New Burial album. More info?

wow i had no idea that pollywog was racist. it's just another name for tadpole.

cheers jim...

...i are serious cat

that are serious myspace...hehe

"I do disagree with Pollywog, I thought the Kode 9/Spaceape album was great, better in fact than Burial. The best parts though were the ones that didn't sound much like dubstep orthodoxy - Kode 9 is actually a better hip hop producer than dubstep producer I think."

i dont think it was better than burial, not even close, really. but i listened to that album at least 5 times before i decided that i didnt really care for it, which is better than the < 10 seconds i can tolerate basically any dubstep tracks for. dubstep is so trash of a genre that the sound alone is so shallow and useless that even if there was content in the music it wouldnt be worth listening to in order to extract it.

"To be clear, Pipecock I'm not denying that all these musics that you like have "soul", rather I'm suspicious of this term as a valuable tool in discussing music. It's a black hole term: all that people can say is "i think this music has soul and that music doesn't" or "I think this music is more soulful than that music," and there's literally nothing you can say to add to that. It shuts down discussion, and in the process encourages lazy thinking (and generally unexamined canonical thinking to boot) where we don't know why one thing is better than another thing, IT JUST IS OKAY. Playing the soul-card is actually worse than playing the authenticity-card in this regard."

there is nothing to add to it, though. his music has soul means IT SOUNDS LIKE HIS EXPRESSION. that's all. can you disagree with someone's expression of something? it might not be your taste, but whatever. when the criticism is comparing it to music that has nearly no room for expression in it, that comparison makes almost no sense. but dubstep and jungle were once expressive, diverse sounding music. not now. which is why burial has more to do with 2-step in 99 and jungle in 95 than anything that any offshoot of those genres is doing today.

"Generally, people who use this term a lot haven't thought much about why they use it, or what they're actually responding to when it pops into their head. True to form, you've had several opportunities to clarify what it is in Burial's music that makes you drag out the s-word beyond other evasive phrases like "expression", "transcends", escaping all the backwards thoughts etc... But of course if you wanted to do this you wouldn't have tried to shift the discussion towards soul in the first place."

there is nothing to clarify that can be said in words. that is the beauty of music, it can convey things that words can't. basically, when you listen to burial's music, you know it is him. it does not convey the limits of a subgenre, it doesnt convey some outsider's idea of what production values should sound good. when jungle and 2-step were good, they were music that used the vague concepts of their genre to express emotion. now those genres consist largely of music that fits rigidly into a specific framework, which makes it much less effective to anyone listening outside of the specific fans of those genres.

"Even if we accept this, doesn't that effectively efface any difference between disco, house, techno etc. etc?"

those genres have very little difference, generally just a few localized elements that influenced each to be slightly different. this is why when i deejay, i play all of them together as one! this is why those genres have been alive and well despite many changes in sound for up to 30 years or more.

this idea is one of the most important ideas that most people seem to not notice. if you look at the deejays who were the ones who defined the genres, they played music that would have encompassed house, techno, electro, and disco (as well as jazz, and funk, and others!). it was the style of playing them together to highlight certain moods more than others. larry levan played alot of the same records as ron hardy who played alot of the same things as the early cats in detroit. it is all the same music.

"Doesn't it render interesting sonic developments - like the specific sound of Rhythm & Sound releases - empty and meaningless?"

yes. if people are listening only to the sound of them, that might explain why so many are happy to also listen to their many copy cats. for me, those copy cats do basically nothing because all they capture is the most shallow part of what rhythm and sound is doing. R&S are so effective because of the other things in their music: their soul, if you will!

"Dance music, at least since the rise of electronic instrumentation, is at least as much about the sound-of-sounds as is it about melody, rhythm etc. It's not a binary choice between timeless compositions that can be played on any instrument on the one hand and sonic gimmicks or gear fetishism on the other. The two are always interwoven in various proportions in any dance music you look at."

i completely disagree. some of the best artists were able to create new sounds, but the reason their music is remembered today is because they were able to place those sounds effectively into already fantastically composed and arranged music. "i feel love" would have been meaningless if the lyrics werent what they were, if a lesser singer had sung them, if the mood of the song didnt match that frantic electronic bass.

