While most of the world wasn't properly checking for American drum & bass until Hive and Gridlok started getting proper looks from the UK gatekeepers, the scene in New York City had me enamored. Through Soulslinger's Liquid Sky imprint I got put on to DJ WAlly, who was one of the first DJs I'd interacted with, even if the majority of our dealings were me saying "you're music is the shit" in AOL chatrooms. His Genetic Flaw album was everything to a young khal. And while he was primarily crafting trip-hop and other leftfield hip-hop instrumentals, he was slowly starting to work more in a jungle/drum & bass vibe, building a new guise, Pish Posh, to help usher in those 170BPM ditties. He ended up putting out two memorable albums (Up Jumps The Boogie and Indoor Storm) that are staples in my maturation as a junglist, and discs that anyone who followed drum & bass in the Northeastern U.S. knew front to back, as we'd travel to whatever party was closest to us with those discs blasting.
This was during the time when underground hip-hop imprint Rawkus was putting out remixes of Black Star on their Rawkuts imprint. That work put me onto what WAlly's homey DJ Seen was doing as a DJ and producer, and if you add in CT to the mix, this trio known as Burner Brothers helped shake the core of the American drum & bass scene in a short time, helping establish a NY sound and style that had no choice but to be picked up by ears across the U.S. and worldwide.
Fast forward a bunch of years and all three of these DJ/producers are doing their thing. Seen has kept DAD blessed with gems via the Patrol The Skies imprint, and still flies the Burner Brothers flag with CT. WAlly hasn't stopped producing, although a lot of his work was in the hip-hop realm, both for himself and other groups. WAlly has, though, re-emerged as Pish Posh, and today we have a full free album-length project from Pish Posh that Patrol The Skies let us drop for free. Entitled Genres, Pish Posh doesn't just delve into the jungle zone (although the appropriately-titled "Straight Classic" will have you looking for your Jungle Sky compilations). He does what he's done best, sifting through musical scenes and tempos, latching onto what works for him and creating entire worlds out of sound. From dubstep to more UK bass-centric tunes, WAlly truly does it all on this one.
If you'd told 16-year-old me that, one day I'd be running an electronic music site that would be helping give away a 12-track LP of tunes WAlly produced, I'd call you a damn fool. Joke's on me, I guess. If you're in NYC on May 22 and want to see the Burner Brothers, Pish Posh, MC Posi-D, and Subsonik represent on the decks, head on over to Leftfield for what should be a throwback American-bred dnb party. If you can't find your copy of Indoor Storm, maybe you can pre-game to Genres.
