the genre known as dubstep - search and destroy

ah, there's always a conspiracy theory. poor urban tribe. if only they had the marketing, they would be topping the charts!

you have to compare "number of people who heard UT" vs "number of people who loved UT" - i'd say the number would be high, better maybe than even the arctic monkeys!

lol

And I would question whether examining music on the level of form is any more blinkered than yours...

"content"- is this lyrics to which you refer? "attitude"... well I guess my criticisms would again be along the lines of formalism there too! I get yr point, they reach a wide audience therefore they are non hermetic--- but why does this give them value on any level other than a socio-anthropological one?

I think this is the more relevant motivating factor behind any sense of disappointment with Burial's music: as per Junior Boys, it's tempting to assume that Burial is/are just being lauded for providing a neat composite of different music-crit strands of thinking popular within a certain bracket. The fact that it is a sonic composite makes me disinclined to argue that the music is hermetically sealed (surely it's less so than most of the dubstep it's played alongside?), or that this is the main issue at any rate.

Having said that, the novelty factor is much lower than for Junior Boys - almost certainly every person who'd be inclined to listen to Burial has already made the 2-step/dub-techno connection in their head. In fact the overwhelming majority discussion about Burial could all easily apply to Horsepower Productions' early work but for the historical developments of the past five years (the decline of 2-step, the rise of grime and its increasing drift towards hip hop, the increasing distance between 2-step and 90% of dubstep)allows people to add this whole elegiac "ghost of the hardcore continuum" dimension which didn't apply in 2001.

I don't think such a move is illegitimate: when you're deeply into a scene or group of inter-related scenes, then the shifting dynamics between different stylistic impulses can make certain approaches seem startlingly relevant even when they're effectively reiterations of what has come before. The "ghost of the hardcore continuum" dimension is something which people who are deep into jungle/2-step/dubstep/grime will pick up on a sensual level even if they've never read Reynolds. And it's not hard to see why people who've been slightly frustrated by dubstep's recent stiff-jointed grooves and inward-looking construction (the obsession with club-focused bass production mirroring precisely the same obsession which overtook drum & bass in the late 90s) might be overjoyed by the flickering reappearance of pre-dubstep sonic manoeuvres like vocal samples and 2-step beats.

(my private quibble with Burial, or at least Burial-type music, is that it uses these gestures-to-past-glories in the most obvious manner possible, they really are gestures rather than a meaningful engagement with the logic of 2-step, but there's other music that I like which does similar things vis-a-vis other past genres, so I'm aware that my issue here is partly motivated by my history as a 2-step lobbyist)

If Burial was being held up as particularly futurist or progressive, well, that would definitely be a step too far, but I don't think people like Reynolds/K-Punk etc. are actually doing this (in fact Reynolds noted on his blog that Burial's music was hardly surprising). If anything hauntology is a Dissensian crit-obssession explicitly designed to give people something to talk about while waiting for the next golden child of futurism to emerge.

(but I do think the "Omni Trio of the 00s" accolade is ridiculously off-base - surely this is based on a misreading of the media by people who haven't actually heard Burial (or Omni Trio, or both)?)

okay resume speaking eloquently (hell of rush post) :|

Boomkat called it "groundbreaking" but you know that's their style ;)

not. saying. much!

... allows people to add this whole elegiac "ghost of the hardcore continuum" dimension which didn't apply in 2001.
I don't think such a move is illegitimate

it's definitely not illegitimate. it's just the discourse itself is as exhausted as the music.

really, i'm just very tired of the hardcore continuum, and also constantly stunned at how tiny the musical world of Dissensus is, in contrast to the open-minded talk that's thrown around there. combine small world, grandiose rhetoric, and dead-end tradition...

ah, there's always a conspiracy theory. poor urban tribe. if only they had the marketing, they would be topping the charts!

but you say lots of stupid things.

If this is true it's only because of its specificity. One of the problems with talk of the hardcore continuum is that we know the origins of the idea, the inventors, the subject-matter, the music, the forums, the spruikers...

Most music crit discourse is no less exhausted except insofar as it's vaguer and less self-reflective, so we don't tend to notice it so sharply. Obviously most of the crit surrounding (them again) the Arctic Monkeys is much more tired insofar as it feeds off tired ideas about music which themselves fed off tired ideas etc. going back forty years. But because this forms so much of the general background of our lives we don't notice it so much.

In music crit terms perhaps ideas like "the hardcore continuum" are like the schaffel beat while more generalised music crit ideas (e.g. the tenants of rockism etc.) are like the house beat. Obviously the house beat has been "done to death" in the sense of sheer repetition much more blatantly, however the attention which the schaffel beat attracts to itself causes it to have a built in lifespan, beyond which it seems creatively exhausted.

Sorry, but the time when four square beats, some pianos and an exhortation to dance had the power to signify an incredibly deep, poignant, and moving meditation on alienation, sexuality and the feeling of being lost on the dancefloor is long gone for me.

I mean really, this thing practically markets itself to people who still idolise Larry Levan and David Mancuso. It's a symptom of how inward-looking and -thinking a certain strain of American music has become "

if burial is anything like omni trio, i need to hear this stuff now.

can someone do a dubstep POV or X? i've been listening to a lot of breaks music lately and i think i would like dubstep, but i live mostly in the hermetically sealed world of minimal and therefore don't hear much of this stuff. the breaks album i have been enjoying the most lately is calibre's second sun which is one of the best drum and bass albums i've ever heard.

I don't think this is true at all. There are plenty of great music critics writing about what's actually going on now as opposed to obsessively shoring up a tiny little corner of the past. Sasha Frere-Jones. Kelefa Sanneh. Jody Rosen. Frank Kogan. Just to pick really obvious names.

