what is funky house?

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dominic

Beast of Burden
i've been tracking the "what's gone wrong with grime thread" -- nothing to contribute of course -- but i follow what you uk people are up to regardless

and in course of reading the thread, i learn that "funky house" is supposedly the rage in london

call me needlessly skeptical, but does the adjective "funky" designate anything new or distinctive about this sound? or is it just a case of the brits always having to have a new name for something?

sound clips might be helpful
 
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gek-opel

entered apprentice
I always thought "funky house" was a kind of US garage type sound... vocals, big bustling drums... Am I wrong? And why do the Gangsterzzz like it?
 
T

Troy

31 Seconds
... and what does 'funky' really mean anyway? In my mind it always meant music that made your body want to dance, or maybe something grooving but also 'low down', 'gritty', and 'sexy'.

Sorry for all the 'quotes'....
 
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Gabba Flamenco Crossover

High Sierra Skullfuck
dominic said:
and in course of reading the thread, i learn that "funky house" is supposedly the rage in london
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It's not new, it never really went away from last time. It's good time music that good time people like. I like a bit of it myself every now & then.

As stated in the grime thread, it dropped off the media radar because people ran out of stuff to write about it. There are still massive acid techno parties in london that no-one writes about, for the same reason.

You can take the name at face value. Funky house is house music thats funky. Think MAW crossed with skippety 4/4 garage, and an emphasis on warm instrumentation (horns, wah wah guitars, soul vocals).
 
hint

hint

party record with a siren
Gabba Flamenco Crossover said:
You can take the name at face value. Funky house is house music thats funky. Think MAW crossed with skippety 4/4 garage, and an emphasis on warm instrumentation (horns, wah wah guitars, soul vocals).
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Yes - the instrumentation and arrangement is the key, I think.

Nothing too "electronic" (it's not Tech House)
Poppy / tradtitional structures (it's not Deep House)
Nothing too "loopy" (it's not Disco House)

I think it's been given the name purely to distinguish the relevent releases from all of the other categories of house.

There's even a whole category on Juno.
 
M

mms

sometimes
its weird i've been trying to get used to this idea lately, listening to some shows as i can't get rinse.
it's kind of old 80's soul bits, remember that tune ('i like to party, everybody does',) remixed with lots of breakdowns and a big thudding 4x4 kick, or just things with funky bass and guitar samples, strings. lots of compression very very bright and blocky. Very in yr face not very subtle, just big big party music.

The same massive popularist thing is present in breaks as well, as is the massive unsubtle compression, plastic to the extent that sometimes it sounds like the feeling in yr ears when someone strokes a balloon.
 
Z

zhao

there are no accidents
"funky", "tribal", "deep", "progressive", it's all generic, cookie-cutter house by numbers.

Ark or Robag Wruhme are house-y and funky like they was no tomorrow, but have nothing to do with "funky house"
 
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gek-opel

entered apprentice
Funky house is playing in a wine bar/vertical drinking establishment not 1 mile from where you live right now...
 
hint

hint

party record with a siren
mms said:
The same massive popularist thing is present in breaks as well, as is the massive unsubtle compression, plastic to the extent that sometimes it sounds like the feeling in yr ears when someone strokes a balloon.
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Heh... a very good comparison indeed. Dynamics are a real no-no in funky house, it seems.

It's often said that you can compress music to such an extent that the brain ends up processing it in the same way that it processes white noise.
 
F

Freakaholic

not just an addiction
Live in Chicago, and been sick of "funky" house for about 8 years now.

To me, its the blandest of terms. Even "progressive" means more, if it sounds worse.

To me, it could mean soulful house, deep house, jackin house, jazzy house, chicago house, san fran house, ny house, jesus who cares.

anything that really doesnt rely completely on the 4x4 for the beat. sometimes with drum samples, more often some acid or fruityloops loop in there with snares to give it a funky beat. i guess the 4x4 garage analogy fits, as much of what ive heard of that seems hard to distingush from funky house.

and come over to chicago, check the flyers and newspaper ads for now many djs list their style as "funky house" plus some other derivative, vainly trying to distinguish their sets from the hundreds of other funky house djs in chicago that bought the same records at gramaphone.

sorry, im bitter.
 
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borderpolice

Well-known member
from listening to east london pirates, i would say that "funky house" is opposed to "Garage".
the are both the same music (in that world), except that funky house has a 4/4 beat while
Garage uses breakbeats. in contradistinction, the general population uses "funky house" to
mean "house"., as opposed to techno/trance or electronica. these two forms of usage are rather
different, but easily confused.
 
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gek-opel

entered apprentice
Hmm- so the Pirate funky house is more alien, cheapo synths and beats in a 4x4 format rather than crippled breakbeats?
 
B

boosted

Active member
henry s said:
Funky house is currently sountracking hair cuts in tasteful salons across the eastern seaboard...
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Heh ... good analogy ... definitely the soundtrack of Miami Beach wanna-be-euro salons as well.
 
J

jimbackhouse

Guest
hint said:
It's often said that you can compress music to such an extent that the brain ends up processing it in the same way that it processes white noise.
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I'd say the brain ends up processing funky house much the same way the stomach processes white bread.
 
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gek-opel

entered apprentice
A lot of good metaphors and similies on this thread... maybe funky house could invite great writing... for the wrong reasons...
 
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Gabba Flamenco Crossover

High Sierra Skullfuck
gek-opel said:
Hmm- so the Pirate funky house is more alien, cheapo synths and beats in a 4x4 format rather than crippled breakbeats?
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No its not like 4/4 grime, if thats what you're getting at. Totally different vibe. It's lush, happy, good time, escapist music.

This isnt an evolution in the garage continuum - it's something thats always been there. Lots of garage people are into this sound, in the way that hip hop people often like a bit of smooth r & B on the side. I think it's just become a bit more obvious now grime is ebbing a bit. Grime is a young person's sound, most of the people running pirates and promoting nights are a generation above that and started raving to mid 90's US house & early garage. Maybe they are consciously trying to pull the sound back towards the punters a bit, or maybe this is like their default holding pattern 'til grime picks itself up or evolves into something new.

What i dont know is if there are significant numbers of records like this being made currently - my suspicions are that a lot of the records getting aired on the pirates now are 6-10 years old.


confucius said:
"funky", "tribal", "deep", "progressive", it's all generic, cookie-cutter house by numbers.
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I disagree, though I see where you're coming from. But the london stuff is different, influenced by garage and by old school Brit R&B like 'Jamaica Funk', Soul II Soul (what I call Ladbroke Grove music). The northern stuff that digweed et al play is much emptier, both spacially and emotionally - more tech-house influenced.

And isnt it wierd to say something is 'generic, cookie cutter' when most grime is made on loop-assembly programmes out of downloaded loops? Not having a dig cos I understand you didnt mean it in a narrowly technical sense - I just thought the paradox was illuminating. Most music is cookie cutter these days.

But then, who'd live in a world without cookies?
 
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