Spot on hardcore insanity for the educated anarcho punk junglist acid lovers with an awareness of the jazz heritage among us.
The Jelly EP by French producer Ruby My Dear has re-kindled my old love for the manic micro-programming of what we now somewhat disdainfully refer to as IDM and Breakcore. The craziness of first hearing Squarepusher, Kid 606, Aphex Twin, Autechre and then the more serious material of Bong Ra, Terminal 11, The Teknoist and of course the mighty Enduser at the time was breathtaking. I really did fall completely in love with all that stuff; anarchic as it was, it also displayed a single-mindedness that borders on the autistic to create. To fit that many samples into a single bar of music and still retain some coherence is no mean feat. But somehow I stopped listening to it all, the chaos lost its appeal, or maybe the scene stagnated a little—maybe I changed—whatever happened, my love of all things micro, distorted and hectic dwindled. But this EP is, if I may paraphrase Take That, re-lighting my fire, it sounds fresh and exciting just like those original discoveries. I’m not saying I’d listen to it all the time, but the skill, patience and sheer strength of will it has taken to create this EP has to be admired. Ruby My Dear has form too, in the shape of a magnificent album on Ad Noiseam called Remains Of Shapes To Come. I guess he must have some jazz fetish or something, taking his name as he does from an old Thelonious Monk tune of the same name, and the reference to the classic Ornette Colman album The Shape Of Jazz To Come as the title for his first album. Just an observation, but I imagine it hints at some of his inspiration, if you know any of the catalog of those two pillars of modern music, you might recognise a certain anarchic spirit there also detected in the work of Ruby My Dear.
This EP is extremely well made, painstakingly put together and contains a staggering amount of samples. There are little nods to some of those who laid the foundations buried within the music. I definitely heard the same sample used by Squarepusher in some tune or other, albeit briefly. The subversive and abrasive elements of breakcore are very present, as is the speed and density of samples. On top of this, it somehow feels a little more mature and soulful if that’s not an insult to the genre. Spot on hardcore insanity for the educated anarcho punk junglist acid lovers with an awareness of the jazz heritage among us.
Jelly EP is available on Blue Sub. [Release page]
