WOMAD

Roni Size Reprazent

From United Kingdom

1997 was a pretty minty year for long-playing records. Radiohead's OK Computer, the Chemical Brothers' Dig Your Own Hole and the Cornershop classic When I Was Born For The 7th Time all emerged that year but each were cast into shade, at least in the eyes and ears of the Mercury Music Prize panel, by an astonishing record postmarked 'Bristol' - New Forms by Roni Size and Reprazent. Almost immediately it became a benchmark release, a frenetic and fascinating record that (cliche alert!) sounded several years ahead of its time. And, thanks largely to the Mercury gong, it was a record that inadvertently made drum & bass a chosen specialist subject of the dinner party brigade. But, most importantly (and confirmed by Reprazent's dynamite live shows) that drum & bass could work in a band setting, that it wasn't just the reserve of one guy behind a pair of decks. More than ten years on, Size remains one of drum & bass's most articulate and passionate ambassadors, and earlier this year gave New Forms a re-edit and a reissue. Not that, of course, it's a record that 11 years on sounds remotely dated.

Biog by Nige Tassell