Music

London's Electronic Expansions

Bugz in the Attic's Seiji

by Charles Mudede

Because there are more cattle than people (three to one) in the country of Botswana, it's not surprising that in 1993 (or thereabouts) the most popular dance in the nightclubs of the country's capital, Gaborone, involved imitating the movements of a cow. As the hiphop or funk jam played, people on the dance floor would bend over, let their arms hang, and move their shoulder blades up and down to the beat of the music. It was a convincing imitation, and those who mastered the dance mastered the dance floor.

The reason for mentioning this cow dance, whose popularity never went beyond the borders of Botswana, is to show how the dance floor can be a space of pure invention and spontaneity. Recently, however, much of this creative potential has been stifled, and what one finds when visiting, say, a black nightclub is a direct reflection of what's screened on cable TV. Music videos have thoroughly colonized the dance floor. This is why the broken-beats movement is liberating. For the past three or so years, DJs and producers like Seiji, of the London-based Bugz in the Attic collective, have been working hard to reclaim the dance floor and make it once again a space of invention.

Seiji's music promotes creative expression and has an intelligence that is not intellectual, like intelligent drum 'n' bass, or abstract, like abstract hiphop--both of which are heady and of no use to those who want do their thing on the dance floor. It is a somatic intelligence, one that speaks the language of the body, and establishes on the dance floor a democracy of sound and movement rather than a strict dictatorship of the beat.

Most of the songs on his marvelous collection of remixes, Seiji Remixes, open with a long instrumental passage that prepares the body for what the singer has to say. The singers on these tracks invariably offer positive messages through vocals that are rich in soul, elaborating with each elasticated word or measured moan the substance of a warm being. The singers, like the music, appeal to the intelligence of the body, which, once on the dance floor, is free to be creative.

charles@thestranger.com

Buy Tickets for Other Events