El-B

mms

sometimes
bassnation said:
this sounds interesting, look forward to hearing what you produce, hopefully.

however, i have to say i love reggae samples - loved them in hardcore & jungle and got no problem with them in dubstep too.

in another thread you were bigging up splash "babylon falls" - which falls foul of your criteria as stated above. this is a perfect example of how these things can work well..

10 years ago - and it's a great sample that fits in well so it doesn't fit into my critera- it's not just to indicate some kind of dub or ja-ness - or just a needless presence which is the problem i have ..

bassnation said:
and i hate to say this, but the process of stripping away cheesy / hooky elements is a very techno approach. i know a lot of techno heads who can't abide the merest hint of a vocal in a tune. to be perfectly honest i find that boring - not into tastefulness as an end in itself. .

me too - there is no where where i have said i want to cut that stuff out (it barely exists in there anyway) - this is just for me mind, my way of looking at things - other people are really good at what they do - loefah/ and digi mystikz do amazing stuff with reggae dubbish sounds but others do it really badly - and there are tracks out there which simply loop bar or two of a reggae vocal or track and build track from there. or do some kinda two note minor key riff thing which often sounds just crap

bassnation said:
if dubstep goes in that direction i'll find something else which more closely embodies the reggae / hardcore vibe.

err you haven't considered all the things that can actually be done or even heard any of the tracks for gods sake !
 

mms

sometimes
bassnation said:
i think a lot of techno people came through to dance music a different way. the indie thing is totally otm in my opinion.

speaking generally (not directed at you personally marcus) many techno fans skipped handbag house and hardcore - but maybe caught some industrial or old skool indie guitar music.

essentailly if people have missed out the cheese side of things, they won't properly understand dance music.

i hate the idea of restricting whats good to listen to by such arbitary criteria like vocals, pianos etc. i want excitement not restraint.


this isn't me at all - never really been into industrial and never liked guitars in a big way but i've got more into that kinda stuff lately
i started off listening to soul and hip hop us house and garage , old hardcore and uk stuff, detroit and nyc stuff and then got into hardcore but always liked detroit stuff too.
nothing massivley cheesy though admittedly - never liked handbag house but i don't have a problem with vocals if they are ok.

You have made a judgement that i don't want any vocals in there which isn't true - i've also said i want to drop some of that overbearing masculinity so you've made a judgement based on your objections to what you imagine i might want there.....
to my ears some of the early tempa stuff - like that dj abstract track on tempa allstars vol 1 has a strong detroit vibe as well - the rhythm pattern - but the female vocals work well with it
 
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bassnation

the abyss
mms said:
me too - there is no where where i have said i want to cut that stuff out (it barely exists in there anyway) - this is just for me mind, my way of looking at things - other people are really good at what they do - loefah/ and digi mystikz do amazing stuff with reggae dubbish sounds but others do it really badly - and there are tracks out there which simply loop bar or two of a reggae vocal or track and build track from there. or do some kinda two note minor key riff thing which often sounds just crap

i accept this - for instance dmz often have the 3 note minor chord thing going on - but it works within the context of their tracks because theres lots of other elements that balance it. its almost like a reminder of darkcore, and a slight hint of it at that.

mms said:
err you haven't considered all the things that can actually be done or even heard any of the tracks for gods sake !

fair enough. and for a healthy scene theres nothing wrong with producers taking it in all kinds of directions - linking to that discussion we had about electicism in garage. like i say, look forward to hearing whatever you come up with mate :)
 

mms

sometimes
bassnation said:
fair enough. and for a healthy scene theres nothing wrong with producers taking it in all kinds of directions - linking to that discussion we had about electicism in garage. like i say, look forward to hearing whatever you come up with mate :)

cheers
got a feeling it's gonna take ages though!
 

echevarian

babylon sister
For a beautiful example of techno sounding dubstep, you cannot go wrong with D1.


The guys a sleeping giant of a producer.


One of these days everything that gets said about Skream (next Aphex Twin, blah, blah, genius, blah)

is probably going to be true about D1.


Beautiful stuff.
 

Blackdown

nexKeysound
the problem with D1's tracks, the stuff that gets through the DJ filters, is that he in essence only has one track: trancey melodies w/arpeggio, very high eqed high hats, halfstep beat, drop into one note sub bassline.

skream, by contrast, is a veritable magpie of styles, so deserves any comparisons more.
 

matt b

Indexing all opinion
Blackdown said:
the problem with D1's tracks, the stuff that gets through the DJ filters, is that he in essence only has one track: trancey melodies w/arpeggio, very high eqed high hats, halfstep beat, drop into one note sub bassline..

but what a track! ;)

Blackdown said:
skream, by contrast, is a veritable magpie of styles, so deserves any comparisons more.

aye, from (nearly) pop to 'ardcore on one record
 

Logos

Ghosts of my life
scarboi said:
For a beautiful example of techno sounding dubstep, you cannot go wrong with D1.


