On booty duty: ID talks bass and breaks in 2010 (free mix inside!)

Sometimes Sean returns with his latest report from the frontline of the ghetto-edged, bass-fuelled corner of the breaks scene. This week, he chats to the co-founder of bassmusicblog.com

(SS) Hi Ed, thanks for taking some time out to talk with us about the booty and bass side of the breakbeat scene. As a producer and DJ you’re synonymous these days with the eclectic bass music scene. You’re still very much supporting breaks in both your sets and tunes, though, so what are the influences that are doing it for you in the other styles of music that come under the bass umbrella?

(ID) All of it! It's great to see two-steppy beats making a comeback. I'm really feeling that swung funky vibe again, and it's cool that people are taking it to a slightly darker place than the original sound. I'm loving the resurgence of broken-beat kinds of sounds too, especially where it's crossing over with Funky, and also people like Untold who are unafraid to really step outside the boundaries.

(SS) The blog you run with an all-star cast of other bass music producers www.bassmusicblog.com cites a lot of new producers and acts which are easily defined as breaks, but perhaps not celebrated as such. Who should we be looking out for this year that’ll be pushing breaks in new and exciting directions?

(ID) I could list a lot of people here but I'll try to keep it short! I think Seiji's gonna be doing a lot this year - he released a lot of great stuff last year, half of it for free, and he's now got that Computer Juice project going with Riton which could be really exciting. Redlight is going to go big this year, really enjoying his shameless three-minute rave anthems. There's Untold of course, and I'll be keeping a keen eye out for Sully - he did some wicked breakstep a couple of years ago, but is now turning his hand towards more garagey beats. I've included one on this mix, and I'm intrigued to see where he goes next.

(SS) There’s a lot of turmoil in the scene at the moment about producers and DJs jumping ship. What’s happened there? Has breaks became stale? Do people just not find the scene lucrative enough? Or is it a mixture of things?

(ID) It was a mixture of things - always is! The main issue, I'd say, was that breaks really started to head down a bit of a creative cul-de-sac circa 2006/7. It went really hard - either people trying to write the hardest rave banger, or the hardest Justice-style electro stomper; not many people were just trying to do something new and interesting. So I think a lot of people lost interest and wandered off to scenes like dubstep and minimal, where there genuinely was a sense of innovation and creativity etc. Also the breaks scene had lost its 'melting pot' ethos - back in 2003 you could play a breaks set that included Oris Jay's breakstep, Freq Nasty's ragga-influenced stuff, DJ Quest's two-steppy stuff, some early 8-bar, and mix that in with the housier stuff from the likes of the Plump DJs etc - but by 2007 it really felt like that kind of open-ended attitude had been lost a little bit.

(SS) It’s well proven that to move forward, sometimes you have to look back. What era of breaks would you like to see make a revival?

(ID) 2003! Haha! There was so much good stuff going on then - I've already mentioned Oris Jay, but there was Zinc doing his breakstep, Toasty, Search & Destroy, Slaughter Mob, all these people doing this crazy half-garage, half breaks, half urban, proto-dubstep shiz. Caspa was playing it all under the name Quiet Storm, J Da Flex was supporting it on 1Xtra, there was a feeling of experimenting with beats that reminded me of old D 'n' B on Metalheadz and stuff. Really exciting time for me, very informative.

(SS) Taking all things into account, where would you like to see breaks going from here?

(ID) I guess it's quite obvious from all the above that I just want to see people pulling influences from everywhere into their productions! 'Breaks' is such a porous, adaptable kind of sound - anything goes from about 120 - 145BPM, you can have a strong hip-hop, or techno, or garage or ragga vibe and it will still be breaks - not many sounds can do that and we should be using it to make new and exciting hybrids of stuff.

(SS) Last year you also did a track with dubstep don Reso, called Shifty. This was very fresh sounding, mixing the best bits of dubstep and breaks. Are there any other collaborations or tunes in the pipeline that’ll be raising the bar even further this year?

(ID) I've got a few! Me and Baobinga have been working with the vocalist Rider Shafique from Black Canvas, who is an unbelievably talented and cool individual. The first two tracks are finished and they're kind of on a 130BPM ragga/funky/beats kind of vibe. I've done some ID stuff with him too, and I'm working on a couple of other collabs which aren't quite finished yet, so I won't name the guilty parties. On top of that there are gonna be some new side-projects under new names but I'll leave people to figure those out when the time comes.

(SS) When we did the rundown of the decade's top 10 booty and bass driven breaks tracks, yours and Baobinga’s stupidly excellent Hood Thang came out on top. What was the idea behind that track, and where were you pulling your influences from?

