Subcultural engagement for the 21st Century...
Barbelith is a new kind of community (find out more)...
You can login or register.

Underground > Radio & Music >

The beginner's guide to dubstep

Page: 1(2)

09:44 / 07.07.06

**waves at other dubstep forums people in here**

** waves back **

DMZ on Saturday. Going to be massive. Likely to do it all night and then doze on the grass outside mass until it's time to take the first train back up north.

18:46 / 07.07.06

^^^ so jealous. i'm in the US, so i will just have to wait til i play the stuff next week, cuz there ain't no one else playin it here.

skank a bit for me at DMZ, k?

p.s. this is sapphic_beats from the dubstepforum.

22:56 / 07.07.06

(Just joined dubstepforum as panmodal. See y'all there.)

11:28 / 08.07.06

Hi Sapphic_Beats! I'm Grievous Angel on there.

Tonight should be fab. Bass to make your chest rattle.

09:39 / 24.11.06

S'odd, you listen to a track like Wiley's "Ground Zero" and the gap between grime & dubstep isn't that big.

02:12 / 17.01.07

big dubstep party saturday night in cleveland.

12:28 / 16.07.07

S'odd, you listen to a track like Wiley's "Ground Zero" and the gap between grime & dubstep isn't that big.

And with that comment in mind, forward... the starter of this thread, Paul 2stepfan, has just blogged his absolutely f***in' badazz mix, Dubstep Sufferah Volume 3. I think it's awesome. I don't really know enough about dubstep to talk in depth about the tunes in there, but I like what I hear: spacey, dubby sci-fi beats with murderous basslines... and if it wasn't good enough already what absolutely kills it for me inclusion of a load of killer grime vocals. It's a absolute winner. It's got the dark, relentless, skanking feel of dubstep at it's best with a load of hyperactive, edgey, roughneck firing MC action over the top. All killer, no filler.

Interview with the man here Grab yourself a copy swiftly.

12:41 / 26.07.07

Dubstep Sufferah link bad...new links please

04:30 / 27.07.07

Dubstep Sufferah 3 (at Blackdown) - with interview!

18:13 / 30.07.07

It is only now, looking back at the thread days later, that I realize I totally duplicated the link given two posts earlier. That's me not paying attention properly.

The mix is hot, though.

Regrettable Juvenilia

08:44 / 24.10.07

The Dubstep Sufferah 3 mix is indeed fucking brilliant - all credit to 2stepfan.

I have to say that I would have been far more likely to seek it out had I known that it so resembled a grime/rap mixtape. I definitely get the difference, musically, in production terms, between dubstep and grime - and I can see why some people favour the former, as there are times when listening to grime beats gives me a migraine. Dubstep beats in general are more easy to, y'know, relax to.

But this is still pretty chilly stuff - still seems very appropriate for walking round London in now that it's starting to get dark earlier and the temperature's dropped suddenly. Yeah, I know that's not the most fresh or insightful observation either.

I guess what I'm getting at is that it doesn't feel very PLUR to me. And a fair few people who have championned dubstep have done it at the expense of grime, often by claiming that dubstep is more positive, less aggressive, and so on. Maybe this is just about the atmosphere at raves/parties/clubs, in which case fair enough, nobody wants serious aggro. But I'd taken it (and this may just be my dumb mistake) to refer to lyrical content as well, in a slightly prescriptive way. If dupstep can also include rhymes like the kind you get from Skepta, Trim and other Roll Deep people on this CD, then I'm much more keen on it than I realised...

09:03 / 24.10.07

If dupstep can also include rhymes like the kind you get from Skepta, Trim and other Roll Deep people on this CD, then I'm much more keen on it than I realised...

It's my impression that this mix is quite unique in that regard. I know next to nothing about both scenes though, and don't quite undestand how they are spoken of as being linked so closely if there's not this kind of crossover occuring more frequently. Speaking of the mix Paul himself has said it turned into a dubstep versus grime cross over mix, while also showing how dubstep doesn’t have to be this narcoleptic, mordant trough of despondency that some people are trying to turn it into. So perhaps your initial perceptions weren't too far off the mark. The only other vocalist I've heard over dubstep is a bloke called Spaceape, who's on the Burial album. He is much more in keeping with the slow, spaced out dubstep aesthetic - if grime MCs are 80s ragga, he's definitely 70s dub and roots.

I think a key point here is that dubstep - in it's "pure" form - doesn't work really well over iPods and the like, or through computer speakers. You need to hear it live on loud system. I've only heard it in this way once myself but it was fucking mighty. I didn't so much hear the bass as feel it in my ribs, the nearest comparison is going to see Jah Shaka. At this weight, you're grateful for the sloweer tempo - much faster and it'd be like lying under a tank.

Regrettable Juvenilia

10:00 / 24.10.07

[mocksmug]I knew I was right, all along.[/mocksmug]

Thanks for that link - I think it's great to read about how the Kano take on 'Mr Me Too' is meant to be a statement - to me it doesn't just say "this is a mix that brings dubstep and grime back together", it also says "and also the link between grime and US hip hop".

I need to find out more about Cloaks!

10:52 / 24.10.07

Been listening to dubstep mixes pretty solidly for the last few hours and there is some interesting stuff out there. There's certainly a variety of tempos and production styles...

