Thanks to everyone here and on dissensus for their kind comments on the last post. I've spruced it up a bit over the last couple of days with lots of extra Youtube links to tunes which I mentioned but didn't embed.
As promised/warned, here are some afterthoughts and further enlargements on the topic, but this time without any pretence at an overarching framework. So you're left with the top-of-the-head ramblings for now:
"4th – there’s an overall trend in the beat grids, away from ease of release and towards a certain tension, seen perhaps most obviously in all of grime, in wonky’s unquantised beats, and in the broken-clave patterns underlying funky. Also in dubstep, most obviously with the return to 2-step among some producers, but also with halfstep beats when done well, the hesitation about what the ‘real’ tempo is, the tension between elements pushing forward and pulling back. I have a growing feeling that this tension could be said to ‘reflect the times’ in an abstract sense, but this idea clearly needs elaboration at a later date ."
Well yes, I'm going to stand by that, though it's phrased clumsily and still needs more thought. But what I ought to have said also is that alongside the tense rhythms, another almost if not equally important component of many current tracks is the multi-tone-coloured, three-dimensional, joyously hyperkinetic melodies that leap out to grab the listeners' attention. These come through most strongly and obviously in funky, bassline and wonky dubstep, though examples could be found elsewhere. What is interesting though is the way these melodies both contrast with the percussion structures, making the tunes attractive and catchy, often adding a certain lightness, even nonchalance of mood, but also complement them, sharing the same twisted, off-kilter effects which disorientate the listener, setting them excitedly on edge.
Thinking about the beats like this has also brought home to me that I have next to no idea how to talk about the basic rhythmic templates in grime with any accuracy. And I'm not the only one here: the standard critical terms for dealing with grime beats seem to operate at the most general level, characterising them as stiff, cold, hard, twitchy, tense and so forth. Not having a dig here; the terms are accurate enough at their intended level, and useful in a way as an introduction to the newcomer, but y'know, we could do with something more. It's not that there is a lack of understanding either - follow an internet or other discussion between experienced, engaged grime fans and it's clear that they have a grasp of various beat templates operating in the genre, and that their understanding of these help shape the meaning and expectations attached to new tunes for them. It's just that there doesn't seem to be any standardly agreed on terms which would help express these conventions more clearly.
Anyhow, here's some other examples of generic mutation and cross-genre fertilisation that I either neglected to mention before or that have only occured/come to my attention after I published the post:
* "Dubblestep": Bit of a gimmick, a one-trick pony even, this one, but none the worse for it in terms of fun and immediate impact. See here for the dubblestep refix of Benga's 26 Basslines; supposedly there are others either in the pipeline or hiding unaired somewhere. It does exactly what it says on the tin really - rejigs the percussion on a half-step dubstep track so as to put the emphasis back on the full 140 bpm side of things, thus raising the energy levels and extracting the latent intesity from the tunes.
* The recent productions by Emvee. These I really should have mentioned before - released on Wireblock, these tunes operate on the borderline between funky and dubstep (his Myspace also has clips that throw bassline elements into the mix, though not yet too successfuly imo). Sadly there doesn't seem yet to be a Youtube clip for Nocturnal, my favourite from his current release, but there is one for the its flipside track, Glitch Dub, which is almost as good.
*Going back quite a bit further in time, on the funky refix front, I can't believe I missed this one, a classic of its sort that was big early last year just as that scene was beginning to rise to prominence and establish self as genuinely distinctive UK variant of traditional funky house.
(And the Benga and Coki original of this was a BBK Napa favourite in the summer of 2007, which played a part in it being one of the first and biggest dubstep tunes to cross over to a wider audience. The major previous one being Midnight Request Line, the melodicism, synth sounds and quirky/spooky atmopshere of which is now seen as a seminal influence on Joker and the Bristol 'purple' post-dubstep sound...... But you're getting the picture by now, I'm sure).
*As I mentioned Dexplicit's productions before, here's a link to excerpts from two recent bassline tunes by him that I'm really rather keen on.
* Been looking around for more tunes like Innami, not had much luck, the closest is perhaps Ramandanman's remix of A Nie Dyamata S Bobi Peim Kafe. However, whilst this tune is excellent, it is perhaps not wholly relevant to my case as it takes its source material directly from an existing non-UK track (still struggling with easily accesible on-line audio for both of these tunes: check that Night Slugs radio set posted in April that I love to bang on about for the Ramadanman, whilst Pearce's Innami can be found on this excellent mix by Pangea done back in March). But in the process I did remind myself about the following tune, one very much in next-level/wot-do-u-call-it territory to my ears, and which exhibts another kind of relationship to the existing UK post-garage styles, whilst still mixing very well with them, as demonstrated in various recent radio shows.
(Although having said that, I half-expect someone to pop up and point out that it's not quite as original as I'm making out, as I rather suspect it might also derive elements from the various established international forms of house music that I don't listen to much. Will have to look into that more. But don't let that distract you from how great it is!)
(The track title is nicely relevant too!)
Finally, in a nice little bit of synchronicity (which I've not yet decided helps prove anything or not), it's been pointed out to me that many of the points from my original post, especially those relating to the grime-funky relationship, were discussed in this recent Grime Debate on Rinse FM, featuring major DJs from the scene such as Spyro, Vectra, Scratcha and JJ. Between them they represent a case rather similar to mine and the opposing argument. Please do also read Elijah's contextualising post for the debate; in some respects he is on the other side of the debate to me, but it's well-expressed and again carries special weight coming from a currently operating grime DJ. You would do well to check his radio show archives too while you're there, the last 3 in particular have been fantastic.
*STOP-THE-PRESS EDIT* : You can now listen to a teaser clip of Innami here, and it will be out to buy on the Blunted Robots label from July 6th. Good times. (Thanks to Alex for the heads-up on this one).
Saturday, 13 June 2009
Saturday, 23 May 2009
Unity?
***Disclaimer: This should perhaps go without saying, but the following article, like all of those on this page which relate to music, is written from the perspective of a fan. As such, it represents the views of someone who is interested and enthusiastic about the music, but who not only lacks technical understanding about it but also is often quite new to the sounds under consideration and because of geographical location not with much opportunity to experience them first-hand. So this piece may very well contain opinions which could be taken as contentious; despite my best efforts to properly research it, it may even contain factual inaccuracies and displays of ignorance. Alternately, it may state a good deal of what to people more directly experienced amounts to the bleeding obvious. Any improvements, corrections or disagreements that you might like to add after reading it are more than welcome, and should be directed to the comments box. Now with that out of the way, to business... ***
Some of you out there may be aware that a few weeks ago I was lucky enough to attend a night in town featuring Hudson Mohawke and Kode 9 on the decks. I had a fantastic time - in fact, the experience has pushed me yet further into more excited about music again than is probably healthy for someone of my increasing years. I'd planned a big write-up on the night, as per my DMZ post below, but found it was difficult both to find enough interesting things to say and to stay true to the experience of the night at a level that went beyond sudden, vivid impressions, of which the following are some of the most memorable: tight mixing from 9, a good ¾rs of an hour of funky, Hud Mo giving us a mini blast of classic Chicago house, Grievous Angel getting played to top reaction, Glasgow going mad to the Bug’s tunes again, tons of jungle from Kode 9, loads of girls dancing and invading the stage, friends that I’d dragged along ending up getting into it. So all in all a great night.