(ID) Thanks! Much appreciated. That one was really a Baltimore-influenced track. We just wanted to do our own interpretation of that sound, and it ended up being kind of breaksy ... We'd had our eyes opened to it by Sinden, who is always ahead of the game, and whose remix of Plan B's track, More Is Enough, was (as far as I know) the first B'More style record to come out of the UK. That inspired us to look and find out more about this sound, which turned out to be really exciting, so we just had to load up a sampler with a bunch of Think breaks and see what happened ...

(SS) Aside from your own tunes which track would you have chosen to take the crowning glory?

(ID) Toasty - The Knowledge. No question.

(SS) You’ve put together a tasty breaks mix for our readers. Except for blood, sweat and tears, what else went into this it? How did you go about putting it together?

(ID) I just collected a bunch of tunes that I liked, felt would fit pretty much into the "breaks" umbrella, and then set about squeezing as many of them as I could into a coherent hour. There are some people I left out unfortunately, but I couldn't get everyone in; and it goes perhaps a little bit deeper with some of that two-steppy stuff than one of my club sets at the moment, although I guess that's no bad thing for when you're just on a listening mission. But then I really would like to see breaks exploring deeper territory - four hours of 100MPH full bore stuff gets pretty wearisome after a while. I do think we could do with a little more light and shade sometimes. Anyway, there are some really good tracks in here that everyone should hear and look out for - Baobinga's track Raggipahop with Rubi Dan, Martyn's unbelievably rolling MegaDrive Generation, Rektchordz' ragga/tech take on Freestyle DJ's Back To The Old Jack to name a few. So yeah, this is my interpretation of what breaks should be doing right now. I doubt everyone will agree with me but this is what I want to be hearing more of this year!

(SS) Finally, are there any musings, shout outs or advice you’d like to dispense to our loyal readers?

(ID) Yes - please download the free I.D. & Baobinga album, Bass Music Sessions, from http://label.bassmusicblog.com on March 1st! We're trying the whole new "free music" paradigm, and if people don't download it and spread the word and pass it on to all their friends, we'll have to go back to the old way and you won't get any more free stuff, haha. So tell all your friends! Apart from that, when you're feeling blue, maybe watch some Shadrack Mandem. It'll cheer you up.

So there we have it! The official word from one of breaks' most open-minded exponents. A free album ready to drop this coming Monday, and a mix portraying how ID sees breaks in 2010. If there is one breaks DJ that is going to be in high demand this year, it’s Ed Bayling (ID), so get your bookings requests in early at thebassmusicblog@gmail.com

DOWNLOAD ID'S THISISBREAKS MIX HERE

Tracklist:

Altered Natives - Bullet Blade Knuckle Slap (Fresh Minute Music)
Seiji - Hohoho (seiji.co.uk)
Baobinga ft Rubidan - Raggipahop (dub)
Martyn - Megadrive Generation (Hyperdub)
Toddla T ft Herve & Serocee - Shake Ya Body (DJ Sega remix)
Redux - Acidbomb (601 remix) (Trickery Collective dub)
Ghislain Poirier ft MC Zulu - Gyal Secret Potion (Baobinga remix)
(Ninja Tune dub)
Geeneus - Raggoo (www.rinse.fm)
South Rakkas Crew ft MC Gi & Mr Dockery - Hands Up Brazil (Mad Decent)
South Rakkas Crew & Killa Queenz ft Lady Chan - Double Up (Mad Decent)
Flore & Shunda K - Feel Me (Peo de Pitte remix) (Botchit & Scarper)
Snide - Cot Damn (dub)
Freestyle DJs - Back To The Old Jack (Rektchordz remix) (Ape dub)
Martsman & John Gloss - Wrecking Girlcore (dub)
Pocz & Pacheko - Zarbak (Mr Gasparov remix) (Senseless Records)
DJ Madd - Bass Come Down (Subway dub)
Sully - In Some Pattern (Keysound)
I.D. vs Skinnz - Shimmy (Double Science dub)
Brackles - Rawkus (Planet Mu)
I.D. & Baobinga - Inland (Bass Music dub)
Untold - Gonna Work Out Fine (Hemlock)
I.D. - Once Again (Passenger dub)
Redlight - Pick Up The Phone (Lobster Boy)
Baobinga & I.D. - Tongue Riddim (Build)
I.D. - Mustang (Sub Slayers dub)
Afghan Headspin - Cocaine - (Gella's Rather Have A Tablet remix)(Valium)
D1 - Jus Business (Dub Police)
Vipercorps - Overclocked (I.D. remix) (Lucky Break)
Si Begg - Brain Activity (Wascal remix) (Noodles)
I.D. - Handbagger (Baobinga remix) (Passenger dub)