the genre known as dubstep - search and destroy

http://blackdownsoundboy.blogspot.com/2006_03_01_blackdownsoundboy_archive.html#114298266029581805

Label page here...

http://www.hyperdub.net/burial.html

i thought the exact same thing - it's like an audio book at times 8) and the 30 tracks under the vocals, you can't distinguish one from the other. nice that he launches into Ghost Town for a while there though.

http://www.voco-me.de/exchange/mix/dj_maxximus-blackboard_jungle_(24-02-06)_radio_fritz.mp3

Thank you Earplug for pointing it out!

BURIAL sounds just like ... wait for it ... URBAN TRIBE!

I'm looking for more Loefah mixes, the squishy darkness is great.

Scorn - Welcome to Birmingham presaging all this five years ago: Obvious or Unrecognized?

TOO BLACK! TOO STRONG!

Yeah -- Social Theorist, Genome Project, Cultural Nimrod...

over the last two days i've been moving house - from a 2nd story apartment to another 2nd story apartment. from about 4 pm when i get off work (which starts at 7 am) to about 10 pm i've been moving several hundred pounds of books and music, stereo equipment, clothes, etc. i didn't want to rent a truck, so i've been moving everything in my tiny hatchback, six or seven boxes at a time. lots of running up and down stairs.

last night, muscles aching, seeing trails and outlines around things from sugar and water loss and all the endorphins swirling around in my head, lying on blankets piled on the floor (bed gets moved when i can borrow a truck) "dubstep allstars vol 2" sounded like some of the greatest music i've ever heard in my life!

i'm not sure if i can understand how people dance to it or club to it but if i were sentenced to hard, slow sisyphean labor for the rest of my life i couldn't think of a better soundtrack than "dubstep vol 2".

the best part was the transition of out the slow uphill slog of the first four tracks into "request line". that track is amazing! not sure why i never noticed it before but it's like welding the fidgety beats of plaid to the sound palette of early early two lone swordsmen with the thick bass of dubstep. insane!

OTOH "vol 3" just sounded silly to me. i hope i warm up to it but right now it sounds like trying-too-hard-to-be-rootsy euro beat music. is this the leftfield or rockers hi-fi of the 2000s?

not sure why, but my growing fandom for dubstep makes me think i'm transforming from a carefree nightcrawler into a sad, sad little man.

sample clearance maybe?

You've only got yrself to blame if you do this Vahid.

OTOH, "Request Line" is awesome yes. I think that new Davinche/Sadie tune I like whose name I've forgotten is a blatant tribute. Also have you heard Pinch's "Qawalli" yet? I would totally have put it on 6:33am Eternal if I had it in unmixed form.

what's this?!

can't find DA Vol 1 anywhere 8(

"WSHT mix", not "heavy meckle" (which is killer) ... it's sort of a dj rupture-ish thing.

which thread should i do it on?

http://www.bingobeats.com/mixes/

my copy of Dubstep Allstars #1 turned up yesterday. can anyone confirm the unfinished look to the graphics? mine had a promo sticker on it and i wonder if the artwork got an update for the final release. cheers.

I mean really, this thing practically markets itself to people who still take Simon Reynolds and Kodwo Eshun as gospel truth. It's a symptom of how inward-looking and -thinking a certain strain of British music has become

we're talking about you now instead of the record, huh? that's not so interesting.

How is this any less hermetic than most music making going on everywhere right now? And why is its hermeticness necessarily a bad thing? :Preaching to the choir perhaps? (which is bad in general,. across an entire culture, yes....)

Where is this non-self referential music- pop? mired in po mo slow mo... metal? creating avant versions of past trends... Indie? Retro a gogo... Hip Hop? Improv? Norwegian Jazz? MOR?

To what leading edge would you direct us? (forgive the sarcasm- I would genuinely like to know...)

