proto-dubstep

Patrick Pulsinger - "City Lights Pt. 1" (1994)

???

really??

great thread

Mezzanine

And some of Scorn's releases.

Techno Animal

Ice

Smith and Mighty etc.

Maybe one or two DJ Spooky tracks.

how about dj maxximus? subhead?

doom's night

this heat - 24 track loop

kma - cape fear

I was reading Kid Kameleon's blog, and he reminded me that I totally forgot about Spectre. That would be the hip-hop producer Spectre, not the breaks producer Spectr.

This stuff gets overly confusing.

Just search for Macro Dub Infection Vol 1 and 2, I guess.

electric ladyland "future soul for rebels" comps I-IV?

Future Sound of London: ISDN too.

mick harris, muslimgauze

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david sylvian & ryuichi sakamoto - bamboo houses/bamboo music

<i>That would be the hip-hop producer Spectre</i>

When I heard my first set of dubstep, it instantly reminded me of a lot of the dubby instrumental hip-hop on the Wordsound label. Spectre recorded some stuff for Wordsound.

wrong tempo, but:

http://image.listen.com/img/170x170/0/2/0/5/635020_170x170.jpg

er, http://image.listen.com/img/170x170/0/2/0/5/635020_170x170.jpg

I don't know jack about dubstep but have heard Ike Yard referenced as proto-proto-dubstep.

shanks and bigfoot

that Pulsinger tune

Mick Harris is very much proto-shite-dubstep.

Thievery Corporation: Songs From The Thievery Hi-Fi.

I'm no expert so feel free to correct/berate me me, but Afrika by Plastikman sounds like it kind of anticipates Shackleton-style dubstep.

of course spectr the breaks producer is scuba is paul rose the hotflush supremo...

...so yeah protodubstep ???

On-U Sound

dub

Well yeah, its finding stuff that has the "step" to it thats a little more tricky.

michael f gill OTM re: "city lights vol 1"

i don't think a whole lot of dub sounds like dubstep, to be honest.

a lot of the spar urban dub does, in some fashion

maybe that should be urbane

what are you digging at anyway, vahid? the roots of dubstep aren't 2step garage and techstep?

nah, whatever martin clark says i don't think disciples, iration steppers, whatever sound that much like dubstep

i'm not digging for "the roots".

you might call the sonics or link wray proto-punk, though i very much doubt many people making punk rock in the 70s had actually heard the sonics or link wray. the idea is just that the sonics happen to sound like something that came along much later in an unconnected way.

i'm just digging around for non-obvious stuff that happens to sound, basically through chance or accident, like current dubstep.

OIC

try Britney Spears - Freakshow

i think this sort of game is a little more interesting than just drinking the usual "oh yeah, we really dug 2-step and techstep and dub cause we live in london" koolaid ... zzzzzzz

siah alan OTM re: mezzanine. "man next door" could teach kode 9 a thing or two

cabaret voltaire circa 1985
dubby progressive house circa 1992/1993 guerilla label
artcore jungle Various - Artcore

i listen to dubstep fm i haven't the scooby doo what the artist names are as it's mostly mixes - but the music is interesting

who's listening to this:

December 18th on Sub FM [via the web]: Tuesday 18th December, 8pm - 12am - 4 hour mega dubstep radio special live from Bristol.

via: Gutterbreakz: IT'S THE PARTY SEASON...

"Well yeah, its finding stuff that has the "step" to it thats a little more tricky."

Like oh 50% of all dub and roots reggae from the mid-70s onward based around steppers riddims.

And I hear plenty of Jah Shaka et all esp. in the Digital Mystikz school of dubstep.

"when the levee breaks" (good pun there)
"i sit on acid"
lfo circa advance

"Like oh 50% of all dub and roots reggae from the mid-70s onward based around steppers riddims."

-- Alex in SF, Sunday, December 16, 2007 10:10 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Link

But at 140 odd BPM ?

Sure Ancient Memories and some of the other early Digital Mystikz tracks sound a lot like Jah Shaka, but I've never heard anything by Shaka that sounds like Da Wrath by Mala.

