Drumsound & Bassline Smith bring together the Drumsound partnership of Andy Wright and Benjamin Wiggett with Simon Bassline Smith. They met at Derby's Technique club nights in 1998, combining different routes into the music: Wright's training and indie-rock background, Wiggett's enthusiasm for drum and bass, and Smith's experience with funk, soul, and the early jungle scene. Their recording name represents three collaborators, even though it joins two established artist identities.
Technique Recordings began in 1999, providing a home for their work together. The first release appeared under the shorter Future Tech name. Looking back with UKF, they described the partnership as a chance to make something beyond what they could do individually. I Need Your Love followed in 2000, drawing on Amen breaks and broad pads, while Badman reflected their interest in the relationship between jungle and newer drum and bass production.
The album Nature of the Beast arrived in 2004, the same year that Odyssey appeared on Grooverider's Prototype Recordings. Their later output also brought vocal-led singles and collaborations into the catalogue: Freak and Close appeared in 2011, followed by What Can You Do for Me with Utah Saints in 2012. The artist's own published recordings include Through The Night (feat. Tom Cane). Across that history, the trio have discussed changing their sound while retaining the influence of the breaks, basslines, and records that first brought them together.
The third album, Wardance, released in 2017, returned to their original breaks and deep bass with the production experience they had accumulated since. They told UKF that much of it came together in an intense period of studio work, with tracks tested at festivals as they developed. Their wider range also appears in the reworking of their own Freestyle Mambo for V Recordings, whose label notes explicitly describe its jump-up direction.
