BREAKING OUT OF THE COMA: BREAKS HAS A PULSE

The genre known as breaks, nu-skool breaks or breakbeat was long thought to be dead with many of the big name producers and DJs moving onto cooler ‘hype’ genres such as fidget, electro or nu-rave but Onion discovers the heart of breaks is still beating with passion and fire from some of the genre’s biggest names such as Krafty Kuts, Plump DJs and Australia’s Nick Thayer.

Around five years ago breakbeat was massive in Australia and beyond. Krafty Kuts was constantly in the top five as one of the most popular international DJs in this country according to the ITM50 DJ poll while Australia’s former prince of breaks, Kid Kenobi, took out the first three titles of that poll. Not only that but tunes from artists such as Stanton Warriors, Plump DJs, Freestylers and Krafty Kuts were not only getting thrashed in the clubs but on daytime radio while occasionally hitting the pop charts. Then along came electro house, nu-rave and fidget, which almost killed breaks, as many of the scene’s big names jumped ship while there were no new acts coming through with big tunes to replace the old guard, as Krafty Kuts recently told Onion.

“Basically a lot of leading lights left the breaks scene,” explains Krafty Kuts (Martin Reeves). “And to be honest I thought it was a shame that a lot of them left. I’m not going to mention any names but there was a good five to 10 artists that have gone to other forms of music and they’re just small fish in a big pond now. Whereas in breakbeat they were big fish and they were certainly shining but for some unknown reason they thought they could go onto bigger and better things or they just got bored with the music or whatever - I don’t know. But they certainly haven’t gone on to be instrumental and change the boundaries in other forms of music. It’s a shame because some of those guys were really important in making a scene continually grow and become better. And it’s difficult when there are only a few of us left to do that.”

Krafty Kuts along with Stanton Warriors and Plump DJs are the three big breaks names still flying the flag of their beloved genre. But where are the new guys coming through? Plump DJs’ Lee Rous told Onion that while the enthusiasm for the Plump’s hadn’t dwindled the lack of new producers had slowed the breaks scene.

“I think the demands out there still but unfortunately there hasn’t been an influx of new producers,” he explained. “That’s really left it up to most of the well-known breaks artists to keep making the music. It has, in a way, slowed the scene down.”

Why haven’t new breaks producers broken through?

“There’s been a big shift over the last five years,” answers Rous. “Just as breakbeat was really peaking, the vinyl/turntable DJ phenomenon started dropping off a little bit and what you’ve been left with is a lot of bedroom producers as opposed to bedroom DJs. That’s been fortunate because it’s given loads of people a voice and a chance to create music at home but the quality control isn’t there. If you can remember before you’d have a record shop, a record label, a distributor and vinyl would be vetted at every stage of that process, so by the time it got on the market it would be of ‘a standard’. A few years ago we had the internet and the breaks scene was just swamped with a lot of badly produced music. It’s really confused things. I think there’s still a lot of music out there but you’ve got to spend a lot of time seeking out the best bits.”

Australia’s leading exponent of breaks, Nick Thayer, says that breaks has now evolved and may not even be called breaks anymore.

“The guys that are making it are guys like Black Noise, Jack Beats, Klever, Will Styles and those sorts of guys,” says Thayer. “It’s not house music, it’s not breaks, it’s just good solid party club music really … There’s a lot of exciting sounds coming out but there are some people that have quite a narrow view of what breaks is supposed to be. In a broader context I think this is a sound that will come to the forefront but it will just have a different name.”

Does Thayer believe breaks became a dirty word hence it needs to be rebranded for the excitement or hype to return?


“To be honest people love the music and they certainly dance to it when you play it in a club and that kind of thing - they just won’t go out to a breaks party. I don’t think it’s become a dirty word, I think it’s just like everything; it’s become a disposed word. It was exciting but it’s not the new thing anymore and the sort of kids that are going out now, they want to do their own thing. They want to experience their own style of music. So, we’ve moved on from that, we’re doing a whole new thing now and so whatever you call it, it doesn’t really mater that much to me. At the end of the day people are in a club having a good time and whatever you’re calling the music is neither here or there to be honest.”

Krafty Kuts says he is looking forward to returning to Oz, so he can show us what we’ve been missing.

“I think breakbeat is always going to be widely appreciated in Australia,” he explains. “I think what’s happened is a lot of the main players, well they just haven’t been putting breakbeat acts on and because there are only a few of us left…  In all honestly let’s name them – Stanton Warriors, Plump DJs, Krafty Kuts and maybe Deekline & Wizard they are the only four breakbeat DJs. Years ago there was Rogue Elelment and Elite Force, Meat Katie etc and there was a huge amount of names that people would book and see at festivals. Now, they’re all gone and doing other types of things. People are only hearing minimal amounts of this music at big festivals. Stanton’s are coming over for Harbourlife and doing a club tour in November and hopefully with me bringing the funk back in the new year, people are going to be like, ‘Wow! Why did I ever have my doubts?’ Believe me that’s what I intend to bloody do, because I’m going to make people realise that they should never have even thought about forgetting about how good breakbeat is …  When I come back to Australia, it’s just not about fidget house and electro there’s something else out there.”

David Knight

To hear the still-beating pulse of breaks head to Midsummer Circus on Sun Jan 10 to catch Krafty Kuts and Rennie Pilgrem or pick up Krafty Kuts’ new double mix CD Against The Grain out on Against The Grain Records.

What are your thoughts – is nu-skool breaks dead or is breaks still beating? And who are the new names to share the limelight with the old guard?

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