"Drum and bass was always already a "production trick music", from the very beginning producers were fascinated with the effect of particular techniques like pitchshifting, or with creating an entirely new sounding bassline (think of all the variations on basslines jungle produced just between 1993 and 1995)."

so many of those variations were just stolen from other music! "Reese" bass was of course sampled from a kevin saunderson track, many sounds were jacked straight from dub or dancehall jams, etc. "dread bass" was
one of the truly new joints, and it was of course overused in many forgettable tracks while the original "dread bass" song remained a classic because all the other elements were so captivating!

"The regression in jungle from the mid to the late nineties that you're referring to isn't primarily the tale of a shift from timeless expression to gimmicky production tricks. The rise in drum & bass's excessive fixations (eg. with creating an ever more subtle variation on an acid bassline) was an effect of a narrowing of the genre's horizons of possibility - which itself was partly due to a rejection of jungle's early days, which was seen as too gimmicky. By committing themselves to a more purist vision of what drum & bass was supposed to be, producers had no choice but to become more fixated on the minute details of production."

i guess the gimmick of good music was too much for those people. they have the irrelevence that purists deserve now, and im happy for it.

"But that doesn't mean that purism is always bad and should be rejected in favour of "expression" - which sounds like an endorsement of things like Goldie collaborating with Noel Gallagher. It was precisely because early jungle narrowed its horizons of sonic possibility from the preceding hardcore techno that it was able to intensify certain aspects like the rhythms, the basslines. Ultimately the balance got shifted too far in that direction, but the move towards a certain purism and sonic fetishism was initially a productive component in jungle's development."

im also not sure about this. i dont think of jungle as being a more restrictive genre than hardcore was, especially since so much of jungle used all the hallmarks of hardcore in its tracks. jungle covered all the ideas of hardcore and then added more (ambience, jazz, etc).

"And let's not even start with 2-step, which for its entire lifespan was all about the brilliant exploitation of one new gimmick after another.

-- Tim F"

but why then are some of the songs that used those gimmicks still memorable now while others arent? a gimmick with no substance behind it is worthless, and that is the way that drum and bass and dubstep are now.

any truly creative music will come up with new sounds, even if they are using old equipment. that's just the nature of how creativity works. but when the fixation is on the sound over everything else, you get throwaway disposable crap, which is what ruined jungle and 2-step.

"If anything dubstep has swung too far away from the darkside halfstep sound of late 2005 and early 06.

The scene has gotten incredibly populist over the last year.

-- Siah Alan"

the words of someone so caught up in a sub-genre that they think these shifts are meaningful to people outside of it.

"In terms of being some kind of eulogy for rave, stuff I've heard recently from Geeneus (e.g. "Old Skool What") or Breakage "Shroud" utterly slay this on that count.

-- Iain Macdonald"

breakage is good, though i dont think he is as good as burial is at capturing the overall mood of that era of stuff.

and to address one more thing Tim F said:

"But my preference for more mutational sounds doesn't prevent me from recognizing the potential validity of a purist approach.

-- Tim F"

see, to me the idea of being a purist in a genre of music that is nothing more than a gigantic mishmash of things is ridiculous. and most genres of music are like that!

you brought up the bit about Goldie with Noel Gallagher: of course i think that was a great idea! people should try everything. of course in the case of mashing things together like that, you will not fall into those restrictive definitions of what a genre is. i have never subscribed to those. when i deejayed jungle, i mixed with with breakcore, hardcore/gabber, ambient, hiphop, reggae, rock, etc. when i played 2-step, i mixed it with broken beat, techno, electro, jungle records at 33, etc. i played things with the overall idea of mashing up all the things that made those genres in with the genres and trying to achieve that feeling instead of playing 30 of the same sounding records.

there is nothing to clarify that can be said in words

^^ OTM

"If anything dubstep has swung too far away from the darkside halfstep sound of late 2005 and early 06.

The scene has gotten incredibly populist over the last year.

