the genre known as dubstep - search and destroy

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sorry, i meant to say 'tasteful' in relation to that Sully track.

xp. Dog latin you don't even like dubstep. Why would anyone listen to that?

Is it as good as your sitcom script?

ok i listened - badly produced cod-reggae step. Bravo.

What exactly is dubsteps Big Serious Face? Would you prefer that it if dubstep had a smug, ironic little shoreditch twat like prancehall writing about it as opposed to someone not ravaged by raging cynicism like Blackdown?

Re: Tim F - for someone so judgemental, he really does have one of the most insipid, bland tastes in music - quite surprising really given the tunes he uses to wield the axe, I get all excited expecting his examples, in either funky or dubstep to live up to his sweeping critiques, but relentlessly I'm left underwhelmed by the sheer tepidness of where he finds 'vibe' located. But then again, its probably one of his counter-intuitive poptimist inversions to take bland, tepid and insipid as essential for maintaining the vibe of a scene.

OMG dubcock!

Anyway open-goal zings aside:

the stuff i'm really excited about - ikonika, joker, guido, zomby, subeena, brackles, bok bok, shortstuff - can mostly only be called dubstep b/c it emerged out of it.

Yeah I really like all this stuff as well but more as swoony bedroom/headphone listening rather than anything I'd want to hear on a dancefloor. It sounds great but it still doesn't feel kinetic enough for me - tempo is the big sticking point for me here.

some of it's definitely kinetic enough but as i said upthread that's why the best nights are those that mix it up with garage, house, techno, funky etc - like night slugs

isnt that what i just did?

Sorry if I'm misunderstanding who you're referring to, but you appear to be addressing Tim in some kind of depersonalised fashion. Saying "he" rather than "you", or "his" rather than "your".

Anyway, back to dancing: 2562, Shed, and the Hessle Audio lot are DJs I've seen who work exceptionally well on the dancefloor - but they do mix it up a bit.

^^yeah one thing which is fairly crucial is that a lot of these artists' productions are bedroomy, heady "beat science" music, as djs the best of them have a real knack for cross-genre dancefloor-oriented sets (which are never, you know, ~eclectic~ or any such bullshit) (into which they smoothly drop in their own stuff...) - like, it's not just your average dubstep night when you hear everything from karizma to electrik red being dropped

It's a good job you stressed it wasn't ~eclectic~ otherwise I would have mistaken them for 2ManyDJs, I must admit.

xp. Dog latin you don't even like dubstep. Why would anyone listen to that?

― Pedro Paramore (jim), Friday, 30 October 2009 10:33 (1 hour ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

Is it as good as your sitcom script?

― Pedro Paramore (jim), Friday, 30 October 2009 10:33 (1 hour ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

ok i listened - badly produced cod-reggae step. Bravo.

― Pedro Paramore (jim), Friday, 30 October 2009 10:35 (1 hour ago) Bookmark

Wow, you really are a penis.

i mean,

1. you're wrong
2. are you still going on about that? give it a rest, that was nearly 5 years ago and it was the first draft of the first scene of something i was only messing about with anyway.
3. i never made allusions to these tracks having the power to blow your mind. let's hear you do something productive instead of these lazy semi-zings.

Check out my Dubstep name generator!

http://ohthehugemanatee.net/word-o-matic/762/

Tekster, Pinchack, Blackletic, Quar, Droidnappa, Seizuream....

Hd40000

Re: Tim F - for someone so judgemental, he really does have one of the most insipid, bland tastes in music - quite surprising really given the tunes he uses to wield the axe, I get all excited expecting his examples, in either funky or dubstep to live up to his sweeping critiques, but relentlessly I'm left underwhelmed by the sheer tepidness of where he finds 'vibe' located. But then again, its probably one of his counter-intuitive poptimist inversions to take bland, tepid and insipid as essential for maintaining the vibe of a scene.

Jon if you're gonna talk about me in omniscient narrator third person like that you need to get to work building some kind of consensus behind you first. Also it would help your argument to actually work out what "poptimist" means and when it makes sense to use it as a slur. Keep trying though!

LOL @ that Kode9 tweet. Simon's really tiresome these days. You don't like music anymore! We get it!

