Something new is emerging. I’m standing at the top of a well listening into the darkness to echos of drum and bass, ambient electronica and shuffling dubstep abstraction. It runs very, very deep.
Oddly, I first heard this sound mixed and presented by artist and producer Method One on his BassDrive show. I believe it would be better described, hesitantly, as post-drum and bass. There was a beauty here that was carried gently on the back of a weak but important groove. Gone were the tired amen break, liquid bass lines and tropes I was used to. They were replaced by something more mature and sophisticated — engineered sounds and higher frequencies played quietly.
The sound I’m talking about is the nascent sub-genre known as autonomic and no label exemplifies it better than Auxiliary started by the artist ASC mainly as a way to showcase his own work and that of like-minded artists. I can only imagine they throw some of the most pulse-slowing parties ever to grace a nightclub. It’s drum and bass lost in the atmosphere, drum n bass for the steam room.
The sound is growing in popularity just as the “final episode” of the Auxcast netcast has been uploaded to Auxiliary’s blog. Why is the series ending? According to ASC’s post, the time was simply right to end it. He’s been doing it for a year now. The blog entry promises more to come but is ambiguous about what form that may take.
In the meantime, grabbing this beautifully mixed collection of the label’s roster is a great way to introduce yourself to a burgeoning scene that I think has a huge future ahead of it — especially as the kids who grew up on ’90s drum and bass now reach middle age.
I’ll be paying close attention.