Pitchfork may

My Pitchfork column returns for May featuring the amazing Silkie album and the fertile ground between grime MCs and funky tracks right now.

I hope it comes across how sick I think Silkie's album is. Every album has moments that aren't to your taste but on the whole 99% of "City Limits Volume 1" is downright amazing.

I seem to be posting quite a lot recently. Joke is I havent even finished for this week. Hold tight for something even bigger.

By the way, if you're in Brighton this Saturday Dusk and I are DJing at the Corn Exchange as part of the Summer of Dub night. It features Benga, African Headcharge, Adrian Sherwood, Jazzsteppa and Moodyboyz. The venue's about a 1000 people so should make quite a contrast to last Sunday's Plastic People. It's a game of two halves...

Soulfood 4

Just got an email from Trim. He says Soulfood 4 is in shops nationwide 18th May. I say its worth the price for the Scratchy production "Titans ft Wiley + Trim" alone.

Silkie

Silkie - photo by Ashes57

Even for a genre dominated by dubplates, 12"s and podcasts, my gut reaction tells me it will be a good year for dubstep or dubstep-affilated albums. With the Hyperdub album race underway (current front runner: Darkstar's, which I'm exceptionally excited about...) and Kryptic Minds' dark opus - not to mention a little something up my sleeve on Keysound, the album format may be about to hold its own this year.

In this company comes a very strong contender for album of the year, "City Limits Volume 1" by Silkie. Released on Mala's Deep Medi label, I've written about it in depth in my Pitchfork column this month, due live next week. But ahead of that, here's an interview with Silkie...

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Blackdown: So can you tell me about where you started, musically?

Silkie: I started producing in 2001, when 15 years old. I was in the last year of school, stuck in music lessons. The way I first started was on Cubasis. In class they had Cubasis where most people played piano and record stuff in whereas I would program it. I’d just click on dots inside the edit window. My teacher was like ‘what are you doing?’ because she didn’t know you could do that. So I was just fiddling around before I got to know how to play music.

B: So it was more like composition rather than performance?

S: Yeah, it was a bit like the old school way of composing when you’re talking about programming, where lots of classical composers will just write the score rather than play the music and find out what they’re doing from there.

B: Back then do you remember what it was that made you want to produce more?

S: I took it like a computer game really, just creating new things. I was a DJ before I was making music and DJing got me into listening to beats. The way I found I could make music was I went into WHSmiths and there was a magazine like Future Music and it said something like ‘Make Music Now.’ And beforehand I didn’t know it was something you could do on a computer. Because that was around 2001, a time where software was starting in its own right to actually make a tune rather than to just synch hardware to it. So that was a transitional period when I got involved where I could make music of a decent standard on a computer.

B: It’s kinda crazy looking back because before you needed about £5000 worth of outboard equipment to get started. Now these days the most you’d spend on is your monitor speakers, right?

S: Yeah, other than your computer, it would have been the monitors for me.

B: Do you remember what it was about writing music that made you still want to write it, eight years later?

S: I kinda never just stopped. I can equate it to like watching EastEnders when you’re young. You start and carry on doing it – there’s nothing really that stops you from doing it. You’ve got to get your next fix. You feel like you’re not doing anything if you don’t do it. You feel like ‘what am I doing if I’m not doing this?’ Because I did kinda put my eggs in one basket when it came to the end of school because I had good grades so I could have done various A-levels but I choose to do a B-Tec national diploma in music which is the equivalent of four A-levels so at that point I’d made my decision.

B: You make those decisions then and often it takes years to happen for you...

S: Yeah it’s mad how it all comes together in the end even though at the time it’s loads of scattered thoughts and you don’t really have a plan as to what you’re going to do or even which kind of music you’re going to be into.

B: Back then, Unorthadox were part of the grime scene, would you call what you were making ‘grime?’

S: It wouldn’t say I followed grime. I started buying records in 2001 but stopped in late 2002, early 2003. The reason I stopped buying records because I wasn’t feeling what was coming out at the time. I’d be in the record store thinking ‘I don’t actually want to buy anything.’ Also I didn’t have a job and it came to the stage where my mum was not going to fund my record collection. So making music is free, so it was the cheapest way to carry on doing what I like. At the time, 2001, there wasn’t no distinction between dubstep and grime, because there was no such thing. It was all garage and that’s what I came from. So when I was buying records in 2001, I was buying garage. But obviously it had changed a bit then from what it had been in 1999. And when I started making music I was making garage, it was more like breakbeat-y garage, that was the main music I was making and I didn’t know music at all when I first started making beats. I didn’t know how to play the piano or anything about notes so it would be just beats and basslines that I was trying to write without even a melody just a repeating stab. That would be my beat.

B: So you were working on breakbeat garage and working with Unorthadox: back in those times were they your main focus or were you writing other styles too?

S: At the time I was kinda writing everything. Even when I was getting known in grime with Unorthadox and Nolay and people like Wiley and Jammer approaching me – I done a tune with Jammer on his Nekkle camp album, the same album with Quest’s Hard Food on it – that was just surfacing from what I was making, as I was making so many different things. At the same time I was making what could be classed as dubstep tracks and it was just different styles of garage to me rather than different music. I was making slowjams, r&b and hip hop too. I wasn’t making music with a plan for it to come out, or for it to ever surface. My brother, Silver, was an MC in Unorthadox. He’d come in my room, hear a beat and go ‘that’s good, lemme go to the studio.’ I was just working away not thinking ‘lets put this out’ and it’s always been people come up to me while I’m just getting my head down. And that’s been the way my music has come out over the years rather than me making a tune, burning a CD and giving it out at clubs – that kinda route. It’s been through friendship groups and one person talking to the next. So I don’t feel like it’s been forced and it’s been very slow, but steady. I haven’t tried any big marketing pushes. Even with the Deep Medi thing, it hasn’t been one release and then an onslaught of tunes. That’s just how I’ve always liked to take it: just kinda slow.

B: OK so just to finish with Unorthadox, were you part of it or was your brother just in it?

S: Well my brother was in Unorthadox and because he was my brother and i was a producer, I was basically their producer but I wasn’t actually in Unorthadox because at the time I had my own crew. I was the producer and the DJ for NK. They were friends I grew up with locally. Everyone who was a DJ had a group of friends that wanted to MC, so it was kinda like that. But they weren’t really focused. We were on radio but they weren’t taking it seriously. I would be telling them ‘yeah you should do this, or that’ but at the same time if people aren’t taking it seriously you cant do anything about it.

B: So when did you first become aware of dubstep becoming a scene or a sound that was more than just garage?

S: Well the first tune I made was with Harry Craze – he and I started making music ... well that’s how I started making tunes, with Harry because he was in my same music class and he had this Yamaha sampler with a Kaos pad on it. Well he’d make beats on that and I’d make beats on my computer on Fruity Loops. He used to listen to drum & bass and I’d say it was for crazy people and he’d say garage is for gay people or something like that – that was our little argument back in the day. So we ended up making music together and then Heny G came around, because I’ve known Heny for nearly eleven years because he just lives around the corner from me. So he came round and he was into the scene, he’d been to Velvet Rooms and all that. So through him coming around I had a tune released on Heny’s label for [the shop] Release the Groove. I was 15 or 16, that was my first tune that came out. So he was like ‘oh I need a remix for the other side’. This was back when every tune had a remix on the other side. So we quickly knocked out a remix in about two days. Heny gave it to Youngsta and at the first Forwards>> at Plastic People, Youngsta used to drop it all the time. It was called “Dark Square.” Yeah that’s vintage, I’ve got like one copy of it somewhere. So Youngsta used to play it and Heny was like “you need to come down to Forward...” So I came down and this was before it was a dubstep rave, it was 2002, kinda like a future music rave. “Forward music.”

B: Exactly. Dark garage + breakbeat garage + proto grime = “the forward sound” as it was known...

S: So I ended up going down there as well as making grime and I ended up making beats, well I wouldn’t say ‘in that style’ because I felt like I was already doing it so it wasn’t like I needed to adapt in any way but it felt more like an outlet because I was making all types of music but obviously there’s not an outlet for every type of music you make. So through just hanging around the scene and making friends, I ended up leaning towards dubstep because I felt more comfortable really. It wasn’t really about the music as such it was just more just comfort in the sense that in grime I felt restricted by the MCs because there was certain frequency ranges you had to leave out because it would be very crowded around there. But in dubstep I felt I could make my own vocal lines because the beat is the music, in a sense. I can have something on top but it doesn’t actually need it. It felt like freedom. Once I started to understand the dubstep attitude, when I was at the raves I felt more comfortable, settled in and stopped making things that could be classed as grime at that time. I started concentrating more on the basslines when I heard music on a nice system.

