A mini-interview with 22 short questions (some personal, some tricky) looking for equally short answers, addressed to artists, producers, promoters, djs, friends and affiliates of the blog in general.
Today Runner (d2, Subbed Out) Jumps the Q
Let’s get started:
Set 1: The man behind the mask
A veteran producer and one of the most experienced artists in drum & bass, Darren White aka dBridge is an artist whose multiple transformations and evolutions glide through a staggering list of achievements. Over the course of a long and distinguished career, he has been at the heart of some the most exciting collaborative partnerships drum & bass has ever seen from Future Forces to Bad Company and most recently Club Autonomic. Forging a strong bond with Instra:mental, they showcased their Autonomic sound with an award-winning Fabriclive mix CD, worldwide tour and residencies for Fabric and Rinse FM. In 2011, dBridge returned the focus to his label Exit Records with the Mosaic Vol. 1 compilation and more artist LPs as he continues to be a mentor to the new breed of producers inspired by his career. As a solo artist, dBridge remains versatile with his own productions for Exit, Metalheadz, Reinforced, Hotflush and many more.
dBridge
Although his love of music dates back much farther, Darren’s career began in earnest in 1992 when he moved to London to make music with and produce for his brother Steve (himself a successful solo artist and front-man for the group “Spacek”). Catching the buzz of the nascent rave scene along with his brother, he ventured out to club nights such as Roast and the Astoria and drew inspiration from the deep dubby tones of the Jah Shaka Soundsystem. Darren soon found himself working with UK hardcore group Armshouse Crew, the production posse responsible for Lennie De Ice’s proto-jungle anthem “We are I.E.” and began to master the synths and samplers that were the source of this new sound. Continue reading
The third installment of the series is dedicated to the short-lived but highly influential label Partisan Recordings, established as one of the most innovative outlets of cutting-edge drum and bass in the late 90s. The purpose of this article is to shed light on the high impact of the label on the drum and bass landscape of the late 90s, having been the creative home of some of the most prominent drum and bass artists of that time.
Partisan Recordings
History and label set-up
In the late summer of 1997 and after legal wrangling with Moving Shadow’s head honcho, five key members of the Moving Shadow managing staff resigned from their posts, namely: Caroline Butler (Label Manager at Moving Shadow Records), Sean O’Keeffe (aka Deep Blue and Art Director at Moving Shadow also), Simon Colebrooke (of 2 Bad Mice and A&R Director – responsible for the recruitment of all artists), Paul Rhodes (of 2 Bad Mice also – Label Assistant) and Gavin Newman (Label Assistant); essentially the entire staff aside from Rob Playford.
