The Wire on Dubstep

well, steve barker's been reviewing it for a while and that 's fine, but rob young's editorial?
sometimes words aren't enough.

any of it online? or do i have to buy the damn thing?

The editorial sucked, went something like: yes back in the nineties we paid a passing interest to jungle, but didn't like that 2 step rubbish and people kept telling us about grime, which we didn't really like (hell it's bad enough sharing a bus with those chavs without having to endure them on records!) but now some intelligent people have become involved in London underground music once more (like Kode 9 - he went to Warwick Uni doncha know) and they've got rid of all those shouty mcs and are making some proper music called dubstep, which we now like and has nothing to do with grime. Next month's Wire features a cd collaboration between Skream and Evan Parker...

was the editorial by rob or was it chris?
and who wrote the main feature?
i've not read it yet, but confess that i would like to.
i dunno, i wish it didn't, but dubstep bores the living shit out of me these days
fwd at the end last friday kinda proved that.
people talk about dmz nights being really exuberant, joyful affairs but i saw absolutely no evidence of that there.
didn't even see anyone dancing. very beard-strokey and lame.
the back room with el-B, horsepower, hatcha doing a 2001 set, however, was really great and all the proof i ever needed that this genre has gone way, way, way downhill with time.
never thought i'd be the dude in the old-school area saying how much better it was in the old days, but, hey, the truth is the truth.
given this total lack of fun (2step was sexy music, stuff you could dress up and floss to) it makes complete sense that the wire would get on board at this point.
i don't want to slag off the wire because i really like a good many of its writers on a personal level and respect many of the others that i don't know on a professional basis.
however, as a publication, it's almost entirely devoid of joy and so is dubstep, so they both fit hand in glove to me.

i dont hate dubstep (there does seem to be a reverse snobbery towards it - like its terrible to dis shouty 'real' MCs from grime but okay to dis intellectual hifalutin mediations on bass pressure etc etc) but it does seem to basically be like garage's IDM or its version of intelligent jungle

yeah it was a bit rubbish and miserable that night -dmz is massivley more fun as everyone says.
dunno why dubstep is equivalent to idm really though, just because the editorial of the wire have bitten it's arse, i think that's where it ends, fwd had 50/50 grime and dubstep there anyway with riko mcing over youngsta who's pretty much captain dubstep.
don't reckon there is much intellectualism there really apart from kode 9 went to uni and dubstep people seem to be good at waxing about the pleasure of bass they get - the other room at fwd did point the finger at what dubstep 06 is missing in many ways though but i've maintained this before in other threads.
dunno what you saw dave but there were def people dancing away there, i wsn't much i was knackered.

it is silly wire getting on dubstep but so has every other mag this month, it's flavour of the month, grime was for a bit across the fashionable london music press too but the wire does itself no favours with its musical ghetto/tower mentality that it has nowdays though.

well, i've got to say that all i really saw was guys standing about and nodding, which is cool enough, i suppose, just a bit daft in a big club that you've paid a tenner to get into!
anyway, i had a lot of fun listening to el-b and hatcha, drank way too much vodka and met up with a bunch of crew that i've not seen in ages, so it wasn't a bad night.
just thought that there was a much sexier, more danceable, upful vibe in the bar area, but then again, this is what i've always said, so i could be guilty of listening with extreme prejudice. somehow i think i might just be right, tho.

ohgod

so the Wire likes dubstep now? good for them. doesn't mean i'll start reading it again, though.

Boxcutter was a stupid choice for a profile.

OK I've already pretty much said my piece on this (angry and bitter, yes?) its laudable that they are covering it, but the editorial exposed the editor-at-large's complete disconnection from post-hardcore dance music (2-step as macho trudge- what planet have you been on mate?) and yes, having a piece on Boxcutter rather than DMZ or Skream displayed their skewed perspective on the whole thing (esp. as Boxcutter is classic IDM parasitism on a pre-existing dance music form, and unlike say Squarepusher with D'n'B his take is utterly torpid and de-intensifying, so fussy and over-edited, so lacking in bass pressure...). Kode 9 interview made sense tho, as he IS the most theory-centric practitioner of dubstep, and makes a sound interface for the Wire and the scene. All the same, a shoddy way of presenting it. Also:---- this scene is primarily served by US, not THEM, by the networks formed via messageboards and blogs, Croydon and Brixton sweat-holes and bass bins, Barefiles and Hyperdub, not print media. Anyone with any interest would be best turning to these rather than any hard-copy journal for info, surely? Also the classist /elitist tosh in the editorial made me see red- they clearly have no concept of any kind of musical innovation beyond arts-council funded obscuritanism...

Boxcutter is classic IDM parasitism on a pre-existing dance music form

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no, parasitism would imply some agreeably lumpen form of the 2step 'nuum is alive, i'd suggest it's just the right time for the nerds to scavenge its delibidinized corpse

i'd liken it favourably to squarepusher

WOEBOT said:

(winces)

This may have its own thread already, or be sunk deep in the Dubstep thread. I don't care. It's getting its own thread now.

I'll be honest I thought their sudden adoption of this was totally risible. Embarassing. Absurd.

Even if you were a fan of the music I'd imagine it to be a huge turn-off.

Sorry, that's just what I think.

