Dubstep

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benw

Well-known member
SecondLine said:
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
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pretty much agree with that. I think the fact that Reynolds now lives in NY and has admitted to not seeing a lot of the stuff he rubbishes in the club anytime recently is pretty telling - or I'm presuming, the stuff he praises (I somehow can't imagine Reynolds 'getting down' at Dub Smack or whatever if it's anything like the equivalent in Brighton: http://tinyurl.com/68fvnr9).

Plus, like you say the ten odd seconds of hardcore at the top of Sweet Shop definitely does NOT a hyper awareness of the past make.

While this thread itself on DSF is pretty standard (bitching, etc), I think the song itself is worth a listen...

http://www.dubstepforum.com/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=225029

I think this is quite an interesting move for wobble to go in... And I (never thought I'd say this about a Circus Records release)quite like it... It's fun, its got some groove (drums could definitely be better). Definitely pure cheese, but i quite like the mix of 'that' bass sound and the horns. Though could do with less of the bassline at times. But I'd rather hear this out than probably anything else on Circus....

Or maybe I've just completely lost it & the only reason I like it is because of all the Circus fans posting on FB about where the bloody bass is.
 
Benny Bunter

Benny Bunter

Well-known member
For the record, this is what Reynolds said about Skrillex a while back:

"To my ears it's a collage of cliches, but then again it could be that the super-edited,distorted, timbrally-twisting mid-freq bassline is the new axis of innovation, i.e. the locus once occupied by breakbeat science. And I've been arguing for a while now that the despised 'n' deplored wobble/brostep might well prove to be the most breaks-with-the-past direction to emerge from the zone formerly known as dubstep.

Naturally I'm struck by the 1992-echo of "oh my gosh" being the vocal sample in "Scary Monsters" when it was such a back-in-the-day MC catchphrase. But there's nothing retro or nostalgic about this New Rave Generation, it's a resurgence not a revival;the consciousness seems very "We R Who We R" in not giving a toss about history (dance music's own or otherwise) or thinking about the future. It's all about release through volume, noise, aggressive celebration. Very metal. Indeed the analogy for this unexpected resurgence of US-dance (not quite accounted for fully in Phil's piece but perhaps that would require sociology) is probably with the way that metal never goes away, it just sticks around.... every so often upsurging into the mainstream... the sound at once reiterative of the tradition yet always shifted slightly (you couldn't quite say "evolved" or "advanced", but definitely moved on). Like metal, the new rocktronica is too big to considered underground, yet it's not quite mainstream either. And like metal, its proper environment is stadiums and arenas."
 
Sectionfive

Sectionfive

bandwagon house
I sometimes think of Brostep in comparison to the derision Jungle and Grime both received and wonder. Then I realise it's rubbish and I don't really care.
Reynolds is only winding people up.

There is nothing hardcore about it. One trick pony and the trick isn't much.

Shock, then what?

Kode9 said:
I’ve enjoyed DJ sets recently where the tension just swells and swells and swells, and don’t allow a release… until.. you’re allowed two or three releases in the whole set. But you’re not just climaxing every two seconds. Because that’s not a climax, that’s just deflation, every two or three seconds.
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Tension and release is what the whole thing is about since day one no mater where, what or when you're playing


Peverelist is the heir if you're looking or care about "faithful to the spirit of the 'nuum".
Double Helix, Grievous Angel, Champion etc

tis a vibe not a spirit
 
S

SecondLine

Well-known member
Benny B said:
For the record, this is what Reynolds said about Skrillex a while back:

"To my ears it's a collage of cliches, but then again it could be that the super-edited,distorted, timbrally-twisting mid-freq bassline is the new axis of innovation, i.e. the locus once occupied by breakbeat science. And I've been arguing for a while now that the despised 'n' deplored wobble/brostep might well prove to be the most breaks-with-the-past direction to emerge from the zone formerly known as dubstep.

