How Kevin Saunderson’s Reese bassline transformed UK dance music

In dance music culture a number of musical elements have come to be definitive in their impact and usage; the Amen break, hoover bass, 808 cowbell, rave stabs, the iconic 303 acid line, the 909 kick drum and more. Among this list of legendary sounds is the Reese bass. Universal in its ability to send the dancefloor into uproar, and ubiquitous in its use across genres, Reese bass has a formidable reputation. Originally created by Detroit techno pioneer Kevin Saunderson for his seminal track ‘Just Want Another Chance’ in 1988. Released on Incognito Records under his Reese alias (hence the b-line being christened with that tag, which stems from Kevin’s middle name Maurice), it was the A3 version - essentially what some have called a “bass-a-pella” - on the vinyl release that allowed enough space for would-be samplers to grab a clean sample of the Reese bassline.

“Sometimes when you make music, you get little visions for inspiration. You want to try shit. So I had this idea to create this dark track, that was smooth, that Larry Levan could play at the Paradise Garage,” Kevin explains. “I don't even know if he was still playing there at that time, but this track is made for the Paradise Garage. I’d been there several times. So I just imagined the soundsystem, the atmosphere and people dancing.”

The idea of a dark track being played at the Paradise Garage may be confusing to some, but the musical selection wasn’t always “hands in the air” disco fever. Kevin cites ‘Face It’ by Master C&J with Liz Torres, or ‘Time Warp’ by Eddie Grant, among the darker cuts that would occasionally creep in at Paradise Garage. These darker excursions would break things up, in between music from Sister Sledge or Chaka Khan, for example. “It was a very unique place, and underground at the same time. So, you hear those speakers and you feel that vibe, I could definitely visualise it,” Kevin says. The brooding sensuality in ‘Just Want Another Chance’ was crafted for an iconic dancefloor, with its hushed vocals and lascivious atmosphere.

On the technical side of things, Kevin used a Casio CZ, although he can’t quite remember exactly which model it was, the 1000, 3000 or 5000. Whichever it was, the vintage synth provided the perfect analogue setting for Kevin to create a bassline that would go on to influence countless artists years later. “I really just got into the parameters, laid some drums down, started messing around with a few different riffs or basslines. But wasn't really there at the time,” he explains. “The patterns were there, but it wasn't coming together. Sometimes you create a line and it doesn't sound good or it’s not where you want it, and then you go in and start messing with the parameters, and the oscillators, the resonance, decay, or whatever. So that's what I did. I started out on a patch that was okay, and then it evolved by me just using my ear and turning knobs until I got it to a point where I was like, ‘Wow, that's it!’ You don’t forget those magical moments.”

Thanks to Discogs user Mikhail.Khaliulin, who created a spreadsheet to log historic usage of the Reese bass, we can see that the bassline appeared intermittently between 1988 and 1994. Most notably, New York veteran Lenny Dee utilised it in his ‘Lenny Does London Mix’ of ‘Rock And Boogie Down’ by Anthony Acid in 1989 - an underground classic in London and New York. It also appeared on an early sample pack called Zero-G Datafile Vol.2 (18m 46s here), put together by British artist Ed Stratton (AKA Man Machine). Ed made the charts in 1988 with 'The Jack That House Built' under the alias Jack'N'Chill with Vlad Naslas. By 1993 it had appeared on hardcore track ‘Dreams Of Heaven (Chance Mix)’ by Inta Warriors (AKA Grooverider).

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The following year marked a pivotal moment for the Reese bassline when Ray Keith, with Nookie on engineering duty, created a devastatingly powerful musical alchemy when he combined the Reese bassline with the Amen break on his iconic jungle tune ‘Terrorist’, under the alias Renegade. This was a launchpad moment for the Reese as a sample, as what many consider to be one of the greatest jungle tunes of all time ripped up dancefloors left, right and centre. ‘Terrorist’ provided peak moments in the sets of every DJ that had the chance to play it, and it wasn’t long before other producers jumped on it to harness its power.