B: A lot of people in dubstep who don’t like grime have issues of how it is ‘negative,’ where do you stand?

S: The main thing about grime isn’t whether it’s negative or positive, because you can get vibes from something however you want to get it, but the main thing about grime is that there’s a lack of unity, when I was in it. Everyone was kinda against each other. It was a crew mentality. In dubstep there is an underbelly of crew mentality but at the same time it’s not overt and it’s not trying to block people. So in dubstep someone would book me at their rave and they bring me in, but at the time in grime Wiley wouldn’t just book someone from another area unless it’s through a link. It wouldn’t be just a straight bring in just because they’re talented because there’s a lot of fear that if you bring in someone talented they’ll overtake you.

B: Yeah all the grime MCs seem to see each other as being in conflict with each other.

S: Yeah so I just didn’t like or understand that aspect but I still like some of the music and I feel that there’s just as much good grime as there is dubstep.

B: I agree.

S: I have this philosophy that 5% of all music is good and that you don’t have to worry about the 95%, if you can find your 5% then you’re alright because a lot of people focus on what they don’t like. And that’s not important because that’s not going to make you feel good. People go on about how shit a tune is, but I don’t worry about it. If you don’t like it, don’t listen to it. There’s no point ranting and raving about what you don’t like.



Silkie - photo by Ashes57

B: So there’s Harry Craze and Heny you’ve known for ages, when did Anti Social come about as one unit?

S: It was very slow. I had a release when i was 17 on P records. My friend works for Polydor, and when Ms Dynamite’s A&R Jade Richardson got laid off, my friend took over P records. I used to go to his office and just chill with him. We used to go through demos and i really found out the industry for what it was on the inside. We’d go through demos with pictures of girls and decide to call them. It was really throwaway, decide in 3 seconds whether you’d listen to it. We ended up hanging around together a lot, we’d go places, I’d buy records for him – stuff that I thought was good and bring it to him. He ended up saying ‘well lemme release something from you.’ So I said I was going to put a little sub label logo on the record, I had a brainstorm and thought “Anti Social Records.” So how it got born, a little logo to say ‘I’m from Anti Social.’ With the rest it’s hard to say what happened because it was so gradual, we just hung around and the name got talked about so it all came together.

B: So when did you meet Quest?

S: I met him in 2003. I met him through Heny at radio, React FM. Heny used to Lush FM and Quest used to be in grime crew Northwest Untouchables. Heny was playing one of his beats that he made. Quest walked in and was like ‘wow...’ so they linked up through there. They started rolling but I was on React FM as a slowjams DJ. I was playing slowjams, I wasn’t even DJing grime just making it but because it was my friend’s station I went on there and played slowjams. So I met up with Quest, heard him play a few of his tunes in his set and they were sick. I started playing him my tunes and it was this kind of thing where I was sucked in by his sound because it sounded similar to mine. Even back then that’s why the link up happened: he was on the same tip as me. You know when you find someone and you’re like ‘rah he’s doing what I’m doing?’ And it’s better to just be with that person rather than be against them in the future, in a way. It was a ‘if you can’t beat them: join them thing.’

B: Where’s Quest from?

S: Harlesden, in north west London.

B: So when did the link with Mala and Deep Medi formally come about?

S: Quest and J5 went to go get a CD off Mala and they played him a CD of theirs. A couple of weeks later Mala calls me up having listened to the CD and says ‘I’ve been listening to your CD and I can kinda hear an album in what I’m hearing, not right now but I can hear how all the tunes link up. I’d like to put out some releases.’ So the album was planned before all the 12”s and the Deep Medi tour. He wanted to up our profile and then had then wanted to release the album.

Quest then calls me up 30 minutes after I’d spoken to Mala saying Mala had said exactly the same thing to him. So we went down to meet him, this was like 2007. We had a chat, all got on and took it from there.

B: You could have been signed to any label by anyone, what does it mean to you to be signed by Mala?

S: In my time I’ve had a lot of approaches from various different labels and I didn’t mind putting something one tune with someone but if you look through my releases I haven’t had a second release on any label and before Medi I’d released six or seven pieces of music. But it was always on a different label because I always had in my mind I wanted to start my own label. But because of the way Mala explained what he was trying to do, it didn’t feel aggressive or offensive. Because a lot of time labels will come up to you and say ‘this is what I can do for you...’ but you feel the undercurrent of what they’re trying to do, a quick capitalisation. Mala had a long term thought. If I’d had a short term thought, I’d have signed with these labels already. But I’d be putting all my eggs in one basket so I wanted to take it slow with whatever I was doing. But it was just the way he approached me. I already knew his music and greatly respected it but it was probably less that more of the way he handles himself and spoke to me about it.

B: So how did you go about assembling and shaping the album?

S: I wanted the album to be a snapshot of what I was doing in that nine month period of time, rather than being conceived as an album. I have quite a high work rate anyway. I also had the privilege of DJing out quite a lot while I was making it. So I’d play things that weren’t finished and see what worked, go by what I was feeling. At the same time people’s reactions will sometimes make you feel something a lot more because you see something that you didn’t before: it’s like a different angle. Especially with people you respect, like Quest would like “Oi! THIS tune...!” when I didn’t think that much of it, it’d sway me and I’d go ‘oh I get it now’ and re-listen to it from the first person point of view. It knocks you off centre and out of the producers position and just come in there as a listener. I’d play music to people around me: it was kind of a team effort, not just me sitting on my own in a darkened room, except when I was making the music, because when it came to finishing off certain bits of it, I’d happily take advice.

B: The album sounds coherent, but it also sounds like you tried to do a certain type of thing well – you didn’t try to do random hip hop tracks, pull in unusual vocalists or change your sound for the album. What was the thinking for you on focusing on your thing rather than switching things up?

S: That ties into that I wanted it to be: a snapshot of what I’ve been doing rather than start making random hip hop tracks now. I wouldn’t have even minded a vocalist on the album and the way I take things, I wait for them to approach me. That might sound big headed or something like that but I just see it as the most natural way. Because if someone comes out of their way to come to you and say something, then they mean business. It’s more like letting the music speak.

Even the name, City Limits. What I’m talking about in the name is that living in this city, this city has limits but at the same time, the limits of the city is what you put on it.

When I was younger I never went anywhere. I had one holiday - when I was 13 - up until when I first played abroad, in 2007. That was 8 years of not even leaving London. You can really be trapped in London if you don’t get out. Because it’s so big, you can really feel like London is the world. It makes you feel like that.

B: Yeah totally. Because it’s so huge you never get to the end of it. So do you think your perspectives have changed now you’ve had so many DJ dates and travelled abroad?

S: Yeah definitely. It’s just been encouraging seeing people’s reactions and what people say. I don’t think it changed my direction musically but I feel like carrying on what I’m doing and making even more music. That’s what I’ve brought back when I’m abroad. I often want to just go home and make a tune.



Silkie at DMZ - photo by Jimmy Mould

B: What places that you have DJed have had the biggest impact on you?

S: I would say New York, when I played at Dub War. That was really intense. It’s a really nice club. I feel like in some places they let the crowd be the DJ, but they’re not paid to DJ they pay to come in. And if they see someone’s name on a flyer they should research it and find out if they would like you if they come, not just look at the genre of dubstep and decide they’ll like it. So that’s when I play in these places I just play what I want and sometimes you get an average reaction and sometimes you get a really good reaction but at least people can gauge that you will play something they like.

B: Yeah all the best DJs lead and not follow.

S: Yeah because the followers can just move anywhere. ‘It’s not about this anymore, it’s about that.’ But if you stick to your guns there’s always people out there who will stick to their guns. It’s long to have to be a Simon Cowell basically, to find out what’s going right now. If you just do what you’re doing it will come together.

B: So there’s a lot of hype around Anti Social, in a positive way, and it seems to be because you guys represent a way of doing dubstep that’s different to a lot of other people right now, one that’s not really hard or aggressive. Do you think that’s a fair comment?

