Burial interview @ Blackdown/Burial album

Big up Mark for being there and such a fair review. Marcus said he'd seen you - I couldn't find you.

Totally agree with you about vocals. There's going to be more soon. Producers are working on it now.

Agree about N-Type - amazing mixing but played too hard too early (and I thought Mark would have criticised him for playing too many monotone tunes - mainly Iron Soul apparently).

I would have liked a lot more reggae to contrast with the heavy dub. Also more funk and soul - dropping Prince showed a way fwd. And more rhythmic variation - again, this is coming.

Related to which -- the tension / release / peaking / orgasming thing -- for me, when Mala played solo in Sheffield, he really showed how dubstep could totally deliver that. It was structured like a house set, far fewer rewinds, much more of a journey - but then he really knows his house music as well as his reggae, he's by no means monocultural, as is Loefah (Nine very obviously is not). At DMZ, the Mala / Loe was like dancehall, relentless micro-orgasms from every tune, hence every tune got a rewind. Massive hype, but I wanted a longer, harder one. I think Skream did a bit more of that (and he had bounce and vocals too).

Finally big up to Mark for recognising the most important aspect of the scene - the beauty of the crowd. I think there is an almost holy relationship between crowd and DJs and their mutual devotion to the music at DMZ-related events (you get it at Bash too).

This is a rare, impermanent, precious scene right now. It won't last forever. Make the most of it while you can.

2stepfan said:

the most important aspect of the scene - the beauty of the crowd... This is a rare, impermanent, precious scene right now. It won't last forever. Make the most of it while you can.

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Once again I'm jealous of all of you, but I'm also really happy to see more people experiencing it first hand and finding it so positive.

We have Kode 9 coming to Toronto in a couple of weeks and I'm really curious to see what the crowd is like. Toronto's been a big jungle town forever and I don't think 2step made much of an impact. Toronto crowds are often bad anyway, but when I was down for Run the Road last year the tension with faux-thuggy jungle boys and gyals was a real drag. I hope they leave at home for this one.

Anyway, hopefully I'll be over there for a DMZ in the coming months and I can meet up with a few of you

k-punk said:

The first thing to say is that, yes, as everyone has argued, dubstep is transformed when played on a massive sound system. The effect is more oceanic, enveloping and seductive than punitive. But probably even more important than the sub-bass materialism was the role of the crowd as an intensifier. The vibe was incredibly positive; in fact, I don't think I've been in a club where the atmosphere was so friendly, where the crowd was so mixed (in terms of race, gender, class, nationality) since the heady daze of rave. You're left thinking, 'what is it in a sound that is, on the face of it, so unremitting, so forbidding and austere, that produces such positive affect?' Partly it's bass addiction...

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it is partly the musical choices that have been made by the DJs at DMZ parties but I also think it's related to the organic growth of the scene. dubstep has grown from a very small collective of quite positive and committed people, in it because they like the music. and it's been the case for a while that today's crowd is tomorrows producer or DJ.

Obv that's not possible now its got to the scale of Mass but since there's good vibes at the core of DMZ parties i can't help but think it permeates. look at the opposite, where the grime MCs act like it's OK to be so very agressive - this surely feeds back into the crowds and the audience?

autonomicforthepeople said:

Once again I'm jealous of all of you, but I'm also really happy to see more people experiencing it first hand and finding it so positive.

We have Kode 9 coming to Toronto in a couple of weeks and I'm really curious to see what the crowd is like. Toronto's been a big jungle town forever and I don't think 2step made much of an impact. Toronto crowds are often bad anyway, but when I was down for Run the Road last year the tension with faux-thuggy jungle boys and gyals was a real drag. I hope they leave at home for this one.

Anyway, hopefully I'll be over there for a DMZ in the coming months and I can meet up with a few of you

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very jealous about Kode9 in the t-dot... I won't be home for it! Have you been to any of the sub.trac nights in Toronto? From the photos, it looks like the crowd is pretty cool!

Good to see many Dissensus-denizens were present- tho hard to make out in the mass of furiously gyrating bodies.

The only problem I can see is that success may crystallize things (to some extent) and to get stuck at a plastic rasta half step vibe would be annoying, given the tantalising glimpses at alternative sound worlds (future and past) just running by out the corner of yr ear right now... Up until this year the very relative obscurity of the scene has meant rapid evolution was easy. But its definitely one of the few remaining front lines of vaguely interesting music about right now (altho interesting that so many people are trying to read "spiritual" vibes into it, whereas I've heard mainly evil evil musical atmospheres, partly what I like, such a ridiculously sinister sound being purveyed in the format of a straightforward dance music is delicious and perverse given the previous state of club-based sounds... I hope it doesn't get too cheery). However- a re-incorporation of the song would be a logical step- but to bland out the sound with this would be a real error- part of what makes dubstep resonate is that very darkness, a bleak, dismal sound for hard times. If vocals could be re-integrated with a continuation of that darkness, a feminisationof that darkness, that would be the eureka moment, and perhaps what I like about Burial so much- it approaches the "song" but without falling into any coffee table traps, it remains cold, wind and rain lashed, and resolutely bitter-sweet.