“Obviously Kevin Saunderson used it in ‘Just Want Another Chance’. We looked up to Kevin, Juan Atkins, Derrick May, these guys were seminal producers,” Ray Keith explains. “I was inspired by them because I wanted to leave my own legacy of being one of the pioneers of jungle music. That's what I strive for. I strive for excellence, really, because these guys had set the benchmark so high that I was like, ‘Wow, could we ever even achieve that?’ And I was young then, I didn't give a fuck. I was fearless.”

“I actually bought a Sequential Circuits keyboard after I'd sampled it [the Reese], and I played the riff with my own interpretation of what I wanted to do,” he continues. “And Grooverider used it. So many people used it. Ed Rush & Optical used it. Trace used it. It’s one of those sounds, like an 808 bassline, that will never go away. Rudimental have used it. It's been used in commercial tunes. Certain sounds change the soundscape of tunes.”

‘Terrorist’ was emphatic and definitive, elevating the Reese bassline and it became the catalyst behind a chain of events that would lead to widespread use across jungle and drum ’n’ bass. “In a year of unbelievable amounts of tunes that came out, that particular one was the standout tune in most DJ sets at most big raves,” says DJ Trace, who has incorporated Reese into many of his tunes over the years. “The thing I always liked was that it caught everyone's attention, and everyone was locked in on that sound. It brought a kind of theatrical drama to whatever rave it was being played at.”

“I was lucky enough to hear it in a massive big top tent rave. I can't remember exactly which one it was, either an Energy or something like that,” he continues. “I just knew, as soon as you heard it, as a producer, I was like, ‘Well, that's getting sampled next week in the studio!’ Because, the way he put it out there, it was there for the taking.” In ‘Terrorist’ the Reese has a standalone appearance in the intro, with no samples or breaks, giving producers the perfect opportunity to sample it and repurpose it for their own tracks.

Ray Keith himself used it many times around that period, DJ Rap, Marvellous Cain (with the legendary ‘Hitman’), Danny Breaks on ‘Easy Pt.1’, which was massive in 1995, Dr. S. Gachet with ‘Remember The Roller’ and the humongous ‘Black’ by DJ SS, also in ‘95. According to the aforementioned spreadsheet there were 54 tunes that used Reese in 1995, as opposed to just seven the previous year. In 1995, Alex Reece made ‘Pulp Fiction’, taking the Reese into new territory with its two-step rhythmic structure and jazzy atmosphere. To say it became prevalent is an understatement.

“I went to hang out with Fabio & Grooverider at Rage and almost every track they played, let's say 90% of them, had the Reese. I was blown away,” Kevin tells us, describing the first time he heard his infamous bassline being used in other tracks. “That's the first time I heard these tracks and people are screaming and getting off. Another Reese track, another Reese track! They changed the lines around a little, changed some notes around, but you had that dark vibe going on, mixed in with this up tempo drum’n’bass, with this really good groove that people were just bouncing to. It blew me away, I had no clue.”

Another significant point in the timeline of the Reese bassline came when Trace and the crew that was operating out of the No U Turn studio in Acton, West London, put their stamp on it. “The following year, when I was doing a lot of productions at Monroe Studios in Holloway Road, it came out quite a lot of times,” Trace explains. “Working with Pete Parsons, Ed Rush or whoever, because, at that time, it was a prime jungle sample. So everyone was having a go with it.”

Working in the No U Turn studios with Nico Sykes, who came from a rock background, led to a happy accident, or experiment, that was the catalyst behind a new, gnarly incarnation of the Reese.

“The turning point was when Nico decided to marry the Reese bassline with the Boss SD-1 Overdrive guitar pedal, which was made in 1981 and used by legendary people like Van Halen to boost the mid range out of the bass and add more dynamics to it,” Trace tells us. “Which is exactly what happened when we pushed it through the pedal. Everyone in the studio was like, ‘Oh, here we go!’. It was a light bulb moment. Now we've got this Reese that really cuts through the mix. That's basically how we created our own special sauce. As soon as we realised that we had this new version of, it was just like, ‘Well, we're going to use this on everything.’”