The guys a sleeping giant of a producer.

He's like a more glacial and less 'tug-on-the-heartstrings' Omni Trio.

The Omni Trio of dubstep! :p
 

Logos

Ghosts of my life
stelfox said:
thanks marc, this is my point entirely. also interesting how vocals are such a huge problem for techno people. and in this category damn right do i include dubsteppers - however, in this analysis dubsteppers are only "techno" in the same way that both dubsteppers and technoheads both fall under the umbrella of indie. note: i'm not saying the music is the same and never have, just that the ground-level values of these scenes are very similar and very often the people involved have followed this exact musical path. that's what i was talking about re "whitification" - the idea of black influence, most often heard in vocals being cast out or turned into a very distant echo - but as this is such a problematic idea for people (raising such high standards of debate as "you are a twat" etc), let's just call it "gentrification" instead.

Yes interesting point - though I think the issue of 'whitfication' or gentrification if we are calling it that is quite complex. In some ways you are absolutely right - one could counter your argument by talking about the roots of techno being almost exclusively black in terms of instigators, but equally its well known a strong element in the foundation of techno was elements of stripped down white European music from the 80s (Kraftwerk etc) being strongly aspirational.

But on the other hand the focus on bass and rhythm is far more important than the vocal as a litmus test of how the black influence is melded at the genetic level in dance musics. To get minimal in the sense we are talking about, to strip away vocal elements, surely affirms the primacy of rhythm?

On a tangent now - stripping away vocals is interesting in itself - in house/techno it might mean a rejection of utopian and gay elements (though those could just be displaced other corners of the culture around the music, not supressed altogether). But there is another independent current which runs alongside that narrative, which is that losing vocals signifies a rejection of sampladelic attitudes which interestingly 2-step seemed to recapture briefly, especially since 2-step emerged well after the No U-Turn style approach had banished vocals and vocal manipulation in jungle for good.
 

stelfox

Beast of Burden
Logos said:
Yes interesting point - though I think the issue of 'whitfication' or gentrification if we are calling it that is quite complex. In some ways you are absolutely right - one could counter your argument by talking about the roots of techno being almost exclusively black in terms of instigators, but equally its well known a strong element in the foundation of techno was elements of stripped down white European music from the 80s (Kraftwerk etc) being strongly aspirational.

But on the other hand the focus on bass and rhythm is far more important than the vocal as a litmus test of how the black influence is melded at the genetic level in dance musics. To get minimal in the sense we are talking about, to strip away vocal elements, surely affirms the primacy of rhythm?

On a tangent now - stripping away vocals is interesting in itself - in house/techno it might mean a rejection of utopian and gay elements (though those could just be displaced other corners of the culture around the music, not supressed altogether). But there is another independent current which runs alongside that narrative, which is that losing vocals signifies a rejection of sampladelic attitudes which interestingly 2-step seemed to recapture briefly, especially since 2-step emerged well after the No U-Turn style approach had banished vocals and vocal manipulation in jungle for good.

all interesting ideas, but i think you have to be very literal in this instance, and not just to make my idea work, either. the vocal is explicitly spoken expression of these links, be it reggae, disco, soul or whatever and it's easy to strip away. rhythm is pretty universal - otherwise you're into the dodgy territory of certain people having it "naturally" etc.
 

Tim F

Well-known member
I should note w/r/t bassnation's point about the use of dub and reggae in 'ardkore, jungle etc. that the use is very different to that in dubstep. Dub & reggae are used in 'ardkore and jungle for the purpose of popwise signifier-pillaging (e.g. Austin's "Unity in Dub" and its comic dub interludes) or for sheer physical/sonic effect (e.g. Back 2 Basics' "Horns For '94" and its immune-system-collapse bassline), or sometimes both (e.g. Splash's "Babylon") - but very little 'ardkore or jungle, even ragga jungle, sounds terribly <i>respectful</i> towards the source material.

Whereas with dubstep it's immediately apparent that the dub and reggae elements have been carefully and sensitively incorporated into the groove matrix - and you don't tend to get guys shouting "ARE YOU RRRREADY FOR SOME BLAAAADCLAAAAAAT JUUUUUUNGLE TECCCCCHNOOOOOO??!?!" or an equivalent, usually it will be some guy chatting quietly but ominously about babylon or government conspiracies or something.

