Grievous Angel
Beast of Burden
mala's still kicking it, isn't he?
Still think loe will kill it at som stage
Still think loe will kill it at som stage
Dubstep
i think each one of the really good producers will mutate individually, thats when it will get really interesting again, it will just take a while to share the fruits.
and course then there is the challenge of bringing them together as a scene, but i don't think it will be the same environment, space, club etc as dubstep at the moment. thats what i think might happen. One of the interesting things about traveling the world and meeting and playing with diff people is that you check ppl outside dubstep who are on the level, and that's an interesting development in itself.
UFO over easy
online mahjong
mms said:
How come? Continuum is basically gradual development and slow transition right? If you've been paying attention it's very easy to track how the sound has developed over the past couple of years.
Loefah hasn't made a tune, good or bad, for around six months - apart from the 50,000 Watts remix, which isn't great admittedly. Mala is still absolutely on it, and hasn't made a bad tune yet. His new bits are unfeasibly deep.
mms said:
Artwork is the name that springs to mind here - his production values were always incredibly high, and he produces everything in the world. House, techno, drum and bass, soundscapey stuff, even post-rocky stuff. And he's one of the guys who taught a lot of the original Croydon boys their trade - you can especially see it with Benga, who's engineering actually sounds quite like Artwork's now that his production values are higher. Basically, I don't think any of the original crew are pandering to the needs of anyone really - they always made big drops, and they were always interested in good, clean engineering. As far as I can see their only wish re: production values was that their stuff should sound fat and clear.
mms said:
There's plenty of that going on. From the big dancefloor producers too - check this benga track, the second track on the player http://www.boomkat.com/artist.cfm?a=15225
I seriously don't understand where all people's anti-dancefloor sentiment is coming from. A lot of it is crap for sure, but there's still loads of good stuff coming out, and with the influx of new producers who couldn't have expected it really? I'm sorry you think I'm smug, but genuinely I'm just irritated with all this negativity which seems to be coming mainly from people who lack the requisite knowledge to make any real judgements - see your comments about Mala and Loefah above. It just comes across as anti-mainstream scenester posing. It feels like people are pre-empting a creative stagnation so that if it eventually happens, they can say "oh I told you so! now let's go to White Heat and listen to multicoloured 7"s only 150 people have ever heard." by the same token, indie Drowned In Sound boys who got into dubstep three weeks ago saying "oh dubstep, it's in such a rut right now! it's all wobble and half step", because they read something along those lines on blackdown's pitchfork column or something.
mms said:
I can't see this happening any time in the near future. Mostly because the producers I assume you're moaning about produce such a huge variety of stuff. For example, both benga and skream are making fucked, wonky, rhythmically crazy, amazing music as well as mid-range dancefloor drudgery which isn't really my bag. Not only that but most of these guys are all mates. Pinch went back to back with Skream on rinse the other day, playing vastly contrasting styles. When even those guys, who represent possibly the pinnacle of their respective areas are happy to joke around and play tunes together for two hours, does it really seem likely that the scene will split any time soon? Kode 9 operates almost entirely on his own, but he still gets booked for Ammo related events and DMZ because the big producers are a big family.
Btw, I don't think I was being particularly smug... just trying to offer a defense to your claim that dubstep's going down the pan, which you seem to be presenting as some kind of logical truth, clinging to your own perception of positive development as if it were everyone elses as well - if anything I'd say that was pretty smug. So yeah, rubber/glue and all that.
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noel emits
a wonderful wooden reason
I think it's understandable if producers do get a little cautious when they find that what they are doing is working - it's getting popular and moving dancefloors. Perhaps wise in view of how we've seen in the past how the endless drive to 'progress' can lead away from the floor and towards the coffee table or into some abstract geek ghetto, or get stuck in some alienating macho nihilism. But then there is lots of good stuff going on in the dubstep area, if you like it. I think you'd be hard pressed to find much evidence of this mythical 'halfstep wobble orthodoxy' in recent line-ups at DMZ, Platform 1 or FWD, or on most SubFM radio shows, so it's hardly omnipresent. And then when a big wobbler does drop it's a lot of fun!
UFO over easy
online mahjong
Exactly, it's there, but not to the extent people tend to imply. I swear most of the people complaining can't actually be going to any nights or even listening to the radio... because what's being played in no way matches up to anything they're saying.
It's similar to what was going on a few months ago when people were moaning about everyone 'copying loefah', when in reality barely anyone actually did that - the tunes that tend to go off and get a gazillion reloads are often half steppers, but they also tend to be silly, catchy, hook-based stuff a million miles away from Loefah's style... so either people were being horrendously unobservant or they weren't actually listening to the music. In which case it's just posing, and that's pretty lame.
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viktorvaughn
Well-known member
Good passionate defence there Ben.
Loefah got writers bloc then or what?
Loefah got writers bloc then or what?
