Techstep did this too (this is part of the similarity) but the speed and the shameless use of breakdowns and climaxes gave it a sense of a broken machine spiralling out of control. With dubstep - slower and seemingly suspicious of the notion of song dynamic - that never happens.
The Dom & Roland Industry comparison makes a lot of sense for me, above and beyond the fact that Industry is definitely my favourite techstep album. I think Burial beats out Dom & Roland on the texture front, the warp and weave of the samples etc. But D&R beats out Burial on the beats/grooves front because, even when it's basically a straightforward 2-step groove (maybe 4 tracks or so), there's a real energy and intensity to the groove, a friction between the physicality of the beats and the lush mournfulness of the textures and melodies - when this is combined with an excitingly syncopated rhythm (on tracks like "Thunder", "Chained On Both Sides" and especially the peerless "Elektra") it's unstoppable.
It's clear that Burial can construct excitingly syncopated rhythms and on the best tracks that's what he does, but frequently he still sounds caught within dubstep's horizon of wounded undynamic grooves, like a post-Timbaland version of the leaden, lumpen boom-bap which drags down so much comparable downtempo.
― Tim Finney (Tim Finney), Thursday, 1 June 2006 22:15 (seventeen years ago) link
OTM. i just cannot get as excited about this as other things going on.
― trees (treesessplode), Thursday, 1 June 2006 22:58 (seventeen years ago) link
Finney's comments are akin to criticising Saint Etienne for not being Menswear.
― Marcello Carlin (nostudium), Friday, 2 June 2006 06:43 (seventeen years ago) link
NB 1. I don't have an issue with rhythms sounding like broken machines. It's just that ideally a broken machine should sound, well, dangerous, rather than merely, well mildly impaired.
NB 2. I'm not saying that the entire album suffers from this, only about half.
― Tim Finney (Tim Finney), Friday, 2 June 2006 09:09 (seventeen years ago) link
― Marcello Carlin (nostudium), Friday, 2 June 2006 09:11 (seventeen years ago) link
can someone finish this? industry is to blade runner as burial is to ... ? artificial intelligence??
― breakfast pants (disco stu), Friday, 2 June 2006 12:59 (seventeen years ago) link
― jewess harvell (dubplatestyle), Friday, 2 June 2006 13:33 (seventeen years ago) link
― Marcello Carlin (nostudium), Friday, 2 June 2006 13:46 (seventeen years ago) link
― gaseous (gaseous), Friday, 2 June 2006 20:08 (seventeen years ago) link
― tate (Tate), Friday, 2 June 2006 21:48 (seventeen years ago) link
― jed_ (jed), Friday, 2 June 2006 22:03 (seventeen years ago) link
I suspect I am not being particularly clear here:
I think (and it appears that I agree with you on this perhaps) the beats on Burial's album are best when they're not trying to be obviously dangerous, when they're at their loosest and prettiest, e.g. the first proper track and the track with the sampled reggae vocals towards the end (sorry I'm not totally on top of tracknames much yet). These tracks are still pretty dark sounding, but part of that is due to the thickness of the arrangements and the slightly foreboding use of spatialisation - the way the sounds emerge and recede so boldly. It's also partly due to what Simon R called the "murderous panache" (or something to that effect) of proper 2-step a la Artful Dodger - beats don't have to be obviously doom and gloom to feel threatening.
The weakest beats are the ones which cleave closest to the current dubstep norm of a sort of self-contained hard-brokenness. These ones seem to fall between two stools: they have that wounded, muscly quality of techstep, but none of the sense of release you get with the best techstep. It's most obvious on the Spaceape track but even with some of the better tracks like "Southern Comfort" I'm left thinking "the beat is the weakest part of this track."
Actually the Dom & Roland album shares this affliction to the extent that all techstep did - there's a track on it co-produced with Optical which is very hard and very carefully arranged, but so constipated in feel that it never generates any interesting tension. I guess if there's one word I'd use to describe bad dubstep beats it'd be constipated.
― Tim Finney (Tim Finney), Friday, 2 June 2006 23:31 (seventeen years ago) link
― renegade bear shot by cops on frat row (vahid), Friday, 2 June 2006 23:35 (seventeen years ago) link
― Tim Finney (Tim Finney), Friday, 2 June 2006 23:40 (seventeen years ago) link
― gekoppel (Gekoppel), Saturday, 3 June 2006 12:04 (seventeen years ago) link
― jimnaseum (jimnaseum), Saturday, 3 June 2006 14:53 (seventeen years ago) link
(or, trying to listen to this stuff on an iPod is frustratingly incomplete)
― fandango (fandango), Saturday, 3 June 2006 15:07 (seventeen years ago) link
― jimnaseum (jimnaseum), Saturday, 3 June 2006 15:26 (seventeen years ago) link
― gekoppel (Gekoppel), Saturday, 3 June 2006 16:09 (seventeen years ago) link
― renegade bear shot by cops on frat row (vahid), Saturday, 3 June 2006 18:27 (seventeen years ago) link
― renegade bear shot by cops on frat row (vahid), Saturday, 3 June 2006 18:28 (seventeen years ago) link
― Jordan (Jordan), Saturday, 3 June 2006 18:44 (seventeen years ago) link
― gaseous (gaseous), Saturday, 3 June 2006 18:45 (seventeen years ago) link
― gekoppel (Gekoppel), Saturday, 3 June 2006 19:28 (seventeen years ago) link
Tim, you said that you found the beat in "Southern Comfort" to be the weakest part of the track. Do you also consider it "constipated," i.e., do you include it among the dubstep tunes that don't "generate any tension"?
