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Drill 'n' bass is a subgenre of drum and bass which developed in the mid-1990s as IDM artists began experimenting with elements of breakbeat and jungle.[2] Artists utilized powerful audio software to program frenzied, irregular beats that often discouraged dancing.[2][3] The style was often interpreted as having a lightly parodic relationship with the dance styles that inspired it.[4]
AllMusic referred to the genre as "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."[2] Critic Simon Reynolds described it as "jungle by non-junglists for non-junglists," stating that producers are "free to take the idiomatic features of jungle — fucked-up breakbeats, mutant bass, sampladelic collage —and exacerbate them away beyond any conceivable use-value to DJ or dancer."[4] Author Peter Shapiro called it "double-time drum 'n' bass with impossible-to-dance-to rhythms and toilet humor."[1]
Early exponents of drill 'n' bass included Luke Vibert, Aphex Twin, and Squarepusher.[2][4] The style was pioneered by Vibert on his 1995 EPs under the name Plug.[5] Other pioneering releases included Aphex Twin's Hangable Auto Bulb EPs (1995) (under his AFX moniker) and Squarepusher's Conumber E:P (1995).[2] In 1996, the style appeared on long-form LPs such as Plug's Drum 'n' Bass for Papa and Squarepusher's Feed Me Weird Things.[2] The μ-Ziq album Lunatic Harness (1997) was described by The Quietus as an "immaculate example" of the style.[6]
Subsequent artists like Witchman, Animals on Wheels, Amon Tobin, Mung, and Plasmalamp also explored the style.[2][4] By the end of the 1990s, it had largely dissipated.[2] Later artists such as Kid606 drew on the style.[5] It would help produce the IDM spin-off genre breakcore, which took a more earnest and frenetic approach to the jungle sound.[4]
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