Likewise 2-step was more on the side of 'ardkore and jungle, esp. drawing on the 'ardkore tradition of dub and reggae as pop affectation - see for example all the awesome Richie Dan tracks like "Call It Fate", "Temptation" and "R U Ready"?
 

john eden

male pale and stale
stelfox said:
well, that's the thing. reggae and dancehall are pop music. dubstep is indie!

LOL. :)

Can we make the case that dub reggae, in 2006, is indie? I think maybe we can.
 

stelfox

Beast of Burden
dub's more a sort of ghetto psych thing, but certain ways of appreciating it are very indie. and british digidub is indie to the core.
 

john eden

male pale and stale
stelfox said:
dub's more a sort of ghetto psych thing, but certain ways of appreciating it are very indie. and british digidub is indie to the core.

Yeah I think that's where I was getting to. :cool:
 

bassnation

the abyss
Tim F said:
I should note w/r/t bassnation's point about the use of dub and reggae in 'ardkore, jungle etc. that the use is very different to that in dubstep. Dub & reggae are used in 'ardkore and jungle for the purpose of popwise signifier-pillaging (e.g. Austin's "Unity in Dub" and its comic dub interludes) or for sheer physical/sonic effect (e.g. Back 2 Basics' "Horns For '94" and its immune-system-collapse bassline), or sometimes both (e.g. Splash's "Babylon") - but very little 'ardkore or jungle, even ragga jungle, sounds terribly <i>respectful</i> towards the source material.

i understand what you mean.

thing is though, a lot of people of my generation regarded reggae as "something mum & dad listen to". i know quite a few people who were brought up on reggae but can't stand to listen to old roots now for that very reason.

jungle was this generations version of this music (over-simplifying here a little). maybe it didn't have to respect the source, if its a reinvention of those ideas from the ground up. there was obviously a lot of love there, but maybe not reverance as you suggest.

so you see these ideas in dubstep as an affectation, an overly self-aware attempt to be "dub"?
 

matt b

Indexing all opinion
tim , i agree with the first part of your post, but this bit:

Tim F said:
Whereas with dubstep it's immediately apparent that the dub and reggae elements have been carefully and sensitively incorporated into the groove matrix - and you don't tend to get guys shouting "ARE YOU RRRREADY FOR SOME BLAAAADCLAAAAAAT JUUUUUUNGLE TECCCCCHNOOOOOO??!?!" or an equivalent, usually it will be some guy chatting quietly but ominously about babylon or government conspiracies or something.


i don't think the way dubstep has 'integrated' dub reggae into its sound is any more sophisticated than jungle, just that the sources are slightly different- jungle raided soundsystem cassettes, which are raw and suited the higher bpm, or incorporated whole vocal performances (barrington levy).

dupstep samples spoken introductions to (dr alimantado) songs to get dread results. this is not a complaint, but i don't think there is such a big difference between the two styles.

the 'careful' and 'sensitive' sample usage makes sense if we agree that the half step snares and cymbols are carefully and sensitively positioned though
 

echevarian

babylon sister
Just an aside,


I think its odd that Stelfox who is the quintessential reggae fan,


and Tim who is incredibly knowledgeable about 2- step,



Both dislike dubstep.



It either too respectful, (ie too conservative)

or too oblivious of its actual roots (too experimental).


But not enough of one thing to merit praise.



I do agree wholeheartedly about dubstep's tendecy to a too easy adolescent darkness.


But when it works for me its a kind of darkside romanticism.



See Slaughter Mob's L'Amour.
 

BrokenFist

Crackin Skulls
Not to hijack this thread but are there any good garage full lengths out there? My interest in the genre is growing and I'm looking for something that's listenable but relatively easy to acquire.
 

mms

sometimes
Tim F said:
Whereas with dubstep it's immediately apparent that the dub and reggae elements have been carefully and sensitively incorporated into the groove matrix - and you don't tend to get guys shouting "ARE YOU RRRREADY FOR SOME BLAAAADCLAAAAAAT JUUUUUUNGLE TECCCCCHNOOOOOO??!?!" or an equivalent, usually it will be some guy chatting quietly but ominously about babylon or government conspiracies or something.

this is not something i've personally ever heard - most dubstep mcs are hosting same as any other hosting mc. someone like sgt pokes is alot closer to your example of what you think dubstep mc's aren't, usually something about dubstep soldiers, are you readsy, feeling it in you chestplate etc..

the only person i can think of who kinda fits into your idea is spaceape who is kode9's poet/mc.
 
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