Specifically the Souljahz Mix on DM 003.

yeah i gotta agree here. clearly there's a particular wing of the dubstep crew that's consciously trying hard to sound like jah shaka (soul jazz "box of dub" crew i'm looking at you) but that's ignoring a whole lot of producers (vex'd, scuba, distance, mark one, hatcha, d1, all the grime refugees like skepta and benga, etc) that aren't.

yeah tricky, LFO's "tied up" has that wobble-bass thing in effect

Um well I did specifically say that I was speaking about those worshipping at the altar of DMZ (most of whom's early stuff is NOT at 140bpm or anything close to it.)

Anyway one particular techstep tune that sounds like minus the breaks (and um some momentum) could be Digital Mystikz is DJ Trace's "Final Chapta". Actually if you playing it at 33rpm it'd be dead ringer for their first couple of releases.

Quite a few slow tracks on techstep albums are pretty much dubstep avant la lettre, but I will need to relisten to them to provide track names aside from Dom & Roland's "Industry" (awesome track BTW).

The Aloof sometimes sounded a bit dubsteppy when they toned down on the orchestral workouts and turned up the rigorous rhythms. But then The Aloof kind of remind me of everything (I thought of the Studio album the last time I listened to Sinking).

first thing i thought of on opening this thread was boymerang.

Thats funny considering how many Dubstep producers on the forum seem to love post-rock, although I'm not sure if many of them like Bark Psychosis.

http://dubstepforum.com/viewtopic.php?t=34530

Check that mix for some live 2-step / post-rock kind of thing from some Lithuanian guys.

andrea parker - fallen arches

i like these kind of threads

Parts of Mouse on Mars's Iaora Tahiti (the midtempo, non-housey parts) sound like dubstep only with the dirge replaced by sparkly chromatic intensity.

Speedy J's Public Energy No. 1 represents for the dirgestep.

third eye foundation

parts of the black dog's "music for television and films" for sure

Some PJ Harvey track I heard once.

i would really like it if there was audio easily available for this thread so i could tell which posts were only half joking and which were joking and which weren't joking

third eye foundation (mp3 link)

This just came up on itunes, probably haven't heard it for the best part of a decade:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TKEDV1Ipkrk

Afro-Central on the Afro Left single also has a dubstep vibe. Would fit perfectly in a Kode9/Martyn dj set.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tlQ_2eOv0Oc

No mention of Two Lone Swordsmen or Sabres? I can't think of one example. Maybe Wilmot? Or Alpha School?

Stewart Walker - Dead Factory Metaphor fits the vibe here. Don't think it would count as proto-dubstep but i'd have to check the dates.

What about Zulutronic?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XlK1ZSmgHMg

Or Genaside II?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DQ9RXc6c4k4

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Wn5xQ5tgkQ

That last tune is nice.

Wow, the first 10 seconds of the Andrew Weatherall and Terry Farley No Alla Violenza remix of New Order's World in Motion is a total moment of Shackelton 15 years early (and then the entire rest of the track is of course radically different)

for reference's sake

. . .not really sure where to ask this. . .

was wondering, in a very general way, about broken beat and all the things i missed. that got me thinking about the relationship between broken beat and dubstep. can anyone recommend any reading or a playlist or maybe i'm just way off. . . ?

both started by britishes in london area, frustrated by their inability to break out into established scenes (dnb and 2step respectively). beside that cultural connection, not a whole lot

at least not at first. nowadays in the post-dubstep post-everything world, lots of producers who make non-4-on-the-floor dance music everywhere draw inspiration from both.

one thing to note is that traditionally dubstep is 140 bpm, whereas broken beat basically topped out at 130, a lot of it was 120-125ish and sometimes the jazziest stuff got as slow as 115. in the pre ben ufo / pre controller mixing era that was generally considered too big of a gap to bridge for a dj, so that’s a factor

