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Clique culture LTJ Bukem and the insular nature of drum & bass by MIREILLE SILCOTT
Drum & bass is a different slate in 1997. This is, after all, two years after Goldie's Timeless album achieved gold status. Now Acura uses sub bass and twittering breaks to sell smart leather interiors. But even though the sound has meshed into the everyday noise of stubborn North America, its creative British core is still decidedly insular. Which explains the present case of LTJ Bukem--the bespectacled, Hilfigered DJ, and, moreover, the producer often credited for the drum & bass style named "intelligent" or "ambient" by journos, "aqua" by the daft and archetypal by those in the know. The twentysomething Bukem (Daniel Williamson; he got his moniker from Hawaii Five-O's "book 'im, Dano") has been around from point zero. He made the prototypical easy-chair drum & bass track "Atlantis" in 1992, and he's still the premiere opposition to tumultuous jump-up jungle.
Although Bukem has sold 60,000 copies of his spacey, well-mixed Logical Progression compilation in 1996 (off his own Good Looking imprint), he is much more burdened with the credibility issues of an insider because, ultimately, he still is. The strange, slow immersion of drum & bass in North America reveals the tightly bound nature of the music's diligent nucleus. Some producers have complained of America's impassable misunderstanding, but how could they expect more? Their music, staunchly British, breeds parochial sub-genres practically monthly. Here we get only Goldie, late compilations and dated 12"s. Bukem, who has said "Yes, I want to be a star" more than once, equates the problem to a cottage-bent industry that still hasn't fully scoped the horizon past its porch. "But it's a matter of time," he says. "Distributors need to get their acts sorted and put the records and music out widely enough to create an outside scene--to inspire enough people to say, "Oh, I like this. Then there'll be something going on. It's the scene's own small-mindedness, really." The Logical Progression tour featuring LTJ Bukem, MC Conrad, Blame and P.H.D. stops into the Element party Saturday, July 5. Sasha, John Digweed and others too. $25-$30 advance/$35 at the door. Info and venue: 989-7761 |
Three years ago I was assigned a magazine story about drum & bass. Top DJ Grooverider dodged interview dates for three weeks, DJ Rap for two, Kenny Ken stiffed and Goldie disappeared after confirmation. I would have erased the piece from memory altogether if it hadn't given me one decent insight on the world of jungle, circa 1994: that it was one closed affair.
Rather extraordinarily, Bukem has also been branded traitorous by drum & bass's cloistered clique. Goldie was given leave to date Björk, do runway and make TV cameos. But LTJ--no less seminal--is called "too big for his boots" for taking multiple gigs a night and charging viciously high sums ($2000 an hour--painful, but less than, for instance, house DJ Todd Terry's $15,000 New Year's fee). "LTJ Bukem," sneered The Face earlier this year, "need only work three hours a week to earn an estimated annual salary twice that of John Major."