It's not often, in these pages at least, that Paul Oakenfold's approval is cited as a critical benchmark. But when the trance ambassador opted to close his set at that rain-soaked Homelands back in May with Kosheen's exotic, driving anthem 'Hide U' he was giving drum & bass what it's been missing for the past couple of years. In other words, a genuine crossover that could hold its own in the mainstream without being watered down, remixed or repackaged. A few years back, a good drum & bass tune would find its way onto the decks in r&b dances, hip hop jams, the back rooms of techno raves and student discos alike. Regardless of what you might think about their music, garage jocks aren't averse to pinching the odd drum & bass b-side such as Zinc's '138 Trek' or trance anthems like Timo Maas' 'Der Scheiber' for their sets. It's a technique they learnt from jungle - one that drum & bass is only starting to learn again.
That's what makes 'Hide U' such a landmark. Singer Sian Evans' style - soulful, graceful and forceful in equal measures - reminded us that vocal tracks weren't just something to keep A&R men happy. They could be tense and edgy enough to appear in Ed Rush & Optical's sets and stirring enough to close one of Oakie's. More important than that, even, as Sian points out, it seems to have gone down well with drum & bass' beleaguered female population. "And when the girls like it," adds Darren Beale aka Decoder, "the blokes are like 'oh yeah, I like that one too'." And while perhaps it's no co-incidence that the last band to achieve this much also hailed from Bristol, stereotyping Kosheen as some kind of Reprazent for the new millennium would missing the point entirely. Despite 'Hide U''s success, most of the forthcoming debut album, 'Resist', is a thrilling collision of slower, tough breakbeat action and Sian's uniquely delivered songs. Watching a video of their debut live set at the recent Ashton Court Festival in Bristol, with core members Sian, Darren Beale and Mark Substance bolstered by a full band, Kosheen look like a force capable of taking on any stage.
We're in the garden of Sian's bungalow, out in the tall-hedged wilds south of Bristol, on a sweltering afternoon. We're only a couple of hours away from London, but supping cold beers and smoking in the sun, it feels like a million miles. We should, really, be in the 15-foot tall teepee that was Sian's home before she moved to Bristol, but it's too hot on account of the fire that Sian's just lit inside it, "just to show you I could do it." Why was she tempted to give up the tranquillity of the Welsh countryside for Bristol? "After a year I'd got very, very bored," she remembers, "and the father of my son lived in Bristol so it was just logical."
Sian pulls a bashful expression when quizzed on her musical roots, complaining, "they're not very trendy," before eventually reeling off a list of 60s singer-songwriters. But it's these influences that give Kosheen their own slant and sets them apart from the more soul-orientated traditional Bristol sound. Even if they're bracing themselves for the usual bout of critical laziness. "We're ready for the Portishead comparisons, they're inevitable," says a resigned Darren.
"It's like, if you tell your mate, you describe it as a bit of this or that," Sian adds mockingly. "We're a breakbeat band from Bristol with a female singer so we must sound like so and so..." But does it work in reverse? Is there a lot of pressure on a third generation Bristol band not to sound like their predecessors? "Well, when we first started doing Kosheen, before Sian joined, we were doing slow, hip hoppy beats. It did have a massive Bristol flavour to it," admits Darren, "and I think those elements are still in there somewhere."
"Maybe what we do is a bit more forthright..." offers Sian. And perhaps, dare we suggest, a little less stoned-sounding than the average Bristol production? "That's strange," she grins, "but I suppose it's kind of true. There have been plenty of bombed out albums made and we thought 'let's make something that makes you feel alive and switched on rather than tuned out, zonked out'." The result is a sound that's refreshingly live but equally rooted in the kind of hefty beatplay you'd expect from the men responsible for snarling drum & bass projects like Decoder and the long running Ruffneck Ting parties where Sian met Darren and Mark. Epic sounding tracks like 'Catch', earmarked as the band's next single, or 'Face In A Crowd' sound like they were born to be belted out from the Glastonbury or Reading stage.