I think someone upthread mentioned Various Productions in relation to songs in dubstep- whilst their productions are lovely and beautifully engineered (so lush) the songs are somewhat uninvolving (no drama) and they aren't really heavy enough in the beats/bass departments to really score on the dancefloor-- they just seem to hang there doing bugger all... Altho I really wanted them to work, especially as they tried both female and male vocals... (male ones sounding weird- possible future development- emasculated male vox on beefy tracks?)

Hey this Burial shit aint half bad. I might hafta buy it off Forced Exposure or is there somewhere cheaper to Australia?

gek-opel said:

interesting that so many people are trying to read "spiritual" vibes into it, whereas I've heard mainly evil evil musical atmospheres, partly what I like, such a ridiculously sinister sound being purveyed in the format of a straightforward dance music is delicious and perverse given the previous state of club-based sounds... I hope it doesn't get too cheery).

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This is a mistake that people who don't have a spiritual interest often make (I assume you're not a practitioner? )- to equate "spiritual vibes" with mere happy-clappiness. Real spiritual impact is awe-some; there is fear and joy. "Evil" musical atmospheres make a lot of sense from a "spiritual" viewpoint - the abyss, etc. This appears to be an issue for which many in the dubstep scene have an innate comprehension.

perfect response 2step...seriously otm. see nishitanti's religion and nothingness, parts of it at least

adruu said:

perfect response 2step...seriously otm. see nishitanti's religion and nothingness, parts of it at least

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yeah, otm - dark music can be totally transcendent.

No, I understand "transcendent" and "mystical", certainly. And that yes, rather than love it would be a feeling of utter horror, a moment of touching upon the sublime (that which is totally beyond)- and therefore IN-human... and likely terrifying beyond all compare (or as Mark K-Punk would have it some kind of "uncanny" moment, a peeling back of reality as just a localised illusion/delusion).

But the way people were talking about it in various places seemed to be far more along the lines of a reggae-ified rasta crossed with some remnant of post Rave PLUR... which in my mind anyway are the diametric opposite of, as you were saying transcendent experience (the fug of love and humanity, warm and grounded, earthy). In my mind it was a spirituality by plastic proxy, by association (the dub vibes) and hence questionable. Of course "dark music" can be transcendent...

gek-opel said:

No, I understand "transcendent" and "mystical", certainly. And that yes, rather than love it would be a feeling of utter horror,

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Nah mate, think we're talking at cross-purposes. Dark doesn't mean horror necessarily and transcendence might have well, not horror so much as being overwhelming, but there's no conflict with love, cetainly not with agape... and as for transcendence and sumblimity not being to do with the earth... your spirituality isn't the sort that I've been doing for 25 years!

gek-opel said:

a moment of touching upon the sublime (that which is totally beyond)- and therefore IN-human... and likely terrifying beyond all compare (or as Mark K-Punk would have it some kind of "uncanny" moment, a peeling back of reality as just a localised illusion/delusion).

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Yes, yes, the abyss.. well it moves about doesn't it - first it's at one boundary, then another...

gek-opel said:

But the way people were talking about it in various places seemed to be far more along the lines of a reggae-ified rasta crossed with some remnant of post Rave PLUR... which in my mind anyway are the diametric opposite of, as you were saying transcendent experience (the fug of love and humanity, warm and grounded, earthy). In my mind it was a spirituality by plastic proxy, by association (the dub vibes) and hence questionable. Of course "dark music" can be transcendent...

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It's not questionable and it's not plastic proxy . Agape! You seem to have some very narrow and particular definitions of spirituality! That's not a criticism, it's quite interesting, but the kind of traditions (yukky word) I come from, there's quite a large choice on offer. You seem to be restricting yourself to Saturn and ignoring Venus and Mars, if you catch my drift...

I guess I must really taking about the sublime, perhaps, tho I agree that overwhelming anything (be it horror, love, or hate, Saturn or Venus...) might be perceived as a spiritual or mystical experience. Its interesting to see how different people "read" the emotive content of music in very different ways... like the Trance kids of the late 90s thinking massive minor key faux-orchestral trance is "uplifting", whereas to me it sounded somewhat oppressive, tragic and bleak (in the wrong way, obviously... ) even with the correct "little helpers".

