Why did a lot of IDM DnB go through a shitty synthetic strin

I don't think DnB went through a shitty synthetic string instrument phase, I just think a few artists wanted to do something a bit different on some tracks by including synthetic string instrument parts

They sound fine desu

This weirdy-beardy has done a few genuinely startling tracks, and is generally quite amusing. What galls is the sheer arrogance and temerity of Squarepusher and other similar "drill and bass" dilettantes --they actually believe they are improving on jungle!!! All that Squarepusher has brought to drum & bass is some Jaco Pastorius bass-frills, a dys-funk-tional rhythmic convolution, and a quirked-out daftness that recalls nobody so much as Primus. On a purely technical level, nothing that Squarepusher does with breakbeats surpasses engineer-poets like Hype, Aphrodite, Dillinja, 4 Hero or Danny Breaks, to mention only the most obvious leaders-in-the-field. It is only Squarepusher/Plug etc's distance from the scene that allows them to convolute the breakbeats beyond any use-value to DJ or dancer; the wilful incongruity of the samples is all well and good, but if junglists use the same old gangsta/cyberpunk soundbites and apocalyptic textures, it's because they're trying to create and sustain a vibe, a feeling-full and meaningful mood that crystallises a certain kind of worldview and life-stance. By comparison, drill and bass is vibe-less non-sense. The drill and bass/"fungle" concept seems to exist to make a certain sort of "margin-walker" feel okay about not really having engaged with jungle as a subculture. And of course, as with most soi disant progressive iniatives, drill and bass is utterly parasitic on its populist counterpart--do you really think the idea of chopping up breakbeats would have independently occurred to the weirdy-beardy technoids in a million years?

>>69404595
When drill & bass first reared its head, I was admittedly quite enamored--I really liked the first two Plug EP's and Aphex Twin's "Hangable Auto Bulb" efforts, and was generally enthused by the notion that these artists were freer because they didn't belong to the drum & bass community, didn't have to service DJ's and dancefloor. But Squarepusher was a turning point. Partly because so much of his stuff sounds irritatingly daft to my ears (that said, there were three tracks on Hard Normal Daddy that sounded engagingly strange), but mainly because of the attitude of his supporters--the sheer arrogance of these folks who just assume that Tom Jenkinson's programming is so much more radical than "formula-ridden" junglists. This assumption, I strongly suspect, stems from the fact that they've never actually heard mad-sounding mash-ups like DJ Hype's remix of Remarc's "RIP" or Dillinja's "Warrior". These records are "avant-garde" and fucked-up but still manage to make you dance--to me, a much greater achievement than just freaking out all over the shop. In a lot of Squarepusher-related discourse, the underlying assumption is that if something has no funktional aspect, it's somehow more radical; that this makes it food-for-thought rather than mere dance fodder. Which would seem to replicate the old Cartesian mind/body split, a la prog rock, no?

>>69404595
>>69404617
Another turning point was going to various freestyle/"eclectro"/illbient type clubs in London and New York, where I was struck by the absence of "vibe" compared with more "blinkered", tunnel-vision clubs that cater to very specific tastes (jump up jungle, 'aving it house, gabba, and so forth). Partly the vibe-less thing is down to the absence of drug energy, partly the absence of class-based energy/antagonism. But I also think it stems from the very rhetoric of border-crossing, style-hopping, "united mutations"--which tends to attract a rather uncommitted consumer: the proverbial chin-scratcher/head-nodder/trainspotter. Having been that sort of margin-walker myself for so long, I've kind of gone to the opposite extreme: the belief that the apparent "samey"-ness of jump up jungle or gabba or hard house actually produces something very strong and undeniable: a consistent mood, a highly charged affective atmosphere that truly pulsates with "meaning" (for want of a better word).

>>69404595
>>69404617
>>69404645
Where you fall in terms of allegiances depends a lot on how much you value the concept of "being an individual". Squarepusher's stance depends on maintaining a disdainful distance from the jungle scene while parasitically pirating and caricaturing its ideas (I've read Jenkinson actually talk of his relationship with jungle as similar to the difference between "those who lead and those who follow"--ARSEHOLE!!!). This attitude is reflected in many Pusher-fans reluctance to get involved in club culture, seemingly based on the rather adolescent notion that being an individual means refusing to lose yourself in the crowd. Where you fall in terms of allegiance also depends on what you are fundamentally looking for pop music. If you just want weird noises to play on your stereo at home on your lonesome ownsome, then the margin-walkers artists are the ones you'll go for. But if your fix is that whole subculture-matrix where music is part of "a way of life" (e.g. jungle with the MCing and the pirate radio and the crowd rituals etc.), then ostensibly more formulaic scenes and sounds just seem "stronger".

>>69404595
>>69404617
>>69404645
>>69404674
My ultimate beef with the Squarepusher-type drill & bassologists is that they've decontextualised the music, stripped away all the aspects that give it resonance and affect and subcultural meaning. They've responded to jungle's complexity rather than the feelings it induces and the struggles it embodies. In true prog-rock fashion, they've taken that complexity (the breakbeat science) and turned into a baroque form of virtuosity. It's a typical white bohoprogressivist syndrome, from freeform jazz to prog rock to avant-funk---turning a popular dance music into an unpopular head music. And so those super-accelerated, pitch-shifted, scratchy-rustly-scrapy breakbeats that Squarepusher over-uses work as a trebly timbre element that you listen to, rather than funktional, kinaesthetic beats that work your body. But the real give-away about Squarepusher is what he does with the bass (possibly even more crucial to jungle than breakbeats), i.e. replace the low-end seismology with noodly Jaco Pastorius slap-bass. How anybody who'd ever viscerally experienced jungle sub-bass in its true context (at massive volume through a huge low-end intensive sound-system) could prefer Squarepusher's frilly filigrees of bass-twiddle to the "real thing".... Well, it beats me.

>>69404064
don't you dare to talk shit about mike panda's music you twat

>>69404595
>>69404617
>>69404645
>>69404674
>>69404706
>samefagging this hard

>>69406026
i thought it was a good pasta.
also
>samefagging this hard
i don't think it was supposed to be a secret that it was the same person you fucking moron

>>69404064
>https://youtu.be/K6Q0JFMZi8U
Not available.

>>69406322
Or maybe not? Maybe you're the fucking retard pice of shit? Have you ever thought about that, anon? Huh?

>>69406506
>pice

>>69406527
LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOL YOU BTFO HIM XDDDDDDDDDDDD LE REDDIT GRAMMAR NAZY ARMY AMIRITE? :C)

>>69406506
>>69406750
wew