-- Siah Alan"

the words of someone so caught up in a sub-genre that they think these shifts are meaningful to people outside of it.

I think he made the quite reasonable assumption that people in a thread discussing dubstep might be au fait with the thing they're discussing.

The two Ps have basically just made this thread a mishmash of unreadable self-aggrandising shittery. I shall bid you all adieu.

don't you want to hear about pipecock's revolutionary "electic" dj'ing style? it sounds like the best thing ever.

Jungle recordz at 33?!?!

http://www.wexarts.org/wexblog/images/girltalk02.jpg

"don't you want to hear about pipecock's revolutionary "electic" dj'ing style? it sounds like the best thing ever.

-- moonship journey to baja"

nah, its about doing the same things that made the genres interesting and vital in the first place, not just playing the same old crap that people make to try to sound like each other. that shit is mad revolutionary. its revolutionarily fucking terrible.

There are a couple records you should check out pipecock.

Splash by Toastyboy

Breathless by Vaccine

Neverland and Officer by the Digital Mystikz.

They're worth you're time, before you write off the entire genre.

Isn't the basis of an eclectic style of DJing an open mind?

"There are a couple records you should check out pipecock.

Splash by Toastyboy

Breathless by Vaccine

Neverland and Officer by the Digital Mystikz.

They're worth you're time, before you write off the entire genre.

Isn't the basis of an eclectic style of DJing an open mind?

-- Siah Alan"

i will check those out, but i dont anticipate being interested. i have not heard a single DM track i have liked, havent heard the others.

the thing is, it is impossible to listen to every release in every genre that exists. i listen to lots of things over many genres, but people and genres dont get chances forever. its possible there are a few other good records in the genre, but to go through every release just to find them is not worth the effort when comparing it to other genres.

Thats fine, digging through dubstep releases at the moment is like looking for diamonds in an avalanche of shit.

A lot of the music is disposable, but some of it means to me what early jungle seems to mean to you. Or Theo Parrish or Omar S.

The one thing that I do like about Dubstep's popularity over in the UK is that it brings out some really interesting and talented and most of all young producers.

They are the hope for more interesting music to come.

the DM tracks leave me cold. "officer" is just boring, "neverland" sounds like demented carnival music in a bad way. the toasty cut was also dull. i did rather like the atmospherics in "breathless" by vaccine, but the angry sounding beat kinda ruined the overall effect a bit. definitely the best of that set of tunes, but still nothing outstanding IMO.

i just dont see the comparisons in terms of jungle or theo or omar to dubstep. those things were inspirational in how wildly diverse they can be and how many ideas they use. dubstep is so limited comparatively. i mean, alot of the early dubstep stuff (while it was 2-steppy) is music that i love, it had so many more elements going on.

and i feel you on bringing out new producers and deejays, that kind of thing is important. but i think it would be better for everyone if the music was a little more up to par.

"Splash by Toastyboy"

Oh yes.

I have only heard a handful of tracks in the N-Type mould - what i heard didn't exactly inspire me to check out more.

Even this stuff, which I guess you could describe as more bouncy and less serious than the preceding dub/half-step sound, falls into very similar potholes for me. What I've heard reminded me of bad breakbeat garage (all those "Buddah Finger"/"Jammin"/"Go DJ" style tracks floating around circa 2001) - there's actually a certain grimness to their fun I would say. Again, my issue with it is perhaps that it's a very masculine/anti-disco sound.

Pipecock's latest missive (the long post a bit upthread) is even more Geir-like!

I should dig up that thread where I debated with Chuck about the role of eclecticism in DJing.

Neverland was one of those tracks that just cracked it all open for me.

It helps to hear it loud, off vinyl, with a really powerful sub.

Before I got into dubstep I was into grime and breakcore, I don't think I really understood how trendy those musical scenes were a couple years ago.

Dubstep got me into the concept of minimalist beats as being worth listening to in their own right, not just as backing to vocalists or as wallpaper music.

The use of empty space in those early tracks was pretty mindblowing for me, I've since gotten an appreciation for less "gimmicky" forms of dance music. House, techno, disco and funk became a lot more interesting.

