vaxxor certainly has an atmosphere!
Nonetheless these tributes to the pioneers of electronica and nineties trance, techno and breakbeats are often viewed as rather soulless, this does what it says on the tin while retaining something fresh to boot. Clearly, four tracks with Neonian aren’t enough, I’d like to hear a fully-mixed electronic concept album, perhaps, to be fully sucked into its deep and hypnotic grooves.
Excuse me for being so fussy, but some uplifting sections, with gimmicky elements such as female vocals would be advantageous. Not solely for my own palate, rather in hope it’ll attract the attention of a wider audience. As, like William Orbit did when he got the phone call from Madonna, I think while Vaxxor is damn cool with florescent socks on, Neonian, I feel has yet to achieve his magnum opus, but when he does, judging by this EP, you’ll want to standing in the middle of it, making boxes and reaching for the stars.
Available on all Digital Platforms March 5th 2021; ‘Vaxxor’ is now available to Pre-Order on Bandcamp via the following link. You get to download the track ‘Glow’ now and the rest of the EP when it is released on March 5th.
devizine.com 