And inter-subjective, yes, I can see that could apply to dubstep, (and other dance musics)... the feeling of escaping yourself into the pure spirit of the collective, with others...

I guess the key thing that lifts dubstep into a different psycho-acoustic sphere is the overwhelming sub, that obese low end (which if anything needs to get louder, more primal and coursing) like an opiate for the ears/body (in a good way, obviously)... kinda brings me back to something I read about the band Swans, whose Michael Gira said that the idea (with their pulverising sound) was to obliterate the human body, which creates immediate spiritual resonances... and the way it physicalises that which is immaterial (ie music) in a ridiculously tactile way, almost transubstantiates the spirit into flesh... and your body into spirit (the way your chest cavity resonates with the bass)... the music at this level is like a drug/spiritual experience in itself, hence the general lack of incredible intoxication at the dubstep nights I've been too (some stoners, a few beers...) which in itself speaks well to the music's own abilities to intoxicate...

gek-opel said:

kinda brings me back to something I read about the band Swans, whose Michael Gira said that the idea (with their pulverising sound) was to obliterate the human body, which creates immediate spiritual resonances...

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Yes! Couldn't agree more, though the people on the scene are a lot less fucked up than Gira was! Dubstep live still hasn't quite approached the eviscerating energy Swans live.

Any suggestions for swans tracks to re-do as dubstep? I keep thinking of Weakling off the Plow lp, which would do, but it's in storage...

gek-opel said:

the music at this level is like a drug/spiritual experience in itself

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Yes! The sound itself as much as the music. Mala has mentioned this as something he has always been interested in - the ability of sheer sound, frequencies, to provide a spiritual / mental experience in itself.

This physical-spiritual thing with massive resonant bass frequencies would be an interesting route to go down (I think doom/drone metallers Sunn0)) attempt to do this with kinda massive post Sabbath guitar/bass too)-- such sonic effects are noted in the Throbbing Gristle chapter of "rip it up and start again"-- literally sounds to make you shit yourself, or to create incredible fear... Kode 9's writing a book on sonic warfare, isn't he, or he claims to be anyway, (he's got a relevant Deleuze and Guattari quote at the top of his blog on the sonic war machine...)... its been used in Guatanamo Bay in torture...

But Instead of aggressive engineering (to induce negative effects) it would seem possible to use similar techniques to create positive states (from the pure frequencies and volumes/resonances applied). All it needs is louder bass... perhaps you'd need a specially acoustically designed room tho, so that the walls would resonate correctly....?

gek-opel said:

. Kode 9's writing a book on sonic warfare, isn't he, or he claims to be anyway, (he's got a relevant Deleuze and Guattari quote at the top of his blog on the sonic war machine...)... its been used in Guatanamo Bay in torture...

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Yeah, he seems pretty into the notion of sound actually crossing over and becoming a weapon. You can see how peoples vocab can reflect an almost ideally weaponised sound - tunes are 'disgusting' or whatever. I quite like to think of the dj as a warrior, flinging sonics/vinyl out into the crowd like ninja stars!

Ive read that kode9 teaches music in London as well as working on a mag. Anyone have any knowledge of what capacity he teaches in?

viktorvaughn said:

Ive read that kode9 teaches music in London as well as working on a mag. Anyone have any knowledge of what capacity he teaches in?

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(quiet rush of dissensians signing up for his course...)

According to the University of East London website he's a Lecturer in Media Production and the MA in Sonic Culture.

He has an essay in this book that sets out some of these ideas.

got in contact with k9 a few years ago when i first heard of his book and was gonna send him some stuff on polynesian sounds of war but realized most of it is on line if you look hard enough...

like how in Gallipolli the Maori Battallion chanted haka, as they did in most battles, which put the shits up anyone listening, then just charged out into battle and let's not forget maori invented trench warfare as well, they were pretty good guerilla fighters too and had the best kill rate of any in the vietnam war

...although the good stuff isn't online like how the sounds of creation and war are echoed in those of nature, you just gotta know what to listen for

especially the war stuff cos in our traditions we were kinda big on it, even had a war in heaven that parallels the titans and the olympians and our own herculean demi god Maui...

...still on the cards to use a lot of traditional instruments and infuse some beats with polynesian mysticism and spoken word. My lady's ex music teacher is a world authority on native NZ instruments gonna hook up with him next time we're up visiting her folks.

woe betides any who would use this shit out of context though, we're talking big bad polynesian juju that'll shrivel your mojo and that of your progeny also

It won't be as HELL_SD though might do the Burial thing and go all secret squirrel or not...

BUGGER
manufacturing problems mean it's only out at the end of next week*





*so say boomkat