I don't think I really understood why dance music existed before I was about 19 or 20, had kind of sheltered childhood.

Check that Toasty track too, its arguably the best of the bunch.

As I see Tim has agreed with.

Its kind of a grim time for young people in the UK, Tim.

Bassline house seems to be riding in with all the elements stripped out of UKG by dubstep and grime though.

And that music is kind of hyper feminine, very much drug noise, very hedonistic.

You heard anything by T2?

"Neverland was one of those tracks that just cracked it all open for me.

It helps to hear it loud, off vinyl, with a really powerful sub."

but see, thats my problem with the genre. if it needs some technical crapola associated with it, it is not a good song. it should sound awesome over real audio, on a crappy boombox in the park, etc etc.

"Before I got into dubstep I was into grime and breakcore, I don't think I really understood how trendy those musical scenes were a couple years ago."

haha, i was done with breakcore as it went too IDM back around '01. grime, i was with as it was being birthed: i was dropping many emcee tracks along with the 2-step kinda stuff i played. but it got silly with the warring rappers who took themsevles way too seriously despite the fact that they were terrible rappers who were wishing they were all equally terrible american emcees of the time.

"Dubstep got me into the concept of minimalist beats as being worth listening to in their own right, not just as backing to vocalists or as wallpaper music."

techno is much better for that IMO! it was basic channel, dan bell, robert hood, and others who did that for me. to me, they are still the masters.

"The use of empty space in those early tracks was pretty mindblowing for me, I've since gotten an appreciation for less "gimmicky" forms of dance music. House, techno, disco and funk became a lot more interesting.

I don't think I really understood why dance music existed before I was about 19 or 20, had kind of sheltered childhood.

-- Siah Alan"

i guess i can see how the evolution through breakcore to grime and dubstep could happen. i guess for me it was always a little more soul music based stuff that led my progression which was kind of similar: i went from jungle (and associated music like breakcore) to 2-step (and associated stuff like broken beat) finally into house, though i had been a fan of techno throughout most of that as well.

Well it went more like Venetian Snares -> Plasticman, Dizzee Rascal -> Kode 9 + Digital Mystikz -> Horsepower + Ghost -> and somehow from there to minimal techno and electro.

I'm kind of a musical omnivore these days.

To try and bring this back to Burial, I don't buy into the concept of nostalgia for what you never had.

I've been sold that line about the 60's, the 70s, early Garage and House nights, rave in 88, jungle all of it.

But this album I think draws from hardcore and jungle and 2-step like folk singers drew from country, bluegrass and blues.

While clearly influenced by the rave experience he seems completely and utterly removed from it.

These aren't his memories, or mine.

But the loneliness and hurt in this music seems to be its reason for existing, not the celebration of the past.

The two Ps have basically just made this thread a mishmash of unreadable self-aggrandising shittery. I shall bid you all adieu.

...bye jim ya boring ol fart

when you listen to burial's music, you know it is him. it does not convey the limits of a subgenre,

I know no such thing and it does convey the limits of the 2step genre. It's about as far out there as you can go before it becomes something else entirely, a ghostly memory of it's former self.

I also know there are alot of r'n'b samples in there which aren't him.

...but anyway, I reckon Roisin Murphy is who Burial should be remixing instead of bloc party

why ???...cos shes got a voice to die for and tunes crying out for a more underground treatment

"Its kind of a grim time for young people in the UK, Tim."

See I find this argument always a bit romantic (again). Has there ever really been a time though that dark scenes and light scenes didn't co-exist in the area of "young person dance music"?

For example:
- darkcore, happy hardcore and handbag house side-by-side
- gabba, techstep and speed garage side-by-side
- and as you say, dubstep and bassline side-by-side

I don't really believe that young people necessarily gravitate towards dance music that acts as some sort of comment on their socio-economic experience. Surely "hard times" encourages escapism as much as negativity; conversely, it's precisely those scenes which embody some sense of "disaffected futureshock" or what-have-you that are most vulnerable to over-fetishisation by the middle classes, where such class distinctions in audiences can be made.