S: The way I look that me, Quest and Anti Social make is it’s music to dance to, not music to bang your head to. You can do your own dance, your shoulder dance or nod your head - you don’t have to go all out. And that’s why I like to do long sets. I’ve been getting two hours sets recently, I feel like it really represents me, I want to go everywhere. I’ll play the hard aggressive tune at the right time but at the same time I’ll bring it all the way down to something else that’s nice and mellow. The way I see it is a banger is only a banger if the last tune wasn’t. You have to go harder and harder and harder. It’s like heroin: in the end you don’t feel it.

B: There’s no loud without quiet.

S: I feel like you’ve always got to take it down somewhere. I think a lot of the reason people don’t because when you take it down the crowd may not react but they’re listening. People don’t have to go crazy all of the time to like something. So if you take it back down and play something mellow, maybe the crowd dies down or go to get a drink, but they’re not leaving.

B: The key word you use there in relation to Anti Social is “dance.” You guys seem to have a focus on percussion and rhythmic energy, that’s the focus rather than using mid range bass to make people dance, which lots of people are now. Has percussion and groove always been your focus?

S: It was never really a decision, that was it from the start and what brought us together. I felt like because I was making beats before melodies, that’s what I start my music with. That’s the focus and everything follows through after that. A lot of time my beat will change, with a fill at the end of one or two bars. So i had get the beat interesting because there was nothing else i could do and then when I learnt music i put that on top of it.

B: A lot of the percussion on the album focuses on variants of the halfstep beat pattern, did you ever consider putting snares in other places or having none at all?

S: Thing is I go through phases and my album is a phase. And what I’m doing now is the phase I’m in. Because I’ve gone everywhere with my music it’s hard to find someone who’s followed my music from the start in 2002, and you might think that was I’m doing now was related to before but it’s not really. Something will just click and it will be the next phase. Before I could make loads of different types of music at the same time but now I need to zone out and maybe that’s because I’m older and I can’t multitask as much. When you get older you have to focus more, whereas when you’re younger you can do five things at the same time... maybe not do them well but you can do them. That focus when you get older helps you get specialised at something.

B: What producers are you feeling right now?

S: Apart from the producers around me like Quest or Mala I don’t really hear a lot of other producers. It’s hard to really say who I’m feeling but I am feeling a lot of the things that are happening right now. It’s hard to centre it on a person – I prefer not to in a way. Just listen to the music and if it hits you it hits you and if it doesn’t it doesn’t.

B: I wonder if there’s an interesting parallel between what you’re doing and what Joker is doing with synths. In some ways they’re quite different but in others there are some similarities, with the use of pitchbent synths. Are you into what he’s doing?

S: Yeah definitely, me and Joker are friends. We first met up at Generation Bass but we ask each other questions all the time and it’s nice to be in contact with people who are on the same tip as you. We bounce off each other nicely. He gives me a lot of his stuff when it’s unfinished and we’re close enough that I’m not afraid to say ‘why don’t you try that?’ Because I wouldn’t be offended if musically someone I respected said ‘why don’t you try that?’ So I kinda bounce off the people around me.

B: To me with Joker I can hear more hip hop and grime in his sound whereas you guys have a more rolling uplifting, euphoric vibe sometimes.

S: Yeah. We’re going for different things but doing it in a similar way.

B: So is it true you’ve finished your second album already?

S: The reason why that’s been said is because I’ve got enough for more than a second album at the moment but I’ve not finished it in a sense where I’ve selected all the tracks. The point where I said I’d finished my first album was when the completed tracks were selected. I had an idea halfway through my first album for the tracks for the second album, but it was a demo second album. But since then so many tunes have been made that only three or four will get lifted from that and put with the new tracks I’ve made – because I’m always making new tracks but you’ve got to know when to lock yourself off. But it don’t feel the time is there yet: my first album isn’t even out.

B: You seem to have a really high work rate...

S: It’s because I work in parallel. There’s load of tunes that are not actually finished but they’re at a certain stage where I can play them out. They’re not tidied up yet but you do want to play the early bits out just to know what to do to it later. If you DJ out a lot the rave becomes your second studio so you can go out, test things and see what happens. And because I work in parallel, have loads of things I’m working on at once, that’s why I make a lot of tunes. I do them all quite slowly but a lot of them come out. But I don’t have to finish one before I start another. If you’re doing it in series you have to wait to find the right idea for that tune before you move on.

B: Where would you like to see dubstep go this year or next year?

S: I think dubstep will obviously get bigger but because of the people involved I don’t think it will lose its roots. I don’t think dubstep will break away from the underground. It will still feed from the underground, whether things go overground and are widely accepted as popular, I don’t think it will lose its roots because it’s such a young music when it comes to people listening to it there’s such an energy when it comes to everyone being a producer. And people will say: everyone’s a producer and so there’s more bullshit but if there’s loads more of something then you have to shift through it. Maybe it’s harder to shift through but if you do and you take your time, then there will be a lot more good stuff than if only a few producers were making something.

B: Finally, how do you feel about tempo right now? Faster, slower, the same?

S: I dunno my philosophy is to carry on doing what I’m doing, my music will change if it changes. I don’t want to think about ‘should I change this or change that.’ All I want to improve rather than change. Because change is linear but improving is going forward. You can change but it doesn’t mean you’ve gone anywhere. I just want to go forward and improve. Obviously your sound will change with your surroundings so you don’t have to think about your sound changing, it will just change and you won’t have noticed it. In five years time the tempo might have gone up or down, you don’t know what’s going to happen. You’ve got to go with what you’re doing now: that’s the main thing.

· We did a "City Limits Volume 1" preview mix on our Rinse FM show last month. Download it here Tracklist here.

FWD May

"Mmmm sweet never forget. The influence is so much... words can not Express."

Rinse April

Me and Dusk were on Rinse FM this April. Here's the audio. Niceness.

Dusk + Blackdown Rinse FM April 30th 2009

DOWNLOAD it here.

Soul 2 Soul "Fairplay (Wookie remix)" (S2S Recordings)
CJ Bolland "Sugar Is Sweeter (Armand Van Helden remix) (Virgin)
Sandy Rivera "Changes (MJ Cole dub)" (Defected white)
Sneaker Pimps "Walking Zero (Tuff & Jam Unda-Vybe Dub Instrumental)" (Clean Up)
Reach & Spin "Hype The Funk" (Go! Beat)

Boy Betta Know "Too Many Man" (unreleased)
Wiley "Where's My Brother (Skream's Where's My Funkin Brother remix)" (unreleased)
Maxwell D "Blackberry Hype" (unreleased)
Man Like Me "London Town (Rudekid remix ft JME)" (unreleased)
Dirty Danger (Ruff Sqwad) "Hard‏" (unreleased)
23hz & Numaestro "Zumo (Sully remix)" (unreleased)
Guido "Shades of Blue" (unreleased)
Grievous Angel "Girls & Boys refix" (unreleased)
Untold "Anaconda" (unreleased Hessle Audio)
TRG "New In Town" (unreleased)
Rustie "Bad Science" (Wireblock)

**Zomby section**

Zomby "Blueberry Cheese" (unreleased)
Zomby "The Abyss Gazes Also" (unreleased)
Zomby "Gaze Into the Abyss" (unreleased)
Zomby "Ghosts of Lovers Past" (unreleased)

Kloke "Aquarius" (unreleased)
Desto "Skyline" (unreleased)
Sbtrkt "Laika" (unreleased)

**Silkie album preview**

Silkie "Spark" (unreleased Deep Medi)
Silkie "Planet Ex" (unreleased Deep Medi)
Silkie "Beauty" (unreleased Deep Medi)
Silkie "Cats Eyes" (unreleased Deep Medi)

Cooly G "Love Dub" (unreleased Hyperdub)
Cooly G "Floating" (Dub Organiser vol 1)
Kowton "Countryman" (unreleased)
D.Franklin & Untold "Beacon" (unreleased)
Darkstar "Videotape" (unreleased)

Trim "Games" (unreleased)
Starkey "Fourth Dimension" (unreleased)
Mount Kimbie "Esady" (unreleased)
Ikonika "Sahara Michael" (unreleased)

More Dusk + Blackdown sets are on the Archive page here

New nuum?