But what seemed like a potentially much richer project was to write something about the thoughts the night had set off in me about the current music I'm into more generally. The thoughts were along these lines:
It's been occurring to me for quite a while now that the various styles of UK music that myself and a lot of the people that I chat with and read stuff from on-line - call them hardcore continuum, UK bass, post-garage, whatever - have been moving towards some kind of convergence.
I'd be hard pressed to pinpoint an exact starting point for this trend, but at a push to nominate a time and place I'd go for Ayia Napa from the summer of 2006 onwards (Martin Clark in this old Pitchfork column seems broadly to agree with me, which is promising). Since the time of 2-step garage's peak popularity around the turn of millennium, the Cyprus resort has been established as the prime holiday location for the UK's 'urban' demographic, with pretty much all the euphemisms and different nuances that term covers at play in the location. The holidaymaking clubbers brought with them taste for diverse but at some level related styles of UK music, which the djs and crews would quickly learn to cater for by playing genre-hopping sets. Marcua Nasty, one of the leading DJs playing the vanguard sound in UK funky house, rose to prominence here, but probably the most important figures in this regard were the grime collective Boy Better Know. A BBK Napa set, among the most popular in the resort, might feature some of the biggest, most crowd-pleasing tunes from grime, old-school garage, bassline, dubstep and funky house.
As the clubbers and performers returned home each year, this taste for genre-mixing seemed gradually to seep into the indigenous British music circuit. This process of intermixing has occurred at various levels: probably the first to really take off, and perhaps still the dominant medium, was that of DJ sets in clubs and on radio. Many of the most exciting figures in tune selection of the last 2 or 3 years have established part of their reputation through the ease and coherence with which they mix styles, hyping up the maximum excitement in their audience: Kode 9, Bok Bok and L-Vis, Ben UFO, Oneman, Brackles, the Bruk crew and others have all excelled in this regard, with their shows forming a major part of their output of popular and influential pirate stations like Rinse and Sub FM, and their sets making regular appearances at prominent, trendsetting London club nights such as FWD and Night Slugs.
Inevitably, this pan-hardcore unity displayed by the DJs had begun to slowly filter down into the actual new productions themselves. An early taste of this was given in 2006 through the brief, rather tentative interaction between grime and bassline. Skepta of BBK produced the massively popular Duppy which displayed grime and bassline's shared heritage in old-school speed garage, and the tunes' bassline elements were brought out more strongly in the remix by Jamie Duggan, that scene's major DJ. Producer Dexplicit, meanwhile, has gone from making crucial grime tracks like the Forward riddim to gaining widespread acceptance in bassline with productions like his banger Bullacake. Also from this time on, bassline tracks with grime-style mcing became common, seemingly especially amongst Birmingham/West Midlands artists, though often they were rather awkwardly executed.
But the real fruits of the cross-genre interaction has probably only become apparent over the last year or so. Many of the most striking examples have been quite isolated and sporadic rather than amounting to any coherent 'movement': along with his DJing rennaisance, Kode 9 in his
own productions has increaingly featured unusual beat-templates showing the influence of funky and broken beat, whilst recently several grime MCs such as Nasty Jack have vocalled tracks by dubstep-associated producers such as Zomby and Joker. Dirrty Goodz is perhaps the MC who has taken the grime/dubstep interaction the furthest (though Roll Deep's Flow Dan also deserves a mention here, especially for his long-term involvement with the dancehall-infused dubstep of the Bug). First collaborating with Dusk & Blackdown on the Concrete Streets on their 2007 album Margins Music, Goodz then went on to vocal Starkey’s killer tune Gutter Music, their version being released in March this year.
One of the most straightforwardly enjoyable and entertaining upshots of generic flexibility has been the recent spate of mash-up remixes. To my knowledge there could already be as many as half a dozen remixes of Tempa T’s huge current grime anthem Next Hype – some of the most interesting (no on-line audio as of yet for these) include the blends with the bangin grimey garage of DJ Oddz’s Blade Runner, the sinister whining synth-sleaze of Joker’s Hollybrook Park and the surreal kiddies-playgroup style experimental dubstep of Untold’s Anaconda, along with the more conventional mixes by Brackles and Plastician. Another blend doing the rounds is the thoroughly compelling mix of Zomby’s Aquafresh with the vocals from Dizzee Rascal’s Stand Up Tall.
Relevant here also is the increasing awareness of producers of the newer ‘wonky’ strands of dubstep of those executing similar strategies, but in the context of hip-hop and related styles like crunk. So Joker and Rustie have collaborated to make the Play Doe track, while Rustie has also remixed Zomby’s Spliff Dub to produce what is often taken as the definitive version of the tune. Kode 9’s Hyperdub label provides a shared home and distribution method for artists across different styles but sharing the same wonky aesthetic.
Also very important to mention is Mickey Pearce’s thrilling recent track Innami (again, sadly no on-line audio) which deploys discernable influences from funky, dubstep, dancehall and grime but generates an end-result which does not seem to be reducible to a mere addition of elements, a true ‘next-level’ tune. (To my knowledge there simply aren’t many other comparable tracks around yet; one possible point of reference is the spacey, twitchy rhythms of forward-looking Hessle Audio acts like Martin Kemp, Untold and Joe, though these artists, excellent though they are, seem more clearly rooted in dubstep).
The most fully-developed and probably up to now most discussed result of these cross-fertilisation, however, has been the spate of Grime-influenced funky house records. Once again, there are several observable layers to the developing relationship between grime and funky. It was first noticeable, from around 2005/6, in the influx of established grime DJs like Marcus Nasty, Supa D, Mak 10 and Geeneus (who has also become an important producer in both scenes) into the funky house circuit. But then, as these DJs looked to their production contacts for new beats that fitted with their own tastes, we saw the emergence of grime-influenced funky instrumentals from around the beginning of 2008. Traces of grime, in terms of textures, sounds and beats, can be found in virtually all examples of the forward-looking vanguard sound in UK Funky, but (to these ears) the most notably grime-influenced producers would include Lil Silva, Roska, Scotty D, DVA, Sami Sanchez, and Mario, and indeed the simplest research into the background of these figures shows that many of them had attempted to make grime beats, with varying degrees of success, prior to funky’s explosion. In some cases, the lineage has been made explicit in almost tribute-like fashion, with the production of several funky refixes of classic grime tunes: for example, Lil Silva’s reworking of Musical Mob’s Pulse X into Pulse vs. Flex, Grievous Angel’s recent refix of Riko’s version of the seminal Ice Rink riddim by Wiley, Roska remixing Scratcha DVA’s Nasty Nasty Nasty, and Gdub’s updating of When I’m Ere, the Roll Deep anthem. The popularity of this grime-flavoured funky has lead to another wave of major grime DJs such as Spyro and Maximum incorporating them into their sets.