Where there is a link I suspect it's more complicated. i.e. I strongly suspect the differences in mood between darkcore and handbag house or happy hardcore say more about patterns of drug use than strict socio-economic divisions. You can then tie that in to socio-economic stuff but it's not as simple as saying "high unemployment means dark moody music."

"I know no such thing and it does convey the limits of the 2step genre. It's about as far out there as you can go before it becomes something else entirely, a ghostly memory of it's former self.

I also know there are alot of r'n'b samples in there which aren't him.

-- pollywog"

so you cant express yourself through sample usage??! i disagree completely.

as for his music being 2-step, i dont agree. most 2-step is club fodder (even the good stuff), Burial doesnt have deejay friendly intros, crowd hyping breakdowns and buildups, etc. it stands on its own, it doesnt need to be mixed in a set to be effective. in fact, i bet his music would be way better received on a techno dancefloor than on a 2-step dancefloor (even back in 2-step's heyday, but obviously there is no way to prove that).

aside from the possible comparisons to basic channel in style, who else would be making music that sounds like his? and because his style is so distinctive, don't you think it would be easy to pick out any copycatters? i know it is easy for me to pick out R&S or Moodymann hacks.

"Well it went more like Venetian Snares -> Plasticman, Dizzee Rascal -> Kode 9 + Digital Mystikz -> Horsepower + Ghost -> and somehow from there to minimal techno and electro."

vsnares used to be my boy back in the late 90's after i met him at one of the barn parties in milwaukee. he stayed at my house for a week in summer '00 when we brought him here to play in pittsburgh!

"To try and bring this back to Burial, I don't buy into the concept of nostalgia for what you never had.

While clearly influenced by the rave experience he seems completely and utterly removed from it.

These aren't his memories, or mine.

But the loneliness and hurt in this music seems to be its reason for existing, not the celebration of the past.

-- Siah Alan"

well, he is removed from it because the times where he was connected with it have clearly passed. he expressed the loneliness and hurt through the old ways of the genres that inspired him, it is all closely related IMO.

"most 2-step is club fodder (even the good stuff), Burial doesnt have deejay friendly intros, crowd hyping breakdowns and buildups, etc. it stands on its own, it doesnt need to be mixed in a set to be effective."

"in fact, i bet his music would be way better received on a techno dancefloor than on a 2-step dancefloor "

Pipecock you have a real knack for finding the absolute worst reasons to like things.

""most 2-step is club fodder (even the good stuff), Burial doesnt have deejay friendly intros, crowd hyping breakdowns and buildups, etc. it stands on its own, it doesnt need to be mixed in a set to be effective."

"in fact, i bet his music would be way better received on a techno dancefloor than on a 2-step dancefloor "

Pipecock you have a real knack for finding the absolute worst reasons to like things.

-- Tim F"

i dont think those are reasons to like it, those are reasons it is not limited to its genre.

so why do you want dubstep to be more smiley and light hearted Tim, cos if it were then it wouldn't be dubstep ???

...you got funky house for that shit

so you cant express yourself through sample usage??! i disagree completely.

oh you can but that still doesn't mean you "know" it's him or that he's being entirely honest. Methinks its the anonymity thing covering the fact that he may be a name producer of past 2step which precludes me from believing he is what he says he is and the music is what it is...ie a new take on a past genre reflected through the eyes/ears of someone who wasn't ther to enjoy it forst time around. That and knowing it may all just be a cleverly contrived kode9 hyperstitious social experiment.

...would it make much difference to you if burial came out and said he was menta/artwork ??? would you feel betrayed, used and angry ??? would you then hear the tunes in a different light and would it colour your thoughts on any future releases ???

Except that most of Menta now make incredibly cheesy Hed Kandi style Euro-house.

And Arthur Smith is rumored to be half of Magnetic Man.

You think that ex 2-Step producers would have a less romantic view of the music than Burial does, they almost all make house of varying styles and quality now.

this thread is confirming all my concerns about paying attention to this genre

Get out, while you still don't care!

the problem with this thread is that it's been overrun by rampaging IDM-ists

...i dont even know what idm is ???

