Dubstep unity?

Slothrop

Tight but Polite
This kind of comes out of a few posts and articles that I've seen recently where people seem to dismiss dubstep out of hand based on the assumption that it's just ploddy halfstep wobble all night every night. Lots of people in the dubstep scene are wary of dubstep making the same mistakes as dnb, and are very keen on the scene staying together and not getting into pigeonholing and endless subgenres and niches, but the different ends of dubstep are getting to be such different things that it's beginning to seem pointless trying to hold them together in some kind of shotgun wedding. Rusko's basically never going to play Roll With The Punches, Peverelist's never going to play Cockney Thug, it seems kind of like wishful thinking to say that everything labelled dubstep is still one big scene with a lot of variety, and to think that if you don't admit to the existence of any divides the whole thing will stay in a sort of eternal 2005.

A few individuals (both producers / labels / nights and critics) already seem to be distancing themselves or others from dubstep (cf that Derek Warmsley thing about Kode 9, Whistla's stepcore, breakstep etc), but is it getting to the point where it's neccessary or helpful to talk about a whole other scene forming around more broadminded DJs, producers, promoters and labels? Is there any benefit to Hessle Audio (for instance) in still being under the same banner as Dub Police?

I guess this is kind of like the Subvert Central 'project', but dubstep now is a lot less dominated by the predictable no frills floorfillers than d&b was when they started doing their thing.

FWIW, I've not actually got anything against the whole halfstep + wobble party tunes thing, I just think it'd be a bit shit if the people doing weird / percussive / sexy / deep / housey / minimal party tunes got entirely sidelined by it. And arguably it'd help more people to appreciate what Caspa and Rusko are doing if they didn't feel obliged to slate it to stop it steamrollering over a lot of other interesting stuff...
 

sodiumnightlife

Sweet Virginia
I feel like, yeah, there are loads of different facets to dubstep, but it is still all more or less dubstep. everything out there still shares more or less a common lineage, and isn't so far removed from each other as to be totally alien. Its like how MAW and Luciano are both extremely different, but both still house.
 

Pangaea

Active member
dubstep now is a lot less dominated by the predictable no frills floorfillers than d&b was when they started doing their thing

well there we go then? LOADS of variety at the moment, it really does feel that people are free to do what they want with 140bpm-ish and bass and call it dubstep, and have it recognised as dubstep - it's never been better imo

if people want to make 145bpm dnb then that's their problem ;)
 

Corpsey

bandz ahoy
I've often said that I'd prefer it if DJs played across the board in dubstep sets, but I think you're right that there's such extremes now that its almost impossible to do that without it completely jarring.

Of course I'm talking from a biased perspective but when I saw Chef at FWD for example, I thought the first twenty minutes were superb and flowed beautifully, but then he went into the wobble section and I completely lost interest. I'm not slating Chef for playing that stuff because obviously he's feeling it and a large section of the crowd were too, but for me it was too big a shift in mood... but again, I can't really discount the fact that I think most of that wobble stuff is shite now so obviously that switch wasn't going to appeal to me.

Another perfect case in point was Plastician b2b Kode at the last DMZ. Again, loads of people were loving it but personally I thought there was close to zero dialogue between the two of them selection wise, leaving aside what I thought of Plastician's selection (dry). Whenever Kode was on I wasn't sure what he was going to play next, there was plenty of variety and boundary pushing going on. Everytime Plastic stepped up I knew it was going to be three wobble tunes (and probably three rewinds too lol).
 

Slothrop

Tight but Polite
well there we go then? LOADS of variety at the moment, it really does feel that people are free to do what they want with 140bpm-ish and bass and call it dubstep, and have it recognised as dubstep - it's never been better imo
Yeah, totally, there's a lot of really great stuff out there at the moment. But it seems like a lot of people who might like it aren't getting to hear about it because after checking a few Rusko and Caspa sets or going to their local dubstep night and hearing wall to wall wobble, they decide that actually dubstep isn't for them and stick to whatever else it was they were listening to. I'm seeing a whole lot of articles and things where that seems to have happened.

Rusko and Caspa can do what they like, but it doesn't seem great having a situation where what they do influences the attention that people like yourself get.
 

Slothrop

Tight but Polite
I've often said that I'd prefer it if DJs played across the board in dubstep sets, but I think you're right that there's such extremes now that its almost impossible to do that without it completely jarring.
To be honest, I see a lot of the division that's there as being between DJs who do go across the board as much as possible and DJs who don't. If anything I'm talking about pigeonholing things less - at the moment, if you say 'dubstep night' without further qualification, people don't often assume you'll be representing everything from dark garage to minimal halfstep, they assume you'll be playing a series of fairly similar-sounding dark wobble tunes.
 