(also back then dubstep guys especially tended to just play dubstep, broken beat crew were more eclectic by nature but still stuck to jazzier vibes, nowadays everyone’s a lot more willing to mix styles up it seems)

one last thing - broken beat tempos varied a lot by label (and a lot more than dubstep tempos). people (who had artists like ig culture, mark de clive lowe, new sector movements etc) were acid jazz aligned so some of their tracks got down to like 105 or 110. bitasweet (run by bugz in the attic) had stronger ties to uk garage scene so they ran faster (chunks of the fabric mix are 130+, like ukg). 2000black (run by dego of 4hero iirc) kinda split the difference depending on artist, artists w/ running dnb concerns (like dego himself) made zippier tracks while other ppl were making much slower 110 bpm tracks verging on caffeinated downtempo

it’s tempting to say ukg was the common thread, except a lot of broken beat producers had nothing to do with ukg. i assume outside of being horsepower productions listeners you could say the same for a fair amount of dubstep ppl

Yeah the fabriclive mix has some quasi-dubstep selections - Artwork's "Red", Daluq's "Oriental Express", Nu Design's "Time To Skyank" (both Daluq and Nu Design being Zed Bias side projects, while Arthur Smith of Artwork was a member of D'N'D and Menta).

But that comp was released in October 2003 when it stil wasn't entirely clear as to where dubstep was going (or rather, its direction was still coalescing via the early Tempa singles, a few random things from Skream and Benga etc.), and Zed Bias in particular was still flirting with lots of broken beats ideas (not just via the above projects but also Maddslinky); see also Landslide's singles and remixes circa 2001/2002.

thank you for that, tlg! gonna dig in later, using the foundation you laid down there. i wish i hadn't been so uk-phobic 20 years ago.

also ty tim!

this proto-dubstep (artwork, el-b projects, etc) is all very nice and artsy and intellectual, but it's a bit ... subtle. have we given short shrift to populist music for lads who like their basslines dirty, growling and more mid than sub? are we neglecting the edm crew and their sick double drops? do we need a thread for BROtodubstep?

appreciate the insight - but also no clue what you mean (in a nice way). i'm just here for some moody feel good grooves.

I'm definitely curious about proto-brostep. The first place my mind goes is Glitch Mob, Bassnectar type stuff. Not my favorite but I've been exposed to a lot of it.

I think a lot of people in that scene went trance -> breaks -> dubstep-ish

yeah i was just making a bad joke based on what is almost but not quite a pun (please clap)

Look I need someone to overthink this with

^^ now there's a board description for the ages

just tried to 'like' that as if it were a tweet

Brostep - proto or otherwise - only bugs me because when I tell people who don't listen to a lot of music that I like dubstep they think I mean that big festival Bassnectar-type stuff, but I like to think my mind is open to whatever so sure, let's reassess. But not until I'm done listening to everything on the amapiano thread

like Florida breaks?

Sorta, for the particular northern California scene I'm thinking of, Adam Freeland type stuff was popular right before everything became about having the heaviest drops

Coki was the one who kicked the whole brostep thing off imho

When Spongebob was released that changed the whole scene, and not in a good way

Coki was one of the very best dubstep producers and those more brosteppy tunes he made absolutely work in the dance at the right moment but he's got a lot to answer for there

Feel like the obvious pathway to brostep was via artists like Search & Destroy and Toastyboy (tunes like “Distant Minds” and “Desperate Measures”) circa 2003/2004, which was drawing from breaks and contemporaneous farty drum & bass, and also probably was inspired in part by Jammin / Darqwan / Bingo Beats aka the side of “breakbeat garage” that appealed somewhat to both early grime and early dubstep people (I mostly found it underwhelming, though some early Oris Jay / Darqwan was good).

Coki and Benga too obviously, but let’s be honest neither were actually any good.

I like dubstep (and d&b) that goes hard and dirty, seems like in 2010 or so this was labelled "brostep" and therefore *a bad thing*. Still not at all happy about this tbh.

Benga was good.

