Bizzy B – Retrospective [Planet Mu]

Planet Mu has been looking ahead a lot this year so far so when I got a retrospective through the door it made me turn my head. This is a look back over the work of original jungalist innovator Bizzy B who pushed the hardcore sound into jungle territory way back in 92. This is all way before my time but with the recent resurgence in interest in ’92 with the likes of Zomby with his throwback rave album ‘Where were you in ’92?’ and MIA asking similar questions this retrospective is a welcome reminder of what was actually going down then as apposed to the late thousands revivalist renditions.

This isn’t for the light hearted Bizzy B is the master of the high speed Amen break with loose and raw cut up techniques all over the place that come out like energetic noisy smashes in the face. This is all coupled with massive sounding bass that shakes the living shit out of everything around you and rave-hoover synth lines. It’s harsh on the ear that’s for sure. You don’t even really get the now over used cliché rave horn sample; these tracks were made to make the crowd blow the horns not show the crowd what rave was like when everyone had horns.

Personal highlights on this compilation have to be the collaboration with d’n’b legend Peshay ‘Merder Style’, which takes spacey riffs, rudeboy bass and break neck Amen into sublime dance floor tear out territory. ’10 Inch V.I.P’ is another banger, well they all bang you don’t get a slow jam… but the deep breakdown and cut up rave ‘ooooh ooh ahh!’ female vocals do it for me. I like ‘Rubadub Style’ for similar reasons. The bass on ‘Weekend’ absolutely kills it; it’s like being punched in the stomach over and over, plus the synth sample is the same one used on LFO by LFO which is an all time favourite of mine.

Listening to this compilation gets tiring, there is no let up what so ever and all the tracks use a very similar all be it killer template. Some days I fucking love it and it has me bouncing off the walls and others it has me wanting to tear down the walls to get out of the room away from the madman relentless breaks.

‘To move forward you have to look back’ is a phrase you hear knocking about and dance music right now in is showing this to be true. I mean you have retrospectives popping up from the likes of EL-B showing off the early garage innovations of the time all while Funky kicks off and being described as garage 2.0 in some places not to mention pushing dubstep heads in new directions. You also have a J Dilla retrospective all while the 'W@*#y' glitch hop scene is picking up momentum. Then you have this proto Jungle retrospective and people like dBridge, Instra:mental, Clukid and Kryptic Minds making interesting dubstep/d’n’b hybrids with the likes of Skream and Kode 9 throwing d’n’b back in their sets. So Bizzy B seems to be a timely addition to the retrospective cannon in some ways at least. But in others it still seems as alien and out there as it probably did at the time, you just don’t get this rough cut full on hyper rudeboy junglist vibe anymore not in such a noisy break neck way anyhow. In that respect this is a brilliant reminder of that old skool energy.

Listen: Bizzy B – Retrospective [Planet Mu]