December 10, 2007 by A.S. Van Dorston

Along with 2step, grime and bassline, dubstep has been percolating in the UK garage scene since at least 2001. Last year it began leaking from the clubs to the mainstream as a few albums were issued that were more than just collections of tracks from 12″ singles, from Burial, Skream and Kode 9. Many of these artists were in the soundtrack for the movie Children Of Men, and the Burial album topped The Wire‘s 2006 critic’s poll. I found Burial the most interesting entry, complete with a theme of a near-future London submerged underwater. Highlights like “Distant Lights” and “Southern Comfort” pulsed with a sort of downtempo euphoria not unlike the feeling I got listening to Tricky’s debut 11 years previously, though it was not quite consistently engaging enough to top my own list. However, I heard loads of potential in the haunting, watery bass grooves and found great tracks on all the releases, which are all available at Boomkat:

Burial (Hyperdub)
Skream! (Tempa)
Kode 9 & The Space Ape – Memories of the Future (Hyperdub)

This short documentary on dubstep was created by the BBC in early 2006 and gives some context to the scene before most of the aformentioned albums dropped:

The people interviewed had a hard time defining dubstep other than the fact that it’s definitely meant to be a live experience where towering stacks massage your inner organs, puny earbuds not allowed. Mainly what differentiates it from stuff like the Crooklyn Dub Consortium series that started in 1995 is the riddims are based on two-step rather than trip-hop. What rides on top, anything goes. In the year and a half since that documentary was made, dubstep has expanded and grown far beyond its South London origins. Martin Clark has been writing a monthly grime and dubstep column forPitchfork for over a year, and Woofah magazine is partially dedicated to it. A dubstep forum that reveals a favorite pastime is “shredding the freshies” while “rinsing” dubstep, e.g. snowboarding in giant headphones.

Due to other plans I missed the opportunity to nestle up to wobbling dubstep bassbins Friday night when Plastician spun last night at Chicago’s Lava, part of the dubstep-heavy first Friday series, Bass Goes Boom. On December 7th he was at Laundry Bar in Miami, and on the 15th, Madrid. He was at TBC in San Francisco before that. Dubstep making giant steps across the globe? We’ll see if future innovations justify the hype. This year the second Burial album, Untrue, certainly has me hooked. In fact, it will likely end up my favorite album of the year. Like the first album, it’s hardly about direct gratification. But it introduces more vocals into the mix, treated with pretty innovative effects. The melodies and hooks remain as easy to pin down as jell-o, but it vibrates with powerful emotions. At times it’s even uplifting. After more than a dozen listens, I still feel like I don’t have a firm grip on it, like a puzzle one obsesses over. So far the experience is more pleasurable than frustrating.

The most consistent album after Untrue is Pinch’s Underwater Dancehall. DJ/Producer and owner of the Tectonic label, Pinch went for a double-CD with the first disc featuring vocals, and the second with the same songs as instrumentals. The rhythms and structures are more straightforward than Burial, offering simpler pleasures that will take dubstep one step closer to the mainstream. There’s some question over whether this music would ever leak into the mainstream. I would venture that it would only be as fragments incorporated into a pop song. Some might say that’s already happened, with the wobbler effect in Britney Spears’ “Freakshow.”

Burial – Untrue (Hyperdub)
Pinch – Underwater Dancehall (Tectonic)
Distance – My Demons (Planet Mu)
Boxcutter – Oneiric (Planet Mu)
Disrupt – Foundation Bit (Werk)
Shackleton/Appleblim – Soundboy Punishments (Skull Disco)
Cyrus – From The Shadows (Tectonic)

Wriggling, Slimy Bass-Tendrils and Other Low-End Ephemera
The next big dubstep album to drop is Benga, Diary Of An Afro Warrior (Tempa). Clash Magazine jumped the gun in putting the album on top of it’s year-end list, but its release was delayed until early 2008. Describing the album as “a caged animal in zoo breakout,” my guess is he’s toonced up the tempo compared to most dubstep. Benga started DJing at 16, and is releasing his second album at the ripe age of 21.

The Bug has released the third single from a forthcoming album on Ninja Tune, “Poison Dart.” It follows 2003’s Pressure, which was more a brutal assault on ageing dancehall than dubstep. Originally formed in 1996, dubstep is merely the latest weapon The Bug is filing into its dub arsenal locker. Between EAR, God, Ice and Techno Animal, is there no electro-musical pie Kevin Martin doesn’t have his finger in? See the video for the singlehere.

Probably older than Benga’s dad, Shaggy has a new album called Intoxication. He’s attempting to revive his career with a virtual reality meet-and-greet with fans. The video for “Bonafide Girl” is the most shamelessly smarmy thing I’ve seen outside of “crunk.” It looks like the actors were picked up from a Miami strip club. And he must be cozy with P. Diddy or someone who let him use their mansion, because I don’t think he’s been making enough cash to live the lifestyle he’s projecting there. In fact, I worry that it’s not actually Shaggy, but a grotesque Chuck-E-Cheese style animatron.

This next one doesn’t seem as dated because it takes the raunch to realms beyond mere bad taste. Bangers and Cash is Spank Rock and Benny Blanco paying homage to the classic Miami sounds of 2 Live Crew. My friend Tomiiko turned me onto Santogold, who is featured in this video. B.O.O.T.A.Y.!

Simon Reynolds has been blogging about bassline lately. I haven’t dug into any of it yet, but it’s inspiring more colorful whimsey in his writing than I’ve seen in years. Porno-delic, yay!

“You get some really weird’n’woogly ooh-oohing squeaky-voiced tracks that flash on hardcore ’92 but also the sugar-rush diva-warble of prime 2step. But unlike dubstep’s nuum preservation society, there’s a rude’n’cheesy instantness, a nowness to bassline; it’s rampant floor fodder churned out with minimal preciousness in vast quantities (shops typically sell the stuff in 9 or 10 CD packs! Which initially I thought would be unbearable, seeing the stuff as best in small sugar-rush doses, but it’s starting to seem more alluring. And value for money, since these packs go for about 18 quid). But for all the pulpy, trashy, fast-money-music aspect to bassline, the genre doesn’t neglect the “avant” in avant-lumpen. At its most full-on, the delirium of wriggling, slimy bass-tendrils recalls acid house, the slippery involutions of the bass-warpage redolent of the role of slide/portamento in the Roland 303 bass-riff. When the bright, treble-upper element of divas and ersatz strings gets stripped way, what’s left can get pretty dark and deranged, in a Fingers Inc “Washing Machine” meets KMA “Cape Fear” kind of way. “Speed garage is sikkk!” sez a female bassline fan on one DJ myspaces, and that’s the vibe: a febrile hypersexuality that’s nauseously unreal, perversely porno-delic.”

Posted in: News, Rants, Videos/Singles