And completing the picture is the much-debated development of grime MCs vocalling funky instrumentals. This first came to the fore in late 2008 with the popularity of ‘skank tracks’ (see here for some of the biggest ones), featuring MCs calling out dance moves in what often seemed like a nursery-rhyme esque style. Personally I was initially rather annoyed by the overtly cheesy novelty aspects of these tunes, but over time have come to enjoy most of them for precisely these same factors. But also notable about the tracks was the way that they often featured ‘failed’ grime artists like Gracious K and the KIG Family who have been on the margins of the scene for some time. And now as we’ve moved into 2009, the success of these tracks has drawn in some of the more established MCs to make their own attempts, leading to productions which undeniably sound like a more polished ‘finished article’, with the funky beats and grime flows gradually starting to sit more comfortably with each other. By far the best track so far in my opinion (and that of many others, it needs to be said) is Maxwell D’s infectious Blackberry Hype, which uses Lil Silva’s Different instrumental. Ghetto’s Came in the Game is also a more than decent effort, based on another Silva tune, Seasons. BBK have jumped into proceedings again with their funky-influenced single Too Many Man, of which I have mixed opinions. Also of great interest currently is grime giant D Double E’s radio freestyle on Reign, one of the big tracks of last year from Hard House Banton.
So these are, roughly, the facts, but what might it all mean. The broad point is that this united direction seems to be somewhere that the music, its producers and its audience want to go, not something being forced on it externally. Eclecticism and genre-merging are often, with a degree of justification, treated suspiciously as an attempt by non-aligned parties to cherry pick the most appealing elements from various fashionable scenes, without taking the effort to engage with those scenes on any deep level. Apart from this being a potentially dubious way to behave, the implication is that since these eclectic movements are dependent on prior scenes for their existence, and also tend to lack the strong social and geographical base of those core scenes, there is no real pressure or drive for them to develop innovative, exciting, important music of their own.
While this model does no doubt accurately describe many past occurrences, I (of course!) think something rather different is going on this time around.
Think of the complaints and concerns that have been raised consistently within the various scenes over the last couple of years. Within grime, there were eternal worries – there weren’t enough girls or enough femininity, there was too much focus on aggressive posturing, the tunes weren’t danceable enough, the MCs had come to dominate too much at the expense of the producers and DJs. Within dubstep, a similar set of endlessly-rehearsed complaints: the scene was too focussed on a certain notion of darkness, the music lacked life and humour, the increasingly dominant halfstep/wobble-bass format was plodding and monotonous. As funky house emerged, it was frequently suggested that the music was too tasteful, not banging enough, and also that it was too closely derivative of traditional US house. Whereas with bassline, the complaints centred on the music being too repetitive and the scene being too parochial, cut off from other currents of UK music and therefore developing at too slow a rate. With the recent focus on ‘wonky’ flavours of dubstep, and similar flavours that relate to instrumental hip-hop and in some cases to grime, a number of inter-related criticisms have been raised, even amongst those who enjoy the actual music as music: they are too esoteric, too centred on tongue-in-cheek humour, they are made for other producers rather than dancers, they are parasitic upon existing scenes and sounds which they can be construed as taking the mickey out of, they are an internet-driven phenomena lacking in real social energy.
Now is not the time to pass judgement on whether all these criticisms are valid, or whether the apparent deficiencies are or can be rectified. What interests me is that many of the most interesting debates centred on there being a certain lack in the styles of music, an absence of crucial elements which meant that the music wasn’t quite enough to stand on its own as the vanguard of UK hardcore music. (Speaking from an honest personal perspective, though I have loved and continue to love music from all these scenes, I have always felt very wary of aligning myself with one of them in particular, for fear that I would end up disappointed and disenchanted. None of them seem to have quite what it takes to make a zealot, a die-hard). *
This crisis seems to call for the existence of a new meta-genre which can combine the strengths of the different styles, plus generate new developments from their combination – I believe we are now witnessing the emergence of this meta-genre.
The unfolding of this process also seems to show that people still care about the music, and providing possibilities for it to continue to grow. And we can see that, despite people’s fearmongering, there have been new hardcore genres that have emerged in the 2000s. However, there are clearly differences, (not necessarily in themselves indicative of a decline or deficiency, just a change) in the ways that things operate. Observations on these will have to basically stay in note form for now, as time and space are against me:
1st – scenes and genres develop more slowly, or at least, over longer periods of time, and 2nd - scenes and genres co-exist for longer spells, without one having to replace or supersede the other, both of these points probably relate to the fact that the basic templates for the styles, esp. in grime and dubstep, are quite open, have room to be filled-in in many different ways.
3rd – the scenes and genres aren’t so strongly tied to a single, physical geographical infrastructure, i.e. there is more of a contingent of international outposts and especially more of a feedback loop from the use of the web. But this shouldn’t obscure the fact that there is still usually a localised centre for each style of music. E.g. with dubstep, very rapid international spread, in part due to ties with drum & bass, but the core of the scene is still in London with DMZ and FWD; witness here the eternally-stated importance of hearing dubstep out on a big system to fully appreciate it. A plus side to this partial dispersion, though, is obviously that new people will have access to the music, and hopefully make something of it. Pirate radio over the internet seems to be esp. important here; people's suspicion about the internet as music distribution method seem to be partly based on concerns that it makes listening a solitary, isolated experience. But in fact people share their responses to the broadcasts in real-time via the various combinations of MSN/forums/ live-chat associated with each station (the live response to Logan Sama’s shows on Grimeforum being a particularly notable example here).
4th – there’s an overall trend in the beat grids, away from ease of release and towards a certain tension, seen perhaps most obviously in all of grime, in wonky’s unquantised beats, and in the broken-clave patterns underlying funky. Also in dubstep, most obviously with the return to 2-step among some producers, but also with halfstep beats when done well, the hesitation about what the ‘real’ tempo is, the tension between elements pushing forward and pulling back. I have a growing feeling that this tension could be said to ‘reflect the times’ in an abstract sense, but this idea clearly needs elaboration at a later date .
A 5th point, and one which really can't be fully developed here: in addition to the cross-genre interplay already discussed, there seems to be a strong current of influence from non-UK music, including styles outside the usual contact zone of the US, Jamaica, and certain parts of Europe. The most obvious of these are the elements drawing from soca and also sometimes from strands of African house and pop in funky. As stated above, discussion of these sounds takes us beyond the concerns of this article. Those who are interested should have a look at this article
on the Heatwave blog, plus shorter updates on the site from there onwards, which deal particularly with the interaction between UK funky and Jamaican dancehall, also this post on Lower End Spasm, discussing various Carribean influences on funky, plus an interesting comment-box debate where sceptical points are raised as to how strongly the new UK music is influenced directly from Africa, as opposed to sounds found 2nd or 3rd hand via US house.
But I would like to briefly address the occasional insinuation that this acceptance of new global influences is a sign of weakness and poor health in the music, as the new sounds are being interpreted and re-worked within the context of the UK scenes. Simon Reynolds, in his recent influential FACT talk (which I wanted to link to here but was defeated by broken htmls) emphasises the way that UK hardcore scenes are at their strongest when producers are listening outward to other contemporary styles of music and incorporating their influence, but working through this influence using their existing home-grown framework - both in terms of the current musical format and the wider cultural context of the scene.
This post is meant, then, as a sort of bedrock for discussion of the current state of play, and there are various parts of it which I hope to expand on in the near future, but this will have to do for now!