Corpsey

bandz ahoy
^ fair point but surely there's going to be a lot of people who would never listen to a Pangea tune who WILL listen to it through getting into dubstep via Rusko?

The situation I'd hate is if that style of dubstep became massively dominant at big nights to the exclusion of everything else. But at the moment DMZ still book people like Pev and Geiom and FWD book Pinch, 2562 Martyn, Anti Social etc. I can definitely see the danger of a status quo developing, however.
 

UFO over easy

online mahjong
Rusko's basically never going to play Roll With The Punches, Peverelist's never going to play Cockney Thug, it seems kind of like wishful thinking to say that everything labelled dubstep is still one big scene with a lot of variety, and to think that if you don't admit to the existence of any divides the whole thing will stay in a sort of eternal 2005.

That's really not the point at all though. DJs never played totally across the board in dubstep, that's never what it's been about and it's not even what DJing well is about in my opinion. One of the reasons youngsta was my favourite DJ in 2005 and a lot of 2006 was that he was so focused on his specific vision, and much of the energy in his sets came from that focus.

What is important is that DJs specialising in different aspects of the sound continue to be booked on the same lineups. That's something that hasn't changed - you'll still see Pinch playing alongside, or even back to back, with someone like Skream, and you'll still see mala, kode 9, shackleton, peverelist etc booked alongside benga, coki, kromestar, plastician, hatcha. That's where the variety comes from :) That this is still happening is the reason I'm still one of these people -

slothrop said:
Lots of people in the dubstep scene are wary of dubstep making the same mistakes as dnb, and are very keen on the scene staying together and not getting into pigeonholing and endless subgenres and niches
 

Pangaea

Active member
exactly, there have always been producers, djs and labels doing their own thing. somewhere along the line things came together and they called it dubstep. it's down to the promoters to keep things together and the nights that matter are still doing this. not really sure what else to say, you can analyse 'scene splitting' to death...
 
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Slothrop

Tight but Polite
What is important is that DJs specialising in different aspects of the sound continue to be booked on the same lineups. That's something that hasn't changed - you'll still see Pinch playing alongside, or even back to back, with someone like Skream, and you'll still see mala, kode 9, shackleton, peverelist etc booked alongside benga, coki, kromestar, plastician, hatcha. That's where the variety comes from :) That this is still happening is the reason I'm still one of these people -
Yeah, I guess I'm being overly negative here. It's great that DMZ and FWD are both still pushing the whole range of stuff.

I just seem to be seeing a lot of (fairly musically aware) people who seem totally unaware that there's anything to dubstep beyond the aggro wobble stuff, and am beginning to feel like a broken record when I reel off the standard list of Mala, Kode 9, Shackleton, Pev, Geiom, 2562, Untold etc for them to go and listen to...
 

elgato

I just dont know
i can sympathise with that frustration, but im sure you agree that the key is that the music stays healthy, regardless of what misinformed or misunderstanding people may feel

and imo were the conversation between the various strains of the sound to end, and producers or djs to start drawing lines around themselves, the music would suffer very considerably
 

gremino

Moster Sirphine
But what about promoting your stuff? It can be harmfull to promote your experimental dubstep as dubstep, because some people might think it as the certain sound... Though ofcourse there's always the people knowing dubstep is a very diverse genre, but it can be hard to get new listeners around your music.

I think it's just natural that genres split, and therefore they should just let live and breath free. At the end of the day, all these 'nuum genres are quite the same music: breaks/beats and sub. That quality will always exist. Though I understand if dubstep is a very very important thing for people who have been in it from the day one, so it's hard to think it this way, or it can even seem cynical.
 

Blackdown

nexKeysound
i'm less concerned with dubstep breaking into two pieces (cant see it happening m'self), more the genre as a whole becoming so bad as to be musically and culturally irrelevant. not there yet mind...
 

mms

sometimes
i'm less concerned with dubstep breaking into two pieces (cant see it happening m'self), more the genre as a whole becoming so bad as to be musically and culturally irrelevant. not there yet mind...

it's lush at the moment, mainly due to breaking out of just being about south london i reckon.
 

Slothrop

Tight but Polite
i'm less concerned with dubstep breaking into two pieces (cant see it happening m'self),
I guess what I'm thinking of is less splitting 2562 off from Skream off from Kode 9 than something like letting people think what they like about dubstep and referring to everything from classic Horsepower to Peverelist to Rusko and Caspa to Whistla as dark garage.

But for the moment I guess I'll just carry on shouting at people about Kode 9 and Untold and how it's not all boring halfstep y'know...
 

Slothrop

Tight but Polite
it's lush at the moment, mainly due to breaking out of just being about south london i reckon.

Yeah, maybe there's just a bit of media lag between what seems to have been an upsurge in really interesting music and the (UK dance music-aware) public at large picking up on it...
 
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