Bleep

The UK knows well the power that bass possesses, with clubs and music scenes seeking to build ever more bone rattling systems that can handle the weight of the country's many potent mutations of dance music. Musique Pour La Danse take us back to the very beginning of this low frequency phenomenon, documenting the birth of British bass music with a compilation of formative bleep techno and breakbeat hardcore gems. Their high flying synth tones contrasted by room-filling sub bass, hefty breakbeat shuffles, and pumping drum machine rhythms can be heard in countless styles emerging since the late 80s/early 90s, explored in full with rarities and classics on Bleeps, Breaks + Bass.

That essential bass opens 'Spiral Symphony (Sample Me Mix)', with tweeting bleeps, frenzied beats, and digital squawks and klaxons adding an edge. A Certain Ratio and A Man Called Adam incite dancefloor seances, with their joint ventures of mystical choirs whispering over gated snares pushing air and beats shovelling bass up from underneath. Unique 3's deep cut 'Digicality' is a key moment of bleep experimentalism, a digital deluge of submarine subs, staggered beat fills, and liquid synth bubbles.

Terra Incognita meanwhile channel an acerbic hardcore spirit on 'Alien Element': the majority of the bass comes from pummelling kicks, leaving a spotlight on the alarm ringing bleeps and washing breaks. Tek 9's 'Space 91' points to the UK's reggae influences with its colourful bassline, while Ubik's sparse passages of sub pulses, glassy flickers, and solid steel hits on 'Bass Generation' chop and flip techno origins in all directions.

Bleeps, Breaks + Bass is an expansive ode to the two genres that formed the blueprint for British dance music.