* And while I could make out a decent case for being justified in 3 out of the 4 cases, I can acknowledge that in the case of grime, the problem largely lies on my part rather than with the music. Despite its fluctuating levels of popularity, grime consistently seems to perform best in the UK hardcore scenes in terms of generating fervour and commitment amongst fans, amounting in some cases to an almost life-changing impact. And I can certainly see why. Not only is the music strikingly original, but it addresses social issues in a direct way, has DIY production ethos which encourages participation, and is an adsorbing, immersive culture with its own slang and own set of folkways - sending etc. The reasons why despite loving much of the music I've always held back from becoming a full-time grime head are more to do with my personal expectations - perhaps because I'm still new to this tradition of music as a whole, and still totally enamoured by rave and jungle, I always get stuck on this ideal that the central UK hardcore sound should primarily be about dancing. Now I do think that a lot of grime beats are actually very danceable, in a certain fashion, in contrast to what is often said or assumed about them. But it remains the case that danceability and the dancefloor are not the main concern of grime; it takes its identity from being a self-consciously MC-led sound. I'm not the only person to raise these concerns of course, as mentioned earlier on. However, it would seem that actually requesting that MCs fade back into the background of a sort of rave-host role and that the beats become more linear and locked into a groove would be perverse, as it is precisely these aspects which make grime a distinctive genre. So instead of projecting my ideals onto it, I choose to appreciate it as it is.
Some of you out there may be aware that a few weeks ago I was lucky enough to attend a night in town featuring Hudson Mohawke and Kode 9 on the decks. I had a fantastic time - in fact, the experience has pushed me yet further into more excited about music again than is probably healthy for someone of my increasing years. I'd planned a big write-up on the night, as per my DMZ post below, but found it was difficult both to find enough interesting things to say and to stay true to the experience of the night at a level that went beyond sudden, vivid impressions, of which the following are some of the most memorable: tight mixing from 9, a good ¾rs of an hour of funky, Hud Mo giving us a mini blast of classic Chicago house, Grievous Angel getting played to top reaction, Glasgow going mad to the Bug’s tunes again, tons of jungle from Kode 9, loads of girls dancing and invading the stage, friends that I’d dragged along ending up getting into it. So all in all a great night.
But what seemed like a potentially much richer project was to write something about the thoughts the night had set off in me about the current music I'm into more generally. The thoughts were along these lines:
It's been occurring to me for quite a while now that the various styles of UK music that myself and a lot of the people that I chat with and read stuff from on-line - call them hardcore continuum, UK bass, post-garage, whatever - have been moving towards some kind of convergence.
I'd be hard pressed to pinpoint an exact starting point for this trend, but at a push to nominate a time and place I'd go for Ayia Napa from the summer of 2006 onwards (Martin Clark in this old Pitchfork column seems broadly to agree with me, which is promising). Since the time of 2-step garage's peak popularity around the turn of millennium, the Cyprus resort has been established as the prime holiday location for the UK's 'urban' demographic, with pretty much all the euphemisms and different nuances that term covers at play in the location. The holidaymaking clubbers brought with them taste for diverse but at some level related styles of UK music, which the djs and crews would quickly learn to cater for by playing genre-hopping sets. Marcua Nasty, one of the leading DJs playing the vanguard sound in UK funky house, rose to prominence here, but probably the most important figures in this regard were the grime collective Boy Better Know. A BBK Napa set, among the most popular in the resort, might feature some of the biggest, most crowd-pleasing tunes from grime, old-school garage, bassline, dubstep and funky house.
As the clubbers and performers returned home each year, this taste for genre-mixing seemed gradually to seep into the indigenous British music circuit. This process of intermixing has occurred at various levels: probably the first to really take off, and perhaps still the dominant medium, was that of DJ sets in clubs and on radio. Many of the most exciting figures in tune selection of the last 2 or 3 years have established part of their reputation through the ease and coherence with which they mix styles, hyping up the maximum excitement in their audience: Kode 9, Bok Bok and L-Vis, Ben UFO, Oneman, Brackles, the Bruk crew and others have all excelled in this regard, with their shows forming a major part of their output of popular and influential pirate stations like Rinse and Sub FM, and their sets making regular appearances at prominent, trendsetting London club nights such as FWD and Night Slugs.
Inevitably, this pan-hardcore unity displayed by the DJs had begun to slowly filter down into the actual new productions themselves. An early taste of this was given in 2006 through the brief, rather tentative interaction between grime and bassline. Skepta of BBK produced the massively popular Duppy which displayed grime and bassline's shared heritage in old-school speed garage, and the tunes' bassline elements were brought out more strongly in the remix by Jamie Duggan, that scene's major DJ. Producer Dexplicit, meanwhile, has gone from making crucial grime tracks like the Forward riddim to gaining widespread acceptance in bassline with productions like his banger Bullacake. Also from this time on, bassline tracks with grime-style mcing became common, seemingly especially amongst Birmingham/West Midlands artists, though often they were rather awkwardly executed.
But the real fruits of the cross-genre interaction has probably only become apparent over the last year or so. Many of the most striking examples have been quite isolated and sporadic rather than amounting to any coherent 'movement': along with his DJing rennaisance, Kode 9 in his
own productions has increaingly featured unusual beat-templates showing the influence of funky and broken beat, whilst recently several grime MCs such as Nasty Jack have vocalled tracks by dubstep-associated producers such as Zomby and Joker. Dirrty Goodz is perhaps the MC who has taken the grime/dubstep interaction the furthest (though Roll Deep's Flow Dan also deserves a mention here, especially for his long-term involvement with the dancehall-infused dubstep of the Bug). First collaborating with Dusk & Blackdown on the Concrete Streets on their 2007 album Margins Music, Goodz then went on to vocal Starkey’s killer tune Gutter Music, their version being released in March this year.
One of the most straightforwardly enjoyable and entertaining upshots of generic flexibility has been the recent spate of mash-up remixes. To my knowledge there could already be as many as half a dozen remixes of Tempa T’s huge current grime anthem Next Hype – some of the most interesting (no on-line audio as of yet for these) include the blends with the bangin grimey garage of DJ Oddz’s Blade Runner, the sinister whining synth-sleaze of Joker’s Hollybrook Park and the surreal kiddies-playgroup style experimental dubstep of Untold’s Anaconda, along with the more conventional mixes by Brackles and Plastician. Another blend doing the rounds is the thoroughly compelling mix of Zomby’s Aquafresh with the vocals from Dizzee Rascal’s Stand Up Tall.
Relevant here also is the increasing awareness of producers of the newer ‘wonky’ strands of dubstep of those executing similar strategies, but in the context of hip-hop and related styles like crunk. So Joker and Rustie have collaborated to make the Play Doe track, while Rustie has also remixed Zomby’s Spliff Dub to produce what is often taken as the definitive version of the tune. Kode 9’s Hyperdub label provides a shared home and distribution method for artists across different styles but sharing the same wonky aesthetic.
Also very important to mention is Mickey Pearce’s thrilling recent track Innami (again, sadly no on-line audio) which deploys discernable influences from funky, dubstep, dancehall and grime but generates an end-result which does not seem to be reducible to a mere addition of elements, a true ‘next-level’ tune. (To my knowledge there simply aren’t many other comparable tracks around yet; one possible point of reference is the spacey, twitchy rhythms of forward-looking Hessle Audio acts like Martin Kemp, Untold and Joe, though these artists, excellent though they are, seem more clearly rooted in dubstep).
