Good Looking Records: LTJ Bukem and the intelligent sound

Not every strand of jungle was built for the heaviest bass. Good Looking Records, founded in 1991 by the producer LTJ Bukem, went in a different direction, and in doing so it helped define a style that is still loved today.

What the label stood for

Wikipedia describes Good Looking as a jungle and drum and bass record label that specialises in jazz influenced and atmospheric intelligent drum and bass. The word intelligent was used at the time for the more musical, home listening side of the genre. It was never meant as an insult to other styles, though it sometimes came across that way.

The label's sound used soft pads, piano chords and smooth breakbeats. It was music that worked in a club but also on headphones, and it opened drum and bass to listeners who might never have visited a rave.

The artists

The artists named by Wikipedia as having released on the label include LTJ Bukem himself, Blame, Photek, Blu Mar Ten, Seba, Source Direct, Makoto, Q Project and Peshay. It is an unusual list because it spans several styles. Photek and Source Direct, for example, are associated with a harder, more precise sound than the typical Good Looking release, yet they sat alongside softer names.

The sleeves

The label also had a visual identity. Following a hiatus in the mid 2000s, the 12 inch singles it issued were housed in a plain grey card sleeve with the label's logo on the front. Some drum and bass releases came under the banner of Looking Good Records, with nearly identical sleeves, the differences being the yellow spine of the Good Looking releases and the royal blue design of the Looking Good records.

It is the kind of detail that record collectors enjoy, and it shows how seriously the label took its own presentation.

A lasting influence

The sound that Good Looking championed has fed straight into the liquid drum and bass that is so popular today. Later labels such as Hospital Records built on the same appetite for melody and soul. When you hear a rolling, warm drum and bass track with a vocal on top, you are hearing the continuation of an idea that was already clear in the early 1990s.

To get to know the label, start with LTJ Bukem's own records, then work outward through the names above. You will hear how wide the range of the genre was even then.