“night” probably the most overrated tune of all time

Nobody mentioned Vex'd so far, Lion VIP a good early example of a really heavy drop. (though many earlier ones in d&b of course)

yeah actually I was thinking of Vex’d early stuff with the huge fuzzy bass but was thinking at the time it wasn’t all that different from where dubstep was going in general idk

I think Menta - “Snake Charmer” is my favorite track off that Roots of Dubstep comp. Who else besides Shackleton messed around when these more umm eastern sounds?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=InxBNJ-wPz8

wait wait wait no I meant HIGH PLAINS DRIFTER - SHOLAY, disregard that post

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b0kkkGzd3IA

lol I think it’s the lightness and spaciousness especially that gets me with that one. Sooo not brostep. Sorry for diversion.

Not in terms of developing the music, but in terms of the U.S. crowd that pivoted to brostep, I get the sense that it was a mix of people who were previously into Justice/Ed Banger, the aforementioned west coast Glitch Mob type stuff, or metalcore? But I don't really know.

And on the UK side, when did Rusko come into the picture?

in what universe is Benga underrated

The Wikipedia article refers to MJ's Invincible as having "been cited as an early development of dubstep". The two obscure sources actually point specifically to "Heartbreaker". It's definitely Jerkins on top form but I still think it's maybe a bit fanciful.

What about Basement Jaxx's Don't Give Up?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=okItjxdCAQM

This is an aside but I was listening to 'An Echo a Stain' off of Vespertine the other day, and thinking how much it sounds like proto-post-dubstep, lol.

Coki and Benga too obviously, but let’s be honest neither were actually any good.

― Tim F, Friday, 9 September 2022 11:24 (five hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

I never thought Benga was that great but Coki's early productions were hardddd

And yeah, Night has not aged well

Who else besides Shackleton messed around when these more umm eastern sounds?

Quite a lot of producers but I don't think there was anyone who really stuck with it in the way Shackleton did. Sinogrime was briefly a thing

my main beef with so-called "brostep", what I'd call US EDM/Dubstep, is this relentless fixation on being locked into one very particular vibe, energy level, set of timbres, etc. I suppose this complaint could be extended to various other electronic genres as well, but it seems even more extreme here, when every one or two minutes you are jumping from one screeching, twisted bassline to the next, with myriad breaks and drops happening over and over. It has to be possible to mix this in a way that gives space to other moods, emotions, colors, timbres. Otherwise it is just exhausting, the first 5 minutes I'm enjoying myself, but soon I have my eye on the clock while the DJ goes through the motions of ticking through one interchangeable track after the next.

I feel like back in the days of UK Dubstep, there was a lot more variety and exploration of all the different twists and turns the genre could take.

And on the UK side, when did Rusko come into the picture?

Rusko was making fairly standard dubstep from about 07 but when Cockney Thug came out in 08 or so that was a bit of a game changer. Must have been around the same time as Spongebob. There was a Caspa and Rusko Fabric CD too. Ngl Cockney Thug is a guilty pleasure of mine but it gave rise to a whole bunch of shite wobblers

xp yep. It was fun while it lasted, then it went from music for weed smokers to music to take pills to. Not that there's anything wrong with music to take pills to, but in this particular case it didn't work out well

Mala's tracks hold up the best imo, it helps that they're the dubbiest.

Now I'm listening to Wiley devils mixes again.

My main exposure to brostep when I was deep into Low End Theory, and some of those tracks would get thrown into mixes as a moment. Can't imagine listening to a whole set.

Then everything turned into 'trap EDM' and the whole thing dissolved (meaning the artier album-oriented side, and the rest fully split off into music made for and played at big festivals). That's how it felt to me anyway in the early '10s.

