struck me that some of the reservations I have with the nu-IDM/nuum-IDM/nuum-not-nuum zone are basically down to the fact that it is the 14th year of Neurofunk

Check the argument here and here -- from "some of the year's most striking and accomplished" dance music to "yet leaves me cold" to "not generating any potent cliches, just a series of subtle tweaks and involuted nuances"

it's all horrible applicable

the sallow faced engineers, the middle class boys trying to talk street

you could even cast funky house as the speed garage in this scenario

except this neurofunk mark 2 is smart enough, has learned from the mistakes of drum'n'bass, and is trying to assimilate some of that funky energy into its everywhichway eclectoid thang

the cul de sac that it is heading into is not the cul de sac of purism

but a paradoxical cul de sac of impurism

somehow all these different sources and inputs are pulled in and yet still somehow isn't that varied, that surprising, that new

a paradoxical hetero-homogeneity of texture and vibe

all this energy, inventiveness, litheness and yet it all ends up sounding pretty much the same