proto dubstep

[mistersloane]

If you trace the progression of dubstep through it's roots, through velvet rooms, through big apple and the first DMZ releases, it makes perfect sense. They've arrived at a similar aesthetic through different sources. Not rocket science..

I think I just assume cross-pollenisation coming from weird sources. Not that people will have directly heard Scorn and gone "i wanna sound like that' - god forbid, his beats were wack - but just that people will have made a track and someone will have gone 'that sounds just like that really boring mo-wax b-side'.

 

[Guybrush]

I will have a shot and nominate the first half of Leftfield’s «Song of Life». Sounds dubsteppy to me.

 

[john eden]

I think I just assume cross-pollenisation coming from weird sources. Not that people will have directly heard Scorn and gone "i wanna sound like that' - god forbid, his beats were wack - but just that people will have made a track and someone will have gone 'that sounds just like that really boring mo-wax b-side'.

I think that's more likely and is much better than the "family tree" approach I was talking about. On the one hand nothing exists in a a vacuum and various individual producers will have disparate influences, both musical and non-musical. These individual influences may or may not intersect with other individuals or genres...

 

[Blackdown]

Leftfield? Macro Dub Infection? i think people are confusing "sounds dubsteppy" with "sounds dubby".

 

[mos dan]

Also, do i see Tayo there, the old nu-skool breakz bore? Sounds about right, i hear much the same in both genres (though i am not allowed to say dubstep also descends from breaks, because its only father is UKG (i'm puzzled why this seems to be so important, do the dubstep people want to belong to the canonized "continuum", and have no links to anything else)

loefah for one would dispute this, i'm pretty sure. can't remember if he said as much in blackdown's recent interview, but i'm pretty sure his 'personal continuum' is more out of jungle.

 

[Gabba Flamenco Crossover]

lol my bad. But how about the guys that run the record shop they all hang out in?

Apple records was very techno long before it was UKG, let alone dubstep. John Kennedy who ran it used to be a resident at Lost, it doesn't get more techno than that. Hatcha used to come up to Lost on John's guest list and just moan about the music all night, that was funny.

The Apple lot were pretty close knit and I never got to know John or Arthur very well, but they were both into some well off-the-wall stuff, Arthur especially. He did some ambient noise stuff for Fatcat I think.

 

[john eden]

'personal continuum'

I like that, nice one.

 

[Grievous Angel]

Despite me being quite down on dubstep in general there are some interesting people involved and some of the music is great. There, I've said it.

[falls off chair]

Fuck me!

There is a weak link between Macro Dub Infection and dubstep in that Kevin Martin compiled them. Plus Scorn and Iration Steppas were both included and are now hovering somewhere above (or is it tunnelling underneath?) the dubstep milieu.

Yeah but Kevin and Kode are special cases...

 

[Grievous Angel]

loefah for one would dispute this, i'm pretty sure. can't remember if he said as much in blackdown's recent interview, but i'm pretty sure his 'personal continuum' is more out of jungle.

Yes jungle is far more important to him but Loefah checked for garage a bit and made 138 traxx for years before inventing half step.

 

[UFO over easy]

before inventing half step.

I would dispute that too

 

[viktorvaughn]

Yes jungle is far more important to him but Loefah checked for garage a bit and made 138 traxx for years before inventing half step.

Plus he's a big hip-hop fan too i recall?

 

[zhao]

i'm not sure if specific connections are so much more influential than cultural "moods", or big shifts in focus, style. in terms of ubiquitous cultural ambience which inform the conditions that give rise to dubstep, it is valid to say that Scorn or 9 Deadly Venoms or Macro-Dub had influences as it is to say even the likes of Massive Attack or Tricky have something to do with it.

 

[UFO over easy]

in terms of ubiquitous cultural ambience which inform the conditions that give rise to dubstep, it is valid to say that Scorn or 9 Deadly Venoms or Macro-Dub had influences as it is to say even the likes of Massive Attack or Tricky have something to do with it.