"thrown into mixes as a moment" = pretty much how i recall a lot of, um, clubbier jump-up dubstep (trying to avoid the pejorative brostep) djs would spin. like ntype, whose rinse and dubstep allstars mixes are both are 40 tracks in 80 mins, caspa and rusko did 30 tracks in 70 mins on their fabriclive, etc.

speaking of clubby dubstep and fabriclive, do elijah and skilliam belong here?

maybe not quite 40 tracks, also not quite 80 mins tho

(hunched up in the corner, awkwardly nodding to the beat whilst trying to hide that i'm taking notes)

but seriously, thanks everyone. good revive.

agree.

i picked up the vex'd 2cd set a few years ago with no knowledge as to what it was,
and yeah, that still hits the spot.

as for the rest ...
i have been able to pick up a lot of cheesy commercial dubstep mixes for bobbins over the last few years,
and i have come to love this stuff way more than i expected.

i prefer the original 140 stuff, but sometimes the pop-vs-dubstep crossover tunes work really well in a playlist.

in other news - phaeleh released a compilation of his 140 productions recently :

https://phaeleh.bandcamp.com/album/one-forty

oh, and deep medhi are having special nights again, and the "deep dark and dangerous" crew have released some really good stuff.

my eldest who now lives in london tells me that dubstep nights are insane.

the social energy of young adults is what’s insane, so if they’re showing up to dubstep nights and are up for it i have no doubt that’s true

lol

This compilation, which is called The Roots Of Dubstep but is not the same compilation as The Roots Of Dubstep, is a favourite:

https://www.discogs.com/release/8543454-Various-This-Is-The-Roots-Of-Dubstep

it's a really good snapshot of that period when garage wasn't quite morphing into dubstep and bassline but the darkness and the weight is so much more pronounced.

Looks sick. Dubstep Allstars Vol 1 is another good snapshot of that time. I think the term dubstep was invented for that release but I may be sadly mistaken

several xps Elijah and Skilliam played strictly grime, no dubstep or brostep. A lot of the people who would listen to them would have also been into dubstep though. Back in the early days of dubstep there was more of a crossover with the grime scene but not so much after about 05-06 or so

have you heard their fabric mix cd?

i realize they are considered part of the grime scene, but i think if you listen to the fabric mix you’ll hear what i’m talking about. no idea if it’s representative of what they do in general, but it has a lot of those grindy aggressive midrange bass synths and the dynamics of brostep too. and pretty much no vocals. and tracks from four tet, swindle, silkie, kelela, dj q, lil silva, flava d, kowton … so not *strictly* grime, at least on this cd

also isn’t butterz kinda out of the step w the grime scene in general?

i do realize all these peeps are established players in other scenes, and looking back to the (rather small) butterz discography i realize it’s not as prevalent a sound as i thought. plus i must admit i stopped keeping track of grime right around when this stuff came out, so idk maybe you’re telling me this was the prevalent grime sound of the time (vs something like ice rink)

and yet i must ask: if it steps like a bro, and a bro can step to it, is it not brostep?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TJFC4mj6JrI

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=voJznH9JMxU

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ePEbcMbPhFs

tbh fidget house, frankendance and nu-metal are more what I consider the brostep continuum roots than grime and garage. I mean the bass is an integral part so it is there, but all the horror movie samples and aggressive, bosh-in-your-face loudness, that's not coming from the jazz-influenced sophistication place that a lot of garage house and 2-step was rooted in

^^ flagged for classism

idk if jazz influence absolves you of being a bro. ever been to a flying lotus concert??

I was 18 once too, I miss being excited by a blogpost tagged "Switch remix"

yes! there’s a great 20 min bbc mix (maybe it’s sinden?) with a switch remix of “vans” (by the hyphy track by the pack) that i’ve never been able to find

i think it was credited as a solid groove remix, basically just sped it up and put an enormous 808 4x4 kick under it

Fidget House ?

I don't think these are that different:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kuYmPZ_eAqc

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a0kIwpDGbwg

agree! the underrated “volt mix” has an even more fidget-y vibe

surprised I never mentioned the GusGus remix of Moloko's 'Indigo' itt

Looking forward to getting into this mix of proto-dubstep from CCL:

https://soundcloud.com/t4tluvnrg/ccl-a-night-in-the-skull-discotheque

could/does Basement Jaxx's Don't Give Up count as proto-dubstep?