Hervé: ‘Ghetto Bass’

So, Godfather of the bass loaded electro scene (or fidget/jacking/whatever you want to call it house) Hervé, has dropped a massive double album on us comprising of what we can only assume are some of his top cuts of the day. 

Entitled ‘Ghetto Bass’, he sprawls two fairly different mixes over the course of both discs. The first being one that you would most closely associate him with, full of wobbly basslines and breaks that are liable to snap your neck, this mix is in terms of scene points, hotter than the sun right now! 

New material from Jack Beats (recently signed to Hervé’s Cheap Thrills label) opens proceedings setting things off at a good pace, before breaks bass champion Rico Tubbs drops in with his brilliantly catchy yet heavy ‘Hip Rave Anthem’; all wobbly garage bass and hook laden synths which keep it coming across like some kind of mutant, bastard underground pop rager. 

We are taken swiftly through tracks from some of the scenes key movers and shakers of the last year in the shape of Fake Blood and his slightly epic ‘Mars’, Mr Oizo’s 'Gay Dentist’.  Plus many of Hervé’s big 2008 re-works, including Kidda’s ‘Under the Sun’ and Bloc Party’s ‘Mercury’, via a bit of electro from The Kills in the middle of being ripped to shred’s by Ed Banger’s SebastiAn.

All in all, a brilliant party mix, one for getting you in the mood to go out, or to kick start a slow house party into one that results in security deposits being lost as doors are kicked in half, fences flattened and windows shattered throughout the house.

Disc 2 is combined of dubstep of a slightly more techy nature, with skitty 2-step beats and basslines reminiscent of the Hyperdub styling’s and the kind of rolling and chest shattering rumblers you’d expect from Skream, Benga, Plastician and the like. 

Newcomer Zomby’s ‘Rumours And Revelations’ is a marvellously deep piece, all subtlety and minimalistic (to an extent, it’s no Efdemin) soundscapes, before the distortion kicks in. 

Utilising a mix of scene classics (Benga’s ‘Crunked Up’ for example) and new artists such as Chase & Status (more known for their current massive status on the D&B front), DZ, Dirty Naaan and Darqwan, as well as surprise inclusions Buraka Som Sistema (more known for their Kuduro and electro sounds) and The Count himself, with a house/dubplate crossover banger by the name of ‘Jungle Steppers’. 

A heavy disk indeed, and quite enjoyable as a whole, though I feel it would have been better served by more of an attempt to really push for a more forward thinking sound, as what we are essentially left with is two very similar mixes, at slightly different tempos.  

I’ve always slightly felt that the “Fidget House” scene in its current state was influenced and helped to its current level by the success of the dubstep scene (listen to the bass, it’s all quite similar). And actually, Fidget house is now at a bit of a crossroads, what with the commercial success of Crookers and their Kid Cudi remix. It really needs to look to it’s originators such as Jesse Rose and Dave “Switch” Taylor and even Hervé himself, before it becomes a stagnant heap of dull and repetitive basslines and stale ideas.  

This mix though is very much a game of two halves, with Disc 1 utilising what is great about the scene at the moment and some of Hervé’s great remixes, but disc 2 feels slightly underwhelming, despite the presence of huge basslines at every turn. And that, I suspect is the problem, having already had an hour of just that this disk would have been served much better by pushing the deepness of Zomby’s track early on through out the whole mix. 

Well worth a look if you are new to Fidget house and need a good starting point as it introduces you to some of the major players and some soon to be stars. It will definitely be a good mix for getting anyone in the mood to head out for a huge night in some grimy club, getting down with the best DJs the UK has to offer. I just can’t shake the feeling that the second disk is slightly superfluous.

Words: James Hoste

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