Previously, BPitch’s ridiculously amazing Boogybyte compilations focused their efforts on arctic, tickling click-glitch and microhouse (Ellen Allien’s Vol. 4), eccentricity and Native Instruments software exposition (Modeselektor’s Vol. 3, where Jean-Jacques Perrey meets Spank Rock meets Bobo Shanti meets µ-Ziq). Replacing the anesthetic and oddity you surrounded yourself with to get through the last few frosty winters, Berlin transplant, Detroit native and Ghostly International darling Seth Troxler (aka Thrill Cosby) breaks rank by splashing red paint on your white desk, placing violets in your dusty vase, stapling Turkish scarves to your ceiling, flinging open the shutters and urging “Spring has sprung” with his animated, sexy mix of warm, bubbly 4/4 house of various flavors.
Story goes Fashawn, Exile and Blu are in Berlin, Germany right now for a small tour. They walk into a liquor store to get some wraps, papers, etc. Juice Magazine, a popular German-based hip hop mag just did a feature on Fashawn for his recent album, Boy Meets World but the liquor store doesn’t care. So he got kicked out.
This is the first mix CD from dubstep pioneer Scuba, aka Hotflush label curator Paul Rose. The mix is based on the successful SUB:STANCE parties at Berlin’s club Berhain. Originally from London, he’s been pushing dubstep in Berlin, and with this mix he showcases the vitality of UK bass music. 24 tracks cover the full spectrum of the burgeoning dupstep scene. From moody ambient, to jungle breaks, 2-step and rave.
In 2004, I traveled on a train with Richie Hawtin from his home in Windsor to Montreal for the annual Mutek festival. There, Hawtin performed his first live gig under his Plastikman guise since 1995. The performance—which attempted to stretch the limits of live music, video and light controls for the time—would prove to be a one-off.
Earlier this week, Hawtin announced his return as Plastikman with a performance scheduled at Coachella. URB caught Hawtin while on “vacation” to find out what we could about the upcoming performance.
As it stands right now, on the eve of 2010, bass music is a beautiful mess. Stretched and tortured by numerous influences and the possible avenues for producers to take, its become splintered but, in the same way the T1000 glooped back together in Terminator 2, it constantly manages to gel to its roots, evolving away from its half step/atmospherics in what seem more like ellipses than cycles. And whilst London remains somewhat of an epicentre for many of dubstep’s microcosms, other bubbles of ingenuity have sprung up around the globe with keen producers and promoters ready to move with the ethos of dubstep and put their own distinctive slant on the sound.
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