Unfortunately I agree with Jon in that I find that Silkie album Tim's been lauding to be for the most part on the drier side and a bit too same-y for its length. I had high hopes too. Is Deep Medi still doing a label comp? That would still be exciting.

Other than Caspa, Rusko and maybe Benga and Skream, I have no idea what "mainstream" dubstep even is anymore. It seems like all the "excitement" (in shops, on the web, blogs, etc) is being generated by stuff that if its not left-field still fills pretty marginal to whatever the scene is supposed to be these days (not that this stuff is bedroom music, but its still pretty abstract for floor-fillers). And it seems like that's been the case for a while. Maybe this is just my prejudices though.

Love the dubstep name generator. the name we've given ourselves are Ruxak & Shaedo.

oh i remember listening to that silkie album. it was ok in the same way that most techno albums are ok. ditto the martyn album, which is the other one that people have been overhyping this year.

martyn album way boring, like i really only need Vancouver and a couple of other tracks, and the vocal cuts on it... :/

martyn's finest moment this year is probably his fever ray remix.

i'd only trust a few of these producers on full lengths atm...joker and subeena excel at such a variety of sounds that they probably wouldn't go down the samey, safe route. and ikonika refines her sound in interesting ways almost every time out...

oh and GUIDO <3

I could see Cooly G doing a good album.

Here's hoping any Joker album gets a load of vocalists on it. I'd be happy for any of the others to release 100% instrumental records and I think vocals would actively get in the way on an Ikonika record.

Martyn's best moment(s) by far were the remixes of Efdemin, although one side was technically ambient, and the other was UK Funky Euro-style.

Didn't really feel the Fever Ray remix.

Best tracks on the album were 'Right Star', 'Elden St' and 'Far Away'.

oh yeah the efdemin mixes were awesome.

was just listening to the Martyn album yesterday and after time the big standouts for me are "Right, Star", "Vancouver" and "Bridge" (beatless, but so nice - it's all about the piano). I wrote off the Efdemin remixes initially, but yeah, those are very good.

I would love to go to a night that mixed up dubstep + techno + house in a seamless flowing way. It's not like there aren't a shortage of tracks that bridge the genre divides coming from all sides. It would probably be the best thing for dancers as well, because IMO you shouldn't have to think when you are dancing and sometimes when faced with a wall of dubstep bass if you don't connect and orient yourself immediately it is hard to find the groove.

I also really like the Martyn track from the Aus Music comp from earlier this year. The standout genre-hybrid on that comp though is Appleblim and Ramadanman's "Sous Le Sable".

i'm surprised at the tepid response to silkie's album here - really, it's anything but dry, absolutely the best dubstep full length out (mild praise as that is)! i can see issues with its flow, the section from cats eyes to mattaz is a little samey, but how many great tracks can you ask for? i think tim f nailed it when he said (i might be misremembering) that silkie (/anti social) ties together a lot of dubstep's disparity, how he transplants a lot of what's great about wonky into these otherwise more dubstep-compatible tracks is so much more than the sum of its parts. even the 'heavy' tracks with boring names like 'techno 22' have these awesome playful bits (like when it drops to just some frisky bongo before throwing in the happy "youve beat the level!" synth or whatever that sound is) that, instead of cheekily undermining the track, just give it some fun perspective

album's fully fledged classics, imo - the horizon, headbutt da deck, beauty, turvy, purple love, sty, spark, concrete jungle

this right here is the most monstrous and revolting piece of dubstep i have yet to hear. i admit there's a strange allure to its frankenstein basslines, and it's got plenty of that build-wobble that you guys don't like.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gLDajn8_3qc

man it would be next level if i could go to a club & listen to that auditory migraine for a couple hours

wow it's like techstep all over again.

t/f dubstep has fragmented in a way similar to what occurred with drum and bass?

That track seems like a parody.

Except it probably isn't.

I'd say false, but mostly cuz I'm not dubstep was ever coherent enough to be a good parallel with dnb/jungle in the first place.

