Blame Canada

Dubstep's reach seems to be wrapping further and further around the globe. I'm not even sure you can call half of it dubstep anymore. As with every major genre to come along, sub-genres will always pop up and seem to be influenced by certain demographics and the particular producers in those areas; 'The Croydon sound', 'the Leeds sound', 'The Bristol sound.' Descriptive terms get bounded about as a part of it as well, Dub Techno, Clownstep, Purple, Clubstep, Aquacrunk, Gorestep, are just a handful of names for describing what has become an extremely diverse genre.

There seems to have been an surge in darker dubstep producers coming from Canada and North America in 2009, whose sound I can only describe as Transformers-esque. Midrange crunch, outfitted with plenty of phasing,1/8 step tremolos and mechanical samples that's clearly been influenced by a lot of UK producers. Vowel filters also seem to be prevalent amongst these producers, giving a filthy 'talking bassline' feeling. Whilst it's certainly not that original or reserved exclusively for that part of the world, these guys are perfecting this particular scene. Check out a few examples of the sound below!

Boom - Excision & Datsik

Talk Dubby To Me - Downlink

Gamma Ray Burst - Downlink

Crack - DZ ft. Cozee

Big in the game!

I thought I'd let you know my DJing schedule for the next few months; Audio Discharge/Unhinged are in summer shut down mode, we'll be back in October for the Audio Dicharge - 1st birthday with our good friends over at Electrostimulation records, featuring Kanji Kinetic, Squire of Gothos, Ricorb, Z-Kat and maybe one more extra special guest (totally unconfirmed) Unhinged will be back in November on a Night Slugs link with LDN trend setters Bok Bok & L-vis 1990. Until then though im DJing at Thekla for the Blast on 7th August w/ Ratpack/Mumdance/Smutlee/16 Bit I'll be DJing b2b2b2b (seriously there'll be 4 of us) with the Kelly Twins and Tekton at Timbuk2 for the Hijack Bank Holiday Party on the 29th August - playing some fffrrrrrreeesssshhh BMore. Finally I'll be doing the Ruffnek Diskotek Bristol Festival Afterparty on the 18th September - big bashy tings a gwarn!

[Rory]

Is it a bird......

....Well yes, Ikonika is a lady and resides on Kode9's Hyperdub imprint, but lets not think Steve has gotten all pervy on us, Ikonika’s beats are fresher then fresh with her brand of woozy synth step drawing obvious comparisons with label mates Darkstar, LV and Zomby.

Mujava – Township Funk (Ikonika Nexus 6 remix)

Ikonika - Please

[Rory]

Zomby

While Aquacrunk (or whatever its trendy to call the modern crop of post-Dilla beat inflections this week) may seem to be becoming a game of un-quantized beat willy jousting (i.e my drum programming is more out of time than yours) Zomby is keeping it real and unlike a lot of the scene hasn't quite vanished up his own arse yet as some have. Zomby appeared a couple of years back and has since released a flutter of 12"s for Ramp and Hyperdub, all lazer gun synths, off kilter beats and sub bass rumble, Kaliko off his recent double 12" for Hyperdub is a favourite; upward cascades of synth over enough polyrhythms for a whole Flying Lotus album - pure fire!

Zomby - Kaliko

Zomby has also been heavily influenced by the spirit and sound of hardcore early 90's rave, his first LP - 'Where Were U In 92' is so authentic (although what do I know - in 92 I was 6 years old!) with tough break beats, piano rave, euphoric vocal cuts and rave sirens set against Zomby's trademark phosphorescent backdrop it sounds like an unearthed gem from a shoebox of tapes recorded from pirate radio. Here's one from the album, owing more than a little to Bizarre Incs - Playing With Knives

Zomby - Float

[Rory]

Kuduro

Also on the ghetto pop tip are Portuguese collective Buraka Som Sistema, taking massive cues from Angolan Kuduro, but with more European influences of Techno, Dubstep and 4x4. I remember seeing them in 2007 with crowds of about 20 people really getting into it, at the time it was fresh new and exciting, and for me its lost a little of its sparkle, but I guess that’s no surprise 2 years down the line. Anyway they’re still putting out some serious heat, here’s a couple of recent efforts; a fairly chirpy remix of Swedish vocalist Lykke Li and a remix of Dre Skull and dancehall legend Sizzla

Lykke Li – Dance Dance Dance (Buraka Som Sistema remix)

Dre Skull feat Sizzla - Gone 2 Far (Buraka Som Sistema remix)

[Rory]

Abbafrica!

Radioclit are Johan Karlberg and Etienne Tron and are responsible for producing some pretty unclassifiable stuff, the best way of describing what they do is 'Ghetto-pop' or as the Bio puts it - 'One ear in the hood, another checking out Abba' there's a strong african influence present in what they do, having recently put out an album in collaboration with Esau Mwamwaya - an african singer from Malawi, including a massive collaboration with M.I.A and Santogold (look out for this on a mix soonish). Anyway here's a remix of Alphabeat sounding like a combination of afrobeat and scandinavian pop.

Alphabeat - Fantastic 6 (Radioclit remix)

[Rory]

On the Wronk?

The whole Aquacrunk thing is really polarising the views of music journalists particularly those of early rave evangelist and Guardian writer Simon Reynolds who definitely seems to fall into the anti camp right now, lazily fencing artists such as Zomby, Rustie and HudMo into the 'Wonky' enclosure, an obvious reference to an ill conceived theory that to enjoy it one must first put their 'Wronk' hat on, read the article here This is especially damning on Mr Reynolds as this is a scene which he has no experience of whatsoever, and for someone so hugely influential to come out with this bollocks is damaging to a scene which is one of the more interesting things coming out of the UK right now.
Zomby was none too pleased and came back with a fairly swift riposte:

No one does Ketamine right ? ..i thought it died in the late 80’s after that shitty Madonna tour ended, maybe you know more…..
though i have seen a crusty white dude with dreadlocks rolling around in his own puke ‘going off on K’ in Brixton not long back ..dunno how inspirational a event for a artist that is however.
None of us make ‘wonky’…the notion is similar in descriptive terms to calling Heavy Metal ‘Loud’ or Jungle ‘Fast’ ,adjectives cannot function as noun’s..
its fairly unimaginative and ignorant by this point, at first the term was used loosely as it was a playful in-joke for producers working in disharmonic structure or notation, to make the link to Ketamine is wild.
Next time you write a piece in a national newspaper try have some accuracy or even some intellectual property on the creativity or artisty of the music/artists rather than lowest common denominator music journalism i.e ‘Drugs & a new music’.
Read it through Shutter shades on Hoffman 225’s, its more believable that way.
There was a Paragraph that work’s.
“Listen to Zomby tunes like Spaceman and Aquafresh (off his recent 7-track EP for Hyperdub) and it’s like someone’s taken the monochrome diagram that is dubstep’s rhythmic grid and scrawled woozily all over it with fluorescent marker pens.”

Zomby - Strange Fruit

HudMo - Oops - Oh My

[Rory]