Optical, who was also involved with the No U Turn Studios crew, confirms this. “There were a few years where I probably worked on one track a week with Reese in it,” he says. “I think the point where I couldn't do anymore was with ‘Lokuste Mix’. The breakdown of that used every trick in the book, every single way of mangling it that we had available at that time. After that, I tried to knock it on the head for a bit. But, there was a good four, five, six, years of using it every week.”

Trace, Optical, Nico, Ed Rush and Fierce incorporated this mutated version of Reese into a plethora of their tracks from the mid-'90s onwards, parallel to the development of what many refer to as “techstep”. It was an essential component, lacing their tracks with venom that cut through and took the Reese bass into new territory.

What made the techstep reincarnation of Reese so potent was the enhancement of the mid-range through the guitar pedal they used. “The distorted versions are flat lined, basically. So they're just maximum level all the way through the note, so any riff you play is going to be super powerful,” Optical explains. “It'll come out very clear, even at high levels. Also, because of the mid range distortion, you can actually hear the tuning of the sub better, so it's easier to hear the actual riff being played in it.”

It was part of an evolution that defined a darker, more industrial style of drum ‘n’ bass. Tunes like Trace ‘Sonar’, Ed Rush & Fierce ‘Locust’, DJ Trace remix of ‘Mutant Jazz’ by T Power and the genre-defining ‘Mutant Revisited’ (featuring the iconic Tramen break pioneered by Trace via Dom & Roland), Ed Rush, Optical & Fierce ‘Custlo’ (Lokuste Remix) and ‘Alien Girl’, Fierce & Nico ‘Input’, and many many others from that stable established the techstep sound, with twisted Reese often lying at the heart of their innovative productions. This era would lead on to acts like Bad Company and, later, Noisia, taking the sound even further. From the modulated Reese on ‘Titan’ by Ram Trilogy to Doc Scott’s inspired manipulation of Reese on his remix of his own tune ‘Shadow Boxing’ and Konflict’s savage interpretation on ‘Messiah’, a whole wave of d‘n’b demonstrated just how twisted the bassline can become.

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But it wasn’t just d‘n’b where Reese was making its presence felt. Producers elsewhere were also experimenting with Kevin Saunderson’s iconic sound. Most notably, garage artists took the bassline and gave it new meaning under four-to-the-floor beats. In 1995, a remix of Donald O’s ‘I Got Love In My Heart’ helped introduce Reese bass into garage DJs’ sets. The rework was by Xen Mantra, an alias of Altern-8 co-founder Mark Archer. The track pairs the ominous darkness of Reese bass with Donald O’s soulful vocals and the smoothness of garage house production.

Perhaps one of the most seminal cuts to implement Kevin’s Reese bass was the aptly-named ‘Stone Cold’ by Groove Chronicles (Noodles and El-B). The track, released in 1998, is a smooth production with Aaliyah samples, which features an almighty switch up halfway through, when the Reese comes in and changes the vibe dramatically. “It was an idea, plain and simple, an idea. It dropped in the middle and I was pretty much like, ‘That will work’ at the time,” Noodles explains. “I was working in Unity records. So all I heard was b-line all day. Most of us have come from that era of drum ‘n’ bass. I still use drum ‘n’ bass as a reference to what I do now, it's in me. I've got fucking tons of it.”

“I first played it in Twice As Nice on a Sunday, because I was playing there quite regularly,” he continues. “In the beginning, they didn't get it. They didn't get it until the bassline come through. DT was on the mic, and he went all the way to the back and he was like, ‘The bass is wicked!’, and I’m like, ‘Great!’”. With his background working in record shops, Noodles was exposed to a wide range of musical styles, witnessing the proliferation of the Reese first-hand. ‘Stone Cold’ stands out as a milestone moment in garage, for its originality in the way the bassline was employed to switch up the mood.

“That's the only bassline, at the time, that you felt and heard,” Noodles says. “We were listening to American music and taking elements for our own stuff, but the Reese itself, nobody had done that before. Nobody, nobody. So hearing that and thinking, ‘This is fucking heavy’, we took it. From 4Hero to Dillinja to Lemon D, that bassline meant something to what we were doing here.”