And it's hermetic because a) very few people other than music critics know or care about the hardcore continuum b) the hardcore continuum itself is hermetic. It's just a way of constructing the musical universe in order to continually place a small subset of British dance music at the center of everything that is radical. And there were a few years when that subset arguably was at the center of British culture, if not anyone else's. But those years are long long gone, and dance music--and especially dance music like Burial--isn't anywhere near the center of anything anymore.

So sure, all music is self-referential, but when the references are picked up by a tiny audience, they become hermetic. Arctic Monkeys are totally derivative, but a lot of people like them--regardless of whatever media conspiracies you might wish to spin--and that alone makes them matter.

No 'remedy' is necessary. I don't really care about the 'leading edge,' in fact I think the very concept is bogus--a form of marketing, basically--and I'm actively opposed to it.

Aside from all that, I just think the emotional register of the music is so timid (and one could have said this about Urban Tribe, or plenty of Mo' Wax stuff, in fact a lot of dance music that professes to be for something other than dancing. It's all this wistful fading synth wash crap, and you have to work so hard at projecting meaning into it... which is perhaps why people wind up over-reading...

I suspect Burial did not write this music with these references in mind somehow, these are post-justifications for the work of someone who works with samples, likes 2 step, and feels his production skills are sub par (wrongly) and therefore cloaks them in static (thats what he claims anyway).

Craetively speaking hermeticism is crushing to future developments of interest outside of an endless post modernist cycle thru past ideas, no matter how far said music reaches... (and I think innovation is more than a mere marketing strategy, although it is that as well)

I don't buy the whole Arctic Monkeys are big and therfore "important". Significant perhaps, as a guide to what people will buy, how marketing strategies work etc...

Whether something reaches to a big audience or not is not a guide to quality (either way) tho I suspect you would agree with me there. So therefore the AMs are just as hermetic, it just happens more people like it. That means little to me (personally). They are hardly reaching out in any way other than a market-defined one (ie- musically they are not bridging any gaps, they exist in an imaginative straight jacket even more limited than that imposed by the supposed hardcore continuum...). For me to enjoy the AMs would require just as much "projection" of meaning...

NO

OTOH i DO agree with this bit:

you have to be intimately familiar with the history and theory of the quote-unquote hardcore continuum. For instance, I happen to recognize those decaying mentasm stabs ... but if you don't, it's just another electronic noise

still, i don't think somebody HAS to be intimately familiar to at least get some aesthetic pleasure out of burial.

it sounds to me like you're somewhat over-familiar with those strategies - as is probably anybody who's been following basic channel since day 1! i could see that coming to grips with that might be much harderfor you than coming to grips with layers of strange electronic noise might be for an arctic monkeys fan!

And I don't buy the whole "people are sheep" thing. As Hollywood blockbusters prove every year, you cannot make something a hit unless people like it. Marketing will get you onto the radar, but it can't do any more than that.

So therefore the AMs are just as hermetic, it just happens more people like it. That means little to me (personally).

That's a sign of your solipsism, then. Artwork does not exist independent of the world, or the audience, either in its creation or its reception. How the audience reacts is an intrinsic part of the meaning of any piece of music. And one of the most interesting things to think about, too. Certainly more interesting than exhausting the dictionary of adjectives droning on about basslines that collapse in on themselves, etc.

That's just it! That's all it is. You just get the idea that there's some vague sense of sadness in the air. There's no dimension or nuance to the sadness. It's all so wan, so one-note.

Marketing does a bit more than get stuff on the radar, I think, although that is perhaps a large part of its functionality...

The AMs are hermetic CREATIVELY. They aren't building bridges ARTISTICALLY, merely COMMERCIALLY-- they sell more records. As this is not an indicator of quality (either way) they remain just as hermetic.

And how ARE the audience reacting to AMs then? Many (younger ones) say they are exciting, they say something about their lives, and they are good music to go out to etc. Many (older ones) perhaps say they are nothing special, but have some good tunes. Why is this interesting? Qualitatively?