Dubstep
The nu-metal/dubstep cross-over was brewing for a long time though wasn't it. I remember a post on here a few years back promoting The Truth (released some tunes on Deep Medi) and in the promo picture they looked like some nu-metal band.
Quite a hilarious/bizarre interview though e.g. the quote wise picked out, or all the illuminati stuff.
Quite a hilarious/bizarre interview though e.g. the quote wise picked out, or all the illuminati stuff.
Slothrop
Tight but Polite
Tentative Andy
I'm in the Meal Deal
That interview with the Korn guy is A+ comedy gold.
Sectionfive
bandwagon house
Thought you were talking about the lad from QI there. Thinking wtf was he doing on a throne...
Corpsey
bandz ahoy
I wonder if Reynolds attitude to dubstep will change, given that its now such a hugely successful genre in America? I mean, from the little I've read about it Scrillex shows in America are attended by thousands of glow-stick waving, pilled up teenagers - it sounds like an American rebirth of rave thing. I mean, its 'importance' can't really be denied in terms of cultural influence/popularity. Of course, Reynolds has always seemed much more interested in wobble than in Digital Mystikz, Kode 9 etc.
Very bizarre, really, considering how much emphasis on restraint and 'space' etc., there was when I got into dubstep... mind you, there was always that gnarlier, noisier side i.e. Vex'd, Distance. I suppose dubstep appeals to American yoof both because the half-step beat is Hip-Hop-esque and the distorted basslines are rock/metal-y.
Always thought this tune was very Korn-y.
Very bizarre, really, considering how much emphasis on restraint and 'space' etc., there was when I got into dubstep... mind you, there was always that gnarlier, noisier side i.e. Vex'd, Distance. I suppose dubstep appeals to American yoof both because the half-step beat is Hip-Hop-esque and the distorted basslines are rock/metal-y.
Always thought this tune was very Korn-y.
Benny Bunter
Well-known member
I suppose this counts as some sort of endorsement
http://energyflashbysimonreynolds.blogspot.com/2011/11/wotsnot-2-like.html
Corpsey
bandz ahoy
Haha I quite like that actually. It reminds me a bit of Rustie - that sense of an irrepressible outburst of cheesy energy. I think listening to a lot of synth-heavy hip-hop has made me less hostile towards piercing/cheesy synth lines. And I can certainly see it working on a dancefloor... Lately I've been wondering if I might like jump up DNB a lot more now I'm into much more energetic/insane music generally.
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I've never been to a dubstep gig in America but I've been led to believe that it's pretty much all aggressive moshpit music for angry young white males, so in that sense it's understandable that Korn might call it the new metal (or indeed the new nu-metal). Also there's now a dubstep night at a metal club in Glasgow It's called FILTH! or something like that
wise
bare BARE BONES
That's a pic of Dem 2
computer_rock
Well-known member
pretty sure reynolds is on record as saying he liked this kind of stuff because it's more faithful to the spirit of the 'nuum. which i don't really understand because i thought he classified nuum musics as more about a shared attitude than an aesthetic. what's the attitude of 'brostep'? impotent rage?
rubberdingyrapids
Well-known member
i actually like hard, metallic, abrasive dubstep but that track reynolds likes is just a bad imitation of lots of things. you can play spot the rave influences pretty easily but its still a bit rubbish.
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nomos
Administrator
Haha. I noticed that, though first I thought it was Agent X.
computer_rock
Well-known member
can't find a source for this btw so i may have completely misrepresented his views
nomos
Administrator
I think a lot of girls go now too (ironically more than at the beginning probably).
When we used to put on nights playing Big Apple, Tempa, DMZ, etc. in 2005 we would literally play to an empty room half the time. 27 people came to Shackleton. Now there's a monthly called Dub Smack that's as you describe. It's huge. The tagline on their posters is "Womp Bitch" and the pictures look like a Skrillex party. When that bump in international interest happened in 2006 we had new people coming to the nights who only wanted to hear Loefah-clones or the Coki/Rusko/etc. can opener thing. Then they started making crapper versions of it, bigging each other up, and putting on their own nights with Serato. And they were antagonistic towards us too. What was extra frustrating was when someone like Mala would come over and seemingly cater to it. When I caught him in 2008, he played a lot more Coki than his own stuff. I think that's the last 'dubstep' gig I went to.
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can't find a source for this btw so i may have completely misrepresented his views
its def implied at several points in energy flash (obviously ef is too early for him to actually be saying that, but there are several sections where he clearly puts across views that pretty obviously lead on to his current views)
plus im pretty sure he says exactly that a few times on blissblog.
Sectionfive
bandwagon house
Have been out in the states (Boston). All the Bristol/Croydon lot played, same tunes we were playing here. Definitely not aggy and much better dancers then over here. It's probably like everywhere else now where brostep is everywhere and people are oblivious that Kode9 (who?) has played their town 10 times in the last five years.
SecondLine
Well-known member
Yeah I'm sure he's said this in passing on his blog. A mate of mine made the very fine point that if Reynolds had been going to clubs in the last 5 years instead of criticising them from afar, he would have seen that the dubstep->brostep shift had much more in common with the steady transformation of a certain kind of drum'n'bass in the late 90s from being hard-edged but with 'nuum' levels of innovation to totally dilute jump up for people who don't really like dance music.
I think instead he's drawing on a binary which had a lot of relevance for 90s nuum music: an inherent tendency in the scene (and elsewhere) to reject 'hardcore' traits - impurity, cheesiness, hi-energy - as 'unmusical' and move towards a Bukem-like aesthetic built around 'musicality', which is often a dead end for scenius.
But I don't think it's so simple now to say that your Night Slugs/Hessles/Swamp 81s would use the vocabulary of 'musicality' to elevate what they do over what Skrillex does. I don't think Doctor P or Borgore are motors of a kind of innovation which is going (critically) unnoticed because it lies outside the aesthetic criteria of critics etc. I don't think they are motors of innovation at all.
Also Reynolds is always going on about the constant and simultaneous looking back & looking forward in nuum music - a hyper-awareness of the past mixed with a kind of fever for the future. I don't hear that in, say, Skrillex at all. If anything those artists construct a fictitious 'year zero' for dance music, where everything they do is OH SHIT TOTALLY NEW. I guess that's probably how most dance music sounds to an ex-screamo singer.
whoops mega nuum post LOL