Obscure Sub-genre #1 - Nautical House

There’s a new sound ripping up the south coast of England, congregating in Plymouth and Portsmouth. It’s getting locals and those on shore-leave together in beautiful harmony, throwing shapes that would make Pop-eye cream his pants. This all encompassing, all enveloping, all embracing sound is “Nautical House”. Goodness knows how many things have been written about the way house music brings people together, so I’m not going to throw my pieces of eight in too, but I will quickly say that the violence that has scarred many a Friday night in these naval towns has all but disappeared since the emergence of this sub-scene last year. Coincidence?

As you can imagine Nautical House takes it’s inspiration from the sea. From sampling the sounds of waves and seagulls to incorporating melodies and rhythms of old sea shanties, this sounds like nothing you’ve heard before albeit the four to the floor house beat, naturally.

Portsmouth seems to favour a smoother organic almost Balearic strand of Nautical such as Fred Falke’s “8.08pm @ The Beach” while Plymouth, influenced by the great tradition of Acid music that spills out from Cornwall on the other side of the Tamar, tend to head for the harder, more breakbeat end of Nautical House. Check Cylob’s “Drunken Sailor”. You gotta be careful though, play out one style in the other town and you’ll sink quicker than the Kursk.

Whether this a video versus Betamax struggle for supremacy or just healthy variation in the scene remains to be seen, but hopefully this battle will be fought in the charts of 2010 than in the streets on the south coast.