2007: The Beautiful Side of the Dark

A strange thing happened as drum & bass production became more powerful: some of the most memorable tunes got softer, sadder and more understated. In 2007, the emotional centre of the genre was not always where the biggest drop landed.

Commix’s ‘Be True’, issued as a single on Metalheadz in 2007, makes a low-key but unmistakable statement. Its vocal fragments and melancholic harmony move over an insistent, economical groove. It was followed by the duo’s album Call to Mind that October, where traces of house and techno helped give deep drum & bass a new texture.

The original 2007 single; separate later reissues may exist.

High Contrast’s Tough Guys Don’t Dance, also released in 2007, took the Hospital formula outward. ‘If We Ever’ with Diane Charlemagne could lift a room without losing its bittersweet emotional edge. Against the intimate world of Commix, it represented another route to an enduring D&B anthem.

From Tough Guys Don’t Dance (2007).

Put ‘Be True’ beside ‘Kiss Kiss Bang Bang’. One pares the arrangement down until the groove feels almost private; the other reaches out to a much bigger crowd. Neither tells the whole story of 2007, but together they show how fluid the idea of a drum & bass classic had become.

Explore Commix’s complete original Metalheadz album

Commix's Call to Mind appeared on Metalheadz in October 2007. Its calm surfaces, melancholy mood, jazz-leaning detail and careful percussion did not arrive as a rejection of the genre's history. Rather, the album rearranged influences from atmospheric drum & bass, Detroit techno and contemporary electronic soul into a distinctive voice. It rewarded close listening while still bearing the weight and rhythmic intelligence of dance music.

It is tempting to present a release like this as the delicate opposite of neurofunk. That misses its particular achievements. The album's guest voices and varied arrangements produce a sense of narrative; the pacing asks the listener to enter a world, not merely wait for a drop. Its relationship to Metalheadz mattered symbolically, because the label had been linked from the beginning with the idea that a difficult record could be worth protecting.

The original label listing dates Call to Mind to 29 October 2007. A Resident Advisor review published in February 2008 is evidence of how it was received afterward, not proof that it was a 2008 release. This distinction between release and reception is exactly the kind of detail a chronological history should maintain.

A retrospective UKF interview with Commix describes the creative exhaustion that could follow making a defining album. It underlines a reality often omitted from genre histories: an acclaimed work can become a burden if an artist feels compelled to repeat it. Long careers require pauses, experiments under other names and sometimes a change of tools. The mythology of constant production is not a useful measure of artistic seriousness.

By this point a serious D&B night could include artists from several countries without presenting them as exotic additions. London still had influential labels and clubs, but the production community had broadened decisively. Czech, Dutch, Austrian and other European audiences were growing, while Australian, New Zealand and Brazilian producers carried recognisable local sensibilities into international circulation.

The emerging professional network included booking agents, artwork designers, PR staff, club sound technicians and online editors. Their work was not separate from musical style. A carefully curated event series could support a subtle record that would otherwise be lost in a festival-scale sound system. A specialist writer could explain the album's references without requiring it to become a pop release.

Hear Call to Mind at album length, then listen to a contemporary club set. The experience will not be identical: one is an authored sequence, the other a living conversation among DJ, MC and crowd. The contrast is precisely what made drum & bass compelling by 2007. The following year would reveal how a song-driven, commercially adventurous future could coexist with that depth.