Ok so we’re going to break the fourth wall here for a second on the Mag to tell a little story. When I was a kid, I had a weird competition complex with my music fandom. In my mind, I was forever pitting bands and artists against each other. For example, if The Cure were my favourite band, I couldn’t possibly like The Smiths. Same with Poison vs Bon Jovi or Led Zepplin vs The Doors. It sounds strange, but there’s a much more subtle (or not so subtle, if you look at Kpop) culture of competition of fans in many music genres. Where this becomes relevant for dance music is how the punters often try to mould and force artists into a certain sound or subgenre (I’m looking at you, neurofunk).
The prevailing snootery in D&B amongst fans, of course, is that it’s the best genre and only old drum and bass or jungle can beget new D&B, no one can be influenced by dubstep because it’s shit, and dear God do not call 4×4 what it actually is: 174 techno. Kmag has even been dragged into this silliness: due to our drum and bass leaning reputation, covering other genres feels taboo. It’s all art, it all influences everything. Let’s get over ourselves, shall we?
Artists are good helpers in getting us over our rigidity and hangups because, for the most part, they don’t feel any of that competition and superlative attitude about genre or subgenre. They like what they like and it always somehow makes it into their work. OG DJ, producer and Kokeshi label owner Alley Cat is a perfect example of this diversity of influence. Her deep, dark atmospheric sound is recognisable to fans but comes from so many different pleces, from The Beach Boys to – don’t cringe too hard – dubstep. In fact, last year she began scaling down her amens and tempo to create The Widow Project. Now highly influential in its own right and firmly genre-fluid, it has made loads of punters wonder how she got those heavy atmospherics and deep rhythms. There are glimpses on her Kool FM show, Big Bad Dark City, but on Episode 1 of Desert Island Dubs, she dug deeper and the result will likely surprise a lot of fans.
Have a listen below to this new format, which will be a monthly series alternating with Sweat the Technique every two weeks. For more of Alley Cat’s work, check her Beatport page or Kokeshi’s Bandcamp.