DUBSTEP : The Real deal or The Great Pretender ?

Pollywog - I'm not sure. I think Dubstep has potential - a bit like Jungle - because it's got lots of room for producers to push it in different directions. It's not so restrictive a sound - there's plenty of room for creativity.

I think it's success will rely on a generation of producers who are willing to keep taking risks with it and not settle for just writing some dubstep. To widen the limits of what is considered dubstep.

Oh yeah, and there'll have to be someone who makes pop-dubstep and gets a shit load of radio play. That'll help get dubstep in on the ground floor with the yoot.

Joe

*Cue a thousand angry Ilxors leaping down my throat*

oh, okay.

Yeah I like it, hell we even make some but alot of the stuff coming out is just staight up boring.

From what i can gather is happening within the scene, it would equate to the tech steppers having an all out verbal war with the raggajunglists about what is or who isn't drum n bass back in 95.

With halfstep, it seems any clownsteppa with a pitchshifter can detune their wobble bass to 138, lose the double time fills, chuck in a ragga sample and call it dubstep...but is it ???

That really doesn't leave much room for innovation especially if the measure of a tunes worth can't be estimated unless on a big fuck off soundsystem so one can truly meditate on the sheer enormity of it's bass weight.

Is it a case of the bigger your bass the larger your penis ???

If that's so then i don't see much of a future in it.

Theres talk of reinfusing dubstep with the 2 step swing but that seems a bit back asswards looking to me. Like with the Burial record the more I listen to it the less i like it cos the beats are just to samey and no amount of clever filtering is gonna change that.

It, along with inspired imitators could form some sort of breakaway movement under a new journo inspired banner but as for dubstep without it's bigname DJ posterboys, crossover hits, it seems the rot has set in.

The whole thing reminds me of Madchester revisited with it's breakbeat inspired revolution of indie bands dominating the club/party scene for a short time and everyone becoming pisstakes of the stone roses but as soon as they started making diverse sounding crap it spelt the end for them and everyone else.

Substitute stone roses for digital mystiks inclusive of loefah and answer this who then does anybody think is taking dubstep into new realms of composition and possible mainstream crossover ???

1. Who gives a fuck if dubstep doesn't spawn any mainstream crossover?
2. Why can't there be halfstep and swinging numbers without one being termed boring and the other backwards?

Tim mentioned the Pinch track 'Qawwli' a while ago and I finally got a chance to hear it, and yeah, it's very great. What else can I find that's like this: hand drums, hints of melody (what is that, accordian?), organic dubstep, for lack of a better term. And can someone with more knowledge than I trace this back more explicitly to the Sufi hymnals mentioned here?

...who gives a fuck about that ???

it's about deciphering incoherent rants and reading between the lines innit...

...all I'm saying is I think for all it's promise dubstep hasn't delivered yet so I'm wondering if it will at all

so what's floating your dubstep boat then and what tunes are making you dance???

stroking your chin and going... hmmmmm yes sufi hymnal, ooooh phat bass there my son *shuffle shuffle nod head approvingly* ain't dancing...

xposts. to Pollywog. Go to one dubstep rave! Dancing a-plenty you shall observe.

What is the difference between Dubstep and stuff like Zion Train and Dreadzone?

weirdest question i've ever seen on ILM

nerdiest thing i ever read, but in a good way.

dubstep is really a cul-de-sac, isn't it? it's just about enjoying the good stuff while it lasts (i predict that skream's album will be the last great one). listed to the burial album today, and the youngsta & hatcha dubstep allstars mix cd. great great stuff.

Anyway, I'm liking some Dubstep right now because it's got something a little bit confrontational about it sonically but unlike Grime, it's not 90% beef & ego issues... and the sub-bass. I feel like it could still go somewhere else, and even if it all implodes next year there have been some really great records produced while it lasted.

