New Forms – Roni Size / Reprazent (1997)
By Rafi Mercer
Rhythm Made Visible
There’s a moment, about three minutes into Brown Paper Bag, when everything aligns — upright bass tumbling in perfect sync with clipped breakbeats, the snare snapping like fingers in a dark room, and that unmistakable vocal loop hovering above it all. The room changes temperature. The air sharpens. That’s the sound of New Forms: music that moves with precision but breathes like jazz, a record that made rhythm visible.
Released in 1997 on Mercury Records, New Forms wasn’t just a drum & bass album; it was a reimagining of what electronic music could be when built by musicians, not machines. Roni Size and his collective, Reprazent — Krust, DJ Die, Suv, Onallee, Dynamite MC, and a rotating circle of Bristol collaborators — constructed something that felt alive. It was an orchestra of rhythm, assembled from loops, samplers, and human hands.
The mid-1990s were a golden era for drum & bass. Goldie had already delivered the cathedral-scale grandeur of Timeless; LTJ Bukem had drawn the celestial architecture of Logical Progression; Photek had distilled the genre into precision with Modus Operandi. But New Forms did something else — it turned the club into a stage. It showed that a scene built on DJ culture could translate to live performance without losing its pulse.
The double album opens with Railing — a spoken-word invocation delivered over brushed beats and minimal bass. “The world is full of love,” the voice declares, as if setting the tone for what follows: rhythm not as aggression, but as communication. Then Brown Paper Bag arrives, its looping bassline instantly iconic — an elastic riff sampled from acoustic upright and played with the propulsion of funk. The rhythm dances between the lines: sharp, syncopated, precise, yet never mechanical.
What follows is a series of evolutions, each track exploring a different geometry of motion. New Forms glides with liquid chords and female vocals that sound as if they were recorded underwater. Share the Fall, with Onallee’s soulful phrasing, fuses broken-beat urgency with gospel warmth. Matter of Fact dives into darker territory, bass like engine noise, percussion splintering around the stereo field.
At its core, the album’s genius lies in how it reconciles opposites. It’s fiercely rhythmic yet deeply melodic. It’s dense with technology but performed with human energy. In the studio, Roni Size treated samplers like instruments, building tracks layer by layer rather than through looping. He wasn’t just programming — he was composing. Each element was a part in a live arrangement.
That approach translated seamlessly to the stage. The New Forms tour was legendary: full live band, real drums, bass, keyboards, and MCs, all playing in perfect time with sequenced elements. It was drum & bass made tactile — an entire genre redefined as performance art. Watching it unfold, you realised this was jazz for a new generation: improvisation through circuitry, rhythm as conversation.
When played in a listening bar, New Forms has a unique physicality. The bass doesn’t just fill the room — it moves it. The double bass samples resonate through the floorboards, while the snares flicker in the upper frequencies like sparks. Through a high-end system, every hi-hat feels alive, every reverb tail perfectly placed. It’s kinetic, but never chaotic. The groove breathes.
There’s a cinematic depth to tracks like Heroes and Ballet Funk, where Roni Size’s production drifts between breakbeat intricacy and symphonic sweep. Watching Windows pairs a dusty Rhodes loop with haunting vocals, the sound both intimate and vast. Each track feels like a scene — part of an unfolding urban symphony.
What makes New Forms endure is its optimism. Even in its darker moments, there’s a sense of forward motion — of music built to uplift rather than overwhelm. That was the Bristol ethos: rhythm as resilience. The city had long been a crucible for sound system culture, where reggae basslines met punk energy and hip-hop’s DIY ethic. You can hear that fusion in every groove here — the warmth of dub, the intricacy of jazz, the discipline of drum programming.
When New Forms won the Mercury Prize in 1997, it was a watershed moment. For the first time, a drum & bass album stood shoulder to shoulder with Britpop and rock heavyweights. It wasn’t just a cultural nod; it was a recognition that electronic music had matured. Roni Size didn’t just represent a scene — he expanded it.
The album cover — minimalist, geometric, almost scientific — reflected the sound within: sleek, structured, modular. Each track felt like a cell in motion. You could study it under a microscope and still find new layers — tiny hi-hat ghost notes, reversed cymbal swells, subtle reverb that made the air itself part of the mix.
I remember the first time I played Brown Paper Bag on vinyl in a well-tuned room. The needle dropped, and the bass rolled in like a wave. You could see people’s expressions change — a mix of curiosity and recognition. It’s the kind of track that reveals itself differently depending on where you stand. Near the sub, it’s physical; near the bar, it’s melodic. Everywhere, it’s alive.
In the lineage of the Circles era — from Goldie’s grandeur to Bukem’s liquidity to Photek’s restraint — New Forms occupies a middle ground: rhythmic freedom with compositional clarity. It’s the bridge between underground craft and mainstream recognition, between rave energy and slow-listening design.
Even now, more than twenty-five years later, it sounds remarkably current. You can hear its DNA in acts like Submotion Orchestra, Floating Points, and The Cinematic Orchestra. The idea that electronic rhythm can be played, that it can evolve in real time, that it can be both cerebral and soulful — that starts here.
In a culture obsessed with endless newness, New Forms reminds us that innovation doesn’t have to be loud. It can arrive with grace, with groove, with quiet revolution. Roni Size and Reprazent didn’t just make a record; they built a method — one that still shapes how we think about sound, performance, and the listening experience itself.
When the last notes of Destination fade, what lingers isn’t the beat — it’s the balance. The sense that rhythm, when treated with care, can articulate everything: joy, movement, purpose, peace. That’s the promise of New Forms. Rhythm made visible.
Rafi Mercer writes about the spaces where music matters. For more stories from Tracks & Tales, subscribe, or click here to read more.
