Fracture & Neptune - Hull Breach / Tape Frog

The UK has seen the birth of a new underground subgenre of Drum and Bass that producer and multiple-label-manager Dev Pandya (DJ pseudonyms Paradox and Alaska) has dubbed "drumfunk." While today's more mainstream Drum and Bass is usually melodically based chipper pop music, drumfunk artists pay homage to the OG's of DnB; they're all about the drums again. It's an interesting new sound and a response to the electronic music scene's having been saturated with sounds and styles that sound... well... completely electronic.

In contrast, drumfunk producers like London duo Fracture & Neptune are sampling acoustic drum kits and giving their drum sequences a decidedly improvisational feel to them. These guys just aren't that into looping. They want to create a live performance type of vibe and give their music that kind of finesse that an actual musician playing an actual instrument creates. Every second and every little snare drum hit is meticulously programmed on a computer to simulate a jazz drummer riffing out spontaneously and just playing what feels good.

Still, this isn't live music, but it's not pretending to be either. The production is much too slick. Sometimes they'll chop up a drum fill in a way that just isn't playable on a drum kit or even remotely human sounding. Meanwhile, everything else you're hearing besides the drums is completely and clearly synthetic. The bass synth sounds are deep, full, and very dark. On "Hull Breach," it's too hard to picture some swamp monster gurgling the bass.

The other background synth elements are pretty out there in a way that's hard to describe. They’re sparse, ambient, maybe even a little on the freaky side at times, and provide the atmosphere for the digital drum and bass duo band to jam out at whatever strange cold place these tracks take you to. “Hull Breach / Tape Frog” is thus an interesting sonic marriage between an almost human energy and a cold, spacey, artificial one, and its appeal is in its ability to make you feel something that you can’t quite put your finger on.

It’s a tough listen, an emotional challenge, and the drums definitely constitute a lot of information to take in very quickly. Fracture & Neptune aren’t making music for anyone but themselves here, but if you can dig it for what it is and fast music does “that thing” for you that nothing else seems to do, enjoy and check your speedometer at 4 am.

http://www.mediafire.com/file/qmnyzemmfzn/Fracture_and_Neptune-Hull_Breach_And_Tape_Frog.zip