Were you saying this about minimal techno five years ago? 'What can they do, take out even more stuff?'

i prefer volume 2 - doesn't have space ape talking all over it, distracting you from the actual music.

spent the afternoon listening to Tectonic Plates and it was great (much better than the warrior dubz thing that wanders into grime and dnb (the dnb is great, i didn't like the grime stuff, prefer the instrumental stuff all the way)

http://www.boomkat.com/item.cfm?id=24294

shackleton mix is good too, less varied, but free download:
http://www.skulldisco.com/tunes.html

D'aw jeez, I missed the train

IM IN AWE

LOL

Funky house :-/

IDM/Braindance/Breakcore/Squarepusher soloing on bass over a backing track :-|

D'n'b :-(

Breaks :'-(

Dubstep :)

this is otm. Half the time I'm thinking, "What an awesome idea - such a shame I can't dance to it".

WRONG WRONG WRONG. LOOK AT THE SMILIES PEOPLE!

-- Dan Barramouss (takeyourmedicinelikeacham...), November 22nd, 2006 4:44 PM. (jimnaseum)

so you're saying people listen to dubstep because there's nothing better to listen to?

do a google image search for "dubstep" and it'll pretty much show you the inherent problem with the genre:

http://www.redvolume.com/temp/k2dubstep2.jpg
"Well, we were hoping for a few more people, but then Dubstep isn't about that."

"Gather round my pretties and perhaps I'll let you touch my norks."

http://my.opera.com/calnexsports/homes/albums/92212/thumbs/Matt%20Pritchard%20in%20Drum%20n%20Bass%20Arena.JPG_thumb.jpg

http://comicsmedia.ign.com/comics/image/article/597/597575/quesada-breaks-in-wizard-world-la-20050319102730853.jpg

see, to me that'd be ideal...

...and thus dubstep was born! ;-)

yeah, dubstep kinda just lays there and doesnt do much of the work either.

i dont really get how dubstep is dance music, at least not dance music in the UK sense, its not even the speed thats the problem, just the vibe. and the fact its so rhythmically DEAD and inert. its not even that its slowed down garage, i can barely detect any garage syncopation (or well, ANY noticeable syncopation that might provoke some sort of movement) in too many dubstep tunes

I really suggest the nay-sayers go to a damn night! It's fucking brilliant dance music.

interesting because i keep thinking back to the v dense breaks stuff like Ils or even some Sasha stuff from a few years ago that had big bass

dubstep is about suppression, holding back, restraint, poise and no release though, thats the point, i would say it teases but it doesnt really do that, it just keeps you at arms length. some dubstep critics say that part of the music is an expression of the tension and not wanting to connect with people thats a part of modern london living and all that, and i like that reading, but i dont see how thats very inviting... and maybe thats what makes it good, its dance music but not as we know it. its just as slow as dub, but theres none of that warmth of 70s dub, dubstep is almost about making it hard for people to get into it (i would think most of the producers would be the type of guys who didnt want people dancing to their music).

FUN

and yeah breaks is toss, it's so pleasant and affable & accessible to everyone, like a giant fucking mcflurry of everything lame in UK dance of the entire last 15 years, all the way from Ninja Tune to Skint records to the cheapest acid or cheesy house going... "funk" that never slams, energy that never, ever releases properly, 4/4 that never pounds or tickles with any sensitivity. It's dire.

i don't agree with your description of breaks, not the stuff i've heard lately anyway (as i say, i'm uneducated here). what is the problem with maximalist dance music that fills a room and gives you exactly what you want without sounding trite or cheesy (i don't think it does anyway and i hate cheese probably more than anyone on ILM). I've said it so many times that I really don't get why dance music has to contain subtlety in the least. I'm not saying producers shouldn't be using everything at their fingertips to make new and exciting sounds and interesting techniques and ideas to counterpoint each other but at the end of the day I want to dance, I don't want to nod my head to a clicking or an everundulating swoosh or a boring 303 that does fuck all a la Psytrance. That's just me.

I'm so not interested in the new Squarepusher... oh fuck it yes i am but that dude hasn't released a classic album since 1995.