The most fully-developed and probably up to now most discussed result of these cross-fertilisation, however, has been the spate of Grime-influenced funky house records. Once again, there are several observable layers to the developing relationship between grime and funky. It was first noticeable, from around 2005/6, in the influx of established grime DJs like Marcus Nasty, Supa D, Mak 10 and Geeneus (who has also become an important producer in both scenes) into the funky house circuit. But then, as these DJs looked to their production contacts for new beats that fitted with their own tastes, we saw the emergence of grime-influenced funky instrumentals from around the beginning of 2008. Traces of grime, in terms of textures, sounds and beats, can be found in virtually all examples of the forward-looking vanguard sound in UK Funky, but (to these ears) the most notably grime-influenced producers would include Lil Silva, Roska, Scotty D, DVA, Sami Sanchez, and Mario, and indeed the simplest research into the background of these figures shows that many of them had attempted to make grime beats, with varying degrees of success, prior to funky’s explosion. In some cases, the lineage has been made explicit in almost tribute-like fashion, with the production of several funky refixes of classic grime tunes: for example, Lil Silva’s reworking of Musical Mob’s Pulse X into Pulse vs. Flex, Grievous Angel’s recent refix of Riko’s version of the seminal Ice Rink riddim by Wiley, Roska remixing Scratcha DVA’s Nasty Nasty Nasty, and Gdub’s updating of When I’m Ere, the Roll Deep anthem. The popularity of this grime-flavoured funky has lead to another wave of major grime DJs such as Spyro and Maximum incorporating them into their sets.
And completing the picture is the much-debated development of grime MCs vocalling funky instrumentals. This first came to the fore in late 2008 with the popularity of ‘skank tracks’ (see here for some of the biggest ones), featuring MCs calling out dance moves in what often seemed like a nursery-rhyme esque style. Personally I was initially rather annoyed by the overtly cheesy novelty aspects of these tunes, but over time have come to enjoy most of them for precisely these same factors. But also notable about the tracks was the way that they often featured ‘failed’ grime artists like Gracious K and the KIG Family who have been on the margins of the scene for some time. And now as we’ve moved into 2009, the success of these tracks has drawn in some of the more established MCs to make their own attempts, leading to productions which undeniably sound like a more polished ‘finished article’, with the funky beats and grime flows gradually starting to sit more comfortably with each other. By far the best track so far in my opinion (and that of many others, it needs to be said) is Maxwell D’s infectious Blackberry Hype, which uses Lil Silva’s Different instrumental. Ghetto’s Came in the Game is also a more than decent effort, based on another Silva tune, Seasons. BBK have jumped into proceedings again with their funky-influenced single Too Many Man, of which I have mixed opinions. Also of great interest currently is grime giant D Double E’s radio freestyle on Reign, one of the big tracks of last year from Hard House Banton.
So these are, roughly, the facts, but what might it all mean. The broad point is that this united direction seems to be somewhere that the music, its producers and its audience want to go, not something being forced on it externally. Eclecticism and genre-merging are often, with a degree of justification, treated suspiciously as an attempt by non-aligned parties to cherry pick the most appealing elements from various fashionable scenes, without taking the effort to engage with those scenes on any deep level. Apart from this being a potentially dubious way to behave, the implication is that since these eclectic movements are dependent on prior scenes for their existence, and also tend to lack the strong social and geographical base of those core scenes, there is no real pressure or drive for them to develop innovative, exciting, important music of their own.
While this model does no doubt accurately describe many past occurrences, I (of course!) think something rather different is going on this time around.
Think of the complaints and concerns that have been raised consistently within the various scenes over the last couple of years. Within grime, there were eternal worries – there weren’t enough girls or enough femininity, there was too much focus on aggressive posturing, the tunes weren’t danceable enough, the MCs had come to dominate too much at the expense of the producers and DJs. Within dubstep, a similar set of endlessly-rehearsed complaints: the scene was too focussed on a certain notion of darkness, the music lacked life and humour, the increasingly dominant halfstep/wobble-bass format was plodding and monotonous. As funky house emerged, it was frequently suggested that the music was too tasteful, not banging enough, and also that it was too closely derivative of traditional US house. Whereas with bassline, the complaints centred on the music being too repetitive and the scene being too parochial, cut off from other currents of UK music and therefore developing at too slow a rate. With the recent focus on ‘wonky’ flavours of dubstep, and similar flavours that relate to instrumental hip-hop and in some cases to grime, a number of inter-related criticisms have been raised, even amongst those who enjoy the actual music as music: they are too esoteric, too centred on tongue-in-cheek humour, they are made for other producers rather than dancers, they are parasitic upon existing scenes and sounds which they can be construed as taking the mickey out of, they are an internet-driven phenomena lacking in real social energy.
Now is not the time to pass judgement on whether all these criticisms are valid, or whether the apparent deficiencies are or can be rectified. What interests me is that many of the most interesting debates centred on there being a certain lack in the styles of music, an absence of crucial elements which meant that the music wasn’t quite enough to stand on its own as the vanguard of UK hardcore music. (Speaking from an honest personal perspective, though I have loved and continue to love music from all these scenes, I have always felt very wary of aligning myself with one of them in particular, for fear that I would end up disappointed and disenchanted. None of them seem to have quite what it takes to make a zealot, a die-hard). *
This crisis seems to call for the existence of a new meta-genre which can combine the strengths of the different styles, plus generate new developments from their combination – I believe we are now witnessing the emergence of this meta-genre.
The unfolding of this process also seems to show that people still care about the music, and providing possibilities for it to continue to grow. And we can see that, despite people’s fearmongering, there have been new hardcore genres that have emerged in the 2000s. However, there are clearly differences, (not necessarily in themselves indicative of a decline or deficiency, just a change) in the ways that things operate. Observations on these will have to basically stay in note form for now, as time and space are against me:
1st – scenes and genres develop more slowly, or at least, over longer periods of time, and 2nd - scenes and genres co-exist for longer spells, without one having to replace or supersede the other, both of these points probably relate to the fact that the basic templates for the styles, esp. in grime and dubstep, are quite open, have room to be filled-in in many different ways.
3rd – the scenes and genres aren’t so strongly tied to a single, physical geographical infrastructure, i.e. there is more of a contingent of international outposts and especially more of a feedback loop from the use of the web. But this shouldn’t obscure the fact that there is still usually a localised centre for each style of music. E.g. with dubstep, very rapid international spread, in part due to ties with drum & bass, but the core of the scene is still in London with DMZ and FWD; witness here the eternally-stated importance of hearing dubstep out on a big system to fully appreciate it. A plus side to this partial dispersion, though, is obviously that new people will have access to the music, and hopefully make something of it. Pirate radio over the internet seems to be esp. important here; people's suspicion about the internet as music distribution method seem to be partly based on concerns that it makes listening a solitary, isolated experience. But in fact people share their responses to the broadcasts in real-time via the various combinations of MSN/forums/ live-chat associated with each station (the live response to Logan Sama’s shows on Grimeforum being a particularly notable example here).