So I went along to the Hardcore Continuum talk in the post below, and it was pretty fun. First up was a journey through east, always a joy. I have to confess I haven’t been through Hackney Wick, where I used to work, in daylight for ages and bwoy, I've seen the pictures in Time Out, but the Olympic building site is staggering. All that weird, post-industrial hinterland east of the Wick is now a hive of activity, skeletal metal shapes making incredible sky rhythms that will soon be stadia. But really I was on the way to witness the construction of other great structures.

The UEL Docklands Campus is odd too, not a part of London I know well - perched on the river by the City airport. Hard to put a finger on but seemed to be an surreal mix of the shiny new and dirty old architecture around there.

The seminars themselves seemed to go well, props to Jeremy and 9 for organising them. I think transcripts or audio of the talks will go up so I wont spoil them all. But the began with K Punks defence of the nuum which provided several of the most contentious points of the day, including the line "producers dont know anything about music" and the assertion that we live in creativity-deprived decade, relative to the '90s. I couldn’t help clocking that in nuum terms the 90s had given us rave, jungle and garage, while this decade had given us dubstep, grime, funky, wonky and bassline. That's 5-3 to the '00s by my reckoning, so who you calling deprived Mr Punk? ;)

(Oh and Photek is a certified badman, made some of the greatest **music** of the '90s bar none, texturally and rhythmically. If your theoretical framework tells you he's crap, then your framework is completely broken!)

Alex Splintering Bone Ashes read a great piece about the naming of genres, including quite a bit on wonky-as-a-process, "wonkification" if you will. In fact I was pretty amazed how much the wonkword came up time and time again during the five hours. I took the opportunity to take the piss of 9 on his allergy to it, reminding him of the irony that it was he who took the piss of me for never inventing genre descriptors.

Joe and Dan made their cases and i think everyone in the room bar K Punk seemed to accept some kind of progress needs to be made. But it was left to Kojo and 9 to provide a dazzling afrofuturism framework, that stretched from Joker to Prince, used deliciously rich language while going to extraordinary lengths not to say the words funky or wonky. Kode kicked over the dictaphone while heading for his iPod, blanking the audio recording, so you'll just have to read the transcript if it goes up.

Overall the day was very enjoyable, even if a little too much time was spent claiming jungle is the be all and end all, Australia isn’t a thing and producers don’t know anything about music. Trivialising reductions aside, I thought I'd share my talk here.

Where now for the Nuum?

My position on the hardcore continuum is the following: it works great at the macroscopic level but breaks down at the microscopic level. It’s this breakdown that has brought us all together today. Because if you have to throw away all your exceptions to make the rule, what value does the rule give?

For many years the nuum had it good: it evolved as an essentially linear progression, from hardcore to jungle, speed garage to 2step. Some musical aspects branched off but essentially culturally eliminated themselves from the continuum, like say drum & bass in 97 or broken beat in 2000, preserving the linearity of the continuum as the offshoots removed themselves from the nuums cultural heartland.

The nuum also had time on its side. Ravers who had it large in ’88, went to jungle mecca AWOL in 94 could then join the mature ravers at Twice as Nice in 2000. Continuity was preserved.

But the implosion of garage in 2001/2 presented the continuum with an unprecedented challenge: no longer was the progression linear. Garage fragmented into three parts: grime, dubstep and house. Could it still be a continuum if it had broken into three, one part of which had temporarily – let’s say 2002 to 2006 - migrated off to join another continuum, ie the global house one?

By the very nature of fragmentation comes dilution, and this is where the nuum begins to be challenged. In the divorce from garage, each of the three offspring took different parts: in general terms, grime the role of the MC, dubstep the focus on bass and house... the girls.

On his blog yesterday simon says a fallacy about the nuum is that it is prescriptive.

“The misconception here is a mental image of a bouncer standing in front of a door barring admittance. How it actually works: new sounds emerge from the area of sound/culture/demographic under consideration, they have links to what came before, and what's interesting is to work out how strong the continuity is and what are the significant differences. Sometimes the links start to seem tenuous to the point where it feels like the music has branched off in another direction, perhaps ultimately to merge with other traditions/continuums. But this is descriptive as opposed to prescriptive.”

But right now I would begin to challenge its ability to even be descriptive. In his talk in Liverpool recently, Simon reduces the musical side of the continuum to the confluence of four factors: house, techno, hip hop and reggae dancehall, which works great for hardcore, jungle and garage. Yet as you increasingly migrate further from hardcore, elements of these become less influential, as new ones rise to the fore. So with grime you could reduce it to: jungle + garage + hip hop + dancehall. With dubstep: garage + jungle + dub reggae.

With each iteration of the nuum the founding pillars become shakier, and with justifiable reason. Not only did fragmentation post-garage cause dilution of the common pillars but the collective memory of those pillars began to fade amongst its creators. Ravers who had it large in ’88, went to jungle mecca AWOL in 94 could then join the mature ravers at Twice as Nice in 2000. But what tangible influence do those bastions have now compared to the wealth of current music , when you consider MOBO winning grime MC chipmunk was ten years old when Twice as Nice was at its peak or unborn when rave began?

The question then is can we re-define a new set of continuity elements? Because with these the continuum would regain more value, and begin to better describe its current key movements. To do this I’d like to look at two cases: funky and wonky, both of which Simon has raised questionable concerns to as their validity as part of the continuum. Those concerns in term throw light on the limitations and the improper use of the theory.

For better or worse, I coined the term wonky in a piece in Pitchfork Media last year, to describe a common thread I saw running through multiple genres as disparate as instrumental hip hop, crunk, chip tunes, grime and dubstep. Unfortunately it has since been latched onto as a genre, something I still refute. But for the purpose of this talk, I’d like to talk about a specifically group of producers i mentioned in the Pitchfork piece: Joker, Zomby and Gemmy.

While there’s no point claiming these three are fully “running the roads” right now, surely the gold standard test for nuum or not-nuum, in an attempt to preserve the theory’s integrity simon takes the opposite position on this moot point.

“Wonky has the same relation to Ruff Squad as Squarepusher had to Remarc” he wrote on his blog.

Yet Joker came from grime, got advice from Wiley back in the day, lives in one of the nuums second cities – Bristol – is black and working class. Last year he was voted in the top 5 vinyl releases by the grime forum, alongside Rudekid, Logan Sama’s new label, Silencer and... Ruff Squad.

In the same piece, Simon wrote on wonky, “I can’t imagine real bodies moving in real space to this music.” He wouldn’t have needed to imagine if it he’d been at the Rinse FM rave last year to see Boy Betta Know’s Maximum drop Joker tunes in a grime set.

Gemmy shares similarities with Joker in this regard and Zomby grew up hanging out with DJ SS and lived through both midlands rave and bassline scenes, as well as later attending seminal dubstep parties in London.

These three acts share many of the continuity aspects that are so key to the strength of the nuum, yet simon uses the nuum to reject them because they don’t fit its original core tenants.

Indeed if you are to reject Zomby, Joker and Gemmy as part of the continuum, so should you reject dubstep as a whole. And while Simon was very sceptical of dubstep for most of this decade, perhaps out of loyalty to garage, he now accepts it as part of the continuum, ironically as it finds itself as far from its London roots as it ever has been.

Similarly we move to the current iteration of the continuum, funky. If you applied the litmus test to funky – is it big on road? – you’d get a resounding ‘yes’ but confusingly for the continuum, unlike d&b/garage in 1997, the urban popularity vote is currently split, between grime and funky. Either way simon’s not sure.

You can forgive a musical theorem for being unable to cope with the scenario that unfolded in 2002 -06, where post garage’s implosion, an entire section of the UKG massive silently migrated from grime to the existing global house continuum. It was only when DJs like Supa D and Marcus Nasty reclaimed UK ownership of a strand of the international house megacorp that it began to fit back into the continuum, incorporating influence from another of its rejected progeny, broken beat to form a near mirror image of grime. But overall a scenarios like this in 2002, where everything except the music stays nuum, displays the limitations of the continuum.

So despite funky’s perfect credentials, Simon seems unsure of its place in the canon. The reasons for this are twofold: he seems to have misread the signs and again is holding the 2009 genre to account to ’89 continuity pillars, perhaps for his own reasons.

“Funky has an overall deficit of rude + cheesy” he claims without investigating “Sirens” by Hard House Banton or “Heads Shoulders Knees and Toes” by KIG Family, both respectively rude and cheesy and two of the genre’s biggest tracks. He also dismisses any dancehall influence in funky, despite the prevelance of skank tracks like the “Migrane Skank” that directly parody Jamaican dancehall dance routines.

