El-B

stelfox

Beast of Burden
matt b said:
really? wow.

just reminded me of a poor jungle re-rub

the vocals aren't all that but the beat is absolutely terrific - hits really hard and you need to hear it very loud for full effect.
 

jay-s

Active member
stelfox said:
oh don't get me wrong martin, i'm not advocating any kind of revivalism and am not saying that the scene should even aim for that much variety again, even if it were brand new styles of music - mainly because it's very unlikely to happen. what made this period so great was that it was totally organic and exciting and there was a real sense that anything could happen because the music was really feeling its way along, not knowing quite what was around the corner and learning to be what its now become. my main point being that i think i enjoyed the journey more than the final destination(s).
there are still djs who play that way and it still sounds better than each genre separately, imo.
 

UFO over easy

online mahjong
stelfox said:
but one of the main reasons i stopped going to forward for just over a year, about 2 years ago, apart from the music turning pretty dull, was because of the crowd: overwhelmingly white, overwhelmingly male

Wow, you're a bit of a twat.
 

mms

sometimes
stelfox said:
and, marcus, my above statements are not to one-up anyone, but if i'm told that i don't have the right to an opinion because i haven't been seen in the right places i'm sure as eggs going to call that out. it's not as though i don't have a relatively strong background in this stuff.

again this is quite bloody insulting.

when you wrote your one of the first pieces about dubstep you did go to the places where it was hatching and fertile didn't you?

yes you did and you don't now.

im not saying you don't have the right to an opinion i'm saying your judgements over dubsteps audience cant really be validated unless you actually know what the audience is in 2006 and proposing that producers liking rhythm and sound /basic channel as an example of it's techno/idmness isn't really workable as well - considering that group of producers have much more in common with a continuation of dub than they really do with techno..
both dubstep and grime have a much more crossover audience nowdays, for instance the grime mix cd by shadetek (who have released on warp etc) but i don't see how its diluted the core producers etc..

my favorite el-b record is his rerub of quartz meltdown btw..
 

Logan Sama

BestThereIsAtWhatIDo
mms said:
my favorite el-b record is his rerub of quartz meltdown btw..

So that is what that record is. I just had a 3 track recordl from Uptown with nothing written on it and a slightly blue tinge to the white label.
 

stelfox

Beast of Burden
marcus i am terribly sorry if you feel insulted. i am deeply unsettled that my opinion of dubstep having become progressively more uninteresting after beginning as something very worthy of note at first offends you so. i also apologise for observing changes in a music's core audience, even if it is something i'm sort of supposed to do.
i do wonder, though, if someone more respected around these parts had said exactly the same things as i have, whether they would have been met with such hostility or basically told to shut up because they "can't back it up". i doubt it. i've not been rude to anyone on this thread. i've not insulted anyone. i've just passed comment on a style of music i've become very disillusioned with so there really isn't anything i should be showing any kind of contrition about if i think about it. still, if that's the way you feel i'm sorry all the same.
 
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stelfox

Beast of Burden
borderpolice said:
1996 --> 2001 that's quite a time.

what didn't work i think was the crossover to (producers) outside of london (with the exception of russia, where 2step garage is popular, but that does not feed back to the london scene, partly because of russian lyrics).

dude 138 trek was released in 2000, that's quite a short time and there wasn't a lot of life in breakbeat garage after about 18 months or so.
 

grappa

Member
i'm really glad to hear that the originators haven't been completely forgotten, even though they don't get the props they used to.

Roxy vs El-B: Breakbeat Science/Cuba: Bison Recordings is a personal fav and imo one of the best 12s from that time.

I heard Benny ill drop this last time I saw him at Fwd and it reminded me of my first trips to Velvet Rooms! He played a wicked set, with loads of early influences in his selection, and I hope he does the same at DMZ on Saturday and educates the new-school crowd a bit.
 

boomnoise

♫
benny ill is doing a dub set at dmz so maybe not. but i would love to hear someone do an oldschool set at dmz, playing el-b and ghost stuff and the like. think it would go down really well.
 

Blackdown

nexKeysound
boomnoise said:
benny ill is doing a dub set at dmz so maybe not. but i would love to hear someone do an oldschool set at dmz, playing el-b and ghost stuff and the like. think it would go down really well.

um... i think benny's back in the US actually. someone has Nicely been able to step in with a huge stack of new dubs, will be spinning from early - dont miss!
 