Breaks OTOH just takes the easiest route straight down the middle of the road but engages neither my arse or my head & heart in an interesting way, almost ever.

As far as "filling the room" do you mean with people or sound? Breaks always sounds weirdly constrained to me, like it only moves this much, within it's own straightjacket... when other stuff can flick from an echo chamber to an overload of details, it can actually move around a bit. If you mean bums well, Eric Prydz isn't "what I want" :(

And yeah, Dubstep isn't energy release all the time, that's what's kind of interesting about it to me. Of course some DJ's probably never go bang loud enough, and probably the whole scene is a bit flooded with newcomers making (c)Dubstep right now so the rare anthems have probably been rinsed too hard to use as often as they should be, maybe?

*queue everyone jumping down my throat yet again*.

Sound I suppose. But people too, though I'm not populist about it.

I don't know what Eric Prydz is so I dunno what you mean. I think that Radioactive Man mix on Fabric is the closest thing to what I mean even though it came out quite a long time ago now. I don't see how that isn't very dynamic. I've heard a lot of shit breaks though.

You don't think stuff like Mala - "Left Leg Out" achieves this? Or Skream - "Stagger"? This was pretty much the reason I asked about the MAH sessions again before really, just couldn't work out how to make my point upthread, the point being Dubstep isn't completely static by a long, long way (and grime even less of course) outside of the sub-frequencies.

they didn't really progress that much, did they? weren't they just refining from then on anyway?

it's the really, really uptempo tune in the first set (Digital Mystikz) on the Dubstep Warz thing (bongos + blaring slabs of white noise).

I guess the two things that first got me interested in this were "Mercedes Bentley", which I didn't really know was Dubstep at the time but now makes total sense in this context and that I've always loved. And a track by Kode 9 called "Babylon" that I happened to download and heard whilst enjoying a Camberwell. Something about the way the bass "snarled" at me made me sit up and listen. It totally made sense. Now I listen to it soberly and yeh, I don't really see what the deal is so maybe you need to be a bit mashed to really like it, same with most good Dub.

No, it just means that Dubstep operates at more than one tempo UNLIKE BREAKS!

Mercedes Bently isn't Dubstep afaik... more heavy-heavy monster comedy garage (not a diss btw) although yes DJ Maxxximus & crew have certainly embraced the Dubstep/Grime sound without restraint over in Berlin. After all it was hardly very far away from what a lot of that crowd (the not quite breakcore, not quite 4/4 techno types) were doing anyway at the time?

michael caine was smoking to some dmz in children of men. he knew the deal.

Almost all Dubstep operates at roughly 70bpm (or 140bpm if you're being generous). I was surprised to find that Skream's "Autodub" managed to make it up to 153bpm.

dog latin I'm not having a go but your argument here is a little bit like that other thread in the "minimal does this so how can [insert track which doesn't follow the generic norm to the letter] be minimal??"

What I am saying is that Dubstep in its purest form is a very easy target for people to have a go. However it seems that once you add another element to it, it's suddenly a lot more interesting.

even looking at the "breaks" mixes that dog latin is bigging up the best tracks (and the ones that make the mix listenable) are standouts / crowd pleasers / energy raisers because they somehow stick out from the beatsy morass around them.

let's look at radioactive man's (killer) fabric mix

"visions" remixed by 2ls - slowed down micro/electro-house

"honour" by j saul kane - not breaks! more like weird throwback to early 80s electro mixed w/ cartoon action theme

"basic units" by firewire - 4/4 nonbreaks stompiness

"ave that" tim wright remix - WTF is this? sludgy IDM? only thing it remotely sounds like is an old chocolate weasel remix on ninja tune.