4th – there’s an overall trend in the beat grids, away from ease of release and towards a certain tension, seen perhaps most obviously in all of grime, in wonky’s unquantised beats, and in the broken-clave patterns underlying funky. Also in dubstep, most obviously with the return to 2-step among some producers, but also with halfstep beats when done well, the hesitation about what the ‘real’ tempo is, the tension between elements pushing forward and pulling back. I have a growing feeling that this tension could be said to ‘reflect the times’ in an abstract sense, but this idea clearly needs elaboration at a later date .
A 5th point, and one which really can't be fully developed here: in addition to the cross-genre interplay already discussed, there seems to be a strong current of influence from non-UK music, including styles outside the usual contact zone of the US, Jamaica, and certain parts of Europe. The most obvious of these are the elements drawing from soca and also sometimes from strands of African house and pop in funky. As stated above, discussion of these sounds takes us beyond the concerns of this article. Those who are interested should have a look at this article
on the Heatwave blog, plus shorter updates on the site from there onwards, which deal particularly with the interaction between UK funky and Jamaican dancehall, also this post on Lower End Spasm, discussing various Carribean influences on funky, plus an interesting comment-box debate where sceptical points are raised as to how strongly the new UK music is influenced directly from Africa, as opposed to sounds found 2nd or 3rd hand via US house.
But I would like to briefly address the occasional insinuation that this acceptance of new global influences is a sign of weakness and poor health in the music, as the new sounds are being interpreted and re-worked within the context of the UK scenes. Simon Reynolds, in his recent influential FACT talk (which I wanted to link to here but was defeated by broken htmls) emphasises the way that UK hardcore scenes are at their strongest when producers are listening outward to other contemporary styles of music and incorporating their influence, but working through this influence using their existing home-grown framework - both in terms of the current musical format and the wider cultural context of the scene.
This post is meant, then, as a sort of bedrock for discussion of the current state of play, and there are various parts of it which I hope to expand on in the near future, but this will have to do for now!
* And while I could make out a decent case for being justified in 3 out of the 4 cases, I can acknowledge that in the case of grime, the problem largely lies on my part rather than with the music. Despite its fluctuating levels of popularity, grime consistently seems to perform best in the UK hardcore scenes in terms of generating fervour and commitment amongst fans, amounting in some cases to an almost life-changing impact. And I can certainly see why. Not only is the music strikingly original, but it addresses social issues in a direct way, has DIY production ethos which encourages participation, and is an adsorbing, immersive culture with its own slang and own set of folkways - sending etc. The reasons why despite loving much of the music I've always held back from becoming a full-time grime head are more to do with my personal expectations - perhaps because I'm still new to this tradition of music as a whole, and still totally enamoured by rave and jungle, I always get stuck on this ideal that the central UK hardcore sound should primarily be about dancing. Now I do think that a lot of grime beats are actually very danceable, in a certain fashion, in contrast to what is often said or assumed about them. But it remains the case that danceability and the dancefloor are not the main concern of grime; it takes its identity from being a self-consciously MC-led sound. I'm not the only person to raise these concerns of course, as mentioned earlier on. However, it would seem that actually requesting that MCs fade back into the background of a sort of rave-host role and that the beats become more linear and locked into a groove would be perverse, as it is precisely these aspects which make grime a distinctive genre. So instead of projecting my ideals onto it, I choose to appreciate it as it is.
Friday, 24 April 2009
The Sound of Now
Everyone has to download and listen to this radio show as soon as they can! Get if from here:
http://dot-alt.blogspot.com/2009/04/night-slugs-south-crazy-cousinz-sub.html
Scroll down the page a bit. It's Alex Bok Bok on Sub FM with guest dj L-Vis. I downloaded this show soon after it was posted up, when it appeared in my blog updates, but then didn't get around to listening to it for a couple of weeks. I was missing out! These couple of hours pretty much sum up what I think is exciting about new British music right now. Even if you're not familiar with the type of music being played, just take a wander in, you honestly won't regret it. You can catch Alex on Sub FM every alternate Saturday from 5 - 7 pm, links to the stream on the above page.
Edit: as some of you may have noticed, I had the time of the show completely wrong the first time around. Lol. Thanks to 4linehaiku for the correction!
http://dot-alt.blogspot.com/2009/04/night-slugs-south-crazy-cousinz-sub.html
Scroll down the page a bit. It's Alex Bok Bok on Sub FM with guest dj L-Vis. I downloaded this show soon after it was posted up, when it appeared in my blog updates, but then didn't get around to listening to it for a couple of weeks. I was missing out! These couple of hours pretty much sum up what I think is exciting about new British music right now. Even if you're not familiar with the type of music being played, just take a wander in, you honestly won't regret it. You can catch Alex on Sub FM every alternate Saturday from 5 - 7 pm, links to the stream on the above page.
Edit: as some of you may have noticed, I had the time of the show completely wrong the first time around. Lol. Thanks to 4linehaiku for the correction!
Thursday, 23 April 2009
Initiation in bass weight: DMZ
So last Friday, I finally made it along to a dubstep night. DMZ made the trip up from London to play at the Art School, and they brought along their core crew: Mala and Loefah djing with Sgt Pokes on the mic.
Over-preparing for any potential queues or complications, I arrived at 11, with the doors to the union just freshly opened and only a handfull of people about. I was flying solo for the night, which tbh I'm starting to find a bit of a drag these days. I mean, I long ago got over being self-conscious about it and I nearly always manage to have a good time regardless, but it just feels unnatural and adds an extra layer of stress to preceding. In fact, sitting on one of several empty and extremely comfy old couches along the side of the union's main room, I felt strangely like I could have been relaxing back in my living room. A version of my living room with a collosal soundsystem freshly installed, however, as Electric Elimantors, the night's regular residents and a more than worthy opening outfit for the night, were already banging out tunes on the decks.
One of the bonus benefits of the night was the way that it gave me, after a long abscence, an excuse to experience just how fun and well-equipped a venue for a night out the Art School can be. The soundsystem for the night was simply but expertly organised, with a hefty bank of speakers placed haflway between the stage/dj area and the bar, providing everyone in the main dancefloor area with deep, enthralling surround sound. The Eleminators stretched out for a good couple of hours, and were a worthy opener to the line-up. As far as I could tell, they operated as a kind of revolving team, with about four different people taking turns on the decks. Their early material was closer to instrumental hip-hop than dubstep, but after about 20 mins, as people steadily streamed into the room, I first heard what I'd come for: the bass.
I may as well get if off my chest at this stage: prior to this night, I had been a sub-bass virgin. Well, sort of: it had been a part of much of the music I know and love, and for some time I’d roughly understood how it worked in principle, bit I’d never experienced sub pressure out over a big system. My speakers at home clearly couldn’t compare. Sub-bass produces a rich, unusual sensory response; the sound is physically felt as much as it is heard. Sitting there, adsorbing the music, it felt as if each bass note was pinpointing and focussing in on me directly, in a similar motion to the stroboscopic lights beaming across the dancefloor. As the Eliminators’ set continued, and the room began steadily to fill up, I made my way over to stand by the speakers, and from there gradually found myself starting to dance in what I hoped was a nicely inconspicuous spot of my own. Nothing but good things to be said about the rest of the crowd though: as far from oppressively student as was ever going to be possible for a night held in a student union, there was very little of the ‘professionally scruffy’ stereotype for which dubstep fans are sometimes slagged off on display. Another nice blow against the preconceptions was the healthy proportion of females in attendance, at least 40% of the crowd in my estimation, all totally into the music.