― tate (Tate), Saturday, 3 June 2006 21:15 (seventeen years ago) link
(albeit shitty real audio may not be worth the effort)
― fandango (fandango), Saturday, 3 June 2006 23:27 (seventeen years ago) link
I guess I wouldn't go quite so far w/r/t "Southern Comfort", although there's something about the way it loops into itself which bugs me - the variation on every 8th bar is better than the usual beat. "You Hurt Me" has a v. similar beat structure but I like the beat more (also it has those awesome, albeit too sparing "DROP!" samples).
I love the rhythm programming on "Gutted" though - even though it's barely there!
In retrospect it's only "Spaceape" that is actively bad in this sense. Though i could take or leave "Prayer", and while "Wounder" works it's not for the beats.
If it was an EP along the lines of:
Distant LightsNight BusYou Hurt MeGuttedBroken HomeForgive
... It would be unimpeachable.
― Tim Finney (Tim Finney), Sunday, 4 June 2006 12:59 (seventeen years ago) link
because his presence on vol 3 IS "actively bad", in fact it's terrible, and i can't believe people aren't calling kode 9 out on it!
not only is it sort of embarassing - would any of these dudes rep for "dj kicks: rockers hi-fi"? - but in this case it's just ... yuck.
"Victims themselves of a close encounter / Desperate abductors, constructors / Become an infected vex / By an alien virus"?
dude ... shut the fuck up.
― renegade bear shot by cops on frat row (vahid), Sunday, 4 June 2006 18:17 (seventeen years ago) link
― gekoppel (Gekoppel), Sunday, 4 June 2006 18:24 (seventeen years ago) link
― renegade bear shot by cops on frat row (vahid), Sunday, 4 June 2006 18:28 (seventeen years ago) link
― gaseous (gaseous), Sunday, 4 June 2006 19:29 (seventeen years ago) link
― gekoppel (Gekoppel), Sunday, 4 June 2006 19:34 (seventeen years ago) link
Anyone that has heard Spaceape live recently in the UK will know that the line of argument on this thread, from carlin to finney is somewhat off the mark regarding that track. And I really wish people would stop constantly referring dubstep back to techstep. There is some substance to that contrast, but its actually such a lazy critical move to make the kind of comparisons, especially with the Burial album, which doesnt seem aimed at the dancefloor in the slightest.
― Brian Best (ukb), Monday, 5 June 2006 08:29 (seventeen years ago) link
― Marcello Carlin (nostudium), Monday, 5 June 2006 08:42 (seventeen years ago) link
A lot of early album "techstep" wasn't either! It's not like we're talking about Bad Company!
― Tim Finney (Tim Finney), Monday, 5 June 2006 12:20 (seventeen years ago) link
I also think it is ridiculous to suggest that its rhythmically better or worse than early dubstep. If anything it will help attract attention back to those guys, but its clearly taken that influence in another direction altogether. El-B & Horsepower's production was always clinically clean.
― Brian Best (ukb), Monday, 5 June 2006 13:05 (seventeen years ago) link
― Keith McD (Keith McD), Sunday, 18 June 2006 09:33 (seventeen years ago) link
― gekoppel (Gekoppel), Sunday, 18 June 2006 12:38 (seventeen years ago) link
― DJ Martian (djmartian), Sunday, 18 June 2006 12:41 (seventeen years ago) link
― Marcello Carlin (nostudium), Monday, 19 June 2006 06:56 (seventeen years ago) link
― gekoppel (Gekoppel), Monday, 19 June 2006 16:01 (seventeen years ago) link
― Ned Beauman (NedBeauman), Monday, 19 June 2006 20:39 (seventeen years ago) link
― yours fondly, harshaw. (mrgn), Monday, 19 June 2006 20:48 (seventeen years ago) link
― yours fondly, harshaw. (mrgn), Monday, 19 June 2006 20:49 (seventeen years ago) link
― pdf (Phil Freeman), Tuesday, 20 June 2006 14:37 (seventeen years ago) link
― StanM (StanM), Wednesday, 21 June 2006 08:55 (seventeen years ago) link
― gekoppel (Gekoppel), Wednesday, 21 June 2006 22:03 (seventeen years ago) link
http://search.insound.com/search/showrelease.jsp?p=INS29940
― gear (gear), Wednesday, 21 June 2006 22:06 (seventeen years ago) link
― Vampire Business (Bimble...), Sunday, 25 June 2006 17:13 (seventeen years ago) link
I passed this up in Hard Wax (they're loving the Dubstep btw!) for an old Carl Craig album & other stuff. If that Breezeblock mix is better... then maybe I'm not as excited about this as say a Skream or Digital Mystikz album after all.
― fandango (fandango), Sunday, 25 June 2006 17:31 (seventeen years ago) link