the genre known as dubstep - search and destroy

i dont get the point of all these new tunes reworking old 2 step rhythms. that brackles one (lhc?) is quite interesting melody-wise for instance but i wish they came up with something a bit fresher on the rhythmic front. it feels too soon (and obv i know 2 steppy revival beats arent new) to be reviving that already.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y6NHi0ios4I

crackstep

Mount Kimbie have a new EP out called "Sketch on Glass." On first listen it seems like a definite step-up from "Maybes", which i loved

^ I'll have to check that out....I love 'Maybes"

eve on a benga beat

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zShHmBOyr9U&feature=player_embedded

not great but adequate enough, not horrible i guess.

yeah i was surprised by that. be interesting to see if it takes off in the states. dunno why US rappers seem more into dubstep than grime beats though.

no silkie discussion?? it's certainly the best dubstep album that i can think of, i'd worn out his train wreck mix pretty well in the ages it took the album to be released but ive listened to it once a day since buying it last week and the first third of the album in particular is SO good. love all the little details, i swoon at the little 'ha- ha- haahh' three minutes into concrete jungle every time

shame about the bad vinyl pressing!

I adore Silkie and fully expect to adore the album but I haven't been able to source a copy yet.

For people who haven't heard Sully:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EygO2Al40sI

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JaUPzhum5-w&feature=related

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=itLvnHSxAMA&feature=related

into the first one

This is amazing
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sYCzZCmPypk

makes me want the next junior boys album to have a major dubstep influence

Don't say things like that, you're just getting my hopes up!

Getting more and more obsessed with Joy Orbison I have to say. Hyph Mngo was a great introduction, but most of the other tracks just sound so, well, complete and timless. Wet Look, Smother, Tentative Bidding all worth a listen.

Something Or Nothing (2000F & JKamata Remix) digital release is finally out!!!

seriously obsessed with this and Hyph Mngo for the past, oh, 3 months?

"Love Dub" and "Hyphy Mango" are completely changing my attitude about dubstep, even as I realize they are outliers. My perception of it now is more as fertile ground than as a dead end.

narst>>>love dub

haven't heard it

need to remedy that

http://www.boomkat.com/item.cfm?id=186660

just occurred to me that Hyph Mngo reminds me of Utopia by Jackson and his Computer band

Hyph Mngo (Half the time I've also been calling it hyphy mango) always reminds me of this (the first track, for goodness sake, if anyone knows what it is please tell me!)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6GJs5YyfagY

The Martyn remix is Fever Ray is the best thing I've heard from him in ages. Better than anything on the album I think.

I preferred his 12"s to anything on his album.

On the mix front, have been really enjoying Oneman's Autumn mix as well as the first Hardwax podcast (DJ Pete).

I've gotta say, my favourite dubstep tunes this year by far have been the vocal reggae/roots influenced tracks such as:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9v_f8bAGodY
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q_b_K16E524

I'd love to know if there's more stuff out there like this.

http://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/13614-5-five-years-of-hyperdub/

Can I say how little a fan I am of this review?

I doubt you'd find much more sneering in a negative piece, I'm surprised that its scored so high.

Not a Kode 9 stan here, I like his music. But not necessarily the way he runs his label.

Not a fan of Wonky for the most part. Thought Burial's first album sounded like a good EP (which I already owned) and a bunch of filler. Second album falls off hard in the second half, gets too ambient.

But Kode 9 made that Junior Boys remix, Stung, and Black Sun and he is not someone you dismiss out of hand.

Fucking lazy ass piece.

Can we make it a rule that you can't diss dubstep dancing till you actually go to a night?

If you're after comedy on Youtube you can find it, but I doubt the dancing is bad at a Hessle Night at Fabric.

Or at the Berghain. Think of that: 500 leather daddies moving to hard as nails Scuba stuff.

Ironic considering techno is the one offshoot of early dance music that claims the least lineage associated with disco. When Derrick May described it was what "George Clinton and Kraftwerk stuck in an elevator"? Not a fucking mention of Italo in there at all. Techno was a move away from gay dance, the Belville Three seriously had an axe to grind regarding house. They couldn't compete in house, except for Saunderson. So they butched up.

And by 2009 its linked up with the least gay derivation of Garage possible.

And suddenly Dubstep is Techno for German sex clubs.

And when I say can't compete I mean 87. Not 92 when Mayday was ruling the world.

Kode 9 also made fucking Magnetic City. If you don't like that track you don't like muscular dance music!

oh, i saw some dubstep heads lolling at that review on twitter yesterday, didn't read it b/c, y'know, pfork, what are the odds that it'd be worth it. apparently it failed to even mention ikonika o_0

"dubstep" seems like a really archaic way to describe the stuff on that comp anyway. still looking for a new term! post-dubstep is descriptively accurate but rubbish. w*nky, don't even go there. purple, only the bristol crew really. i think some people are trying to make "tropical" happen, i'd be down with that.