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Its a well ropey editorial. A silly thing to slag off 2-step garage in the same breath as praising dubstep (some confusion though about whether he's on about tech-step as in No-U-Turn >>>Optical etc or 2-step garage). I wish they'd fuck off to be honest, if you can't 'get' grime (as he admitted), because they obviously cannot understand that you have to look beyond actual released CDs and 12"s into the FM radio ether, then it makes you quake with worry what they (mistakenly?) see in dubstep to justify their interest.

Came across as out of touch trendy vicar bollocks, and the idea that you should only get interested in a music because it has what the Wire classify as "intellectual" foundation behind it is absurd.

As for FWD - it wasn't as good as normal FWD at Plastic People or DMZ, but if you stuck around to the end it got a lot better with Mystikz and especially Kode 9's sets. Earlier on whatever strange configuration of things creates a vibe inside a space just weren't there (for me). But Kode played a tune Bug has done with Flowdan which simply smashed the joint. Check the latest fwd podcast if you want to hear it as Kode plays it in that set also.

The end system let the music down a bit though, no where near enough weight. But I had fun. Dubstep can be joyful!

My comparison was that Squarepusher extended the very tenets of D'n'B/Jungle to its ludicrous limit (and enjoyably so...!)... whereas Boxcutter lames-out on the most interesting premises of dubstep--- ie its bass-as central element core, and its implied urban/post 2-step rhythmic threat, and that Boxcutter dissolves these in classic IDM over-edited nonsense. Its a "nice" album, very tasteful and hyper-well engineered, but all the same it misses the point. Which is not a problem per-se for Boxcutter himself, but rather that for him to be picked out for special treatment in the press above the true pioneers of the core sound (which I would argue has more interesting and original defining characteristics) is somewhat galling.

gek-opel said:

My comparison was that Squarepusher extended the very tenets of D'n'B/Jungle to its ludicrous limit (and enjoyably so...!)... whereas Boxcutter lames-out on the most interesting premises of dubstep--- ie its bass-as central element core, and its implied urban/post 2-step rhythmic threat, and that Boxcutter dissolves these in classic IDM over-edited nonsense. Its a "nice" album, very tasteful and hyper-well engineered, but all the same it misses the point. Which is not a problem per-se for Boxcutter himself, but rather that for him to be picked out for special treatment in the press above the true pioneers of the core sound (which I would argue has more interesting and original defining characteristics) is somewhat galling.

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yeah i agree - boxcutter get a lot of love, but its too fiddly and abstracted, it feels like a parody although i have no doubt they are mega into dubstep. when will producers realise that turning it up to eleven doesn't make it eleven times better?

and i don't know about anyone else, but if i hear that bloody pixelated slowing the drums down to single atoms noise ever again i will vomit. that technique is this decades equivalent of the house drum roll, utterly played out and devoid of imagination.

in fact i find it hard to think of any idm stuff i actually like which isn't a load of overly technical soulless shite - maybe boc at a pinch and even with them there are no suprises. idm is for people who aren't prepared to take the plunge into street music but want to have that cred nonetheless. they don't own it and they never will. don't even get me started on breakcore. we have come to a sad place indeed if that shit gets equal billing in the dance world

in fact i find it hard to think of any idm stuff i actually like which isn't a load of overly technical soulless shite - maybe boc at a pinch and even with them there are no suprises. idm is for people who aren't prepared to take the plunge into street music but want to have that cred nonetheless. they don't own it and they never will. don't even get me started on breakcore. we have come to a sad place indeed if that shit gets equal billing in the dance world.

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autechre may relate to 2step in a vague meta level but most people wouldn't even notice that. 'idm' as a term hasn't been current for about five years anyway. i don't know what fans of juvenile post afx pseudo jungle breakcore shite would call their music these days.

my phone's low battery alarm just went off and it took me a few seconds to work out it wasn't from the boxcutter album. should i send it to the recycle bin? fuck it, you win.

foret said:

my phone's low battery alarm just went off and it took me a few seconds to work out it wasn't from the boxcutter album. should i send it to the recycle bin? fuck it, you win!

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fuck it, forgot about autechre. maybe i should have said "all idm is shit (apart from the good stuff)" which would have been more accurate

fuck the haters...

...who do you all think is making next level shit ???

Burial sounds more than slightly amateur and his drum programming needs a good swift kick up the arse if he were to collab with boxcuttter then that would be something cos between them both they have half the pieces to the puzzle...

...and if anything, you guys and the music you champion then destroy are indicative of what's wrong with your UK scene, too much pretentious watered down artwank and whinging

I'd pack up and move to NZ if you want to experience fresh polyrhythmic sounds devoid of pseudo intellectual racist cultural elitist washed out bullshit...

...and when on one hand blackdown starts dissing new dubstep about it being minimal dub by numbers and then champions zomby you know he's lost the plot

and I'm not really feeling kode9's latest efforts either. I always thought he was a much better selecta than a producer but even then his older stuff was a bit sketchy in the mix.

Burial sonically (and esp. his drum sounds) are waaay better crisper, fatter, and richer than elsewhere in more straight-up dubstep, his productions are generally more pleasing in a home listening environment, and in no way amateur sounding! This is partly cos his music isn't designed to be heard on a club system, whereas other dubstep is, and on such systems sounds better.

Oh and as far as Autechre/2-step thing, I think certainly on Chiastic Slide they had that going on, lots of pizzicato string stabs and a weirdly grime-ish feel throughout, although obviously far less straightforward and much more messy (and classic Autechre 1997-2001 was great imaginative and haunting music despite the subsequent IDM/Warp-electronica quality drop/backlash...)