Naturally I'm struck by the 1992-echo of "oh my gosh" being the vocal sample in "Scary Monsters" when it was such a back-in-the-day MC catchphrase. But there's nothing retro or nostalgic about this New Rave Generation, it's a resurgence not a revival;the consciousness seems very "We R Who We R" in not giving a toss about history (dance music's own or otherwise) or thinking about the future. It's all about release through volume, noise, aggressive celebration. Very metal. Indeed the analogy for this unexpected resurgence of US-dance (not quite accounted for fully in Phil's piece but perhaps that would require sociology) is probably with the way that metal never goes away, it just sticks around.... every so often upsurging into the mainstream... the sound at once reiterative of the tradition yet always shifted slightly (you couldn't quite say "evolved" or "advanced", but definitely moved on). Like metal, the new rocktronica is too big to considered underground, yet it's not quite mainstream either. And like metal, its proper environment is stadiums and arenas."
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Ah, he does basically anticipate all the things I said above, fair play. Sounds like a man who just plain old doesn't know and is hedging his bets.
 
J

joe.dfx

who knows...
benjybars said:
hearing brostep american people talk about dubstep is always painfully embarrassing (obviously) but i'm guessing it must be even more depressing for guys like joe nice who've been around from the start pretty much..
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pretty sure he coined the phrase, so take that for what you will...

i brought Joe to Minneapolis last month.

we had less then 20 paid.

dude still played like there were 2000 though!

it's literally impossible to say the word "dubstep" in america without someone bringing up skrillex...

i've pretty much just stopped talking about being a "dubstep" dj unless im with close friends or in the "right" circles...

paolo said:
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
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yeah it's been brewing that way for a while now.

most of the young kids i know that are into it have been claiming it's the new "punk" for a few years now.

"rage" is pretty much the term people use to describe what they're going to do at dubstep shows here.
 
trza

trza

Well-known member
joe.dfx said:
i brought Joe to Minneapolis last month.
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When and where was this?


Some local heavy metal group was interviewed in the local paper describing their new "dubstep project", they were really excited about getting a "real English guy" to collaborate. When I see a dubstep promotion at a local venue, I just assume to music is terrible and don't even think about about it again.
 
Corpsey

Corpsey

bandz ahoy
Watched an interview with him. He reminds me of Rick Moranis. There was footage of one of his gigs too - it looked quite hype but it made me cringe in spite of myself.

I want Rubberdingyrapids to do a top 20 cold metallic wobble tunes ever list. NOW.
 
J

joe.dfx

who knows...
trza said:
When and where was this?
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it was oct 23 @ mode @ honey

trza said:
Some local heavy metal group was interviewed in the local paper describing their new "dubstep project", they were really excited about getting a "real English guy" to collaborate. When I see a dubstep promotion at a local venue, I just assume to music is terrible and don't even think about about it again.
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you live in minnesota?
 
R

rubberdingyrapids

Well-known member
Corpsey said:
I want Rubberdingyrapids to do a top 20 cold metallic wobble tunes ever list. NOW.
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skream - oskillatah is a great one, yep

not sure about 'ever', but off the top of my head, here are some HARD dubstep tracks which i think are excellent from the last few years:

benga - baltimore clap
n-type - shadow
caspa - louder
benga - 808
caspa - i beat my robot (this one is amazing!)
seven - siren (another personal favourite)
caspa - terminator
coti and cluekid - legacy
the others - fun house
skream - filth
kulture - diesel
skream - fick*
skream - meta lick (this one is quite immense)
jakes - rhythm
mensah - pulse 80s (closer to grime/electro but still fits)
coki - bloodthirst
jakes - scanners (if you ever wanted to hear 80s sci fi wobble, this is it)
jakes - boom boom bass*
joker - tron

these arent all jagged chainsaw stuff but theyre all hard. *i want to do a list of funky-influenced dubstep (not funky influenced post dubstep) now. theres a lot of really good stuff in that category.
 
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B

BareBones

wheezy
yeah kode 9 bad was the first kode 9 tune that came out after he got into funky. so it can probably be classified as the year zero post-dubstep tune.
 
R

rubberdingyrapids

Well-known member
both of those are 5/5 material. kutz is underrated really. always found it weird that ppl seem to think post dubstep is where all the most interesting stuff is happening when you can get people experimenting with house in dubstep-proper and with more confidence/immediacy (oingie boingie is one of the best examples). though i suppose it all comes down to taste/preferences.
 
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