If grime is the voice of angry urban London, dubstep is its primary echo, the sound of dread bass reflecting off decaying walls.
To feel it, leave the sterile cleanliness of London’s centre. Follow the carrier wave as it heads for the margins, travelling south through Elephant & Castle, via Norwood and Thornton Heath to Croydon: the home of dubstep.
It’s not easy to catch the dubstep vibrations of Digital Mystikz’ Mala and Coki, Loefah and Kode 9. It’s a very precise wavelength, found in the riddim spectrum past drum & bass’ caustic anger, miles from house’s ecstatic warmth and a step from grime’s lyrical fury.
You can hear it in mesmerising Hatcha and Crazy D sets at Forward>>, in skunked-out Youngsta sets on Rinse 100.3 and on vinyl at the Big Apple Records shop in Croydon - where Benga, Plasticman, Skreamz or Horsepower are likely to pass through.
Tune your ear right and you’ll detect the secondary echo’s of King Tubby’s dub excursions, Wiley’s and Jammers’ “sinogrime” experiments, strange b-movies, Metalheadz at it’s peak, Zed Bias and El-B’s dark swing, Basic Channel’s decay and Detroit’s mournful machinefunk.
But most of all you’ll hear the echoes of modern multicultural London, of Jamaican, African, Chinese, Indian, American, Cockney and even Scottish accents. Reflections come off crumbling warehouses, dirty towerblocks, endless row terraces, unhinged nightbus rides, skunked-out cars and clattering overland trains. London: this is the defining influence on dubstep; that which gives it its tempered, edgy, compressed character. These are the echoes of a tense, intense city. This is mystical margin music. This is London, 2004.
Wednesday, November 10, 2004
The Wonder of Kano...
Wonder and Kano’s Lately has stuck out of 2004 like a sore thumb. It’s not that there wasn’t dissonance in grime before it, but never has it been so mesmerising. When you first hear it, it’s unpleasant. Your ears scream “how can it be so out of key?” But the more you hear it, the more it grows on you. And that’s the beauty of it.
Is a discordant tune more pleasurable because it takes effort to find the pleasure? You’ve worked for your buzz. Certainly they’re pleasurable because there’s a kind of deceptive subversion about them. They’re popular yet underground, the kind of glorious balance, a best of both worlds only Timbaland or The Neptunes (pointy snare in one hand, Britney in the other) can usually reach.
Seeing a tune like this become big in grime is pleasurable for another reason. Maybe it’s just me, but watching people being spoonfed shit music makes me deeply angry. Or depressed. Every time a crowd go mad to Robbie Williams/Abba/McFly it makes me want to give it all up. Extreme perhaps, but seeing people responding to Lately, to shit they’ve not been shovelled is heartening. We are clever. We are alive. You can’t tell us what to like. And maybe this is the liberation Coltrane, Ayler et al felt during the ‘60s free jazz/racial struggles.
Just highlighting Wonder’s twisted melodies understates Kano’s flow. Kano’s a great MC, but in this case however it’s not what he’s saying, it’s that he’s saying it at all, that adds to dynamic balance of Lately. Harsh as some grime voices are, Kano’s familiar vocals eases the blow of Wonder’s instrumental. Look at Trim over Wiley’s minimal anthem, “Fire Hydrant.” A flow can cover a multitude of underproduction sins.
If you’re into dubstep this asks serious questions. Dubstep is often dissonant and instrumental (the “dub” in dubstep isn’t just a dub reggae reference, but dub as instrumental). But without the voice to pull it back, isn’t the magic balance overturned? Surely then you're just being "wilfully obscure," a phrase dizzee's manager once used repeatedly in a conversation about Dizzee’s “Happy Talk.” And who wants to be “wilfully obscure” when you can engage with people? And actually say something?
Answers for dubstep, perhaps, are either use of occasional melody or vocals. The balance is found elsewhere, between light and dark, in-key and discordant. Another answer is to use progression ( copyright Digital Mystikz), so the tune develops and engages the ear. But love dubstep as I do, few tracks hit that magic balance in the quite way Lately does.
