What a night of pure bombo claat twattery there was down in Traffic on Sunday night, as the long time quite on the gig front Irish jungalist pioneers Bassbin gave us all a taste of what it must have been like a few years ago in this city when they ruled over the underground. Legandary DJ Nicky Blackmarket was fanning himself down with vinyl before dropping classics like "Original Nuttah," sweat dripped from my back in a way it hasn't in about a year.

Despite the lights coming on, he cut in and out of the record and the crowd slurred/enthuased its way through such classic chats as "Ooh-yeah-eh, ooh-yeah-eh, ooh-noo-no-no-no-no-no/Bad boys inna London" and then went mental when the breaks cut back in.

While pretty ignorant on the history of drum and bass/jungle most of the music that has really captured my ears in the past two years has been heavily tinged with its early days of ragga vocal led jump up fun. Yet I've fairly been terrified of delving into drum and bass's deep end for fear of getting swiftly bored with some of the more conceptual out put identified by Simon Reynold's in Energy Flash for ruining the genre.

With this in mind Dogs on Acid has a fascinating two part history of jungle and drum and bass, while Drod from Wearie's latest contribution to the Blogriddims series deserves some serious checking out for his studious footnoting of the evolution of ragga dancehall and how it might have pared its way into the conciousness of those early jungle pioneers. You can read an interview with Nicky Blackmarket here and have gander at some live sets here. Braap brapppp!

Labels: Gig Review, Music