It's in this arena that Kosheen will surely come to the fore. The songs are strong enough for Sian to exercise them at local pub gigs with her guitar and nothing else. When 'Hide U' came out earlier this year, Sian went out on the road alone to promote, simply armed with a DAT and a microphone and unstoppable attitude. The reaction was electric, and when the full band returns to tour the country later in the year it should be even more enthusiastic. Having been such a studio-based act so far, they're now facing the possibility of spending the next nine months on a worldwide tour. It's something that Darren and Sian seem to be looking forward to with equally generous amounts of dread and excitement. "That will be the test!" laughs Darren, "nine months on a tour bus! We're going to have a big container..." Sian [affecting Texas cop accent]: "You're going in the coolie, boy." "That would be good," Darren reckons, "get everyone to sign something agreeing that if everyone feels you've got to go in the box then in you go."
Fortunately, as they point out, the band's relationship so far hasn't been one of those tempestuous artistic fusions that thrives on friction. "We've been lucky," Sian says, "It's a very easy vibe in the studio, it seems to really flow. If something isn't sounding right we'll say. It's an open space. We don't harbour anything, we're all feisty characters! But then, there are other things that need our attention now that aren't so easy - otherwise we'd all be back in the studio right this minute."
"I wouldn't say easy. I mean, we've been working bloody hard," counters Darren, "but yeah, it's not been a struggle in the studio at all." Feisty characters they may be but, again, it's their differences that make them strong. "Sometimes they've been in the studio for 24 hours working on beats," says Sian, "and when I come in, it's all fresh to me."
"Then when Sian puts a sprinkling on it," Darren relates, "it becomes fresh for me - her voice is like the icing on the cake. You've got all the software to retune it and make it technically perfect, but sometimes that takes something away from the vibe of a track. What we've got on this album is hopefully something very human sounding." Indeed, several of the tracks on 'Resist' were done in one take - even if no-one told Sian at the time! "Sometimes those first takes are the ones where I go 'oh no, rubbish, rubbish' and they go 'OK, try it again,' says Sian. "Then I come back and they've used the first one and, of course, it's perfect!"
The simplest way is often the best - and that's the overriding feeling you're left with after hearing 'Resist'. It sounds like people having fun more than agonising, chained to a mixing desk. Even the title itself, for a change, comes refreshingly free of the usual over-conceptualising, being plundered from the album's tracklisting and, "just fitted nicely with the vibe," Darren explains. "We're resisting a lot of things..."
Sian's own take is equally unpretentious, if a little more eccentric. "To me," she says, "I think of it like an elastic band. When you pull it tight, that's the resistance you can feel between your fingers. It's like a sensation, a tension. And I think people will be able to relate to that." So there we have it. Kosheen - the best elastic drum & bass band in the world. Let's hope they don't snap too soon.
THE VOCAL MINORITY
The floodgates are open - the classics that are making 2000 the year of the voice...
Kosheen
Hide U
Moksha
Utterly unavoidable - without sticking your head underground, that is - for the best part of the year 2000, 'Hide U' is the tune that reminded us that female vocal-led drum & bass can still rip your ears off. Expect 'Demonstrate', the other tough d&b session on the 'Resist' album, to have just the same devastating impact.
2 Sinners
Second Thought (Marcus Intallex remix)
Mechanoise
The remix that put veteran producers Marcus Intallex & ST Files back on top of the drum & bass tree and preceded their 31 Records debut, this is the sound of the Mancunians taking breakbeat duo 2 Sinners' gnarly sound and rolling it out into the perfect vessel for its emotional vocal delivery.
Trinity
It's Over
Chronic
The undercover work of a certain London producer best known for his penchant for, er, Tudor Roses, all he needed was a couple of vocal snatches (from an uncredited source), an Amen break and the Devil's own sub-bass sound to make a real classic still being unashamedly caned long after it reached the shops.
Reprazent
Balanced Chaos
Talkin' Loud
A little more skittery and (ironically) unbalanced than some of the soaring vocal tunes above, this is just one of a number of tracks from the Reprazent's forthcoming second album that bridge the gap between underworld and mainstream perfectly. Bleepy, Krust-style bass and a paranoia-inducing vocal shooting out of the speakers. Bring it on!