You think that ex 2-Step producers would have a less romantic view of the music than Burial does,

...guilty feet have got no rhythm

and there is no problem in this thread...

"oh you can but that still doesn't mean you "know" it's him or that he's being entirely honest. Methinks its the anonymity thing covering the fact that he may be a name producer of past 2step which precludes me from believing he is what he says he is and the music is what it is...ie a new take on a past genre reflected through the eyes/ears of someone who wasn't ther to enjoy it forst time around. That and knowing it may all just be a cleverly contrived kode9 hyperstitious social experiment."

i'm not sure that he ever said he wasn't there the first time and ive read every interview with him. to me it would make a lot of sense if he WAS an old 2-step or jungle producer.

"...would it make much difference to you if burial came out and said he was menta/artwork ??? would you feel betrayed, used and angry ??? would you then hear the tunes in a different light and would it colour your thoughts on any future releases ???

-- pollywog"

it would make no difference to me. the first menta record was awesome, actually:

http://www.discogs.com/release/1138589

how many of you guys got that on white label from Big Apple mail order when it came out? i did.... ;P

but it seems to me that someone would be very likely to yearn for that old feeling, to ditch the weak parts of the genre if they actually went down that bad path and found it less than satisfying!

I feel that the world would likely end if someone put vahid, pipecock and blunt in the same room for any period of time.

neo-rockism vs ultra-contrarianism.

"...you got funky house for that shit"

This is a silly sub-Martin Clark position to take. It's not like any kind of levity or lightheartedness automatically = funky house. And it's not like funky house is automatically bad anyway!

I'd struggle to come up with 5 dubstep tracks I like more than DJ Abstract's "Touch", considered a dubstep track last time I checked. Why should making tunes in that vein be considered anathema, pollywog?

"how many of you guys got that on white label from Big Apple mail order when it came out? i did.... ;P"

Yes this is precisely the way to establish your credentials in this thread pipecock.

"I'd struggle to come up with 5 dubstep tracks I like more than DJ Abstract's "Touch", considered a dubstep track last time I checked. Why should making tunes in that vein be considered anathema, pollywog?"

that was the last track i bought in the "dubstep" vein before burial surfaced. that had to have been like what, 03? that shit was ill, remineded me more of old 2-step than what dubstep became. if more of the tunes were like that i'd have been buying lots more!

"Yes this is precisely the way to establish your credentials in this thread pipecock.

-- Tim F"

;P

I luv the funky house for the opposite reason i like dubstep...

...light expansive vs dark oppressive

people can do/make whatever they like and i don't have to like it. I'd hate for there to be a dark funky house trak cos then it wouldn't be funky house like i'm not really into the light fluffy dubstep traks either, not that there are too many of those, thank fuck...

...besides 'touch' isn't exactly a smiley tune

<i> I'd hate for there to be a dark funky house trak cos then it wouldn't be funky house like i'm not really into the light fluffy dubstep traks either, not that there are too many of those, thank fuck...</i>

How is this even vaguely defensible?

Woops, fucked up my italics.

How is this even vaguely defensible?

drunken monkey styles...

...think about it

to make dubstep light hearted and smiley is to negate what dubstep is...

...it's not happy music,it's dread muisc

"Touch" is certainly more up-feeling, pretty, feminine and housey than most dubstep.

I am not sure why that is necessarily wrong.

In fact there used to be heaps of tunes in this vein. Think of Zed Bias's remix of 2 Banks of 4's "Hook and a Line", or Horsepower Productions' "Django's Revenge"... Sure these tracks were part of the transition from 2-step to dubstep, but at what stage did it suddenly become verboten to play around with this feel?

...i reckon at about the same time as the garage guys started making funky house and the d'n'b guys started making dubstep

Yeah titchy is closer to the mark I think...

"gentrifying them to get rid of the stuff that might be seen as 'embarassing'"

This is basically what i mean by "rudeboyism" - what Simon Reynolds always described as a flava/cheese axis.

-- Tim F

Theres something here to resist, isn't there? A counter-fetishization of the street?

