Bad 005 12"

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The question of 2-step's relation to breakbeat hardcore is both an intriguing, and a disquieting one. While speed garage made much of its antecedents in early jungle, 2-step has tended to bypass this period in favour of the 1991-93 era, with remakes of rave classics such as Metalheads' 'Terminator' and Baby D's 'Let Me Be Your Fantasy' receiving much airplay on the pirate stations over the past few months. There is a sense in which this re-versioning of prior anthems has more of an ironic than a celebratory tone to it. To understand why, we have to look at the way in which 2-step rearticulates that signature component of early nineties rave, the 'rush'. In hardcore a barrage of schizophrenically unrelated signifiers (shrieking divas layered over grinding industrial bass figures, tinkling pianos paired with discordant drones) combines with the deranging, boundary-melting effects of speed, volume and class-A drugs to produce hardcore's determinant emotion: a surging, propulsive wash of undifferentiated feeling in which the affect of the subject is simultaneously flattened and intensified to near-unbearable proportions. 2-step has shown itself to be similarly concerned with mixing up 'happiness' and 'darkness', smoothness and abrasiveness. However, with its slower pace, its preference for the more sexualised (thus more 'adult') hip-swing / arse-twitch over the the adolescent hop, skip and jump, and its emphasis on spacious production, 2-step's 'rush' is tempered by a sense of distance, an opportunity for thoughtfulness and reflection which breakbeat hardcore never offered. Abstracting some of hardcore's most emblematic moments and embedding them in typically crisp, mid-tempo beats 'n' bass, producers like the unknown artist behind this release seem to be commenting slightly sourly on this particular aspect of 2-step dynamics, contrasting the scene's upwardly-mobile 'sophistication' unfavourably with the bacchanalian frenzy of 1992's massive raves. Which is not to say that these records fail to work on the dancefloor: by contrast, it is precisely this undercurrent of dissatisfaction which lends Bad 005 its sneering, pissed-off quality and, particularly on the first side (which picks up on the Belgian techno sound of Praga Khan, Channel X etc.), makes it massively exciting. The 'lighter' second side (sampling Urban Shakedown's 'Some Justice') fails to work quite so well, but nonetheless this fifth installment in the 'Bad' series is a fascinating contribution to rave's ongoing process of self-historicisation, and well worth picking up if one happens to come across it.