Drill'n Bass

Drill'n'bass takes the 160-180 BPM frame of drum-and-bass and pushes the editing density toward IDM and breakcore territory: snares are chopped at 32nd-note resolution, breakbeats are re-triggered into rolls that no human drummer could play, and basslines often borrow jazz, funk, or fusion harmony rather than the dub-derived low end of mainstream d&b. Tracks are mostly written for home listening — short, structurally compressed, often switching idea every eight or sixteen bars — though Squarepusher's records borrow live electric-bass virtuosity that bridges back toward fusion.

The term circulated in UK music press around 1997-1998 to describe Aphex Twin's 'Come to Daddy' EP material, Squarepusher's 'Hard Normal Daddy' (1997) and 'Music Is Rotted One Note' (1998), and Luke Vibert and Mike Paradinas (mu-Ziq) on similar tracks. Warp and Rephlex Records were the main labels. Drill'n'bass is closely related to and often overlaps with breakcore and the harder side of IDM, and the boundaries are negotiable rather than rigid.

Compare an 'organic' drum-and-bass track from the same era with a drill'n'bass piece: the high-level tempo and arrangement are similar but the snare hits in drill'n'bass have been individually moved or repitched in software, which gives them a slightly inhuman feel even when the broad pattern sounds normal. Squarepusher's bass playing — real electric bass, very fast, very clean — is one of the genre's signatures.

Squarepusher, 'Come On My Selector' (from 'Big Loada', 1997). Venetian Snares' edge of the field with 'Hajnal' (2005). Aphex Twin, 'Come to Daddy' EP (1997) for the original press-coined reference.

Drill'n'bass is one of the genres most often coined by the music press rather than by artists — Squarepusher (Tom Jenkinson) has publicly said he doesn't think of his music as a genre at all, much less as drill'n'bass.