So between dubstep’s inclusion, wonky’s exclusion and funky’s limbo status, we find the central crisis that undermines the hardcore continuum in 2009: not that it has broken or is invalid, because it describes accurately in many cases the musical heart that beats in urban London and other UK urban multicultural centres. But its inflexibility in the face of edge cases and fragmentation, is causing it to be presented as fact but actually be used as a theory to make value judgments in order to preserve its own existence.

Rinse that nuum

The Hardcore Continuum? A discussion

Presented by the Centre for Cultural Studies Research, University of
East London In association with The Wire

---------------------

Wednesday April 29th 2009 2:00pm-6:00pm

Simon Reynolds'’ commentary on the ‘'hardcore continuum'’ - the
mutating sequence of dancefloor music to have emerged from the
breakbeat hardcore matrix of the early 1990s - has recently generated intense debate in the musical blogosphere.

What is the value of this concept? Does it still usefully describe the
context from which dynamic new beat musics emerge? Can the conditions of creativity in the 1990s be replicated in the era of web 2.0? Should we even want them to be?

Speakers: Mark Fisher (K-Punk), Alex Williams (Splintering Bone
Ashes), Steve Goodman (Kode 9), Lisa Blanning (The Wire), Dan Hancox (Guardian, New Statesman), Kodwo Eshun (Author of More Brilliant than the Sun), Joe Muggs (Mixmag, The Wire), Martin Clark (Blackdown), Jeremy Gilbert (Co-author of Discographies)

Attendance is free but pre-registration is recommended. For info or to register contact J.Gilbert@uel.ac.uk.

Location: UEL Docklands Campus (Cyprus DLR) Room wb.1.01

For full travel details see this or this.

Room wb.1.01is located on the first floor of the West Building (the
building to the right upon entering the main square from Cyprus DLR)
---------------------

UPDATE: Oi Oi, Mr Reynolds has launched a pre-emptive strike!

The man who cycles through glass walls part 3

Last year I published two blog posts (here and here) about Nico Hogg's amazing documentation of London via his camera. I left some breathing space between those two and this, the final installment in the interview.

The five months between the first post and now hasn't dimmed my awe for his shots and the journey that leads him to them. In truth, as incredible images continue to appear on his Flickr stream, it makes me think this series might never end. But for now, here are the last shots and thoughts, grouped into loose themes.

TRANSPORT

B: "Bricked 309 bus, Bartlett Park." Can you tell us the full story here?

N: "We were heading off the Lansbury Estate, going past Bartlett Park when a couple of kids, maybe 11 or 12 years old eyed up the bus from a bush behind the road with excited expressions. One of them raised an arm and the next thing I did was turn my head away, because I knew what was coming next and I didn't fancy a face full of broken glass!! Thud, bang. One shattered window, kids running off.

The driver took the bus on a bit further to get out of the conflict zone and pulled up. One kid on the bus got a bit of glass stuck in his neck and his mum went ballistic, ranting that she knew "the little fuckers". Never had that happen to a bus I was on so close to town before, but terrorising buses is an art form on the outlying estates..."

B: "Stonebridge Park Station" - while this tube shot comes from one of the rougher parts of London, it reminds me what a communal and shared experience transport is in London. The tube seems to out-price some of the lowest earners, but the overland and busses still unite everyone...

N: "Definitely. Comparing the overland to the underground, there isn't the blanket presence of ticket gates and staff to make the railway feel like an artificial, protected safe zone, so to me it just an extension of the street. Anyone can walk onto a train, ticket or not if they really wanted to. The same interactions, some pleasant, some not, the same feelings of risk.

And a lot of the overland really does unite everyone – the North London Line going from wealthy Richmond to Harlesden, through Hampstead to Camden, Highbury, then Dalston, Hackney, Stratford. Halfway round London for a pound or two, all different people squashed up together in those run down old purple trains. Night buses are the same – half the cabs disappear, the tubes and trains stop, and everyone's thrown onto the party bus. I fell asleep on one on my way to Hammersmith one night, surrounded by people coming back from the clubs. When I woke up again I was a few minutes from Heathrow, and the bus was full of bleary-eyed workers heading in for a 5am shift at the Airport! At some point in that time I was asleep they were sharing the same space..."

GRAF/TEXT

B: "Ponders Endz." How do you feel about grime? Are you aware of the micro-local identity issues that litter the genre...

N: Mixed. I'm not sure how I regard it in my head. For me it's very fluid, hard to pin down, my mind is trying to whack a cloud of gnats with a tree branch. It's definitely a much leaner, angrier London within a London, but finding the outside borders is no more clear cut, even if it has a fairly well defined 'middle'.

That vitriolic element to grime mcing impresses me, it can be quite sharp, but I find it can get a bit blunt and clumsy too. Overall, I prefer an instrumental noise to a string of vocals. I see the appeal of it, there are shards of a dark and sometimes cruel sense of humour that comes through in a lot of grime music that I love.

That predates grime, but it has found a well-lubricated conduit through the lyrics for me. Geography is an important part of it, this and that endz trampling over one another, but there's the transcendence of geographical lines too. Linking that up to grime as a bigger thing has always been hard for me, but that's down to a lack of knowledge on my part. The tensions of both are born of the same parentage. As an expression, or really, manifestation of a certain kind of urban reality it does it's job pretty succinctly, but I think about what would happen if the messages started reinforcing themselves on a big scale, self perpetuating, growing bigger than they are and spilling into something else, somewhere else and I worry. Or something. Arrgh, too easy to talk out of my arse on this! It's a stereotypical concern about grime, I think, and an outsiders one, but it's one I find myself unable to shake it off."

[As a quick aside here. Last year I enjoyed a piece by Matt Shadetek on Cam'ron and the issue of "No Snitching." A friend commented about what an out of control beast hip hop, and some of the values it perpetuates, has become. Given the obvious parallels between grime and hip hop, perhaps this what happens with the "scale" Nico worries about.]

B: "Wednesday: Enfield Highway." More micro-local identity tagging.
but then there's the overlay with what looks like BNP sticker. Do you know who the unitedbritish.corp/ are?

N: "Anything I could tell you would be thanks to Google! That part of Enfield, running along the Hertford Road has always been a strongly working class white area, but it's gradually becoming more and more popular for ethnic minority groups moving out from inner London. There are a few large estates too, and that extra sense of territory that comes with them. I see that up there, increasingly, it's a developing thing. I also see a lot more of this expressed territorialisation further out than closer to town, in any area notorious or not, graffiti on estates and bus shelters. I wonder, with those three things coming together, how that will evolve."

B: "Sunday afternoon: The lift." Racism: it's about. Even between different ethnic minority groups. In your trips to take shots, do see it a lot?

N: "Yeah, for years, from school onwards. There's more inter-ethnic group tension here any white vs other. Sometimes it's within different parts of what would be considered from the outside to be the same ethnic group – big troubles within the Somali groups in Woolwich and Plumstead, traditionally the elders kept a lid on trouble but they're losing the battle, it's a community that has come close to the edge of tearing itself to shreds from the inside. But it's worth distinguishing between barefaced racism and another issue, the settled population vs new arrivals.

People from half the countries in the world live in Tottenham, many are well established in the area now, so it's worth separating the two. The Polish thing, as displayed in that pic – someone elses afterthought, is a new one. A lot of Poles have come to Tottenham recently, to private rented housing, rather than in the estates, and there is some insecurity in the area about that from the multicultural base of people already settled. It stays off the estates though, mainly... this is a bit of an exception."

B: "London Road, Mitcham." How did you get inside this building? Who and what lead you? How do you feel about tagging/graffiti?

N: "An open door in the night.. walking past this block of flats I saw a few bits of graffiti inside and wandered in to take a look, curious. The walls were saturated, completely, every surface, a spiralling hysteria. A clamour for the ownership of space gone insane. Nothing 'artistic' in the traditional sense, just tags tags tags tags tags on everything, saturation bombing.

