We all dig some serious bass these days – given that my favourite artists are funkers, house acts, synth wielders in general – I certainly do. But it seems like I’ve been listening to a lot of music that consciously avoids clogging up the bass recently. Even more oddly the artists are conspicuous for their bass deployment: Bootsy, Prince, New Order…
In the case of Bootsy, if you pick almost any Rubber Band track, the low-end is occupied more by the drums – toms and even chunky snares as much as kick – than Bootsy himself. It also leaves a niche for Bernie Worrell to insert his unique lines. Everybody’s favourite funkateer lands above it with the extra high frequencies of the distortion and Mu-Tron sweeps, quite apart from the fact his lines are often clanking around higher frets anyway. That last point is generally agreed to be the defining sound of Joy Division and New Order: Peter Hook’s home territory of the top half of the neck. It still clunks nicely, but it leaves plenty of space for a DMX or acoustic kick – or a deep, pained voice in the former case. And when Prince’s *When Doves Cry* came on the radio in 1984 it stood out a mile – because it’s amazingly crafted pop, but also because it doesn’t sport a bassline at all. The Linn had all that space to work.