Electric Eliminators stetched out for a good two hours, and played a varied selection which reached beyond strictly dubstep. To my delight, there was grime in the form of Wiley’s Bow E3 ( possibly in remix form, I couldn’t be sure), which drew a great crowd response, seemingly telling against the perception that grime travels less well outside of London than dubstep. We were also treated to some dancehall, with Warrior Queen’s anthem Almighty Father getting a play (I only realised recently just how filthy the lyrics to this song actually are, luvvit though). And perhaps best of all, I was very pleased to hear the appearance of some UK funky house, as the Eleminators dropped NB Funky’s big current tune Riddim Box towards the end of their set. I have a lot of hopes that this sort of music could do well in Glasgow, given the city’s longstanding appreciation for soul. Certainly, there were plenty smiles around me on the floor while it played, although many people still seemed to be learning how to dance to the new kinds of grooves. Riddim Box was also important for marking the first rewind of the night. Indeed, this was the first time I’d heard records being rewound in a Glasgow club, but the crowd seemed to get into it straight away. Over the course of the night, the djs seemed to strike the right balance between hyping up the crowd and interrupting the flow, with about 5 of the big tunes getting pulled back.
With the dancefloor now increasingly busy, the DMZ crew finally took over the decks at about 1 am. I was to recongise only a small fraction of the records that they played, but this element of surprise only seemed to add to the experience. Mala was up first, and it quickly became clear that he had an expert grasp of how to structure a set. Although the majority of the tracks that he chose fitted into the half-step format, he seemed to know exactly when to switch it up by reaching for some, erm, ‘full-step’. I was impressed by the flexibility, complexity and enthusiastic energy of the percussion on the more uptempo tracks, provoking plenty of rapid hand movements and upper-body action from the dancers. Just seeing and experiencing the particular type of dancing that this music enforces – a strange, somewhat jerky movement equally balanced between skanking and moshing – was a revelation. His selections with a slower feel were dark, appealingly so from my perspective, but also contained plenty of breathing space, and featured a certain sort of sonic depth. Both of these factors seemed to demonstrate a flourishing of the ‘dub’ aspects in dubstep in a way that avoided being strictly imitative.
Along with the music, the other key factor in the performance was Sgt Pokes’ MCing. As with the rewinds, to the best of my knowledge this was the first time I’d experience someone chatting on a mic over records. Pokes worked up the crowd with ease, his controlling impact aided by his imposing physical presence. His repeated catchphrases – ‘original skankage’, ‘this one’s industrial’, ‘eyes down!’, ‘fortified!’ and others which were sadly half-forgotten once the night was over – often helped set the tone for appropriate type of dancing to match each tune. My one gripe with him would be that he repeated his cackling, demonic laugh to the point where it became a bit corny – although I was certainly impressed by the perfect accuracy with which he reproduced it each time.
Slightly over an hour into proceedings, Pokes began to chant ‘last one Mala’, and with applause for all involved, Loefah seamlessly took over control of the turntables. It quickly became clear that his set would focus more closely on the ‘standard’ half-step sound with which dubstep is now widely associated, and sometimes criticised for. However, his particular take on it appealed to me a good deal, as it tended to center on the caustic, heavy, bordering on industrial textures which represent one of the substyles within this template that I find more exciting (the other being the tunes that take the wobbling basslines in a more fun-centred, jump-up direction). Around 30-40 minutes in, there was a short spell where he seemed to be losing us; the tune selection shifted more into the sort of buzzing mid-range riffs combined with uneventful beats which have drawn some legitimate discontent. You could see the change on the dancefloor; it might have been the time of night as much as the music, but the energy levels dropped, people began moving in a more sluggish, trudging fashion.
But Loeafah must have quickly noticed the change in vibe himself, and he reached for an anthem, dropping the Bug’s collaboration with Warrior Queen, Poison Dart. This received the biggest crowd reaction of the night, with cheers and a huge surge towards the stage. For the next 20 minutes in he kept the energy level right up, with a continual flow of bangers. The Bug’s album London Zoo must have made an impact up here, as Ganja, his b-side featuring Flowdan, garnered another strong response from the floor. As the immediately following tune entered into the mix, we were already beyond 3 o’clock, and so were treated to the house lights being turned on, in combination with various organisor-looking types wandering on to the stage and gesturing to DMZ to start wrapping it up. This seemed merely to work up the crowd even further, with one lad even leaping up to dance on stage. As Loefah finally wound to a stop, he was greeted with cheers, hearty applause and chants of ‘one more tune’, but I decided that with licensing laws involved an encore was unlikely, so began to make my way home (would love to hear from someone if I turned out to be wrong!). The end to the night strengthened my longstanding conviction that extended licenses ought to be granted more readily in Glasgow for these sorts of events. But I’m not going to let a moan spoil my judgement of a fantastic night. It was a night of important musical firsts for me, and well worth the wait.
Over-preparing for any potential queues or complications, I arrived at 11, with the doors to the union just freshly opened and only a handfull of people about. I was flying solo for the night, which tbh I'm starting to find a bit of a drag these days. I mean, I long ago got over being self-conscious about it and I nearly always manage to have a good time regardless, but it just feels unnatural and adds an extra layer of stress to preceding. In fact, sitting on one of several empty and extremely comfy old couches along the side of the union's main room, I felt strangely like I could have been relaxing back in my living room. A version of my living room with a collosal soundsystem freshly installed, however, as Electric Elimantors, the night's regular residents and a more than worthy opening outfit for the night, were already banging out tunes on the decks.
One of the bonus benefits of the night was the way that it gave me, after a long abscence, an excuse to experience just how fun and well-equipped a venue for a night out the Art School can be. The soundsystem for the night was simply but expertly organised, with a hefty bank of speakers placed haflway between the stage/dj area and the bar, providing everyone in the main dancefloor area with deep, enthralling surround sound. The Eleminators stretched out for a good couple of hours, and were a worthy opener to the line-up. As far as I could tell, they operated as a kind of revolving team, with about four different people taking turns on the decks. Their early material was closer to instrumental hip-hop than dubstep, but after about 20 mins, as people steadily streamed into the room, I first heard what I'd come for: the bass.
I may as well get if off my chest at this stage: prior to this night, I had been a sub-bass virgin. Well, sort of: it had been a part of much of the music I know and love, and for some time I’d roughly understood how it worked in principle, bit I’d never experienced sub pressure out over a big system. My speakers at home clearly couldn’t compare. Sub-bass produces a rich, unusual sensory response; the sound is physically felt as much as it is heard. Sitting there, adsorbing the music, it felt as if each bass note was pinpointing and focussing in on me directly, in a similar motion to the stroboscopic lights beaming across the dancefloor. As the Eliminators’ set continued, and the room began steadily to fill up, I made my way over to stand by the speakers, and from there gradually found myself starting to dance in what I hoped was a nicely inconspicuous spot of my own. Nothing but good things to be said about the rest of the crowd though: as far from oppressively student as was ever going to be possible for a night held in a student union, there was very little of the ‘professionally scruffy’ stereotype for which dubstep fans are sometimes slagged off on display. Another nice blow against the preconceptions was the healthy proportion of females in attendance, at least 40% of the crowd in my estimation, all totally into the music.