"There's an identical block right next to it that has properly locked entrance doors, and that was totally untouched. Most of Mitcham is pretty tidy. This one block was like a pressure vent for some force, some statement. I hadn't seen anything like it outside of club toilets and squatted buildings, where that sort of thing is tolerated – or even welcomed - by the people who share the space. It felt like it belonged to a different era and a different place. Suburban South London meets 1980s New York. There's some principled part of me that says graffiti is wrong, an eyesore, report it, get rid of it – the "right thing". But really, I love it. I think you need to feel threatened by graffiti to want to get rid of it, but I see a game in it, laying a claim to a space lays down a gauntlet for that space to be challenged, questioned, and that's exciting to see."

B: "Nana's gone now." This one's twice as powerful when you add in the title. Do you know if Nana is gone? Who was she?

N: "I've got to admit to a bit of poetic licence here... I don't know. I just threw in the title!

B: "Avenue Road Estate" - can you elaborate onto the background of this one? do you get the sense of people reclaiming walls to be a kind of people's broadcast medium... Badman Broadcast Corp...

N: "This wasn't long after the stabbing of Paul Erhahon. Some say it was a gang thing, some say it wasn't, I don't know the background well enough to say. But there are two big estates in South Leytonstone, Cathall and this one, and there was politics between them. We found this one afternoon when I'd met up with a friend who has an interest in human geography (he's doing it as a degree now, and if he sees this he'll probably be laughing at my 'amateur' answers for months...), and I'd decided to show him around an estate near his house.

I think this was more about someone having a sick dig than some real statement of racial hatred. Test the water and gauge the reaction. Given the way that all the entrance doors were busted and the intercoms ripped out, anyone could have wandered in from off the estate and done this. The estate was a bit of a disaster zone at the time.

Definitely a broadcast medium! But not as evident as it could be... maybe people are just so hot on removing graffiti now, there's more of a focus on broadcasting the messages where it will definitely been seen and heard. There's the internet for that now."

B: "The lift lobby" - more graf. Does this say 'IRA flex?'

N: "This one was taken in my block of flats. There were a few 'IRA' tags around here at the time, but I think "IRA" and "flex" here were two separate tags. Really, I don't know where they came from... there was speculation at the time that a kid from one of the Irish families just off the estate was having a joke."

B: "We're in ur hoodz" - obviously "E8 bang bang" is a local tribal assertion of power via weaponry...

N: There was a bit of a fashion in statements like this, with "bang bang" tacked onto the end a year or two ago... haven't seen so much of it about lately, but it wasn't just E8 saying it.

B: "Stratford" - whereas most of your work seems more social, this seems to have a political bent...

N: "I don't see this sort of thing about that often.. but perhaps I just don't keep my eyes peeled so much for political statements. There are enough people out there already with cameras and a political mindset... it's heard, it's known about."

B: "Seven Sisters" - signs and signifiers, light and atmosphere...

N: "I've never understood the appeal of this one, but people do seem to like it. Sometimes I end up detached from the scene itself as I'm taking the photo, like in a trance. A sense that it'll be 'good' without consciously appreciating why, just recording it."

B: "No Spitting" - have you heard of the music genre dubstep? their top label, Tempa, their designer emailed me this once, as an idea for my own label artwork and obviously I used it recently on a Geeneus record. Then I was in a tower block lift with him a week or so after it came out, and there it was!!! Anyway, were you aware of the dual dictionary/grime meaning of the word 'spit'? and there it is, translated into two languages too...

N: "Haha, yeah I clocked that.. funnily enough, it seemed a very cliquey little block as well, there was a noticeboard behind me with a load of residents association stuff on it and warnings about not leaving the door open, letting 'strangers' into the block. "No spitting", none, of any kind. Not here. Dubstep, I got introduced to it last year through a mate showing me some of Burial's stuff, that was an eye-opener, a great sound... it's gone on from there, in fits and starts. Material things hold me back... my music playing capabilities are limited to an ipod and a stone age laptop. The sound of dubstep, really, deserves to be played through something that can bring out the richness, otherwise you're missing out on something. I'll have to sort that out, I'm deliberately holding back on it until then, odd as that might sound."

B: "EasyHajj!" I love this one, whereas most of your photos are more neutral, this is a rare entry of religion into your work. Do you think religion influences your subject matter much?

N: "I don't think it does! I had an almost completely unreligious upbringing.. the only times I've ever come into contact with it I've ended up pairing the circumstance up with either a social or political matter, religion playing second fiddle. I do feel like I'm missing something out by ignoring religion, as it is one of the most important things.. full stop."

B: Broken window theory, 2004 - do you buy/have you read any broken window theory ?

N: "I haven't read the literature, but I am aware of the overarching argument. I do think it sort of works as a concept, on the face of things, but (and wikipedia says the same here) how much of an effect it has on any bigger underlying problems is questionable to me. You don't have to have no smoke without fire, something can just be really bloody hot and you'll burn your fingers on it anyway. I'll have to read it someday."

B: "64-220 The Lintons (edit 2)" - So this was arson... can you elaborate?

N: "Nope...don't know anything about it!"

B: "64-220 The Lintons (edit 1)" - awaiting demolition... can you elaborate?

N: "This one's gone now. It used to loom over Barking, big style, shades of grey, a battleship on the skyline. Then the council came along in the 90s, painted it all these colours, put a dome on the roof and added a concierge at the bottom to ward off trouble. People still complained that it was an eyesore, then the council realised that for all the misguided beautification the building had undergone, things like 30 year old single-glazed windows 15 floors up and substandard insulation, things that actually mattered for basic quality of living there, were too expensive to bring up to date – why, I don't know.

Anyway, 8 years on they decided to pull it down instead and started moving the tenants out, but some of the leaseholders who had bought out their flats wouldn't leave; they wanted more money for their flats than the council was prepared to give. So the building stood there in this limbo state for over two years while the arguments dragged on, bit of arson here, few broken windows there, slowly deteriorating into oblivion."

B: "Ponders End" - what about London's ignored industrial wastelands? The Lee valley. The docks out east near the Blackwall tunnel. Wapping etc... these are ghostly in a different way to abandoned/deserted estates, they're places of huge steel dinosaurs and twisted metal scrap piles. Unguarded, uninhabited and unwanted. Does that interest you too, as a photographer?

N: "I've just never had that interest in photographing industrial decay that others have. Turning it the other way round, there are people who wonder where the worth of taking photos of empty estates lies. I find it hard to find a social significance in abandoned industry, that 'human' aspect is more easily sensed with residential areas.

Maybe I'd be singing a different tune if I lived in a town where the major employer was a factory and they'd shut down, some things need understanding first-hand."

B: "Luke House, Bigland Estate, E1" - this one is towering, literally. Do tower blocks 'work?'

N: "I don't know, it depends how you define 'work'. Maybe, yes, sometimes, but not often in their original form. Some councils have got innovative, putting students in them, putting old people in them. They work if you turn them into fortresses, with fences round the outside and someone behind a glass window controlling who comes in and out. If you've got a cliff face 20 storeys high filled with people that live there because they were given that flat and no other choice, it's not going to work well – but it won't fail either. If they came there out of choice, it would work."

B: "Patriotic" - often found near to the impoverished multicultural communities, is white British nationalism. Do you see much of this? Where?

N: "Quite a few places – the thing I notice is that it shows less the closer you get to Central London, it's most evident in poorer or traditionally working class white areas further out that are starting to react to the outward migration of different cultural/racial groups from further in. In inner London I think there's this element of acceptance, if not always readiness to intergrate, from the white groups in areas like Globe Town, the Isle of Dogs and Bermondsey.

"The tensions have played out and it's in the past now. It's mostly housing estates over there, and the queue to get a council property is massive – the chances of even getting onto the waiting list are seriously limited, so the breakdown of the population doesn't shift and change much as an area with mostly private renting and six-month tenancy terms. So in a way it's quite stable, the white population aren't about to lose their flats, there aren't sudden influxes and no need for reactions.

The flags hanging from tower blocks, it's more a defensive statement than an aggressive one, and it's pretty harmless. Further out, where minority groups have got onto the housing waiting lists and got places, and are setting up home where the property is cheaper, that's where the ugly aspect of nationalism rears its head in the same way it did in inner London 20 or 30 years ago. Round the Royal Docks, Erith, Dagenham, where this reaction is taking place and these fears are replaying themselves. I personally know some Albanians who have settled in Erith, and they paint a pretty ugly picture of prejudices acted out towards them."

