Dubstep in the The Wire - August 2006
Posted: Tue Aug 08, 2006 3:15 pm
A friend from Bristol read this article in the recent 'The Wire' and transcribed it and emailed it to me.
Very insightful read I thought.
I like how they made conclusions about dubstep being like a refuge from what grime is all about.
Also interesting to note the feminine aspect of the sound.
(**One thing, can someone confirm that D1 is Bailey's son, as seems to mention at the end of paragraph 1? Wicked stuff if so.)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The Wire 270 August 2006
Dubstep Allstars Volume 4:
Mixed byYoungsta and Hatcha
A year is a long time in London underground music. In the summer of 2005, Grime MCs were ripping up the Notting Hill Carnival, Grime's premier crew Roll Deep had just released their long awaited debut album, and there was a host of budding young MCs in every London postcode. Meanwhile dubstep, the gloomy instrumental alter ego of Grime's exuberant lyrical pile-up, seemed like the awkward, insular kid brother of the post-Jungle, post-Garage musical fraternity. Strikingly, many of its leading producers (and dubstep is nothing if not a producerly genre, obsessed with carefully calculated bass weight and impact) actually were the younger siblings of the London rave family tree - Skream's older brother was part of the same Jungle crew as Grooverider; Bailey (father of producer D1) recorded Jungle and Garage. Hatcha and Youngsta began DJing while they were barely teenagers.
Grime's breathless, stream of consciousness deliveries had taken the decadent narratives of hiphop and tied them in knots, making it perhaps the only recent urban genre to express a profound sense of dissatisfaction with contemporary life. But dubstep was yet to flex its muscles. By slowing the elastic basslines of Jungle down to a nautical skank and smoothing out the twitchy canvas of Garage, the music of dubstep's Forward club took on a pedantic, solemn quality - feel the bass, but keep it simple. Despite the genre's name, there was little of dub's restless, trickster spirit. These stern half-step beats were too stiff to survive being thrown into the echo chamber.
A year later, and the pecking order has changed. While Grime's appeal was that it prioritised the intensity of the moment above all else, younger MCs became infamous not through lyrical guile, but just by calling out the name of whoever was big that week. Dubstep, meanwhile, has made quantum leaps in sophistication, encapsulating expansive yearning and unresolved tension in the briefest of melodic strokes. Much of the change can be attributed to one tune - Skream's "Midnight Request Line". Its elegiac melody had shades of Kraftwerk, flickering through the bass haze like stars through smog, and an epic change of key and tempo that recalled the classicist mannerisms of Derrick May. Dubstep's habitual reserve simply melted away. Beneath the rigid, linear grooves it exposed a fragile, feminine underside - absent from much Grime - of elliptical melodies and ergonomic bass vibrations. Not merely music which reflected the clinical angles and spaces of the urban cityscape, it was also a warm, womb-like refuge from modern life. Dubstep Allstars Volume 4 is a snapshot of this ripe, luminous moment in the development of the genre. Aside from one-off eclectics like Belfast's Boxcutter, dubstep remains a close knit scene, both socially and geographically, and the Dubstep Allstars series keeps things in the family. Youngsta featured on the second volume, with Hatcha producing the first in the series. Youngsta, the man behind the counter at Blackmarket Records in Soho and a veteran DJ at the age of just 21, confines his sets to a select inner circle of producers including Skream, Loefah and Digital Mystikz, always mixed with mean precision. His brooding half-step set is dark yet seductive. Loefah's "Ruffage" is a monolithic tower of steely dub, but Skream's "Morning Blues" drops in a fat jazzy guitar lick as slinky as Kenny Burrell's "Soul Lament", and his "Warning" carries melodic shimmers that suggest Bernard Herrrmann's besotted, restless Vertigo soundtrack. D1's "Missin", "Cocaine" and "Sleazy" are all packed as tight as a pressure cooker, bristling with hi-hats and virulent, bleeding bass. Throughout, the low-end science rivals the kinetic marvels of Keith Hudson or Origin Unknown - the bass can roll like chocolate melting off a spoon (Skream's "Dub Period") or explode into energy like a searchlight in a secured area (Loefah's "System"). Youngsta's disc is as taut and compelling as a slowly ticking timebomb.
The second disc offers more functional pleasures. Kromestar's "Iron Dread" and "Shakti Dub" are vivacious skanks that recall the hazy, blissed-out digi-dub revivalism of Zion Train or Dreadzone. The raw vigour of Hatcha's set, with 25 tracks packed into just over an hour, dispels the suspense crafted by Youngsta, leaving a mark instead through bruising, battering workouts like Digital Mystikz' "Chaser" and their wobbly sleng teng version of "All Of A Sudden".
All minimalist music, through the process of paring down a particular sound and shedding an unwanted skin, reflects a sense of loss. With dubstep, such melodic concision achieves a severe, desolate grace. Its slow-burning drama can be heart-rending and nerve-shredding in the same moment. Like Isolationism, many of the genre's most compelling moments are in its most bleak, and one wonders how long urban angst can sound so sweet. Perhaps, for the city listener, it's just a poetic response to urban living - to be overwhelmed and overawed by spaces and structures, musical or otherwise, at least makes you feel alive, and maybe this is why so many of those younger brothers found succour in the dark spaces of the bass all those years ago. For 2006 at least, its dubstep that pervades and drenches the London soundscape.
