Friday 23 May 2014

Derek Bailey ‎– "Guitar, Drums 'n' Bass" (Avant ‎– AVAN 060) 1996

Predictably,this is my favourite Derek Bailey record. Even though the Jungle backing track, by some brummie d'n'b producer called DJ Ninj(who?), is incredibly unremarkable,verging on the bland. This only helps to emphasize Bailey's nutty guitar improvisations, laid over the top of a DAT mix of Ninj's drum'n'bass by numbers, in Laswells studio in New York; after an aborted session in, ex-Napalm Death drummer, Mick Harris's studio in the west midlands.When ,apparently Mick had no idea what he was doing, and seemingly, was not too displeased when Derek suggested that they call it a day, after three full takes failed to be recorded properly, or even at all!
The discipline of the programmed beats, focus's DB's trademark fret abuse to the edge of accessibility.
Bailey freely admits that this record would have been A LOT better if he'd been able to release an album of improvisations with the folks on his local jungle-list pirate stations.; but that may have either eclipsed the guitar work, or created an electrically charged duel between two differing musical cultures,the like of which,we will never hear again?
Ninj, of course, was never heard from again.

Tracklist:

1 N/Jz/Bm (Re Mix) 3:33
2 Re-Re-Re (Up Mix) 1:35
3 Dnjbb (Cake Mix) 13:46
4 Concrete (Cement Mix) 7:02
5 Ninj (De Mix) 11:29
6 Pie (Amatosis Mix) 1:38

DOWNLOAD ninj'n'bailey HERE!

3 comments:

A. S. said...

Hadn't heard the Mick Harris story - what a shame! A grindcore collab certainly would have been a welcome addition to Bailey's "crossover" efforts.

Much as I like this album, I think my favorite will always be The Gospel Record - nothing quite like Amy Denio blithely plugging away at the gospel canon over arrhythmic programmed drums and Bailey's trademark skronk.

Thanks for posting!

Jonny Zchivago said...

Gospel Record, is a fine disc. I got some Amy Denio cassettes that will appear soon.
Always felt that DB should have been in Painkiller.

Jonny Zchivago said...

check this out:
I think this is free on bandcamp......and wow do i think we should all like it... https://scatterarchive.bandcamp.com/album/domestic-jungle