the genre known as dubstep - search and destroy

we prob need a funkstep thread. id put that in funky myself.

I've only dipped my toes in the dubstep stream with criticaly vetted urban alienation things (Burial, Shackleton, Code 9), but fell in love with a track from this year that is a bit more on a Massive Attack/loved up vibe: Blue Daisy (featuring LaNote) - Space Ex. Who else should I be listening to on the hypnagogic lover's dub side?

i wish shackleton's three EP's was critically vetted

Derelict, try this :
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jZnDiO0M1Fs

not much talk about shackleton's three EPs, i see

besides a few mentions here, not even a thread on ILX

bummer because i think it's really really good

I'm sure it got some love elsewhere (bobbins thread? in amongst the redshape talk iirc); yeah it's good

I'll add to the dogpile, I have been giving it pretty heavy headphone listening and can't wait to listen to it more at home

it's a huge massive slab of sound and intricate rhythms

love it

headphones really make it. "mountains of ashes" kills me when the bass come in.

"asha in the tabernacle" and "moon over joseph's burial" are incredible - great album

dont really like shackleton too much personally, apart from a few tracks. always found his older tracks really 'small' sounding for dubstep. keep meaning to persevere but cant be bothered.

"always found his older tracks really 'small' sounding for dubstep"

Don't understand this criticism at all. But his stuff only seems to have the barest connection w/ dubstep to me (and frankly he's outstripped those early Digital Mystikz tracks by a pretty large margin at this point.)

sacrilege. DMZ>>>shackleton all day. DMZ's range is much wider than anything i heard on that skull disco album. but then i dont really care much for his stuff as yeah it doesnt sound very dubsteppy at all, and well, hes even said hes not dubstep and doesnt care to be lumped in with it either from day one.

but the drums he uses/was using were really twee and thin and also quite 'kit' sounding which i wasnt too into.

Well the argument wasn't so much that Shackleton >>> DMZ as much as the Shackleton >>> the DMZ tracks like "Conference" or whatever. Range is overrated (also DMZ is three guys if you include Loefah so obv they are going to have more range. They've also released a lot of meh over the years.)

ha, i *really* like conference. remember hearing that on old youngsta sets without ever knowing what it was. but actually, that track, in so far as using similar sounds to shackleton, makes him sound lightweight and flimsy. mystikz is just two guys though, and im not sure how they divide production duties, whether its just coki doing it all one 1 track or mala or both together? not sure. i dunno what meh theyve made though, theyve actually released quite a small amount compared to guys like skream or benga.

is it just me or was martin clark kinda taking little shots at ramadanman and that whole style of dubstep-not-dubstep in the liners for dubstepallstars 7? dont blame him tbh, was pretty dull overall, but seemed a bit weird to include that on the cd its meant to be promoting!

dunno if its seen as midrange noisy shit but i really like skreams 'fick'. more gabbastep plz.

I haven't listened to early DMZ in a while, but from memory I feel like Shackleton's upped the general dissonance level and claustrophobia over their stuff.

Meh stuff includes basically everything released under the Digital Mystikz name post-2006 w/ the stuff they've done for Soul Jazz being particularly unnoteworthy.

fair enough, i didnt much like either box of dub compilation really.

what are the best shackleton tracks that youd recommend?

I really like most of his stuff (spoken word nonsense aside), but these are pretty representative:

"Hamas Rule"
"Blood On My Hands"
"You Bring Me Down"
"El Din (Part One)"
"Asha In The Tabernacle"

Shackleton's remix of Moderat - Rusty Nails is great too
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rUtUT_Isx1A

@titchy - yes, isn't that what critical writing is all about?

Is critical writing what liner notes are all about though?

martinclark, ive no problem with critical writing, esp about dubstep. just surprised it was what ended up being in a compilations liner notes, where usually the aim id say is largely to enthuse the listener about whats on the album or just to fill in background. tbh, i agreed with what you wrote about the 2nd cd, its largely grey, bland, wishy washy stuff, but was just surprised. no sendage intended.

its weird, but as 'white' as many ppl thought dubstep sounded, reggae influences and all, the ramadanman end of dubstep is even 'whiter' in many ways really isnt it?

can anyone help me identify this techy dubstep tune? trying to help out a mate.

http://www.sendspace.com/file/nu2900

its weird, but as 'white' as many ppl thought dubstep sounded, reggae influences and all, the ramadanman end of dubstep is even 'whiter' in many ways really isnt it?