Electric Eliminators stetched out for a good two hours, and played a varied selection which reached beyond strictly dubstep. To my delight, there was grime in the form of Wiley’s Bow E3 ( possibly in remix form, I couldn’t be sure), which drew a great crowd response, seemingly telling against the perception that grime travels less well outside of London than dubstep. We were also treated to some dancehall, with Warrior Queen’s anthem Almighty Father getting a play (I only realised recently just how filthy the lyrics to this song actually are, luvvit though). And perhaps best of all, I was very pleased to hear the appearance of some UK funky house, as the Eleminators dropped NB Funky’s big current tune Riddim Box towards the end of their set. I have a lot of hopes that this sort of music could do well in Glasgow, given the city’s longstanding appreciation for soul. Certainly, there were plenty smiles around me on the floor while it played, although many people still seemed to be learning how to dance to the new kinds of grooves. Riddim Box was also important for marking the first rewind of the night. Indeed, this was the first time I’d heard records being rewound in a Glasgow club, but the crowd seemed to get into it straight away. Over the course of the night, the djs seemed to strike the right balance between hyping up the crowd and interrupting the flow, with about 5 of the big tunes getting pulled back.
With the dancefloor now increasingly busy, the DMZ crew finally took over the decks at about 1 am. I was to recongise only a small fraction of the records that they played, but this element of surprise only seemed to add to the experience. Mala was up first, and it quickly became clear that he had an expert grasp of how to structure a set. Although the majority of the tracks that he chose fitted into the half-step format, he seemed to know exactly when to switch it up by reaching for some, erm, ‘full-step’. I was impressed by the flexibility, complexity and enthusiastic energy of the percussion on the more uptempo tracks, provoking plenty of rapid hand movements and upper-body action from the dancers. Just seeing and experiencing the particular type of dancing that this music enforces – a strange, somewhat jerky movement equally balanced between skanking and moshing – was a revelation. His selections with a slower feel were dark, appealingly so from my perspective, but also contained plenty of breathing space, and featured a certain sort of sonic depth. Both of these factors seemed to demonstrate a flourishing of the ‘dub’ aspects in dubstep in a way that avoided being strictly imitative.
Along with the music, the other key factor in the performance was Sgt Pokes’ MCing. As with the rewinds, to the best of my knowledge this was the first time I’d experience someone chatting on a mic over records. Pokes worked up the crowd with ease, his controlling impact aided by his imposing physical presence. His repeated catchphrases – ‘original skankage’, ‘this one’s industrial’, ‘eyes down!’, ‘fortified!’ and others which were sadly half-forgotten once the night was over – often helped set the tone for appropriate type of dancing to match each tune. My one gripe with him would be that he repeated his cackling, demonic laugh to the point where it became a bit corny – although I was certainly impressed by the perfect accuracy with which he reproduced it each time.
Slightly over an hour into proceedings, Pokes began to chant ‘last one Mala’, and with applause for all involved, Loefah seamlessly took over control of the turntables. It quickly became clear that his set would focus more closely on the ‘standard’ half-step sound with which dubstep is now widely associated, and sometimes criticised for. However, his particular take on it appealed to me a good deal, as it tended to center on the caustic, heavy, bordering on industrial textures which represent one of the substyles within this template that I find more exciting (the other being the tunes that take the wobbling basslines in a more fun-centred, jump-up direction). Around 30-40 minutes in, there was a short spell where he seemed to be losing us; the tune selection shifted more into the sort of buzzing mid-range riffs combined with uneventful beats which have drawn some legitimate discontent. You could see the change on the dancefloor; it might have been the time of night as much as the music, but the energy levels dropped, people began moving in a more sluggish, trudging fashion.
But Loeafah must have quickly noticed the change in vibe himself, and he reached for an anthem, dropping the Bug’s collaboration with Warrior Queen, Poison Dart. This received the biggest crowd reaction of the night, with cheers and a huge surge towards the stage. For the next 20 minutes in he kept the energy level right up, with a continual flow of bangers. The Bug’s album London Zoo must have made an impact up here, as Ganja, his b-side featuring Flowdan, garnered another strong response from the floor. As the immediately following tune entered into the mix, we were already beyond 3 o’clock, and so were treated to the house lights being turned on, in combination with various organisor-looking types wandering on to the stage and gesturing to DMZ to start wrapping it up. This seemed merely to work up the crowd even further, with one lad even leaping up to dance on stage. As Loefah finally wound to a stop, he was greeted with cheers, hearty applause and chants of ‘one more tune’, but I decided that with licensing laws involved an encore was unlikely, so began to make my way home (would love to hear from someone if I turned out to be wrong!). The end to the night strengthened my longstanding conviction that extended licenses ought to be granted more readily in Glasgow for these sorts of events. But I’m not going to let a moan spoil my judgement of a fantastic night. It was a night of important musical firsts for me, and well worth the wait.
Thursday, 26 March 2009
Glasgow writers: taking over the interwebs
Well now, just as I'd got over the shock of EGJ's increased on-line presence, I was thrown into excited delight by the sudden arrival of......
..... MISS LOGAN!!!
(Bells, whistles, sirens, airhorns, foghorns, trumpets, gun shots, bomb sounds, claps and cheering etc. You get the picture)
http://kirstylogan.com/
Seriously, please give the site a look. She's a very talented writer, and the site contains links to several on-line texts of her recent publications (and she's been on a bit of a publishing blitz of late!) along with up to the minute info on her current projects.
..... MISS LOGAN!!!
(Bells, whistles, sirens, airhorns, foghorns, trumpets, gun shots, bomb sounds, claps and cheering etc. You get the picture)
http://kirstylogan.com/
Seriously, please give the site a look. She's a very talented writer, and the site contains links to several on-line texts of her recent publications (and she's been on a bit of a publishing blitz of late!) along with up to the minute info on her current projects.
Tuesday, 17 March 2009
Yet more silliness
courtesy of the Ghetto Puppets:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tmbiji_uP6c
Great for when a cheer-up and/or boredom-killer for a few minutes.
How brilliant is the actual song btw? Yet another one I must have missed at the time.
(Proper post coming soon, promise, it's been a busy few days at Andy Towers. Likely topics - Skins, prequels, the postal privitisation).
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tmbiji_uP6c
Great for when a cheer-up and/or boredom-killer for a few minutes.
How brilliant is the actual song btw? Yet another one I must have missed at the time.
(Proper post coming soon, promise, it's been a busy few days at Andy Towers. Likely topics - Skins, prequels, the postal privitisation).
Wednesday, 11 March 2009
Let The Sunshine In.....
Hahaha - from today's horoscope which pops up on my Google homepage - "The metaphysical sunshine has returned ". What a wonderful turn of phrase! This should become an established philosophical position I reckon - metaphysical realism, metaphysical skepticism, metaphysical idealism, metaphysical sunshinism. :D
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