Wednesday, April 15, 1998
Size Matters
MUSIC: Critics and fans agree
that Roni Size is the biggest thing in drum ‘n’ bass
By Tommy Nguyen
Daily Bruin Contributor
A couple of weeks ago, about 30 journalists from across the
country were huddled together on one cramped conference call,
voices pushing and shoving just to get a piece of Roni Size, the
drum ‘n’ bass guru who has become so big in England that even the
limitless abstract of his last name can’t seem to hold him for
long.
"Can I just say that I’ve never done one of these things before,
where we’ve got 30 different people asking all these questions,"
Size suddenly interrupts in the middle of the interview. "Like, I’m
used to getting into a relationship with someone and talking
one-to-one. It’s just different for me and you guys are catching me
off-guard."
Truth is, it’s Size who’s catching the writers off-guard. Many
were expecting him to be as serious and godlike as his music, as
austere and Brahmanic as the handful of photographs of him. In the
past, Size has been known to walk away from interviews after people
dis other drum ‘n’ bass artists, especially jungle messiah Goldie,
as a way to applaud his own work. Speaking to Size seemed
intimidating.
Surprisingly, the 28-year-old Bristol, England native (also the
home of trip-hop acts Tricky and Portishead) couldn’t be more
accessible. Always eager to hear what people think about his sounds
and his musical movement, Size accepts all kinds of criticism.
And there’s an intoxicating grooviness to his accent – a blend
of street-wise cool guy and polite, school-boy British – that makes
you want to be a part of it all, whatever it may be, as long as
Size remains at the podium. But you won’t hear any of that fussy,
self-involved gibberish that so many American hip-hop artists front
with when they take the stage. For Size, an endearingly simple
"yeah, yeah, cool" will do the job almost every time.
Actually, Size has caught the whole music world off-guard. Back
in August, Size and his crew Reprazent (DJs Krust, Die and Suv,
rapper MC Dynamite and female vocalist Onallee) created a sizable
ruckus by winning the coveted Mercury Music Prize in Britain,
beating out fellow electricians Prodigy and the Chemical Brothers,
critics’ baby Radiohead and the lolly and pop phenomena of the
Spice Girls.
"A lot of people thought we were a token gesture – maybe we
were. People said it was given to us on a plate. So what? We ate
all the food on the plate, we’re on seconds, and we’re still
going," Size says with excited humor.
Size’s appetite for a larger audience has taken him across the
Atlantic, where he has released "New Forms," his critically touted
debut album in the United States. One of the most ambitious
productions the music world has heard in a long time, the 23-track
"New Forms" seamlessly stitches the swatches of hot-house jungle,
R&B, underground hip-hop, funk vibes, ambient jazz, reggae and
dancehall, with a few threads of punk-rock explosions and techno
looping weaved in here and there. The end result creates an always
undulating, synergistic fabric of drum ‘n’ bass full of design and
color.
"The virtuosic flow and computer-blue exuberance of ‘New Forms’
is really something new," writes Details magazine’s Rob Sheffield.
"Everything about Size’s music is fast and feral, all urban flash
and slick aggression. There’s never been another drum ‘n’ bass
album so daring, so soulful."
It’s important to Size that people understand that he taps into
drum ‘n’ bass, not jungle. But in all, beware of cloistering his
music into any set category or mission.
"People like to say I make dance music. I don’t make music just
for dancing. Sometimes I make it so you can listen to it at home,
to make love to," Size explains.
"I’m little confused by this term ‘dance music,’ he adds. "I’m
sure you can dance to rock, you can dance to pop – fuckin’ ballet
dance if you want. The music that we’re doing has so many different
influences. I don’t know, this dance music thing kind of gets to
me."
Although he’s adamant when he says, "Don’t let the names
overshadow the music" – because "it’s wide screen, mate!" – there’s
one media label that Size doesn’t mind being associated with.
"Let’s talk about this word ‘electronica.’ I think it suits the
era now, because the era is built on a lot of electronic equipment.
And there’s a lot of people out there who don’t want to be
associated with hip-hop and rock, so they’re building their own
era. Personally, I like it. I think it works."
That doesn’t mean that his electronic pulse is hooked up to a
machine, all synthesized like many of his peers’ break-beating
hearts. Size skillfully careens through digital and analogue
sources; he records live sounds – including acoustic guitars,
French horns, bass, violins – and plays with them.
Size uses vocals generously to place a human presence in his
technology: Onallee is especially sultry on the track "Watching
Windows,"and MC Dynamite’s dashing, rapping thunderclap on
"Railing" reminds us of what mainstream hip-hop is tragically
oblivious to. Size also downplays our music era’s chemical
dependency on sampling.
"Size uses samples," Sheffield points out in his review, "but
not as a pop-culture reference game. Even when you think you
recognize one of Size’s samples … it totally disappears into his
world."
Although Size and Reprazent are trying to make electronica music
more personable, they will still have to contend with some innate
obstacles as they try to make some news in the United States. DJ
culture doesn’t spin well in the United States because American
music fans usually like to have a personality in front of the
music, faces they can see in the light and identify as a band.
DJs mostly work behind a fortress of monitors in club-land
obscurity, and when they do have vocals they never take center
stage; DJs have to rely on the music to do their PR work. It was
Soul II Soul back in the late ’80s who proclaimed themselves as a
movement and not a band; Roni Size and Reprazent follow in that
British tradition, and they’re doing their best to export it to the
United States – but in their own way.
"We’ll try to bring something, we will bring something," Size
says. "The culture will grow, and even if it doesn’t, it will still
be special to those people who’ve been embracing it. We’re just
trying to bring it to the people who are hungry."
"When you see our show," Size continues, "you’ll see why we did
win (the Mercury Prize) – it’s because of the potential, because of
the movement."
American audiences got to try on Size as he finished his first
American tour; a couple of weeks ago Size and Reprazent sojourned
in Los Angeles with two sold-out shows at The Roxy. Size wasn’t
telling a lie: The young, head-bobbing audience was elevated in
unison by the pulse hypnosis of Reprazent’s extremely British
presentation, as the phat beats pummeled through the loop-the-loop
frenzy of the stage lights.
Reprazent had both live bass and guitar players to balance out
all the computers and turntables, while Onallee belted out her diva
tunes – one particular cry of hers introduced Reprazent’s grand
manifesto, "Brown Paper Bag," and the crowd went berserk. At times,
watching Size and Reprazent perform through the smoky nebula of
sound and fury felt like staring right into the millennium.
"You know, the reason why this stuff is so successful in England
… is because it wasn’t built up on a high basis," Size says. "All
the things you hear about that’s hyped up, before you know it,
you’ll hear it and say, ‘Is that it?’ We don’t want to come through
that way. We want people to say ‘yeah, yeah’ and give the CD to a
friend, and have that person say, ‘Yeah, that was all right, you
know.’"
Photos courtesy of Mercury Records
Electronic artist Roni Size (foreground) is joined by his band
Reprazent.