Is a discordant tune more pleasurable because it takes effort to find the pleasure? You’ve worked for your buzz. Certainly they’re pleasurable because there’s a kind of deceptive subversion about them. They’re popular yet underground, the kind of glorious balance, a best of both worlds only Timbaland or The Neptunes (pointy snare in one hand, Britney in the other) can usually reach.
Seeing a tune like this become big in grime is pleasurable for another reason. Maybe it’s just me, but watching people being spoonfed shit music makes me deeply angry. Or depressed. Every time a crowd go mad to Robbie Williams/Abba/McFly it makes me want to give it all up. Extreme perhaps, but seeing people responding to Lately, to shit they’ve not been shovelled is heartening. We are clever. We are alive. You can’t tell us what to like. And maybe this is the liberation Coltrane, Ayler et al felt during the ‘60s free jazz/racial struggles.
Just highlighting Wonder’s twisted melodies understates Kano’s flow. Kano’s a great MC, but in this case however it’s not what he’s saying, it’s that he’s saying it at all, that adds to dynamic balance of Lately. Harsh as some grime voices are, Kano’s familiar vocals eases the blow of Wonder’s instrumental. Look at Trim over Wiley’s minimal anthem, “Fire Hydrant.” A flow can cover a multitude of underproduction sins.
If you’re into dubstep this asks serious questions. Dubstep is often dissonant and instrumental (the “dub” in dubstep isn’t just a dub reggae reference, but dub as instrumental). But without the voice to pull it back, isn’t the magic balance overturned? Surely then you're just being "wilfully obscure," a phrase dizzee's manager once used repeatedly in a conversation about Dizzee’s “Happy Talk.” And who wants to be “wilfully obscure” when you can engage with people? And actually say something?
Answers for dubstep, perhaps, are either use of occasional melody or vocals. The balance is found elsewhere, between light and dark, in-key and discordant. Another answer is to use progression ( copyright Digital Mystikz), so the tune develops and engages the ear. But love dubstep as I do, few tracks hit that magic balance in the quite way Lately does.
Wednesday, November 03, 2004
Currently feeling...
Crazy Titch "Gype Riddim"
orchestral grime? Crazy Tim on production
Kode 9 "All Dem Fuckin People (Subkon/Daddi Gee vocal)"
post-Timbaland shizzle
Trim "Bogey Man"
"I sleep in hooded jim jams"
Wiley "Fire Hydrant remix"
ghetto post-dancehall Robert Hood?
Digital Mystikz - "Forgive"
like the first time you heard Strings of Life, except more LDN.
Digital Mystikz "Give Jah Glory"
can't wait for parts 2 & 3
Kele Le Roc "Frontline"
guilty sing-a-long vox grime pleasures
Run the Road comp
plug plug shameless plug
Kano "Ps&Qs"
contains hitlines and kicklines
JME "JME EP"
clipped. angry. "come to the endz and leave you gutless!"
Blackdown "Opium Choke"
plug plug shamless plug
orchestral grime? Crazy Tim on production
Kode 9 "All Dem Fuckin People (Subkon/Daddi Gee vocal)"
post-Timbaland shizzle
Trim "Bogey Man"
"I sleep in hooded jim jams"
Wiley "Fire Hydrant remix"
ghetto post-dancehall Robert Hood?
Digital Mystikz - "Forgive"
like the first time you heard Strings of Life, except more LDN.
Digital Mystikz "Give Jah Glory"
can't wait for parts 2 & 3
Kele Le Roc "Frontline"
guilty sing-a-long vox grime pleasures
Run the Road comp
plug plug shameless plug
Kano "Ps&Qs"
contains hitlines and kicklines
JME "JME EP"
clipped. angry. "come to the endz and leave you gutless!"
Blackdown "Opium Choke"
plug plug shamless plug
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)