UFO over easy
online mahjong
Not really sure to be honest.. I'd be very surprised if he isn't writing, but we certainly aren't hearing anything. It's a shame cos at DMZ he used to add something, whereas now I really would prefer just a Mala set. It's funny too because he has a big backlog of unreleased material from around 2005 (midnight, enconer, woman, norwood, crack bong remix etc) that would be great to hear out, but mostly he just plays his released stuff...
I always found Mala/Loefah B2B @DMZ to be really tiresome, anthem to anthem stuff which was good when the anthems were good (ie- all Mala's stuff and the three or so classic Loefah tunes) but numbing otherwise. Mala solo would be wicked... Loefah was blatantly going to run into issues as his style was very specific, very minimal, only a limited number of combinations worked perhaps?
none of the tracks loefah and mala have put out recently have been new, the recent tracks on deep medi were made in '04 etc... i know that as i had them and some more recent ones on cdr. so that's no basis to argue that their new tracks are still great.
granted i said some people and mostly the originators and benga is one of them, are developing, but i know as well there are lots of people developing very individual takes on dubstep, which will drop next year, and they will blow things apart,
i hear quite alot of shit, i know this as well i have to single out records to buy for a shop and i have to listen to prerelease mp3s alot too, there is alot of rubbish compared to 2005/6 , and ppl like skream have a huge lack of quality control, i think to an extent tempa do as well.
i don't have an anti dancefloor sentiment, quite the opposite and i've never said i had at all, i love the dancefloor, enough to hope it stays exciting.
i haven't said that the original people were pandering to the needs of anyone, i've said the opposite, you seem to have got what i've said quite twisted.
i don't think i'm going to carry on this conversation as you seem to assume alot of stuff and argue against what you think i'm saying as opposed to what i have said.
granted i said some people and mostly the originators and benga is one of them, are developing, but i know as well there are lots of people developing very individual takes on dubstep, which will drop next year, and they will blow things apart,
i hear quite alot of shit, i know this as well i have to single out records to buy for a shop and i have to listen to prerelease mp3s alot too, there is alot of rubbish compared to 2005/6 , and ppl like skream have a huge lack of quality control, i think to an extent tempa do as well.
i don't have an anti dancefloor sentiment, quite the opposite and i've never said i had at all, i love the dancefloor, enough to hope it stays exciting.
i haven't said that the original people were pandering to the needs of anyone, i've said the opposite, you seem to have got what i've said quite twisted.
i don't think i'm going to carry on this conversation as you seem to assume alot of stuff and argue against what you think i'm saying as opposed to what i have said.
UFO over easy
online mahjong
My post was directed at you for the most part but it became more like a diatribe against the foundations for most people's anti-dubstep rants.. sorry
If you're talking purely about releases, then you're not actually talking about the dubstep scene at all.
I'm talking about dubstep. Not what gets released but the music that's getting made now, and being heard now on radio and in raves. That's the real dubstep community, and that's the only yardstick for measuring the progression of the scene.
no arguments there, 2005 is my favourite period of dubstep history. but there's a lot of everything compared to that time.
If you're talking purely about releases, then you're not actually talking about the dubstep scene at all.
I'm talking about dubstep. Not what gets released but the music that's getting made now, and being heard now on radio and in raves. That's the real dubstep community, and that's the only yardstick for measuring the progression of the scene.
mms said:
no arguments there, 2005 is my favourite period of dubstep history. but there's a lot of everything compared to that time.
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listen i'm not anti dubstep, quite the opposite, i'm not anti-anything why would i be?
i just think this year has been disappointing in terms of new producers developing new sounds, picking up a mantle of creativity, on raves or radio or whatever, but then i think this year has been a kind of shock/gestation period for the people who created the thing, or at least the first and second gen producers, and i think next year will be amazing and everyone will bravely go forth with how they define dubstep, which will be very interesting.
maybe the disappointing second gen will do their thing as well, maybe coki will do a record without that riffing line who knows
Judging by the contents of the package that popped through my letterbox this morning, it would appear that Pinch's album is finally finished...
Grievous Angel
Beast of Burden
Don't forget, Coki made what is for my money the best dubstep record ever made - Mood Dub. Lush, transcendent deepness. True dub.
Pisses all over the Red Eye EP.
Grievous Angel
Beast of Burden
You lucky, lucky bastard.
Grievous Angel
Beast of Burden
noel emits
a wonderful wooden reason
I find the anti-Coki sentiment a bit strange. I suppose he could do with being a bit more selective with what he releases, and he does have quite a few riffy tracks that are obviously based on the same template, but really is there any precident at all for that music? Maybe something you might hear deep in a live Shaka set, or some out there On-U bits but even then it's built on a different rhythmic foundation. It's really original and unique I think, and that's often where you get followers coming in.
I'd actually like to hear what a mix of just Coki bassline tunes from Haunted through to The End would sound like - to reveal the progression.