Very insightful read I thought.
I like how they made conclusions about dubstep being like a refuge from what grime is all about.
Also interesting to note the feminine aspect of the sound.
(**One thing, can someone confirm that D1 is Bailey's son, as seems to mention at the end of paragraph 1? Wicked stuff if so.)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The Wire 270 August 2006
Dubstep Allstars Volume 4:
Mixed byYoungsta and Hatcha
A year is a long time in London underground music. In the summer of 2005, Grime MCs were ripping up the Notting Hill Carnival, Grime's premier crew Roll Deep had just released their long awaited debut album, and there was a host of budding young MCs in every London postcode. Meanwhile dubstep, the gloomy instrumental alter ego of Grime's exuberant lyrical pile-up, seemed like the awkward, insular kid brother of the post-Jungle, post-Garage musical fraternity. Strikingly, many of its leading producers (and dubstep is nothing if not a producerly genre, obsessed with carefully calculated bass weight and impact) actually were the younger siblings of the London rave family tree - Skream's older brother was part of the same Jungle crew as Grooverider; Bailey (father of producer D1) recorded Jungle and Garage. Hatcha and Youngsta began DJing while they were barely teenagers.
Grime's breathless, stream of consciousness deliveries had taken the decadent narratives of hiphop and tied them in knots, making it perhaps the only recent urban genre to express a profound sense of dissatisfaction with contemporary life. But dubstep was yet to flex its muscles. By slowing the elastic basslines of Jungle down to a nautical skank and smoothing out the twitchy canvas of Garage, the music of dubstep's Forward club took on a pedantic, solemn quality - feel the bass, but keep it simple. Despite the genre's name, there was little of dub's restless, trickster spirit. These stern half-step beats were too stiff to survive being thrown into the echo chamber.
A year later, and the pecking order has changed. While Grime's appeal was that it prioritised the intensity of the moment above all else, younger MCs became infamous not through lyrical guile, but just by calling out the name of whoever was big that week. Dubstep, meanwhile, has made quantum leaps in sophistication, encapsulating expansive yearning and unresolved tension in the briefest of melodic strokes. Much of the change can be attributed to one tune - Skream's "Midnight Request Line". Its elegiac melody had shades of Kraftwerk, flickering through the bass haze like stars through smog, and an epic change of key and tempo that recalled the classicist mannerisms of Derrick May. Dubstep's habitual reserve simply melted away. Beneath the rigid, linear grooves it exposed a fragile, feminine underside - absent from much Grime - of elliptical melodies and ergonomic bass vibrations. Not merely music which reflected the clinical angles and spaces of the urban cityscape, it was also a warm, womb-like refuge from modern life. Dubstep Allstars Volume 4 is a snapshot of this ripe, luminous moment in the development of the genre. Aside from one-off eclectics like Belfast's Boxcutter, dubstep remains a close knit scene, both socially and geographically, and the Dubstep Allstars series keeps things in the family. Youngsta featured on the second volume, with Hatcha producing the first in the series. Youngsta, the man behind the counter at Blackmarket Records in Soho and a veteran DJ at the age of just 21, confines his sets to a select inner circle of producers including Skream, Loefah and Digital Mystikz, always mixed with mean precision. His brooding half-step set is dark yet seductive. Loefah's "Ruffage" is a monolithic tower of steely dub, but Skream's "Morning Blues" drops in a fat jazzy guitar lick as slinky as Kenny Burrell's "Soul Lament", and his "Warning" carries melodic shimmers that suggest Bernard Herrrmann's besotted, restless Vertigo soundtrack. D1's "Missin", "Cocaine" and "Sleazy" are all packed as tight as a pressure cooker, bristling with hi-hats and virulent, bleeding bass. Throughout, the low-end science rivals the kinetic marvels of Keith Hudson or Origin Unknown - the bass can roll like chocolate melting off a spoon (Skream's "Dub Period") or explode into energy like a searchlight in a secured area (Loefah's "System"). Youngsta's disc is as taut and compelling as a slowly ticking timebomb.
The second disc offers more functional pleasures. Kromestar's "Iron Dread" and "Shakti Dub" are vivacious skanks that recall the hazy, blissed-out digi-dub revivalism of Zion Train or Dreadzone. The raw vigour of Hatcha's set, with 25 tracks packed into just over an hour, dispels the suspense crafted by Youngsta, leaving a mark instead through bruising, battering workouts like Digital Mystikz' "Chaser" and their wobbly sleng teng version of "All Of A Sudden".
All minimalist music, through the process of paring down a particular sound and shedding an unwanted skin, reflects a sense of loss. With dubstep, such melodic concision achieves a severe, desolate grace. Its slow-burning drama can be heart-rending and nerve-shredding in the same moment. Like Isolationism, many of the genre's most compelling moments are in its most bleak, and one wonders how long urban angst can sound so sweet. Perhaps, for the city listener, it's just a poetic response to urban living - to be overwhelmed and overawed by spaces and structures, musical or otherwise, at least makes you feel alive, and maybe this is why so many of those younger brothers found succour in the dark spaces of the bass all those years ago. For 2006 at least, its dubstep that pervades and drenches the London soundscape.
