Drill'n'Bass

Soon after album-based British techno producers like Aphex Twin and Squarepusher got their hands on drum'n'bass during the mid-'90s, they naturally twisted it to their own ends. The result was Drill'n'bass, a spastic form of breakbeat jungle that relied on powerful audio software and patient programming to warp old midtempo beats and breaks into a frenzied, experimental potpourri of low-attention-span electronic music. Beginning in mid-1995, three figures led the charge with pioneering EPs: Aphex Twin (Hangable Auto Bulb), Luke Vibert's Plug project (Plug 1), and Squarepusher (Conumber). The following year, drill'n'bass went overground with full-length releases by each of the above, most notably Plug's Drum'n'bass for Papa and Squarepusher's debut album Feed Me Weird Things. Soon the rush was on, and a group of artists emerged with immediately identifiable ties to drill'n'bass, including Animals on Wheels, Amon Tobin, Mung, and Plasmalamp. Drill'n'bass receded into the deep underground by 1998, an unsurprising event given the style's extreme nature.