Music has something to do with mathematics, but in music there aren’t rigid rules. On the contrary, exceptions are much more frequent than rules. More clearly, would you believe me when I affirm that in dance music a rhythm at 134 BPM is faster than a rhythm at 180 BPM? In effect, neurophysical science has recently confirmed an old observation of mine, that there’s a threshold rhythm at about 140-145 BPM, subject to a gradual reduction with the advance of age. It means that a rhythm at 180 BPM is psychologically equal to a rhythm at 90 BPM, exactly like a rhythm at 736 BPM. Why? Because the vast majority of human mind mechanisms are involuntary, and operate at a subconscious level. Strong and regular beats, like the ones of music, are able to activate your subconscious, due to their similarity to your memories as an embryo of the heartbeats of your mother. When the rhythm of music is faster than the maximum threshold of human heartbeats, there is something archetypal that generates a signal of danger, that a marvelous mental procedure stops by reducing the excessive beating to a normal-range beating, with a virtual division by two, or multiples of two. As explained above, when the rhythm is at 180 BPM you start to dance at 90 BPM, without any awareness. Differently, when the rhythm of music goes from 130 to 140 BPM, your motions are exactly on time (if your age approximately goes from 20 to 35 years), and you need pauses, whose frequency depends on your physical resistance to fatigue. I’ve observed that, at 134 BPM, a common disco/house dancer doesn’t stop the dance for no more than 15-20 minutes, while at 90-110 BPM the same average dancer can dance even for hours. At this point, I’m ready to tell it like it is, in the matter of the rhythms of various sub-genres of techno music.
Classic techno music belongs to house music, and is a synthesizers-based genre, whose most frequent rhythms go from 130 to 150 BPM. The genre has reached its peak of popularity from 1988 to 1996. In the UK, starting from the early 1990’s, some DJs had the idea of personalizing techno music, by complicating rhythm patterns, and contaminating melodies with historical genres, like reggae music. It was a new sub-genre, named jungle music. Initially, the rhythms of jungle music were the same of classic techno music, typically from 130 to 140 BPM. Jungle music has evolved and has become the so called drum ‘n’ bass, characterized by more contaminations, and faster rhythms, typically from 160 to 180 BPM. In the 2000’s, a new sub-genre of techno music is born, named dubstep. Dubstep is a kind of minimalist techno, characterized by a division by two of the rhythms of classic techno music, and by more complex rhythm patterns. The typical rhythm of dubstep is at 70 BPM. What can I observe? First, classic techno music and the earliest jungle music were at the most dangerous rhythm, the ones that your mind doesn’t divide by two. In effect, aficionados can remember that ambulances were waiting for victims of excesses at techno music festivals, and outside the nightclubs devoted to the genre. Second, dubstep releases are frequently presented with images of skulls or demons, although the rhythms of dubstep are harmless, even for old dancers. Third, there are many releases belonging to drum ‘n’ bass, because their style is exactly the same, that someone has defined “the low end”, and whose rhythms go from 120 to 150 BPM. A lot of those releases are at dangerous rhythms, suggested to young athletes, without cardiac problems, who don’t abuse of amphetamines, or other substances lethal for the heart.
In conclusion, many DJs don’t seem fully conscious of what they’re doing, because they don’t have valid ideas about how their audience reacts to uptempo music. Of course, the mix of the page is provocative. It is made of 15 tracks belonging to the low end of drum ‘n’ bass, whose rhythms go from 134 to 137 BPM. Those tracks are filled with nostalgic and melancholic melodies, and notably recall the mood of northern soul. There are many variations into the intensity of rhythms, and even some voluntary pauses. The recording is very fluid, and those who don’t dance it might think that the main purpose is a pleasant listening. In reality, the main purpose is putting your cardio-circulatory system under a heavy stress, much heavier than the one provoked by classic techno music, because anything alarming is absent.
File name is “insidious is the low end, by Max Look DJ (Oct 2026)”, 1 hour 21’ and 19” of dangerous drum ‘n’ bass tunes, belonging to the so-called “low end”.
Melodic and insidious, the playlist:
LION ROCK - rude boy rock
BUNCH OF GURUS AND EMILIA MAJELLO - punk cake (Freq Nasty 2 Step Masta)
LE HAMMOND INFERNO - F.S.B.
UNDERWORLD - please help me
FABRICA - I'm missing you (Hawk in the Jungle)
OLIVE - you're not alone (Oakenfold/Osborne)
GERI HALLIWEL - look at me (Terminalhead)
AUDUN KLEIVE - salute
HEADSPACE feat APPALOOSA - traveling 2001
MUKKA MAKKA - trip-hopping in the planet drug
PROCREATION - conundrum
4 HERO - golden solitude
DUBITAL AND MAD ??? - boss dub
CASSIUS - feeling for you (Cambridge Circus)
JOSEPH MALIK – ibotribe
