Whether Metallica, Britney Spears or EPMD, musicians of late are finding substantial success by returning to their roots. In the electronic music world, no genre is more ripe for revitalization than drum and bass, much maligned since its meteoric rise from the U.K. rave scene in the late ’80s. Birthing subgenres like tech-step, jump-up, neurofunk and liquid funk, the fast-paced drum-and-bass style also became the poster boy for new U.K. dance music movements: nu-skool breaks, breakcore, garage, two-step, sublow and dubstep are just a few of the relatively short-lived styles that have followed the blueprint laid by drum and bass.
At the forefront of the d’n'b sound through the mid- and late-’90s, widely regarded as originators of tech-step (Skylab, Check Me Out, 1996) and then later neurofunk (Wormhole, 1998), London’s Ed Rush and Optical were household names for DJs and ravers at the turn of the century. Though Rush and Optical are now revered as trailblazers, they are no strangers to criticism. In 2006 their ambitious Chameleon album and accompanying tour encountered criticism from purists and long-time fans for risky, sometimes questionable directions.
"We didn’t want to keep doing the same thing again and again and again," explains Rush from London, "flogging a dead horse. By that time there were quite a few people doing a similar thing to what we had been doing, people were jumping on and neurofunk, or whatever you want to call it, was arising from all over the place… So we thought, ‘Let’s try doing a few different things.’ We were experimenting; meeting new people as our lives were progressing, meeting other musicians and vocalists.
"We tried to do different things just to keep it interesting, right up until Chameleon, which was a kind of experimental album in the sense that we wanted to create something that we could go on the road with and do live. So there’s a lot of guitar stuff in there, we met up with vocalists that we were using, one in particular, Louie Smith, who was coming down to the studio on a daily basis and trying to write lyrics. There was a lot of criticism from our diehard fans: ‘Oh, this doesn’t sound like what they used to do, it’s miles away from the Wormhole sound we all love, they’ve lost it.’"
Waylaid by the popularity and pressures of their own lifestyles and the changing appetites of the masses, Ed Rush and Optical return with a new album, a revitalized label and a wider, wiser perception of the music industry that they are now wholly part of. Ed Rush & Optical Travel the Galaxy is expected to hit shelves by the end of April.
"It’s been about 18 months in the making," Rush told me. "I made a conscious decision about two years ago, about the time that I actually stopped smoking weed. I came out of this haze I’d been in for 20 years or so, you know how it is. It started with the gigs I was DJing at. I was going through my record box and thinking, ‘I’m not really into 100 per cent of the tunes I’ve been playing.’ You can easily get swept away with the current of popular drum-and-bass tracks in the U.K. A lot of gigs are quite jump-up orientated, or they were a few years ago, and you find if you play dark neurofunk, people decide it’s time to go to the bar and get a drink. So I found a few of these tracks filtering into my set, a few tunes that weren’t really my cup of tea. But after realizing that, I took them out of my box and decided I was going to stick to my guns."
Ed Rush DJs with Corey K, Bind, Twisted Bass’ Plan C, Screwhead and Bassic and Planet Breaks’ Pinky 38 and Spacekadet, Friday, March 20, at Academy ($7 in advance, $10).
