Nonesuch
Drum & Bass
What Drum & Bass Sounds Like
Drum & bass is velocity incarnate. Breakbeats chopped and accelerated to 170+ BPM, sub-bass that reorganizes your internal organs, and a darkness that feels like moving through a city at dangerous speed. It is the fastest popular electronic music ever created, and it makes that speed feel necessary.
Origins
London and the UK Midlands, early-to-mid 1990s. The lineage runs through sound system culture, acid house, hardcore rave, and jungle. As rave tempos accelerated in the early 90s, producers began isolating and manipulating breakbeats—the Amen break (from The Winstons' "Amen, Brother"), the Think break, the Apache break—chopping them into new patterns at 160-180 BPM. Jungle (circa 1992-1995) paired these sped-up breaks with deep, dub-influenced bass and ragga vocals. Drum & bass emerged as jungle's more streamlined, production-focused evolution. Goldie's "Timeless" (1995) and LTJ Bukem's ambient jungle pushed the music toward sophistication. Roni Size's "New Forms" (1997) won the Mercury Prize. The late 90s and 2000s saw the rise of neurofunk (Noisia, Phace)—technically complex, heavily processed, and aggressive. Hospital Records cultivated the "liquid" side. The genre has maintained a devoted global following and a thriving club scene, particularly in the UK, Europe, and increasingly in the US.
Sonic Architecture
Tempo is 170-180 BPM, occasionally reaching 190. The drum patterns are built from chopped breakbeats—individual hits (kick, snare, hi-hat, ghost notes) extracted from funk and soul records and reprogrammed into new rhythmic patterns. The snare typically hits on beats 2 and 4, with the kick syncopated around it. Resampling—processing a break through distortion, EQ, and compression, then re-chopping it—is a core production technique. The bass is divided into two frequency ranges: a sub-bass (below 100 Hz) that provides the physical foundation, and a mid-range bass element that provides tonal and textural movement. Bass design in neurofunk is extraordinarily complex—wavetable synthesis, FM synthesis, and granular processing create sounds that snarl, breathe, and morph. The mix is engineered for large sound systems: the sub-bass must translate physically. Reverb is used on snares and atmospheric elements but the bass stays dry and upfront. The Amen break, in its chopped and recombined forms, remains the rhythmic lingua franca.
Essential Artists
Goldie — Timeless expanded drum & bass into a symphonic, emotionally ambitious form. The title track is 21 minutes of orchestral breakbeats. He made the genre feel limitless.
Noisia — Split the Atom is neurofunk's pinnacle—sound design so precise it sounds alien. Their production tutorials and plugin (Noisia Audio) educated a generation of producers.
Andy C — The executive of drum & bass DJing. His double-drop mixing technique—layering two tracks simultaneously at the climactic moment—redefined DJ performance.
Roni Size / Reprazent — New Forms won the Mercury Prize and proved drum & bass could sustain an album with live instrumentation, jazz influences, and MC vocals.
LTJ Bukem — Atmospheric, ambient drum & bass that traded aggression for beauty. His Logical Progression compilations defined the "intelligent" side of the genre.
Chase & Status — Bridged drum & bass with pop and grime. "Blind Faith" and No More Idols brought the genre to UK chart audiences.
Subgenres & Adjacent Sounds
Liquid drum & bass is melodic, soulful, and warm—often featuring vocal samples and jazz harmonies. Neurofunk is technically maximal, bass-design focused, and aggressive. Jungle is the ragga-influenced ancestor. Jump-up is dancefloor-oriented with simpler, bouncing basslines. Darkstep pushes toward industrial aggression. Breakcore fragments the breaks into chaotic, glitched-out extremes. Drum & bass shares DNA with dubstep (tempo halved, bass focus maintained) and footwork (similar tempo, different rhythmic logic). The genre's tempo is its identity. Below 170, it stops being drum & bass.