| Mar | 23 |
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Picking the exceptional releases out of the quagmire is a constant struggle. We’re lodged deep into March now and the label release schedules are still showing little indication of bending to the economy, simply refusing to slow up or back down. Instead they’re choosing to diversify and splinter, hopefully aiming to re-group at a later stage with a focus group of consumers, a detailed questionnaire and some defined goals to shoot for…
| Feb | 24 |
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Whilst February brings the shortest month, along with my personal annual growth and much merriment for me, it also breaks the omnipresent lull in the release schedule over Christmas and New Year’s. This coming year appears to be no exception with the simply astounding selection of full length projects and announcements starting to form like Dr Manhattan did, out of human tissue, thin air and matter.
As I’ve previously mentioned in earlier installments of this column, both Starkey and Scuba have long players ready for consumption, competently and simultaneously representing both ends of the dubstep spectrum. Scuba’s Triangulation positively floats in places, combating skeletal 85bpm tempos as much as the house tempo; whilst Starkey’s Ear Drums & Black Holes connects the dots between Philly swagger, his own deft compositional ear, and UK grime music featuring vocal appearances from P Money, Cerebral Vortex …
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For some, the start of a new year means a fresh start, a smattering of new beginnings and the welcome opportunity to suppress any previous personal woes and move on to better things. For others, though, it’s simply business as usual, whether it be another monochrome day in the rat race, another shunt against the omnipresent recession or another day spent at home pointlessly filing paperwork and eating yoghurt in your underpants.
The real beauty of 2010’s forthcoming operations for some dubstep labels, though, is the ability to disguise their fierce forward motion as regular operation.
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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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