B: "Bow, towards Mile End" - this photo demonstrates the uniqueness of your shots. Of all the millions of photos of London on Flickr, this is one of the very few of the legendary 'three flats' Crossways Estate. What was it like being there?

N: "Eerily quiet for a late afternoon. Hardly anyone was about at all. I spent half an hour inside this block taking shots in the stairwell and out of the windows, and I didn't hear a soul. I had expectations of the sort of thing I'd see – groups of youth milling around, there was none of it. I wonder if there was this air of fear in the empty space, like a western film with a showdown about to take place, but if was there was I missed it completely. It might well have been there. (btw: this was taken from inside one of the Crossways blocks, but the tower blocks are on the British Estate down the road)."

B: "Nicholl House, Woodberry Down" - more arson? Interesting comment you add to this shot: "Condemned? on levels, certainly I'd agree, but in my mind it's in the same sense that everyone in social (particularly council) housing in London is, because the gulf between that and anything better is unattainably wide and getting wider. For the households in this block, hopefully the new social housing that's to replace the estate provides some promise, even if it is some years away yet."

N: "I was having a bad day when I wrote that comment. I was going on the premise that a lot of council/social housing in London is in a bit of a mess at the moment – I sometimes forget that there are decent flats on good estates too! But the core point sticks – just as anyone who needs a council property should be able to have a decent one with enough rooms to avoid overcrowding, anyone should be able to afford to move into decent private housing as well. We're just a long, long way from that in London."

B: "High Rise Floodlighting" - these are in Luton (a satelite town outside the city), are they the ones you can see from the M1? They always look like Crossways...

N: "Yeah, that floodlighting... any block I see now with them reminds me of the Crossways. They make estates look like prison camps, spotlights waiting to catch someone or something out. There are two of these tower block estates you can see from the M1 as you go north through Luton. The first one is near the town centre, then the second one further out is Hockwell Ring, where these are."

B: "Newmill House, Bromley-by-Bow" - this is much more 'social/local/person' than the epic but distant tower block shots. The balconies on these council houses are classic design...

N: "Yeah, to me these older sorts of flats work best, as estates go. London County Council classic, red or yellow. The flats themselves are tiny a lot of the time, but in a way it forces there to be a sort of communal existence – everything spills over outside, washing hung up on the communal balconies, the younger kids play out in the squares and the aspiring street soldiers sit around in groups, but at ease. Even in the roughest, most deprived parts of London many of these blocks seem to get by without fortress tactics, security doors at the entrances.. you can just walk in and out. The estate, functioning as a whole, seems to manage the job by itself."

B: "Old Stonebridge" - this is creepy, desolate, it could be in a bombed out part of Sarajevo...

N: "This was a weird moment. I walked down into the entrance expecting the corridor opening to be boarded up, but it wasn't. I could just walk right in. It was almost pitch black, the lighting had been turned off. I wondered if anyone was still living in any of the flats in there, who they were, etc. It was taken a couple of days after Christmas. I can think of better places to spend the holidays."

B: "Tewkesbury Road alleyway" - do you think there is a beauty in decay? Or is the true value of this shot it's documentary qualities because while you can find beauty in this shot, the reality of an existence in an alley's like this is less romantic.

N: "They two are separate things, but one almost always seems to come with the other. You document to record, to get a idea or sense of something, and that sense of something is impossible to separate from the decay. It can be reality, and beauty too."

B: "Seven Sisters Road" - this one is pure atmosphere...

N: "There's this stereotypical image of a foggy London. That stark shape of the houses of parliament in the fog in old photos, that kind of thing. But it really isn't that common, not nowadays anyway. I like to try and use it when I can, because it does change everything, even in a familiar scene."

B: Can you tell me about these (first, second) panoramas...

N: "Haha, "welcome to my world!". I got up on the roof one evening and did this; it's pretty much the same view as from various windows inside my flat, which is partly why I did it. The untagged one is for me as a sort of record, the one with the labels on.. I don't know, a chance for other people to see how I relate – strictly geographically, was the theory – to the areas I can see around me.

It's hard to see this block I'm standing on from many of those places, even the high ones like Ally Pally and I was very aware of that at the time I took this. Maybe I was trying to say, 'I can see you out there, but you can't see us here – but we are here!' I do think Tottenham gets overlooked in many ways, and when it is noticed it's with a roll of the eyes – sometimes justified, sometimes not. But it isn't such a bad sort of place, really. And it is home to me, so I'm prepared to defend it in my own way."

The funk phenomenon

"It has already been recognised that the individuals behind this music wouldn't meet the requirements of entry at an event aimed at the mature raver due to age, and these tracks, even the ones receiving appeal from the public, are not favoured by those who would.

This therefore means that the age group of producer and listeners of the 'Nursery Grime' category fit into same demographic. However this isn't a demographic on a low scale of overall capacity within the scene. So there has become a divide.

Those that appreciate the enjoyment found within the fun and games of the music, and those that feel that an environment that serves alcohol in freefall is not the correct place to relive childhood games and rhymes."

-- Makeda Wilson, Itsalot Mag


Funky seems to be at the same time both exploding and tearing itself apart, whether it's DJs battling for the ownership of certain sounds, key players renaming offshots or what kind of MC tracks are acceptable. The sheer amount of activity can be overwhelming, so I caught up with blogger Queen of Sheba, writer for Itsalot mag, the digital Deuce mag for the funky generation.

Blackdown: There seems to be a big internal battle going on right now for what "house and funky" is or isn't, do it feel like that to you? Who to your mind, are the key players involved right now?

Queen of Sheba: It definitely is like that at the moment. It’s a very political subject that many members of the scene are voicing their opinions on. Marcus Nasty and Tippa (from Circle) are being pinpointed at the moment, but that’s because some fast person posted Marcus’s Facebook status in a forum, but it’s actually been a major topic ever since Heads Shoulders Knees & Toes [HSK&T] first unearthed on the circuit. Everyone has an opinion when it comes to one to one conversation, but not everybody can be asked to get involved in the public politics.For this reason, to me, there are no key players involved. What is said publicly by one may be a repeat of what another said behind closed doors.

B: For people that don't know, can you try and describe the main different types of styles in house and funky right now and why some of them are so controvertial?

QoS: WOW! The different styles.... the genre is so diverse! We have vocal which is more towards soulful, tribal, but there’s a darker kind of tribal which is deeper and darker. Kinda like Grimey. There’s broken, afrobeat and we also have MC tracks and skank tracks. The MC and skank tracks are the ones that are most controversial. MC tracks have been around for a while with Versatile’s funky anthem getting airplay on the major music channels and there was also a track made by Dubplate Wonder a while back that not many people seem to know about but the more controversial ones are the recent ones.

The controversy mainly comes from the fact that the tribal and broken instrumental tracks are being taken by budding MCs who are then applying bars to them and then passing them off as their own. Some of the tracks being taken haven’t even been able to get their own sufficient amount of airplay so the producer is getting cut out of the deal. What makes it worse is the producer hasn’t been approached for consent first so it’s causing conflict.

B: I see what you mean about tracks being vocalled without permission but it also seems to me that there's a fear within house and funky that MCs, especially grime MCs, might "take over" funky, kinda like they did to UK garage. Do you think people in funky are concerned about this and if so, why?

QoS: For some it may be a concern, but for me personally I think it’s a good thing as it can help to push the sound. I don’t really think people fear it taking over, I think their more upset about people jumping into Funky to get a quick dollar or buck as opposed to those who have been there from the beginning cultivating the sound to what it is today. There are a lot of new faces in Funky that are obviously not here for passion. That goes further than the MCs though and spreads into DJs and club promoters. There are a lot of people abusing the genre in hope of personal gain and recognition. Nah I wouldn’t call it fear at all, I would more call it and anger due to lack of authenticity. That’s something I can identify, emphasise and agree with.

B: OK. I see that and I can understand the position of the heads who have built funky up only for it to get popular but to me part of the appeal of funky to its core fans was that it wasnt grime ie obsessed by violence, dominated by MCs and better to watch than to dress up and dance to. So it seemed logical that they might be worried about an influx of grime youngers...

