I’m a bit late to the conversation but I noticed this when I moved to Bristol back in 2001/2 (18 years old) The first year was great having moved from London and spent my weekends in either bagleys or fabric with a few other venues that were of the scene at the time. Bristol as we know was great for dnb. Full cycle were in charge there really. Myself and my two mates who’d we’d moved down together with tried setting up as a dj, potential producer and was all good. local residencies at revolutions, fez bar, thekla, Lakota, dimensions to name a few. It was within my 2 years there that I noticed that the technology in production became more accessible. People moving away from hardware to software and learning to recreate sounds of the producers/labels who were killing it, ie anything from ram records, valve, bad company, full cycle, renegade hardware. The turning point for me was walking into eat the beat and the guy there, can’t remember his name now introducing a young lad, and being quite excited by him. Said he’d just been signed to valves sister label, I think was called beats at the time. The tune was basically a rip off any dillinja or Lemon D track I’d heard in the past couple of years. The young lad was TC. Fair play, he’d made it but he was the first of a few that just ripped producers sounds and started churning it out to the masses, on mass. After this I felt the scene just amalgamated into this one sound. Nearly 15 years later in still looking for that sparkle of productive creatism

Dj Hidden (with Eye D) has been producing industrial gabba as ‘The Outside Agency’. Brilliant if you like that kinda thing (which I do). Didn’t know he was coming back to DnB. Will check it out 🙂

Nice one for the comment. As time goes on I think more and more people are starting to realise the above is quite often the case for new talent. The days of freedom and creativity do mostly seem behind us and the bullshit politics around the scene seems too much to bare at times. And that’s just what I have heard – having never been a (successful) producer or label owner myself.
Much respect to the ones still doing it just for the love and trying to avoid getting shitted on at every corner.

Fast forward a year down the line and the artist realise’s every fucker has put their tunes out then not paid them – cue a million excuses about sales and accounts and this and that

The artist then will do one of two things:

1 – Fuck off and stop making DNB and either quit completely or go and make what ever is the next big thing (garage in the 90s, dubstep in the noughties)

or

2 – Start their own label to which they will find that most of the (label owning) Djs who was supporting them before will not play their music for shit now as they are classed as competition and how dare they go try and expand the scene with their own label

Either way the scene looses another artist and continues on its path of self destruction

Iv’e been there done it and got the T shirt and the amount of bullshit I see on a daily basis you wouldn’t even begin to believe me if I told you.

This past 2 years has been the worst I have ever seen it with sales and gigs down all across the board the back stabbing and bullshit is at the highest its ever been.

The music now is of the worst its ever been with unimaginative sample pack and preset bashing – there is no innovators left all DNB has now is a group of controlled producers bashing out clones of what ever is flavour of the month because what ever one of the 4 main labels they are signed to has told them to make it

Even the majors dont want to sniff at DNB they would rather go find new artists like Rudimental or get pop producers to knock up drumstep tracks for Ellie Golding

To sum up what is left of a credible scene is nothing but the hood rats who before making music were busy robbing old ladies down hackney high street and who would fuck their own mum over for a fiver. Any artists trying to live the dream by signing with one of the main DNB labels I feel for you as you are about to have the very life sucked out of your body in return for nothing

You think the X factor winners have got a bum deal that’s nothing compared to life as a DNB producer

Omni Trio are brilliant, will have to check out the new stuff.

You know DJ Hidden is a name I haven’t heard in quite a long time. I did rate a couple of his tunes back a decade or so ago. Will have to check him out, nice one.