Underwater Dancehall
- Thread starter gek-opel
- Start date
noel emits
a wonderful wooden reason
I think that's less and less the case. Especially as it's become harder to smoke weed in UK clubs.
True, but it was a big thing before today for a while. I remember reading reports of nights on dubstepforum where there would always be disparaging remarks made about any e-heads present. Seemingly written in hope that the accused would read the report and not turn up again and/or in an attempt to put people off who were planning to do pills at future events. The tone of these remarks would often be aggressive and made me think there are some proper dickheads going to these events and calling the shots on what is acceptable or not. Parties need the least rules possible. Not one which derides a founding stimulant of the whole thing this music derives from. Dead-end business like the half-step. This happened during an important period of development within the music and I think has left its mark.
sodiumnightlife
Sweet Virginia
Too many people in this thread are getting something confused that is quite important i think:
Music does not have to have SOUL to evoke emotions. You can get the most dry, clicky piece of music that sounds completely inhuman, and if it's good enough it will still make you feel something. Early techno is great at doing this - there's an ambiguity about what the producer themselves is feeling, but it can still make you feel alot.
It's a fallacy to say that music has to have recognisable emotional signifiers in order for it to be emotional.
And on dubstep not being dance music - I don't even think you have to go to a club to understand that good dubstep is great dance music. For me it's all about the tension in the beats between the 140bpm pace and all the other tempos that run through the music cos of the half step or whatever unusual rhythm is being used. It's not obvious dance music like digitalism or something, but it's very much danceable.
Music does not have to have SOUL to evoke emotions. You can get the most dry, clicky piece of music that sounds completely inhuman, and if it's good enough it will still make you feel something. Early techno is great at doing this - there's an ambiguity about what the producer themselves is feeling, but it can still make you feel alot.
It's a fallacy to say that music has to have recognisable emotional signifiers in order for it to be emotional.
And on dubstep not being dance music - I don't even think you have to go to a club to understand that good dubstep is great dance music. For me it's all about the tension in the beats between the 140bpm pace and all the other tempos that run through the music cos of the half step or whatever unusual rhythm is being used. It's not obvious dance music like digitalism or something, but it's very much danceable.
slackk
-
I really like this album. Seems a bit redundant to just say that after all this discussion but I have been driving to it at night and it really works, although two of the lyrics are complete shit. But yeah, it's definitely an album for a specific mood and definitely one for the forthcoming winter I think.
Better than Burial I think, there's a lot more substance to it for me. I can't even think of any other Dubstep "albums" that I like though, so it might be a bit unfair to create a comparison.
Better than Burial I think, there's a lot more substance to it for me. I can't even think of any other Dubstep "albums" that I like though, so it might be a bit unfair to create a comparison.
Hang on how do I get lambasted (rightly) for using "organic"... but Zhao gets away with endless pontificating on "humanity" in music... and fetishisation of ethnic "other" music as so earthy and natural and human and blah de blah blah... which is equally bullshit if not more so and for identical reasons- its not the sound of sounds which is the problem, but the delivery system, the social and economic context etc. If you attempt to find some raw unmediated dance music of sex and earthy passion, all you can find is the image of such a thing, which just like the image of inhuman dance music is just that AN IMAGE. If there is any "outside" left (and I reckon there isn't) then it would be at the level of unrecorded immediate music between you and others as musicians (maybe again).
If anything I sense a way out of the impasse through the embracing of entirely post-human, the building of a subject which is suitable for the media-capital environment. Human-as-becoming, not as falsely naturalised end-point. In an anti-Marxist sense perhaps alienation and an environment of technocratic affect is the very point of the human... digressing here into bollocks...
For me the entire point of music is finding new ways of hearing, new methods of comprehension.
Drugs wise most people booze/weed for dubstep. Dancing? A lolloping from left to right in a dub reggae fashion for the slothful, for the more energetic a doubletime brok-out spazfest.