QoS: Yeah I get you. Most of the new youngsters who are coming over from grime are into these skank tracks though, which I guess just adds to more conflict. The new MCs are irritating the new ones who are more about one liners or hooks and the new ravers are irritating the old ones who aren’t into getting instructions about how to dance to a particular track at a given time. The funny thing though is the new ravers think Funky is all about dances, but that’s something more associated to Bashment rather than Grime so although the new MCs are making a transition from Grime to Funky, the followers aren’t realising that the trend has really been birthed from one person’s or group’s desired trademark within the Funky circuit. A lot of people within the original UK Funky circuit came from Grime, that isn’t what created this influx. When KIG Family made HSK&T, that was their rendition within the genre. Because it was so simple, it made a lot of people think they could do the same. If that track wasn’t signed within a major bidding war of record labels, I don’t think half of the people that have been turned on by funky in the last 6 months would’ve been interested. But the Bashment dance track thing was due to be there trend, if they hadn’t publicised that on national commercial radio, we’d probably still be waiting on the second or third of its kind.

B: These kinds of generational conflicts remind me of UKG garage all over again. Old school garage DJs storming out of photoshoots because they dont like cheap novelty tracks like "I Don't Smoke Da Reefah". Is there a tension between the youngers and olders right now, and would you say that before the HSK&T, funky was generally an older scene rather than full of youngers?

QoS: Nah there’s not any tension at all. Mainly because the older club promoters cater for the older ravers, and the younger promoters who tend to be university students cater for ravers their age. The commercial events however is where you find an amalgamation of the ages, new ravers and old so there is always an event or two to provide for whatever it is your preference.

Because of that there isn’t a need for any hostility. Everyone gets on with their own. This has been the case from before HSK&T and the influx that has followed hasn’t been confined to the younger generation either. So I think that would be an unfair judgement if I’m honest.

B: Do you ever think that there's a risk that the vocal funky tunes - whether novelty tunes or grime MCs over funky instrumentals - could begin to be more about something you listen to with MCs on and less something you dance to?

QoS: I don’t think that is possible within the more mature side of the scene as that side of things hasn’t changed. The host still perform the same without an overload of bars so it’s the same as always. The only difference in those areas is that they no longer willing to address the music as funky. The younger and more commercial areas of the scene are in danger of heading that way though without a doubt. It’s already happening in some areas.

B: There's various "Nursery Grime" tracks like "Heads, Shoulders Knees and Toes" and "Ring-A-Rosy" - all using songs from the playground. Plus you mentioned there's funky versions of kids classics "I Spy" and "Wheels on the Bus." With the nursery rhyme tunes, it seems uncanny to me that there's these fun MC tunes in funky, whereas grime is trying so hard to be road, raw and aggressive, it rarely lets itself be funny or silly. Do you think its possible that there's a link between MCs in one scene being serious and the other being fun?

QoS: I don’t know if there is any element of truth in those tracks being around. I haven’t researched it. A lot of people are making jokes about these tracks so it’s possible to be another joke. The fact that its believed shows how much people aren’t taking these tracks seriously though. If MCs are using Grime to be serious and Funky to be silly it really just highlights that the artists who are producing the music are as serious about the music as the people who are listening to it. Another reason why the connoisseurs aren’t willing to take it on as they on the other hand are very passionate about their music and the scene as a whole.

B: Lemme plays devil's advocate here: if funky goes back towards house, what is it that makes it unique? London has a long history of taking sounds and making it ours (jungle, grime, dubstep, funky), but if funky DJs go back to playing mainstream house, will they truly be able to make their mark in that long-established scene?

QoS: I don’t think it means they’ll revert back to mainstream only. There are still ‘Funky’ producers making music ie Fuzzy Logik, D-Malice, Roska, MA-1 to name a few. They will just stop using the name Funky to disassociate themselves from the current trend that is getting into the mainstream. The skank/MC tracks are pushing the Funky name into the commercial market, but these people aren’t willing to sell their souls to the devil in order to achieve fame. As fame and success are different things. So it will just get referred to as UK House, as these people will tell you that House is the sound they are trying to achieve within their production above anything else. On the other hand, these tracks are getting called ‘Skank’ music too, so there may not be a need for name filtering after all. Who knows?

B: What do you think about the terms "dubbage" and "tribal" and do you think they are a clear sounds or offshoots that are developing?

QoS: Dubbage, Tribal..... I don’t really want to comment on either as I’m not deep within either but they are developing so things are still to be seen. I’d personally class them as the same thing though, but really I think Dubbage is a UK spin off of Deep House as Funky is a spin off from Soulful House. If you get what I’m saying?

B: You said on Dissensus...

"What I hate about [funky tunes with MCs] is that they're flung together with no form of foresight. When I first got into the genre in mid 05 this would've never been accepted. The genre's effect in Aiya Napa last year has led to this huge change over of artists and listeners so many of the new influx are unaware what this genre is really about."

B: Could you elaborate on what you feel the genre is truly about?

QoS: Funky to me is our adaptation of the more recognised House producers such as Karizma, Kerri Chandler, Dennis Ferrer and an amalgamation of all their different sounds. However as there is also influence from Garage and Grime due to the individual backrounds the overall sound is very diverse. However, you’ll find none of these, including Garage where there was MC tracks, included any dances. Which is why Funky Anthem is as acceptable in Funky as Do You Really Like it and Good Rhymes was in Garage. The songs are about the vybe so everybody relates to them.

Queen of Sheba's top 5 tracks

1. Mystery ft Miss Bree – Worth Much More
2. MA-1 - Waterfalls
3. Darkus Beat Project (Roska Remix) - Promise
4. Fuzzy Logik ft Egypt – In the Morning
5. Geeneus ft Katy B – As I

· Queen of Sheba's blog is here. You can read or download Itsalot Magazine here. Check the Itsalot Magazine podcasts here.

Dusk + Blackdown archive page launched

Something I've been meaning to do for a while is this: an archive page for all our old mixes.

Most of them are Rinse shows that are no longer hosted by Rinse but I've included the two older Keysound Radio mixes and a little exclusive to launch the page. Out to the reader of this blog who sent me the only archive we have of our old Groovetech show.

Dusk and I took over the Dubplate.net show on now-defunct internet station Groovetech when 1Xtra was founded and recruited Ghost's Jayda Flex, which dates it to around August 2002. This show comes from November 2002 but ironically I'm not there as I was doing shift work for 1Xtra. So Dusk runs the show solo for nearly three hours. Enjoy...

Dubplate.net Show on Groovetech Nov 1st 2002

· Download it here.

· Download all our old Rinse mixes here.

PS if you have any more of our Groovetech shows, please can you send them over?

DVA ft Badness, Riko, Flowdan and Killa P Bullet A'Go Fly

LDN010 DVA ft Badness, Riko, Flowdan and Killa P Bullet A'Go Fly (Original and Dusk + Blackdown remix). Forthcoming on Keysound Recordings...

Forward forever

It was 24 hours ago but I'm still hyped and energised by an amazing Forward>> last night. It was so great to see El-B finally getting his props; so nuts to play alongside him - he was the man that made me want to produce. And while he's a bit busy these days, dialog with Kode9 have been a massive influence over this decade, so it was great to warm up for his mix of funky and, well, wot do u call it?

(Out to the guy shouting "play some dubstep" at Kode. Are you sure you really want to bait Mr Contrary? Foolish behaviour: don't make him draw for the Sun Ra. Update - fuck, turns out it was Corpsey, ah well at least we know it came from one of us.)



I'm so happy Forward>> is still the force it is and - thanks to Soulja - willing to take risks and lead rather than follow, so it was nuts to see a decendent of the mighty Alice Coltrane take to the decks. Yeah Kode's mate Mr Flying Lotus did an impromptu set, news of which broke on Sunday afternoon, only adding to the sense of anticipation of the evening. With Mr Lotus in the house, I love how the dots can be joined - speaking of which, it was nuts to see not just Benji B but the Theo fuckin' Parrish up in Forward, chilling by the stairs where Slimzee used to hang, back in the day. Speaking of a Rinse don, large bits of the night went out live on London's leading, look out for audio.

In retrospect our set seemed fun, though any DJ who says it isn't hyper intense being up there must be lying to you. But our rollage and 2step009 seemed to work, so I want to shout all the producers who made it possible: Kowton/Narcossist, Grievous Angel, Silkie, Sbtrkt, Burial and the swing don himself, Sully. Let's roll.

Pitchfork: back!

My Pitchfork Column returns post-site redesign, with a guest spot from Logan Sama, a third way for funky ("dubbage") and an interview with Swamp 81's Kryptic Minds and Loefah.