I'm partial to Boomkat's Dubtech for the techno end. Boring I know. It does what it says on the tin.

Aquacrunk was cute, and artist approved for the Rustie stuff. Those guys hate the term Wonky just as much as I do. Zomby had a royal hissy fit at Simon's review of the genre, which he's entitled to.

Sorry Simon, that article was awful. Sketchiest what if kind of reporting possible.

As for the stuff that combines all this?

Weird drones over funky drums? Danceable post-garage experiments like Pangaea?

Tropical works I guess. Isn't that the Boy Better Know thing?

But yeah, guy didn't mention Ikonika at all. Or Cooly G. Fucker.

wonkys not that bad. but i think its here to stay now. funny how it was coined by martin clark whos an insider and not someone who knows nothing about the music but still no one likes it.

Wonky doesn't get used as an adjective in the American vernacular very much.

I tell my friend's that its called Wonky and they give me weird looks, like why do you care about this again?

Then I'm like forget that shit and go listen to Digidesign again.

i bet americans didnt get or think much of calling genres jungle, drum n bass or 2 step either though.

anyway, genre names are usually always contested by artists. we shouldnt pay them any mind. they always moan. wonkys a pretty good description of er wonky's sonic tics and generally wtf-is-this-annoying-shit-ness.

hyperdubs going to be the new warp though isnt it.

Yeah, thats the problem.

Dubstep threw out some really great ideas for linear dance music, and now its devolving into a circle jerk.

Or a moshpit. I like my chances better in techno, really.

And I live in Wisconsin so I do kind of care what Americans think of this.

Skater kids over here are getting into Wobble, its absolutely bizarre.

Off for bed, morning UK.

ha@that p4k review. its not that bad. and its sort of good in a way to read a review that for once doesnt fawn all over kode 9 and the label. cos that really DOES get boring, and tbh, ive found most of kode 9s own beats a bit soft and weirdly deficient in general, and the reviewers right, the new disc is a bit so-so. ALWAYS a mistake when youre doing a best of/GH anthology to put a disc of new material next to it. but that aside, the new tracks just arent that good really. theyre okay, but thats about it. plus the other older tracks are all proven so it doesnt really matter how theyre compiled together, the new ones arent really, so they have to kinda work as an album. which doesnt really help for this sort of music.

its also bizarre how much love hyperdub gets when he always says that the best things about underground uk music, sorry the nuum, is its collective hivemind, and that thats where all the best freshest most exciting etc ideas are, but his own label never actually puts out anything especially danceable lol. obv i can see thats WHY it would appeal more to guardian readers, but its not exactly breaking with the usual pattern.

not dissing kode 9 tho - i do always like what he has to say and hes a great dj.

really? i think the new material makes for a really amazing compilation, much better than i'd expected. the best new stuff > the best old stuff imo... "aidy's girl...", "sahara michael", "tarantula", "stash"

can't wait for "Tentative Bidding" release. when is it?

doorstep

xxpost to my own post - tho to be fair, the diff between this sort of experimental home listening dance music and the old stuff (tho i wasnt 'there' so not sure if those guys were getting played in clubs etc too - i think some of their stuff did didnt it?) is that kode 9 puts out stuff by guys properly part of 'the scene', its not just 'outsiders'. (tho isnt everyone an outsider at some point? ok n/m). so the 'its just artificial intelligence' again isnt quite right. although if autechre and co did occupy the same sort of fringe/in but also out position, then maybe it does hold. it just doesnt have to be seen as a total negative.

i think that review was just a bit of a reaction to all the somewhat excessive kode 9 love.

Um... That review does fawn all over Kode 9 though. The whole thing is about how distinctive and original and daring and non-boring-dubstep Hyperdub is.

(also not that I approve of focusing on numerical scores in pitchfork reviews but you've gotta do some fast talking to get a score above 8 to fly, if he's saying 8.2 he must really really really like the Classics disc)

Also sorry siah but I've been to enough dubstep gigs to know that's exactly how people dance at them, maybe not at Hessle Audio nights or Berghain but you're talking about a very small minority compared to the international language of indie-boy "skanking".

when i went to matter for the rinse night guys were doing the rock guitar strumming thing to dubstep while kinda pogoing!

The whole thing is about how distinctive and original and daring and non-boring-dubstep Hyperdub is.

while at the same time criticizing HD for not being dancey enough and kinda proggy in attitude.

"while at the same time criticizing HD for not being dancey enough and kinda proggy in attitude."

I think the comparison to Warp circa Artificial Intelligence doesn't seem to be positive or negative, just a reference point.

doorstep

approved