Blackdown

nexKeysound
stelfox said:
marcus i am terribly sorry if you feel insulted. i am deeply unsettled that my opinion of dubstep having become progressively more uninteresting after beginning as something very worthy of note at first offends you so. i also apologise for observing changes in a music's core audience, even if it is something i'm sort of supposed to do.
i do wonder, though, if someone more respected around these parts had said exactly the same things as i have, whether they would have been met with such hostility or basically told to shut up because they "can't back it up". i doubt it. i've not been rude to anyone on this thread. i've not insulted anyone. i've just passed comment on a style of music i've become very disillusioned with so there really isn't anything i should be showing any kind of contrition about if i think about it. still, if that's the way you feel i'm sorry all the same.

re your point about audience, both FWD and DMZ remain a cultural ballance. FWD gets more grime industry people, DMZ more girls but both are far more multicultural/class/racial than a great deal of other clubs in london. there have been some shifts in this ballance, esp at FWD over the years month-on-month, but on average i'd say the audience at clubs is pretty similar now to the early days, insofar as more than any one thing, it's mixed.
 

stelfox

Beast of Burden
well that's good to hear. i have to admit that the last fwd i went to was very different to the period that made me give up going. and obviously i wasn't so horrified by the crowd that decided to stop attending dubstep clubs. it was just a one factor that went hand in hand with the main, most important thing: the music turning a bit rubbish. obviously this is a matter of personal opinion, not a an absolute statement of fact and i maintain the utmost respect for other people's right to listen to music i don't particularly enjoy.
 

boomnoise

♫
Blackdown said:
um... i think benny's back in the US actually. someone has Nicely been able to step in with a huge stack of new dubs, will be spinning from early - dont miss!

guessing has begun ;)
 

mms

sometimes
stelfox said:
marcus i am terribly sorry if you feel insulted. i am deeply unsettled that my opinion of dubstep having become progressively more uninteresting after beginning as something very worthy of note at first offends you so. i also apologise for observing changes in a music's core audience, even if it is something i'm sort of supposed to do.
i do wonder, though, if someone more respected around these parts had said exactly the same things as i have, whether they would have been met with such hostility or basically told to shut up because they "can't back it up". i doubt it. i've not been rude to anyone on this thread. i've not insulted anyone. i've just passed comment on a style of music i've become very disillusioned with so there really isn't anything i should be showing any kind of contrition about if i think about it. still, if that's the way you feel i'm sorry all the same.

oh don't be silly - i've not disrespected you in any way - i just think on one of your key points you are basing your argument around is wrong, i've never ever told you to shut up at all i just think this time you are slightly wrong - this is a discussion board and not a 'slightly narkily dismiss someone elses pov because they aren't a pro journo board' which is the feeling i've picked up off you overall - basically you've dismissed what i've said to try and cover your argument but i feel you've missed it overall..

if you actually asked me about how i feel about dubstep - as i've pointed out countless times recently i do feel the same as you about how dubstep has come or how i feel it could become if it carries on in the way it has recently, just as recently as 2 years ago tracks had a massive debt to 2 step and they sounded crisper and livelier - but the idea that dubstep is a branch of techno is strange - there is the whole plasticman not knowing about plastikman thing and dubsteps most 'techno' tune crossing over to grime and more mainstream appeal.

anyway as i said no disrespect at all - i totally acknowledge the groundbreaking stuff you did in xlr8r etc and other places etc ..
 
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Poet for Hire

Well-known member
boomnoise said:
benny ill is doing a dub set at dmz so maybe not. but i would love to hear someone do an oldschool set at dmz, playing el-b and ghost stuff and the like. think it would go down really well.

I stayed to the end of a dmz last year and benny ill and kode9 did a back to back set from 5-6 in the morning which was pure 2step, from dem2 to mdubs, dpr, ghost, gurley, zed and so on. Would love to hear that at peak time before a mystikz set.
 

jay-s

Active member
mms said:
the idea that dubstep is a branch of techno is strange
i did not think so. quite a lot of people i talked to think that contemporary dubstep sounds "like techno" and those who are into "oficial" black genres (hip hop, r'n'b, dancehall) even more so.
 

borderpolice

Well-known member
jay-s said:
i did not think so. quite a lot of people i talked to think that contemporary dubstep sounds "like techno" and those who are into "oficial" black genres (hip hop, r'n'b, dancehall) even more so.

techno and dubstep are very similar in their attitude to sound, to chromatic qualities. they are very different rhythmically.
 

stelfox

Beast of Burden
i never said dubstep is a branch of techno at all. i said that the general aesthetic/milieu/shebang owes quite a lot to techno. the general tenor of the scene and the way people talk about it is much more "intelligent"/producer-oriented, like the way people think of rephlex/warp-type electronica (though are warp even doing anything electronic any more?!) - hardly surprising because a lot of them are the same crowd. i will add that these are not bad people and i'm not being sneery, it's just that i don't happen to like that whole scene very much and never really did. and despite being heavily influenced by dub, basic channel/chain reaction are, beyond all shadow of a doubt, techno labels. if anyone wants to argue that they're not, they will lose. in fact, as far as i can see, the only reason anyone would argue that they aren't is for the sake of it.
 
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