I don't think you can reduce it down like that. Digital Mystikz like "black" signifiers, while producers like Distance sound very "white". Ramadanman tunes likes "Blimey" and "Wad" are much less "white" than most dubstep (aping early Metalheadz and early Full Cycle, and uk funky respectively) whereas, say, his productions with Appleblim - which are basically Hidden Agenda X european tech-house influences - obv are more so.

I think basically we're looking at one range of stylistic cues versus another, both of which range between "blackness" and "whiteness".

If what you meant was that dubstep had a white middle class student vibe, and the new dubstep-not-dubstep crowd even more so, then yes, this is possibly correct, though the difference is fairly slight I think - Ramadanman-fan types are more likely perhaps to be into a broader range of house/techno, which dilutes the "purity" of dubstep as a scene I guess.

saw this on dissensus. a best dubstep tracks of the 00s list -

http://www.kmag.co.uk/editorial/features/essential-dubstep-tracks-of-the-00s

kinda predictable (hard to complain too much really tho - if only cos a lot of the biggest/well known tracks in dubstep also = the best) but some enjoyably surprising entries (plodder!) in there too.

can anyone recommend me tracks or artists that sound like Instra:mental's sublime "Watching You"?

Instra:mental have another track like that... "Leave it All Behind". Quite good.

Scuba's new Substance mix is very nice. I was ambivalent about his mixes up to this point but am really getting into this one. Properly takes off when the icey stabs of the Untold track kick in.

WHat's the name of the track that samples this song?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ocv2WJOjxD8

http://soundcloud.com/benny-berigan/benny-berigan-caravan

^ this does (heavily) but it ain't dubstep

Mmm.. That's not the one (but I like it). I'm sure there's a recent dance tune (not sure if it's dubstep) that nicks the tune off Caravan.

did anyone hear mark pritchard's Harmonic 313 album from last year? a friend put Cyclotron on a mix for me recently and i'm pretty into it.

Scuba's new Substance mix is very nice.

otm

The Mala track on that mix is an absolute beast ('Stand against war'). Love that guy.

who's currently worth checking out in the classic halfstep wobble canon ?

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2710/4325099139_57c8852e16.jpg

Psssh, that's Olde News.

our latest Rinse show: http://relay.exequo.org/rinsefm/podcast/DuskBlackdown28110.mp3
tracklist here: http://blackdownsoundboy.blogspot.com/2010/01/rinse-january.html

In other Olde News, getting myself better acquainted with 5 years of Hyperdub, this is just killing me/has made me reconsider my ambivalence to a lot of Hyperdub stuff.

In semi related matters, why Digidesign seems to have topped all sorts of 2009 lists but Purple City not so much? And I think I might prefer "Stash" from the Hyperdub Comp to both of them.

Then again, I only recently found out I like Joker, so...

so, 30th January 2008 i posted this:

the genre known as dubstep - search and destroy

Kode9's Nine Samurai. have always wondered where the tune came from, figured it was classical russian dudes. today i found out (and it's blindingly obvious) - http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0047478/ (Kurosawa's Seven Samurai from 1954!, runs all the way through it in various guises)

so the new issue of woofah is out at last -
http://www.thefear.ie/woofah/woofah_4/WOOFAH_4_380px.jpg
worth a read.
i miss reading about this sort of stuff in magazines.

tho i think some of the design cd be a bit better. not that its bad, but the whole glossy thing doesnt really seem right to me for some reason. i liked how it looked when it was all just black and white and looked a bit fanziney. so on the next issue id like to see it look more like a lovingly stapled photocopy with weird drawings of skream and benga or something.

vex'd were on the breezeblock again last night previewing the new / old album (it only got half finished at the time, they've finished it off / padded it out with remixes). sounded great (although that may've been the old old tracks they included)

available on iplayer for another 7 days - http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b006wqb7