In 1997 another standout moment occurred when 187 Lockdown released ‘Gunman’, a track that was part of the birth of what was known as speed garage. The tune has echoes of the jungle era - gunshots, dancehall influences and ragga samples - combined with the intensity of the Reese bass, which makes it a standout track in most DJ sets. Speed garage and bassline, developed in and around the culture of Sheffield’s Niche club, popularised the use of Reese and the “warp” bass found on jungle tune ‘Dred Bass’.

“I first heard it in speed garage tunes, when I was like 17,” says Silva Bumpa. “I would probably say Big Ang ‘Selector’, something like that. Classic bassline, but with the speed garage feel to it.” His modern-day take on classic speed garage and bassline styles has made him one of today’s foremost artists for that sound. “As I got into music, I started learning that sound had been used for quite a lot longer, in jungle and techno records.”

“I remember having a sample pack and finding that bass. And I was like, ‘Oh my days, I can start making speed garage now!’. It's been a massive part of my production. I think I've probably made more tunes with the Reese bass in them than without. So I'm definitely an avid user,” he adds, explaining that he followed online tutorials to learn how to make, and manipulate, his own Reese basslines and now has his own personal collection. Again, it’s the sheer power of the bassline that has made it such a popular choice through the speed garage and bassline community.

“The fundamental of the sound is that it's very simple. It doesn't take up much of the frequency spectrum, so you're leaving a lot of space for the vocals, and there's other sounds on top of it,” Silva Bumpa explains, taking us deeper into the technical aspect of Reese bass. “Going into the science, it gives you a good base to work from, it's not too much, but it's just enough to give you that power and that movement that you need.”

“It’s like a producer’s dream because, to have a bass really hit, you need that low frequency, you need the sub, the things you're going to feel. But you also need that extra frequency above it, that makes it pop through in the speakers,” he adds. “Because it’s two saw waves that are slightly detuned, you've got a lot more frequency information in the low end than you would normally get in any other bass.”

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“I’ve always had an original sample WAV of the processed Reese, straight out the studio. I've carried it around in my sample bag for years,” Trace says. “Last year, I decided to take it out again.. it's never going to hurt to take a Reese out and have another go at it. The end result was a track that came out on Metalheadz called ‘Raptor’. It was a collab tune with HLZ, and he elevated it even more than I can in my humble studio. I've been trying to get on Metalheadz for my whole career. I finally managed to do it 30 years later, and it was Reese that got me there!”

From its beginnings on the Casio CZ, inspired by the Paradise Garage, to tearing up dancefloors across mid-'90s UK and conquering the world, through numerous mutations and adaptations in various genres, the Reese bassline is an inherent part of the electronic music canon. The bassline underpins practically the whole of Burial’s ‘Untrue’ LP, for instance. Without it, a whole lot of tunes, experiences, energy and memories would be missing from the history of dance music culture. The perfect bassline to put a soundsystem through its paces and send the dancefloor into an uproarious frenzy.

“It's nice to be recognised for what you accomplished and achieved. My goal was to make music from the heart,” Kevin says. “I've always believed that the music we were creating was the future, and there was no doubt about that. Even when people just didn't get it here in Detroit, they were gonna get it eventually, one way or the other. It just took time. and it started spreading, like a virus.”

“It's in DAW sample libraries. It's all over, and they didn't change the name or anything. It's Reese, that’s quite a compliment,” he concludes. “And it’s an achievement that I’ve been blessed enough to create something that has not only inspired me, but inspired other producers and DJs. Being able to put it out there, in a musical way, which has touched people as well. That's the power of being an innovator, I guess.”

Blackout Mixmag is an editorial series dedicated to Black artists, issues and stories, first launched in 2020. Our 2025 features are co-guest edited by Kevin Saunderson and Kwame Safo (AKA Funk Butcher). Read all of the previously published pieces here

Marcus Barnes is a freelance writer and regular contributor to Mixmag, follow him on Instagram. Listen to Marcus' 'Ode To The Reese Bassline' playlist below