17:44 / 24.10.07

Yes! There is! Let's go to Platform 1 next month (Bass Clef, maker of Durrty's "Boi Dem" is playing).

Durrty's Axiom EP's also got Coki, from Digital Mystikz, producing a track too, and neither of them sound out of place (and if you've not heard the record yet, Petes, I doubt anyone else on this thread would choose crying over fixing this massive injustice).

More widely, I'm not really seeing a massive difference between them. For instance, dubstep-happy Plastician's "Intensive Snare" with Skepta is amazing. And I know you love you some Skepta. Further signs of they love each other crossover being that Benga's next album has one of his collaborations with Coki, "Night," remixed with the vocals from Dizzee's "Flex" over it (listen here).

And the whole Rinse 01 album, really, isn't exactly full of jarring jump-cuts from one side to the other. The difference between on and the other seems to come more from how dubstep chooses to market itself compared to grime, where mixtapes full of minute-long fragments are still very important (which is also how the dubstep tunes are treated on the Rinse album), whereas dubstep goes on FOR A REALLY LONG TIME.

06:48 / 25.10.07

Thank pin, I'm sure there are all kinds of crossovers evident that aren't obvious to someone with a marginal knowledge of the scene like me. They certainly are two tastes that go well together, that Dizzee/Coki track is amazing, and "Take Back the Scene" by Durty is by Coki (that's my favourite track on the ep.) Get to the Durty thread straight away and start posting.

I may have to get that Rinse album, I think.

21:39 / 25.10.07

That's very sweet of you, Roy, because I really don't know anything beyond the FM tuning for Rinse, and stuff I've read. I certainly don't actually leave my room. I would like to leave my room...

However, yes, you should certainly get the Rinse album in yr sweaty little mits. And get back to the Durrty thread!

06:11 / 26.10.07

The only other vocalist I've heard over dubstep is ...

I re-read my own posts sometimes and think why on Earth did I say that? I know there's times I've actually heard dubstep/grime vocals ... senility caused by too much bass.

Phex: Dorset Doom

18:47 / 06.11.07

Hey Barbelithers, I'm back, and in my first post for about a month or, so I'm announcing:

The new Burial record, Untrue, is fuckin' awesome.

"What I want is that feeling when you're in the rain, or a storm. It's a shiver at the edge of your mind, an atmosphere of hearing a sad, distant sound, but it seems closer - like it's just for you. Like hearing rain or a whale-song, a cry in the dark, the far cry." - Burial

Burial's perhaps the only dubstep artist with crossover potential. Crossover into indie-rock circles (Pitchfork love him, Wire named his self-titled debut album of the year) rather than the mainstream ala Dizzee Rascal.
The new record takes the dark'n'sexy feel of the first and cranks it up, making the darkness darker and the sexy sexier. The tone is a little more upbeat than his debut, but this isn't a record to get people dancing. Slow, nasty sex perhaps, or winding down after a night of more dancable electronics. It's still night-time music, made (and best listened to) when everybody else has gone to sleep and released just at the time of year when the nights are getting longer and sunset starts at midday.

Untrue is on Hyperdub and it's out yesterday.

Essential Dazzler

13:20 / 06.02.08

Burial's perhaps the only dubstep artist with crossover potential. Crossover into indie-rock circles (Pitchfork love him, Wire named his self-titled debut album of the year) rather than the mainstream ala Dizzee Rascal.

It blows my mind that Benga and Coki's night is getting day-time Radio 1 plays.

Benga's new album, "Diary of an Afro Warrior" is astounding, I'm nearly done listening to it for the first time. For the most part it's aimed squarely at the dancefloors, which is something I'm not used to from Dubstep.

All Acting Regiment

14:30 / 06.02.08

Yeah, the Untrue is amazing, I've been listening to it at a pal's house. In fact turning up at their door and banging on it to let me in at odd hours - to listen to it.

15:08 / 06.02.08

Ya see, I don't think it is entirely dancefloor unfriendly, or better suited to slow sex or whatever. Tunes like Raver and Archangel remind me a great deal of the darker side of early ninties hardcore, garage and proto-drum and bass, breeds of music that used to pack dancefloors across the land.

Untrue is fast becoming one of my favourite albums of the decade. I love the shit out of it.

All Acting Regiment

15:25 / 06.02.08

I find it's got all the weirdness and darkness that my friends who like music but don't like to dance like, but is danceable, sort of, if not directly.

15:34 / 06.02.08

On the whole I'd agree that it isn't directly danceable, but I think a couple of tracks most definitely are, at least to these old ears.

I've certainly encountered much less danceable stuff in nightclubs.

All Acting Regiment

14:17 / 11.02.08

The Dissensus forum has quite a few mixes up for grabs - I'm listening now but do have a look through yourself and enthuse aobut anything fun.

18:19 / 24.12.08

http://www.chemical-records.co.uk/sc/servlet/Info?Track=DUBTHIEFS001

Njoy

x

I would really love to hear someone tear up the song Magic Doors from Portisheads new album. I think some dark heavy bassline would bring this opulent and indulgent melody to a new level.

21:22 / 06.02.09

anyone off to ffwd?

Page: 1(2)