Pinch and Pev's latest bits are great, but to me they seem to have almost sublimated the dubstep influence in a way - the sub-bass is submerged beneath/in the kicks... Wish I'd gone to FWD, would like to have seen Silkie too. Oh well, The End this Friday.
re. the techno/dubstep thing, more and more recently I've started thinking that I should just let go of the idea of dubstep as a unified movement/scene. Obviously it would be great to pack as much variety as possible into nights/sets but I'm not sure if that's the way it IS going to go. I mean, when I got into dubstep most of the people into it seemed to be 'on the same page' so to speak - there were tunes and producers that people disagreed over, but there seemed to be a general consensus at least over what producers were/should have been shooting for. Whereas now I think people want all sorts of things from dubstep, some of which seem mutually incompatible, at least if they want lots of it. A lot of people into dubstep want to go to a night and just be hit with the FILFIEST basslines all night - and that isn't a night I want to go to, really.
Balance would be ideal but it seems to me to be lacking... but I don't feel pessimistic about this at all, I think there's so many producers working within dubstep/fringe genres that are going to be putting out amazing stuff this year (Joker, Starkey, Pinch, Peverelist, Silkie, Quest, RSD... the list goes on), and I'm sure I'll go to plenty of great dubstep nights, hopefully starting Friday (you know, where all the OLD stuff will be played lol). It's also obviously a good thing that FWD has become less of a dubstep-only night, great to see some grime/funky/house DJs getting a look in again (and even some DNB DJs... I wonder if D-Bridge will play DNB at that Martyn album launch?)
Of course there's an argument to say that dividing the music will mean that everything becomes too self-referential and removed from what it stands supposedly apart from (i.e. wobble becomes too wobbly, if it hasn't already, ''deep'' stuff becomes too removed from the dancefloor/fun)... but then again, perhaps such divisions could result in some interesting music that wouldn't be made with due deference to roots?
It gets a bit exhausting having a set of expectations set up for dubstep that not that many people (other than on forums) seem to have... I think I should concentrate on the bits I do like.
Sort of on the subject, was listening to Shackleton's remix of 'Minimoonstar' the other night while off my tits and my mind started dissolving a little bit.