Lucas I'm glad someone agrees with me about the Silkie album. In overall feel (though only partly in specific sound) it reminds me a lot of the second disc of Roni Size/Reprazent's first album, which is one of my favourite ever jungle albums but tends to be... damned with faint praise by a lot of people for very similar reasons - samey, too "straight" in its underlying adherence to the rhythmic approaches of the broader style to seem avant, but not actually straight enough to be dancefloor bangers. And, similarly, refined and jazzy and "musical" in ways that strike people as boring and obviously "insipid" oh noes. And yet... with both the grooves just seem so perfectly judged.

even the 'heavy' tracks with boring names like 'techno 22' have these awesome playful bits (like when it drops to just some frisky bongo before throwing in the happy "youve beat the level!" synth or whatever that sound is) that, instead of cheekily undermining the track, just give it some fun perspective

This bit is amazing - I agree with your description but specifically it's like completing a level in a game hosted by Stevie Wonder.

no problems with that wobble track that got posted earlier on. it does its job and does it a lot better than most. lots of fun!

it goes on a bit though, dunnit?

I'd say false, but mostly cuz I'm not dubstep was ever coherent enough to be a good parallel with dnb/jungle in the first place.

― We call them "meat hemorrhoids" (Alex in SF), Friday, 30 October 2009 22:29

You used to be able to move from Pinch to Loefah to Distance to Skream in the mix without changing the vibe at all. It was actually starting to splinter right as it first got big in 2007.

Skream used to be part of the experimental side, Pinch made some bangers. And Distance made Fallen, which is very eerie and beautiful. Its shocking how much things have changed, says the whiny 2004-8 head.

Tim was here before all of us really. I can see how Sully would look like an obvious endpoint if you started out listening to 2-step. Its just that that kind of really intricate style (Toasty does it too) is time consuming to produce. Toasty only puts out one single every couple years, whereas the Wobble crew crank them out.

Yeah I love Toasty as well, though haven't heard any of his for a while (has he even done anything recently)?

"You used to be able to move from Pinch to Loefah to Distance to Skream in the mix without changing the vibe at all."

And that vibe was for the most part. . . . yawnsome. I'm not going to lament that fracturing at all.

For me 2-step is also the point where this kind of breaks-based music was at its most compelling/exciting. I like some broken beat and the bleepier broken downtempo stuff as well. Still totally blown away by Mala and by association Deep Medi I suppose, but I don't know actual tracks. I like what I've heard from Rustie and some Hyperdub stuff like that recent Darkstar single is very very good. Really like Shackleton and I've been meaning to check the Mordant Music lp. <-- it's hard to say what genre those are, which is pretty rad. I asked about the similarities to dnb because it seems like all of these steppy sub-genres have fragmented along similar lines: tuff electro, avant-jazz, populist anthems, etc.

I am listening to that Keepers of the Light mix right now Siah (the one you linked to in the funky thread) and it reminds me of FlyLo more than anything else. Pretty good! I like how the pressure is achieved through rhythm and weirdness instead of distorto-wobble.

Last thing Toasty released was early last year, On Something was the track.

He's pulled down his Myspace and I can't find his VIRB.

He could have retired for all I know. Shame that.

2562 really really owns that broken beat / 2-step connection these days.

Which makes sense, considering he used to make bruk as Dogdaze.

Still need to check out his new album.

The stuff I've listened to (very, very briefly/preliminarily) of the 2562 and the Silkie album both sounds really great.

http://rcrdlbl.com/artists/Harmonia__Eno_76/track/Sometimes_In_Autumn_Shackleton_Remix

Those of you who haven't heard this, you really should.

Shackleton's remix of Eno working with Harmonia. A dubstep remix of a synth based Kraut tune.

Between this and Mountain of Ashes on the new 3 EPs I'm pretty psyched to see where he's going right now. It sounds like he's learned a lot from remixing Villalobos, the tunes are happier and more linear. As Lex noted way way back there. When that first curtain of static drops its just spine tingling. People just don't get the man because his sound palette is in apocalyptic shades of gray, but these tracks contain an almost Dionysian throb to them. He uses dubstep's spatial sense with a hard edged minimal influence, think pissed off Luciano, like Peverelist without the techno superstructure.

These are deejay tools for a genre that doesn't exist yet.

enough with the fucking timbales or finger cymbals or whatever though, right? just program 1 track with completely new sounds plz.

i like your Luciano/Peveralist equation though. i can def. hear that.

So Untold's new EP got a fairly ecstatic review on FACT. Anyone heard it yet?