Is there any other facet of dance music more maligned or more misunderstood than dubstep? It’s common for drum and bass or jungle fans to lament the more unsubtle, popular, blunt-force-trauma iterations of their genres, but a worrying majority seems to think that dubstep begins and ends with Skrillex.
Later this year, it will have been a decade since Skream first hurled the genre into wider acclaim with Midnight Request Line and since then it’s accrued a rather unfortunate reputation. You say ‘dubstep’ and people are immediately put in mind of filthy drops and distorted bass wobbles. The sound of robots having angry sex, essentially. The fact of the matter is that back in the UK where the music first originated, the genre is still enjoying a healthy life in the realms of the underground and it’s gone to some fascinating new places. The best dubstep can now boast something above and beyond all of its generic contemporaries: atmosphere.
Most modern electronic and dance music can trace its lineage back to the underground London scene. Spend any length of time embroiled in it and it’s easy to see why. The clubs are thriving laboratories where the most abstract of beats and structures are tested on crowds. Dubstep first gained prominence in the early-to-mid 2000s just as DMZ (Mala and Coki), Burial, Skream, Benga and eventual Hyperdub founder Kode9 were starting to make names for themselves. Two-step had overtaken standard garage to become the prevalent mainstay at the time and artists were beginning to infuse darker, Jamaican ingredients into the formula, whilst typically adhering to a 140 tempo. Thus, dubstep was born.
People were confused; nobody really had any idea how to dance to it. House and garage are comparatively easy to grasp and whilst it might seem daunting at first, getting into the rhythm of drum and bass is a little bit like fighting an invisible man just ahead of you. You dodge, you duck, you dip, you dive and you dodge. All in fast forward.
Dubstep is a different animal altogether. The beats clack and clatter while the bass throbs, ebbs and pulses, it’s hard to know what to latch onto. Nowadays the kind of step that rises into the mainstream, global purview has more in common with metal than dub or garage, it’s all about the sheer force and power of the sound, you can just thrash your head to it and that’s that. Go back to the source though and you’ll find the genre has gone to dark, ominous places.
[Tweet “Go back to the source though and you’ll find dubstep has gone to dark, ominous places.”]Even before dubstep emerged, UK garage had a certain menacing quality to it, but now the most lauded dubstep champions dole out sounds that wouldn’t be out of place on some sci-fi horror soundtrack. Kode9’s early collaborations with the late, great poet The SpaceApe really set the mold for this style of production. You have the rolling, pulsating thrum of Biome, the deep, guttural snarls of TMSV and the metallic, tribal onslaught of Wayfarer. On the other side of things you have soulful, jazz influenced exponents like Geode and Trashbat and more ambient, ponderous ones like Kryptic Minds (Leon Switch and Simon Shreeve). Dubstep has grown in scope and depth.
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Gradually it’s begin to extend its reach elsewhere. Continental Europe is growing steadily more aware of it, particularly to the East, coupled to the advent of Outlook festival in Croatia, as well as in the US, where numerous club nights have started appearing (NYC Dub War, for example) and producers like Nosaj Thing and Clubroot. There are even landmarks appearing further afield; Japan’s Goth-Trad remains one of the most interesting talents in the game, for instance. Furthermore, the darker turn that dance music has taken in the underground hasn’t gone unnoticed elsewhere. More electronic scores for games, TV shows and films owe certain credence to it, I noted more than a passing resemblance to some dubstep in Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross’s Gone Girl score and Kryptic Minds made a welcome appearance on the soundtrack to last year’s Elysium.
For those interested in an introduction to the sinister realms of the current UK dubstep scene, a few recommendations for getting started: Rinse.fm is well worth getting acquainted with, as they broadcast sets and mixes from all the heavy hitters. The same rule applies to Sub.fm and Fokus.fm. Elsewhere it’s worth keeping tabs on labels like MindStep, Deep Medi and Uprise Audio. The latter recently signed LSN, a collaboration of 5 different producers (one of which doubles as an AV artist) and one vocalist, the results are staggering. Dubstep really exemplifies the reach and potency of dance music, showing that it has the capacity to be as emotionally engaging as it is physically engaging. Leave Skrillex far behind and take some time to delve into the murky, cavernous waters of the real dubstep scene.
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[EDIT]: The original published version of this piece suggested that the dubstep scene didn’t have much of a foothold beyond the UK and Europe, this was an unintentional, incorrect assertion which has been rectified
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