dubstep

[thefiznut]

Any feelers out there?

Pretty much 100% of my listening as of recent is dubstep..

Quickly turning into an obsession.

 

[kineaesth]

Indeed. The Bug, Burial, Modeselektor, and Surgeon are personal favourites.

 

[thefiznut]

Word.

Been digging Shackleton, Pinch, Distance, and 2562 recently. Gotta say I love the real heavy bangers, but I see so much dubstep home listening potential from the cats who keep it minimal and moody.

 

[kineaesth]

Stuff like this is always good.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PFxnIJD6cWM

But for my heavy stuff I prefer drum and bass, to be honest. Have you heard much of Burial?

 

[thefiznut]

That is to say, when dubstep gets heavy, it gets DAMN heavy.

And ofcourse, who hasn't? His name's plastered over every dubstep thread on the internet.
Well deserved though, some fine, fine music there.

 

[kineaesth]

Yeah, totally. It's pretty much how I got into the genre, and, although it's cliched, he's probably my favourite, but that's mostly because his tracks fit my general music aesthetic more than the more electronic tracks of, say, The Bug. Kode9? Spaceape? Digital Mysticz?

 

[thefiznut]

True that. I come from the avant-garde, experimental, idm, noise, ambient, etc.. and while I love dubstep, it truly is a young genre at this point. It's only a matter of time before it starts branching heavily into deep left-field territory, a la the junglists progressing into experimental jungle/drill. Basically once dubsteppers grow to love Max/MSP and modular synthesis, that's when the fun will begin.

Signs are popping up though:

boxcutter's got a nice glitchy, abstract sound while still retaining the dubs.
shackleton's just brilliant really, and ricardo villalobos remixing one of his tracks showed potential for genre bending.
mala's unreleased track 'unexpected' is exciting as well. not all dubstep has to be dark and moody, eh?

well, planet mu is loving it in general, and the folks there are quite the innovative types.

 

[kineaesth]

Haha, certainly. It seems like it's at a transitional phase between styles, and I reckon some will get faster and heavier and some will get more techy and minimal.

 

[thefiznut]

Realized something interesting about dubstep the other night too, even some of the heaviest dubstep I can sleep to, so long as the artist isn't 2-stepping and the melodies aren't too noisy. That slow dubstep vibe rolls along just slow enough to put me to sleep. Or maybe it's the sub-bass vibrations lulling me away.

 

[kineaesth]

Yeah, or the swung snares. You're right though, there's a fair amount of IDM in dubstep.

 

[thefiznut]

I'm going to wet myself the day Amon Tobin or Richard D. James drops a dubstep 12".

 

[kineaesth]

Heh, yeah. That would be a perfect combination. There was speculation that Burial was Aphex Twin, actually.

 

[thefiznut]

That's hilarious.. Burial = Aphex, and no Rolands or Nords?
Burial revealed himself recently anyways, so that myths dispelled.
Funny to imagine if it were true though, Richard stroking his chin as he singlehandedly steamrolls an entire budding genre.

 

[kineaesth]

The other rumour was that it was whoever is The Prodigy these days. That guy. I was glad that Burial just told people his name, his whole 'anonymous' thing had the potential to make him a bit of a try hard.

 

[thefiznut]

I agree, but the idea was genuine atleast. According to his blog post about it, he just wanted people to evaluate the music itself without a face to idolize. Though with music as moody as his, it's easy to see why the burial mystique worked in his favour.

Damn there is a ridiculous amount of potential in dubstep, it's killing me that so many great producers are fooling around with 12 inchers for the dancefloor, who could probably compose downright phenomenal albums for home listening as well. But like I said, it's only a matter of time before the down n' dirty experimentation begins. I'm looking forward to it. Matmos dubs anyone?

off to bed, night man.

 

[knut]

When I was obsessed with Burial around about Untrue's release I really tried to dive into dubstep - got a whole load of stuff by Spor, Skream, Boxcutter, etc - but could never really get proper into it. I could never find that unique Burial sound, that lovely London-at-night-Aphex-Twin-like-SAW-sound which is a shame but I did find a brilliant chap called Spor who is more drum n' bass orientated but has some real moody and dark shifts. Great stuff.

 

[kineaesth]

Spor's almost entirely never not at all dubstep, I'd say drum and bass neurofunk.
Big tracks though
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eRVKb2VJYiA
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tAbwtB13FvM&feature=related

 

[thefiznut]

yeah, truth be told there's loads of shit dubstep out there.. but that's only because it's a new genre that's growing quickly. there's loads of skream imitators out there, and people whipping together bangers with what seems like the same old VST patch presets.

i think there's loads of potential in both dub and dubstep though, and i'm just holding my breath for when it all comes together.

it's funny, while waves of shit tracks plagued just about every electronic genre that grew large quickly - drum and bass, trance, electro, jungle, etc - the IDM and experimental crowds never really had that problem. yeah, people joke about Boards clones and anyone whose ever delved deep into IDM has surely found some uninspiring albums or two. even still, there's mountains of diversity.. aphex is no squarepusher, casino versus japan is no bochum welt, arovane is no proem, fennesz is no pole..

never understood why people think IDM is dead.

 

[ComradeBadger]

Shackleton is amazing.. so so so good!

Get the Ricardo Villalobos remix of Blood On My Hands 18 minutes of pure atmosphere

 

[thefiznut]

Shackleton is amazing.. so so so good!

Get the Ricardo Villalobos remix of Blood On My Hands 18 minutes of pure atmosphere

already got. and yeah, it's awesome! needs to be more music like it.

 

[ComradeBadger]

That on headphones, on the nightbus.. I could just travel all night with that in my ears...

Dancefloor wise, I love Rusko - Cockney Thug, it's a hell of a banger!

 

[kineaesth]

'Wake the f*ck up' is such a good drop, totally agreed.

A dude put on London Zoo at a party I was at last night, and it was very successful. It's great music for people who know nothing about it, scares them good.