:slanted:

 

[zhao]

i'm thinking of all those bleak, slow, dark and foreboding Massive Attack songs from the past decade being played everywhere...

 

[gek-opel]

The thing is that whilst dubstep has some superficial similarities, that is what they remain. The key thing is BASS BASS BASS BASS- and not just a pleasantly dubby bass either, but massive sub-- sometimes so beneath that it is invisible on computer speakers for example. The site-specificity of dubstep (and general primitive production qualities) mark it out as intrinsically distinct from trip hop...

 

[mms]

Yes jungle is far more important to him but Loefah checked for garage a bit and made 138 traxx for years before inventing half step.

On the other hand mala was an mc at big garage nights and did some uk g mc style trackage, before getting sick of it all.
hatcha used to and i think still does promote garridge nights, long time on rinse you could hear mala mcing over hatcha's sets which were a strange amalgam of dubstep grime breakbeat garage etc from what i remember.

 

[mms]

It is valid to say that Scorn or 9 Deadly Venoms or Macro-Dub had influences as it is to say even the likes of Massive Attack or Tricky have something to do with it.

scorn, nine deadly venoms and the macro dub thing are pretty obscure, even in terms of the obscure genres they were part of .
They simply aren't influences and was never part of a cultural mood. The olnoly person in dubstep who knows about these is kode 9 as thats cos he's a prof.He quoted macro dub sleevenotes on hyperdub ages ago but that's his thing.

 

[Martin Dust]

scorn, nine deadly venoms and the macro dub thing are pretty obscure, even in terms of the obscure genres they were part of .
They simply aren't influences and was never part of a cultural mood. The olnoly person in dubstep who knows about these is kode 9 as thats cos he's a prof.He quoted macro dub sleevenotes on hyperdub ages ago but that's his thing.

I think this outlook is incorrect, somewhere, someone has been making Dubstep you've never heard and been influenced by these people - they just haven't released anything yet. We are working with a 17yr for example that has been more influenced by his dad's record collection than anything Benga, Loefah or Skream has ever dropped.

 

[mms]

I think this outlook is incorrect, somewhere, someone has been making Dubstep you've never heard and been influenced by these people - they just haven't released anything yet. We are working with a 17yr for example that has been more influenced by his dad's record collection than anything Benga, Loefah or Skream has ever dropped.

no its not 'incorrect', they've never been namechecked by anyone making the stuff, people try and imply it on dubstep producers but it hasn't stuck. Maybe now the thing has opened up more a scorn fan might be making dubstep, but scorn is not an influence on the dubstep movement, it doesn't sit inside the trajectory of the culture that has sustained or created either, or the development within that culture.
I think any similarity musically is just that, which is something that happens all the time, there is more chance that a kid of 17 would be influenced by the daft idea i came up with in that Prince record thru his dad's record collection isn't there, rather than an obscure experimental industrial techno act , surely?

 

[matt b]

The thing is that whilst dubstep has some superficial similarities, that is what they remain. The key thing is BASS BASS BASS BASS- and not just a pleasantly dubby bass either, but massive sub-- sometimes so beneath that it is invisible on computer speakers for example. The site-specificity of dubstep (and general primitive production qualities) mark it out as intrinsically distinct from trip hop...

have you not heard iration/aba shanti/king earthquake- it ain't no pleasanty dubby bass- one thing i noticed on friday was that nearly all the stuff played (dmz excepted) only hinted at the power the soundsystem had to offer- y'know that really,REALLY deep, heavy sub, rather than 'merely' really deep, which was the norm

site-specifity= taking a massive influence from the reggae dance, doesn't it?

'primitive production techniques'- well there's been a move from hardware to software, but can you really argue that the programs people are using now are more primitive than an atari running cubase, a keyboard and a sampler?

i don't see ANY links with triphop though- far from it- its coming from completely the other end of uk 'dance music' culture