And Nomadologist- you're welcome to derail my BEAUTIFUL thread, but please more detail...
oh i think people know this to be honest
personally i think the balance comes with dubstep if a good mix of tempos, techniques and moods are used.
the thing about the best two step was that the best of the most abstract stuff was that the emotions and the way signifiers were kind of mystified a bit with some tech tricks, but the way these things and the rhythm and bass groove worked together it sounded good but whether it was sexy is quite another specific drive of those rave dynamics, alot of 2 step worked cos the gurgles of hardcore were made more obviously sexy, and there was more bat-and-ball between women and men on the same track etc.
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Slothrop
Tight but Polite
No, in that this thread is full of people who appear to know pretty much fuck all about dubstep making general pronouncements about the nature or state of said genre.
N
nomadologist
Guest
Well, I don't exactly agree with Zhao, but I understand what he's getting at. Aesthetically I have no problem with the "inhuman" or even what Dubstep is trying to do, I just don't think they quite get there.
While I like your ideas here about finding a way out of the impasse, I doubt such an insular, scene-driven genre is capable of performing this herculean task.
In purely abstract sonic terms, which always boil down to subjective taste/preference, I prefer beats that make me want to dance. Dubstep beats often make me want to take migraine medication and/or smash my head against a wall. This could be a problem with me, not the music.
lol its like the Church of England...run by women but all behind the scenes, their never at the pulpit.
its not really trying to do that, I don't think. Pinch is quite technical and he obviously inherits that from his interests in minimal... but lots of other producers use sampled analogue "real" sounds.
No of course that would be absurd...
Are you listening to the doubletime percussion? That and the interactions with modulating bass are where the danceability is at basically. A lot of dubstep is actually quite shit and slothful and angers me. But the good stuff has a kind of frenetic wonkiness to it which is highly physically compulsive... (tho in actuality I'm "off" dancing at the moment like a sick kid "off" games...)
N
nomadologist
Guest
Yeah, Pinch strikes me as more aligned with Burial in the "technician-ly" way he makes music, which appeals to me in Burial and on the three tracks I mentioned before from this Pinch album. Like I said, A for effort, D for execution. C+ for listenability.
Double-time percussion reminds me of IDM, which in my mind is not all that danceable.
N
nomadologist
Guest
Sorry.
I think it just loses something in cross-cultural translation, to be honest. That shit just don't jibe over here. (Maybe because I'm so much more immersed in disco and hip-hop?)Don't really know why, we have tons of jamaicans and reggae people who do dub and stuff...
I think it just loses something in cross-cultural translation, to be honest. That shit just don't jibe over here. (Maybe because I'm so much more immersed in disco and hip-hop?)Don't really know why, we have tons of jamaicans and reggae people who do dub and stuff...
noel emits
a wonderful wooden reason
Actually I was going to say that I think it might be helpful sometimes to go back and listen to dubstep circa 2005 to understand what it is doing at the moment, and maybe what's in danger of being lost.
I know this is the Pinch thread but I really like this mix and always recommend it, along with Autonomic Computing.
You see to me the interest in it comes from wonkiness... from experimenting WITH rhythm itself (rather than IDM which is distinguished by technical excess and messiness of sonix...) for me the best dubstep (and 2 step and grime likewise actually, all infected with a similar rhythmical dis-order) is the breakdown of conventional 4 to the floor or boom bap back beat. The off centre snare patterns, the skittering basskicks, the "talkiness" of the hi hats communicating between bass kick and snares to make the thing make sense. This is why early grime especially sounded to me like some kind of alien cubist art-primitive music from outer space... totally about edges and angles the most angular music of all (far more than postpunk) totally sharp and yeah, non-natural, totally computer enabled rhythm patterns... squeezing the last shreds of innovative potential out of the idea of beat driven music basically (at the level of percussion anyway).
noel emits
a wonderful wooden reason
Isn't Juakali who does vocals on the Pinch record from New York?