Fundamental

Well-known member
I kind of think a scene is always in trouble when it begins to question itself or begins any introspection or begins to suffer an identity crisis. Obviously good things can come out of the back of this like new forms/change of guard/etc.

Probably lots of people on here have contempt for the sound of mainstream dubstep but as a scene it has been healthy in terms of casual fan interest and contentment for quite a while. I hadn't seen any of this stuff happening until recently with a few long winded rants from Skream on Twitter made me think otherwise.

I know we are just a bunch of musos on a forum but it kind of feels like the music in this topic is having a bit of an identity crisis. I can't work out if now 2 years down the line into this thing if it is the lack of a tight scene or a loose nature of it all that plays to it's strengths or weaknesses in the long term. After brostep if certainly felt like a strength but now I'm not so sure and it is starting to feel like things become more tepid and slower-paced when each camp has either their own agenda or thrives on a lack of one. Surely interaction and competition is the bedrock of evolution?
 

Tentative Andy

I'm in the Meal Deal
loved egyptrixx album & night slugs all stars album.

Still not checked out the Egyptrixx album, going to get on it now. For whatever reason, he was the one artist on NS whose work never really clicked with me (though The Only Way Up was a nice tune).
 

gumdrops

Well-known member
i like electro so i like some of this (the bits ive skimmed through).
nothing really 'new' of course.
but hey, it doesnt have to be.
swamp 81 type stuff.
 

hint

party record with a siren
I know we are just a bunch of musos on a forum but it kind of feels like the music in this topic is having a bit of an identity crisis. I can't work out if now 2 years down the line into this thing if it is the lack of a tight scene or a loose nature of it all that plays to it's strengths or weaknesses in the long term. After brostep if certainly felt like a strength but now I'm not so sure and it is starting to feel like things become more tepid and slower-paced when each camp has either their own agenda or thrives on a lack of one. Surely interaction and competition is the bedrock of evolution?

I think this sound is actually on a verge of becoming much bigger. I went to a Mad Decent night last night. One of the warm up DJs played loads of the music discussed in this thread and the people there were pretty into it.

There were a few cheers when "Wut" dropped. To put that into perspective - they were also really into fist-clenching Brostep and a bordering-on-Happy-Hardcore remix of "Like A G6".

I think there is an identifiable style to a lot of this music. The identity crisis is perhaps more audience-related - i.e. it's not necessarily the alternative music that people think / hope it is.
 
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gumdrops

Well-known member
course it isnt. in the wider scheme of things, it works pretty perfectly as a branch/relation of the holletronix bit of everything (retro/future etc etc) eclectica approach, just without the 'humour'/lol@this angle.
 

Corpsey

bandz ahoy
Listened to DJ Reflex's 'Vol. 6' yesterday and one thing that seemed to stick out for me about the funky tunes on there as opposed to 'post-dubstep' was the general MOOD - upbeat, full of lively, irrepressible energy and sonically quite flashy but also very simple... Obviously there are upbeat/lively/energetic tunes coming out of 'post-dubstep' too but I'd say that if there is a legacy from dubstep in this stuff aside from the sub-bass (although perhaps its something to do with that) its in the slightly downbeat/'serious' mood of a lot of it. There are UK funky tunes that fall more into this mood - Champion makes darker tunes for example - but the mood of sheer hedonistic release jumped out at me listening to the DJ Reflex mix, a mood which connects to the use of cheesy melodies/vocals of the sort that you'd probably be harder pressed to find in post-dubstep.
 

gumdrops

Well-known member
yeah but thats just dubstep as a whole innit (dubstep in its pure state anway) - more introverted, serious, not about exuberance. wobble was the opposite, which is actually one of its better qualities. tho there, its a diff in the exuberance you get from crazy cousins or champion and say, caspa or doctor p. the latter is more lairy, even funky at its darkest has a certain restraint to it.
 
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pantha

Active member
what are the best releases of the year so far?

pearson sound - deep inside refix
s-x vs. ramadanman - wooooglut
s-x - woooo/dj q remix
darq e freaker - cherryade
actress - harrier attk/gershwin
burial - street halo
kode9 - black sun lp
instra:mental - when i dip/thomp
l-wiz - 4.42 oz.
ill blu - meltdown
coki - boomba/carbon aliens
boddika - electron/underground
pinch & loefah - broken

forthcoming:
zomby - natalias song
blawan - getting me down
ossie - set the tone
champion - lighter

its a good year :)
 

daddek

Well-known member
yeah that kind of angle feels pretty dated and weird now though. reynolds is quite good on this kind of earnestness but re hynagogic stuff rather than all this - http://www.villagevoice.com/2011-01-19/music/leave-chillwave-alone/

thats a wonderful article. One of my fav things about recent music is the earnestness. My remembrance of interacting with breakcore and shoreditch electroclash (jesus) types from last decade, was how they had to smother everything in a protective gloss of irony. While some of them were surely having honest fun, a lot of the post modern sniggering seemed ultimately spineless. I couldnt help wonder if they were scared of being laughing at, if they dropped the ironic veneer, and wore their hearts on their sleeves. This stuff could never have happened in that climate.
 

Corpsey

bandz ahoy
yeah but thats just dubstep as a whole innit (dubstep in its pure state anway) - more introverted, serious, not about exuberance. wobble was the opposite, which is actually one of its better qualities. tho there, its a diff in the exuberance you get from crazy cousins or champion and say, caspa or doctor p. the latter is more lairy, even funky at its darkest has a certain restraint to it.

To me, though, dubstep's mood of introversion and policy of restraint worked for that genre when it was at its most concentrated, whats interesting about post-dubstep is that you often find stuff which is almost grafting that mood (which certainly exists in other genres - deep house, minimal techno etc.) onto the rhythmic template of a genre which is more defined by, as you say, exuberance.

But then, I suppose a lot of people would say that dubstep emerged out of garage through the cultivation of a more Metalheadz-y mood of suspense/drama onto the fundamentally joyous template of 2-step/garage. Tempting to think of it as a sort of reverse flux/evolution movement. So perhaps people are right about something more unified appearing again in the near future?

Difficult to really say, though, given how wide-ranging the styles are that come under this thread.
 

gremino

Moster Sirphine
I couldnt help wonder if they were scared of being laughing at, if they dropped the ironic veneer, and wore their hearts on their sleeves. This stuff could never have happened in that climate.
ironizing everything is for cowards.
 

chow11

Active member
pearson sound - deep inside refix
...kode9 - black sun lp...
ill blu - meltdown...

i listened to the kode9 album once so im not really sure about it yet but it seemed a little to heady for me, and i have listened to the ill blu mix for mistajam a few times while running. I guess its kindof ironic that i enjoy more dance orientated music rather than headphone because it not like i ever experience it in a club
 

Blackdown

nexKeysound
hyph mngo

hyph mngo is a quite wonderful filtered 90s house record in a 140bpm '00s context. I love it to the bone but what makes it good is also what made 90s french & chicago house fun, that warm rising filtery feeling. so if it changed your life as a producer you probably hadn't been listening to much house in the last 15 years.
 
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