No idea what the schaffel beat vs. the house beat means. (Speaking of obscurantism, who the fuck cares about the schaffel beat?) Also not really sure what Jacob's point is supposed to be (although surely it muse rise above "you're stupid.") Christ there are some lame comebacks in this thread.

My point is basically that revivalism or even a hermetic obsession with a certain sound and scene does not reliably preclude an interesting musical development. House was purely the product of a scene which was in many ways "stuck in the past" and trying to revive a semi-mythical disco golden age, but ended up being very different and creative in its own right.

It's one thing to say that the Burial record is musically uninteresting, but it's an entirely different (and incorrect) thing to say that because it is heavily influenced by a particular, and nostalgic, view of dance music it therefore must be uninteresting...

It's not.

"I don't think this is true at all. There are plenty of great music critics writing about what's actually going on now as opposed to obsessively shoring up a tiny little corner of the past. Sasha Frere-Jones. Kelefa Sanneh. Jody Rosen. Frank Kogan. Just to pick really obvious names."

Since when does Sasha or Frank = "most music crit"?!?! Of course they are great writers. My point is that the wealth of mediocre and derivative writers with their recycled catchphrases ("incendiary live performance" etc.) are much less memorable than "hardcore continuum", and consequently are much easier to ignore.

And yr right, hardly anyone cares about the schaffel beat now - that was precisely my point! if you didn't just assume you needed to contradict and belittle every point made by anyone else in this thread you might understand what people are saying a bit better...

Skream: Midnight Request Line
Pinch: Qawwali (others swear by War Dub but i don't see it...)
Kode9: 9 Samurai (video is great, kode9.blogspot.com)
Technical Itch: Implant
Vex'd: Bombardment Of Saturn (or all of Degenerate)

try garagepressure.com's podcasts.

Tricky, if you haven't heard the Radio 1 - Breezeblock - Dubstep Warz session listen to that too.

cool, cos that's not what i said! my comments were entirely limited to the particulars of burial, despite the apparently widely-shared desire to make them into a general argument

no, never.

Radio Venn
http://www.vennfestival.com/radio/index.htm

copy / paste this link into your audio software such as winamp

http://live1.radiovague.com:8000/venn.ogg

today:
12.10pm Skulldisco Soundsystem
Feel it in your bones as Appleblim opens a portal to the world of Dubstep

until 2.pm

to quote Reynolds exactly:
"* well Burial i guess is unexpected... but in a way that's kinda context-dependent."

I look forward to a Finney post not mean spiritedly tinted through 2step spectacles.

Have I really upset you so much Brian? I can't seem to please anyone on this thread.

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File Format: PDF/Adobe Acrobat - View as HTML
Autonomic dysreflexia (severe hypertension) is a life threatening syndrome. unique to people with spinal cord lesions above the level of the sixth thoracic ...
www.npsa.nhs.uk/site/media/ documents/1224_Bowel_Report.pdf - Similar pages

ironic that people who spent the last several years moaning about techstep (dissensus folks) are now lining up to heap accolades on half-speed techstep.

if dubstep is the most exciting music of the moment (which it's not, it just can't be), does that make "ni ten ichi ryu" the greatest record of the 90s?

in the new issue of wax poetics, four tet says "everyone goes on about autechre and aphex, but i think photek ... [was] more ambitious than anything else going on; they were on a whole other level. [ni ten ichi ryu] is off the scale. what i love about it is not only was it trying to be the most innovative thing ever, it also tried to rock a club at the same time"

it seems to cement reynolds' now 10-year-old prediction that "hardcore continuum" was destined to become a nostalgia industry, like dub reggae and garage psych.

the new Sacred Symbols Of Mu compilation has new(?) tracks by vex'd, pinch, boxcutter and someone new to me but possibly my favourite track, distance. (along with 20 other tracks spanning the planet mu label's output. cheap enough that it doesn't matter that you don't like 50% of it!)

EXCLUSIVE: The Roots of Dubstep tracklist
Ammunition + Blackdown present... The Roots of Dubstep [Tempa?@CD]

1. Steve Gurley "Hotboys (dub)" [Allstars]
2. El-B "Express" [Ghost]
3. El-B ft. Juiceman "Buck + Bury [original mix]" [unreleased]
4. Roxy "Breakbeat Science" [Bison]
5. Phuturistix "551 Blues" [Locked On]
6. Horsepower "Gorgon Sound" [Tempa]
7. Horsepower "Classic Deluxe" [Tempa]
8. Benny Ill v DJ Hatcha "Highland Spring" [Tempa]
9. High Planes Drifter (aka Benny Ill) v Goldspot "Sholay" [Tempa]
10. Menta "Snake Charmer" [Road]
11. Artwork "Red" [Big Apple]
12. Benga v Skream "The Judgement" [Big Apple]
13. DJ Abstract "Touch" [Tempa]
14. Digital Mystikz "Pathwayz" [Big Apple]

http://blackdownsoundboy.blogspot.com/2006_06_01_blackdownsoundboy_arc
hive.html#115081203524840322

it's the tune that comes in around 23:39, overlaid w/ a female vocal saying "oh, I get a rush..."

sounds a big like benga to me (what do i know), but judging from the setlist published at the link above, it must be geenneus, terror danjah, spyro, imperial, jammer...? no idea.

for release on 17/07/06:
dubstep allstars vol 4

I'm not amazed by the Burial album so far either, though it's o-kaaay, Nothing smacking me in the face with brilliance like Dizzee's singles or "wtf, is this it?"-ed me like M.I.A.

"hauntology" = sounds like ENIGMA

I guess I like Mezzanine though.