Deep is a feeling before it is a format
Ask five heads what "deep" means and you will get five answers, and none of them will be wrong. On this site the tag covers drum & bass that sits low, rolls with patience and lets the room breathe, and the word gets stretched loosely across the scene. Marcus Intalex put his finger on the mood in 2011: "the deeper side has gotten more interesting than ever".
The label overlaps with several categories that this site keeps separate: Liquid Funk, Atmospheric, Soulful, Minimal, Halftime and Autonomic. The artists and labels below are the ones tagged Deep here, so expect some crossover with the neighbours.
The sound: space, sub and restraint
Think two-step swing, floating synth pads and proper bass weight. Commix are a good place to hear the range, from floating synth pads to big bass rumblers. SpectraSoul bring a denser, colder take: "Alibi" is minimalist, bass-heavy pressure, and "Organiser" has depth and energy to go with the stripped-back approach. Low end first, everything else second.
Calibre carries the warm side of the sound: agile two-step rhythms with a laidback nostalgia drawn from funk, soul and reggae records, a smooth roller with a lot of heart. On the Exit Records side, the producer SertOne praised the artist Itoa for "fluid and polyphonic rhythms and deep basses".
Some of it switches up into half-time. The Autonomic movement worked with half-time rhythms of around 85 bpm, and Dub Phizix's 2017 EP Rebel Spirit is built on halftime grooves, raw and loose, a proper head-nod record.
From the Blue Note to Exit: how the deep end got its address
Roots in the 1990s
Metalheadz was founded in 1994, with Kemistry and Storm instrumental in setting it up and Goldie as cofounder. Its Sunday sessions at the Blue Note in Hoxton became a hub for forward-thinking artists and fans. Then there was the Speed night, where LTJ Bukem and Fabio joined forces and put the focus on the jazz-influenced, mellower side of the scene. dBridge has cited the Blue Note parties, and the split between intelligent and jump-up styles, among the influences that shaped him. See Intelligent for that earlier tradition.
Creative Source, Soul:R and the Manchester axis
Calibre, from South Belfast, came to drum & bass through music his brother brought home, and hearing his brother's CD of Goldie's Terminator changed his mind about the music. "Mystic" and "Feelin" appeared on a 2000 12-inch for Creative Source, Fabio's label. He later left Creative Source for more freedom, and watching Marcus Intalex and ST Files run the Soul:ution nights independently inspired him to start his own label.
Intalex, from Manchester, ran Soul:R and Revolve:R. Together the two labels gave an early break to artists such as Calibre, Martyn and Instra:mental. His debut album 21, due on Soul:R in April 2011, mixed dubbed-out drum & bass, atmospheric techno and a Radiohead cover, and drew as much on techno and IDM as on drum & bass. He hosted his Soul:ution nights at fabric for nearly 15 years, and Shaun Roberts called them "a real night for the heads with Marcus and Calibre as the spine of the show". News of Intalex's death was reported in May 2017; his releases came out on Soul:R, Ingredients, Metalheadz and Exit. His Fabriclive 35 mix is the one to put on if you want to hear how he worked a groove.
Exit Records and the minimal years
dBridge founded Exit Records in 2003 after his earlier group Bad Company, which had left Renegade Hardware in April 1998 and set up BC Recordings. He wanted to release solo music on BC Recordings but the other members did not agree, so he started Exit. The catalogue ran wide: Steve Spacek's hip hop-leaning instrumentals, Synkro & Indigo's mellowed beats, the footwork of Stray. In 2007 Alix Perez's "Down the Line" and Commix's "Be True" helped popularise a moodier strain of drum & bass, and dBridge's "Wonder Where" and SpectraSoul's "Melodies", both on Exit, went for the haunting textures of Burial.
In 2009 a sparser approach was being talked about as minimal, with Data and dBridge as the names championing the so-called sound, and heads were soon arguing over the tag. In January 2010 dBridge and Instra:mental founded the Autonomic label. Its compilation Mosaic Vol. 1 came out in January 2011 on Exit. Instra:mental's Alexander Green said in 2011 that the "minimal" tag annoyed him, and dBridge said in 2013 that Autonomic became a genre "out of nowhere", which was "in no way our aim". The movement is covered under Autonomic and Minimal.
Artists
- Calibre (Dominick Martin) is Belfast-born. By 2021 he had 17 albums behind him, and Feeling Normal was his first fully 140 BPM record. Planet Hearth (Signature, 2019) was his 15th full-length, an ambient album. He mixed Fabriclive 68, his first mix CD, released by fabric on 18 March 2013.
- Marcus Intalex (Marcus Kaye) is discussed above. He also recorded techno as Trevino from 2011.
- Alix Perez is a Belgian producer. His debut album 1984 came out on Shogun Audio, and he has released on Exit, Metalheadz and Soul:R.
- SpectraSoul are Jack Stevens and Dave Kennett, a London duo who began in 2006 on Shogun's SGN:LTD sub-label. Their debut album was Delay No More and the follow-up The Mistress came out in June 2015.
- Break (Charlie Bierman) moved to Bristol in 2006. His style fuses live instrumentation with gritty drum & bass, and he has said he was "never a synth guy". "Natural Progression" is a tune built on simple breaks and lush atmospherics.
- dBridge (Darren White) ran Exit and, with Instra:mental, Autonomic.
- Skeptical (Ashley Tindall) has released on Metalheadz, Soul:R and Exit, and Exit announced his debut album Enjoy This Trip in 2018.
- Dub Phizix (George Ovens) is a Manchester producer. Spotlight / Rotate came out on Metalheadz in December 2016 and Rebel Spirit on Exit in 2017, and Exit released "Marka" by Dub Phizix, Skeptical and MC Strategy in 2011.
- Commix released "Be True" on Metalheadz in 2007, and by 2009 they had voiced an affinity for house and techno.
Labels
- Exit Records, founded by dBridge in 2003, marked its 100th release with the four-part Exit 100 series in 2023.
- Critical Music, led by Kasra, who by 2011 had steered the label more and more toward the minimal and melodically focused side of things.
- Soul:R, Marcus Intalex's label, home to soulful drum & bass.
- Signature, Calibre's own imprint, which released Planet Hearth and Feeling Normal.
- Shogun Audio, founded by Friction and K-Tee, where Alix Perez and SpectraSoul released.
- Symmetry Recordings, Break's label.
- Metalheadz, which released Commix's "Be True" and Dub Phizix's Spotlight / Rotate.
Nights, rooms and the Dimensions stage
fabric in London hosted Marcus Intalex's Soul:ution nights, which ran there for nearly 15 years, a regular session for the heads. The launch party for Calibre's Fabriclive 68 on 15 March 2013 put dBridge, Fabio and Random Movement with Calibre in Room Two. dBridge said in 2013 that Exit had had a stage at Dimensions the previous year.
Still going deep
The same names continue to define the area. Calibre said in 2021 that "a younger generation of ears just hear music, they don't hear the genre so much", and moved to a 140 BPM record. Exit passed its 100th release in 2023, and its roster in the 2010s included Dub Phizix and Skeptical.