"rottenrow" by dirty hospital - ravey retro-hardcore

dubstep anthems couldn't exist w/o dubstep, is it too much to ask that we accept the genre as a useful breeding ground for these anthems? so it's not going to capture the glory of 92-95 d'n'b or even 99-02 garage ... very few things ever will!!

i also think you're right in saying that current dubstep is probably going to be seen as a very good undercoat for things to come, but first i think it needs to break out of it's shell a little.

unless someone is really going to post those imaginary pics of fwd w/ the sxxy laydeez going crayzee.

(every pic i've seen of a dubstep night is like a a white dj, black dj, another white dj, a black mc, and like 50 dudes standing around in hoodies and fred perry jackets holding beers)

dubstep is gonna be around for a long time. even if it gets more predictable and boring than some of the more popular stuff out at the moment. i dont really get the people who think dubstep changed their life, but there seems to be a lot of them. and dubstep seems to have this bizarre popularity amongst people (ie indie kids) that otherwise generally hate garage/other dance music.

"i dont really get the people who think dubstep changed their life"

daring, intense and brilliant music will do that though titchy.

i thought it was grime that had the weird popularity with skinny white trendy indie kids in fluro

it was.

Dubstep did kind of change my life. For instance the only time I've been to London was to go to DMZ. Sounds quite corny, and it's not the kind of thing I would write if it hadn't came up.

Like I had heard the Vex'd album, something on DMZ and some Skream in 2005 and enjoyed it but not really got that in to it, but summer 2006 really getting in to sets on Barefiles, seeing Skream playing out on a really big rig in a low-ceilinged basement, and then going to the DMZ 2nd birthday all had a kind of Road to Damascus feeling about them.

dubstep is gonna be around for a long time. even if it gets more predictable and boring than some of the more popular stuff out at the moment.

― titchyschneiderMk2

so basically like drum & bass then...? if that's the case, i wish it would die a quick and painless death sooner rather than later.

"daring, intense and brilliant music will do that though titchy."

haha. fwiw, the set im listening to at the mo from 2004 actually does sound pretty daring and intense.

xpost - that first vexd album was pretty blinding.

I guess I'm still in the minority in thinking that there have been more great dubstep productions in the last twelve months than in 2003-2006 combined.

you could be right tim, but it would be easy to miss it if you were listening to the mainstream of the genre

fair point!

"so basically like drum & bass then...?"

Actually I'm thinking more like house or techno.

That might be okay then

i don't think comparing dubstep to d'n'b is accurate, either. for one thing it seems to me lately like it's losing a lot of the 'step' and just (d)evolving into dub techno. d'n'b/jungle had such a distinct and intense rhythmic template that you couldn't really mix with other genres very easily, where as i've heard dubstep mix well with monolake, deadbeat, and even some classic dub. it might be heresy to some people to to say so, but i bet you could even slip an old planet dog track into a mix and have it not stand out. some of the recent stuff i'm hearing is more of an accumulation of a certain strain of electronic music from the last 15 years or so than something brand new.

i guess the stuff i listen to could easily be lumped into the "intelligent" strain that simon reynolds always bitches about, though. right now appleblim, perverlist, headhunter, 2562, and geiom are the names that strike me safe bets for a good track.

some of the ramadanman tracks arent bad - that one that tim linked to in another thread was very percussive, but it was typically still in a dubstep way - ie restrained, stiff, and a bit muted overall, didnt really feel like anything new, more like it was playing it safe by just revisiting more dance history. not saying it HAS to sound new, its still an unusual consolidation, but it still felt a bit boring.

"d'n'b/jungle had such a distinct and intense rhythmic template that you couldn't really mix with other genres very easily"

Was that really the problem though? To me it felt like a lack of desire on the part of d'n'b/jungle to look outside that rhythmic template for inspiration, rather than anything about the signifiers of the genre. Part of the problem of the late jump-up/techstep/jazz-y dnb/whatever is that each genre fixated on a basically a single idea (and drum pattern and bassline and vocal/melodic lick) and mined it to absolute exclusion of anything else.

Which is not a problem I see with dubstep. If anything you might make the argument that dubstep's signifiers are so broad that it could theoretically include almost anything.