Ok vigilance, vigilance against cults of the artist and all claims for transcendence. But going one better, and sniffing for any music which accidentally makes itself vulnerable to that kind of misuse? Its the consumer doing the gentrifying, and less the producer, isn't it? Or, what femininity, what roughness is lacking from 'Untrue'?

But maybe its true--what if Burial, who is coded white and well educated, is afraid of something in the ugly & promiscuous & vibrantly pulsating street? If he is, then isn't his sin inauthenticity? Distance from where its really at? Is it possible to make it sound rudeboy when you are just posing? Do his sounds fail on these terms always, necessarily, cuz of--cultural disconnect?

Where does that leave us? and where does that leave... us?

I should say I know nothing of music mention on this here, except I have 'the Roots of Dubstep' and both 'Box of Dub' albums; yet I have learn much from reading this thread. I was wondering what is the music on the Soul Jazz Compilation 'Rumble in the Jungle' showcasing? How does it fit into Jungle/D&B/2step/grime etc.. Also where would one start if I were to explore 2step, I think I would be more inclined to like it.

"I should say I know nothing of music mention on this here, except I have 'the Roots of Dubstep' and both 'Box of Dub' albums; yet I have learn much from reading this thread. I was wondering what is the music on the Soul Jazz Compilation 'Rumble in the Jungle' showcasing? How does it fit into Jungle/D&B/2step/grime etc.. Also where would one start if I were to explore 2step, I think I would be more inclined to like it.

-- JacobSanders"

"rumble in the jungle" is what is generally referred to as "ragga jungle". the stuff on that comp is from 90-95 and shows the progression of reggae influence from hardcore into jungle. some good stuff on there, not necessarily the best stuff in the genre, but they put on some of my favorites ("under mi sensi" jungle mix!). there are probably some other slskable ragga jungle comps for more specific periods of time in there, 95 was kind of the heyday really.

i think this is a good intro to 2-step:

http://www.discogs.com/release/73083

lots of variety in producers and sounds, lots and lots of anthems. there were alot of good 2-step comps though, and lots of good songs!

"But maybe its true--what if Burial, who is coded white and well educated, is afraid of something in the ugly & promiscuous & vibrantly pulsating street? If he is, then isn't his sin inauthenticity? Distance from where its really at? Is it possible to make it sound rudeboy when you are just posing? Do his sounds fail on these terms always, necessarily, cuz of--cultural disconnect?

-- walter benjamin"

i dont doubt that there is some of this going on, definitely a lot of it happened in the move from jungle to drum and bass. but i dont think burial is doing that kind of thing either. if anything, the cultural disconnect is because the music he is making probably appeals more to an older crowd who remembers the music he likes than whatever the younger crowd is doing, that is just a symptom of the hyper-accelerated dubplate culture mentality inherent in these kinds of music.

d'n'b guys never really got into garage so when they moved across to making dubstep their beat 'roots' weren't in the stuttery, staggered type of 2 step style so it was much easier to just slow their tunes down and clone the halfstep to suit...

"d'n'b guys never really got into garage"

!! What on earth are you basing this one on.

"But maybe its true--what if Burial, who is coded white and well educated, is afraid of something in the ugly & promiscuous & vibrantly pulsating street? If he is, then isn't his sin inauthenticity? Distance from where its really at? Is it possible to make it sound rudeboy when you are just posing? Do his sounds fail on these terms always, necessarily, cuz of--cultural disconnect"

An absence of flavour isn't a necessary outcome of some sort of metaphysical relationship to the streets, it's a contingent musical outcome based on the choices a producer makes. I'd have no idea whether Burial is more or less street than other dubstep producers, other 2-step producers. Why should that form some potential barrier to the possibility of his music being good? The above quote implies that there is some sort of customs that the music has to pass through on the way from the record towards your ears where the artist has to prove their credentials before anything you hear in their music can be taken seriously.

Why on earth is every single discussion about dubstep so obsessed by such things? Why must even ILM discussions of dubstep end up mimicking tiresomely the same issues that are obsessed over in Dissensus discussions?

i'm going to go out on a limb here and say maybe its because of problems at the heart of the idea of "hardcore continuum"?