Oct
16
2005

DnB2:Roni Size Remixed

When the Roni Size/Reprazent album New Forms came out in 1997, the future of music had arrived, or so it seemed. Here was music that sounded like the approaching Millenium. It offered aggressiveness, certainty and intensity to match the times: peace was breaking out everywhere, the Internet bubble was inflating, and we still had four years of innocence up our sleeves before that clear blue September morning over Manhattan. New Forms stormed the pop charts and won Britain’s Mercury Prize. The media gushed about an “instant classic”.

Today, New Forms sounds like a time capsule, a reference to a zeitgeist long past. A Saturday Night Fever Soundtrack for the late 1990s. Alongside Goldie’s Timeless, New Forms was the drum and bass album that everyone bought, even if they weren’t into drum and bass.

For my money, some of the best music spawned from New Forms were the remixes. I’ve chosen a couple of my favourite examples. NuYorican Soul bring a live salsa rhythm section into the studio and throw away the original track completely at around the 5 minute mark. The Kitachi Remix of Heroes centres around a big dumb orchestral synth hook and the Funky Drummer break.

Trust me, you will definitely want to hear the NuYorican Soul track at least…all 13’56 of it :-)

Roni Size – Watching Windows (Roni Size meets Nuyorican Soul) [Buy]
Roni Size – Heroes (Kitachi Remix) [Buy]

Written by Richard in: Music | Tags: , , ,

3 Comments »

  • matt says:
    October 16, 2005 at 5:27 am

    Yo etno — Great couple of drum ‘n’ bass posts! I’ve never heard the Ronie Size remixes. Love the Nyorican Soul track! (other’s on the DL now). Its funny how dated the frantic breakbeat jungle trademark sounds now. And it became so ubiquitous back in ’97-98. Hell, ?uestlove even did a live breakbeat pattern at the end of You Got Me on the Roots’ Things Fall Apart. (which is a great track, regardless of whether Jill Scott of Erykah Badu does the vocal!), Still great to hear the drum ‘n’ bass now and again!

  • Taxi Driver says:
    October 16, 2005 at 3:33 pm

    Intresting to hear. I never was into D&B. Bu I like the elements of jazz and fusion. I especially liked Watching Windows.

    Peace!

  • etnobofin says:
    October 16, 2005 at 7:08 pm

    Yeah, the Watching Windows remix is pretty special. I believe these remixes are fairly hard to find in retail now.

    I agree with you Taxi Driver, I was always most interested in the jazz/fusion aspects of DnB, so when the beats started getting darker and more intense in 99/2000, I really switched off. (I guess I’m not a hardcore fan).

    But it was funny how those tradewmark breakbeats seemed to be EVERYWHERE for a short time in the late 1990s – every sports show on TV used them in their theme songs, they were on car commercials, movie soundtracks, everything…

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