Guys, tell me about dubstep.

[narlus]

does anyone else think that Skrillex sounds like a venereal disease?

[Daniel]

More the cream for it rather than the disease itself.

[Almanzo]

wanna know more about brostep

[cold before sunrise]

south park's tween wave was definitely skrillex.

[Andrew_TSKS]

Yeah, I remember watching that episode and thinking the same thing. I feel like Skrillex is really far from the stuff that led me to start this thread. And I haven't liked what I've heard at all. It's boring. Not my cup of tea at all. But it's hugely popular in Richmond, for whatever reason. I guess it's hugely popular all over America right now, actually.

[jm]

I still don't understand what dubstep is (and will continue to repeat this until someone gives me an idea what it actually is).

[Andrew_TSKS]

Electronic music that mixes Jamaican post-reggae/hip-hop crossover dancehall elements with post-jungle/drum n' bass sounds and tends to have a quite dark mood.

Well, or that's what it was, but this new American wave of it is much more commercial and sounds more like conventional electronica to me.

[jm]

Well, or that's what it was, but this new American wave of it is much more commercial and sounds more like conventional electronica to me.

OK, that's probably where my issues with it lie.  All of the examples of "dubstep" that I've heard sound a) very little like "dub" and b) very much like a lot of the general-electronica that I spent a small amount of time listening to a few years back.  Like, basically less danceable and more glitchy than electronica, less obnoxious and more consnonant than drum n bass.

[Andrew_TSKS]

Yeah, see, here is a good example of what I'm thinking of when I mention dubstep:

Digital Mystikz - Anti War Dub

Course, I wouldn't have said that back when I started this thread, but I didn't know much of anything about dubstep when I started this thread, other than that I liked Burial, who aren't exactly typical dubstep anyway--though they're closer than Skrillex. Here is a Burial song that I like a lot:

Burial - Ghost Hardware

As you can see, they use soul-diva vocal samples rather than dancehall-toaster vocal samples. But still, not too far from the first song I linked. How Skrillex counts as the same genre, I have no idea.

[Thermofusion]

The generic dubstep sound is still making a protracted infiltration into hip hop, too. There's a dubstep beat on the new Tech N9ne album oddly enough.

[cold before sunrise]

jm: dubstep isn't associated with dub.

all: correct me if i'm wrong but i'm pretty sure that neither of the tracks andrew posted could even be classified as dubstep, not really, are more... whatever they are calling ambient jungle these days. the sound is somewhat dated.

[jm]

jm: dubstep isn't associated with dub.

all: correct me if i'm wrong but i'm pretty sure that neither of the tracks andrew posted could even be classified as dubstep, not really, are more... whatever they are calling ambient jungle these days. the sound is somewhat dated.

Yeah see, I never said it was. I was just trying to make a logical connection due to the name. i.e., dub+2-step.

And yeah, the stuff Andrew posted is dubstep, as has been discussed in this actual thread.

[cold before sunrise]

i'm not so sure about that... everything they play in this neck of the woods leans more towards a heavy, darker sound that's got a lot more grind to it. it's funny the biggest dubstep event on this continent is a festival in the mountains near this little hippy/ski town where we grew up on a steady diet of funky disco house. there's plenty of other genres covered but the folks who flew in from places like japan and new zealand for the event last summer were, by unofficial tallies, mostly there to catch skrillex, datsik and excision. the bassnectar set is always a must-see and i finally caught stanton warriors... tickets for next august just went on sale friday and it's already half sold out. if you're into exploring the genre and one of the best outdoor festivals in the world, camping 5 days on a gorgeous ranch in the rocky mountains, get tickets here asap.

[Andrew_TSKS]

Haha right, see cbs, that's the stuff we were talking about that is kind of taking over the dubstep genre but doesn't sound much like the stuff that was originally named as such. You basically just did the modern equivalent of walking into a usenet thread about ska circa 1996 and going "I don't know, guys, the Specials and Desmond Dekker songs you posted don't sound much at all like No Doubt."

[Andrew_TSKS]

To elaborate--dubstep is originally an outgrowth of two-step, which was an outgrowth of the UK electronic music genre known as garage (that's "GAR-ridge," as opposed to "guh-RAZH," which is how we pronounce the word here in America, and which generally refers to a subgenre of rock n' roll, i.e. the Sonics. But I digress). What separated two-step from garage and jungle was the move away from the pounding pulse, into more complex, less monotonous beats, which led to a lighter, more R&B influenced direction. Two-step got popular enough that it spawned UK top ten singles (and Craig David's solo career), for better or for worse. The evolution into dubstep happened when people got tired of the lighter, more radio-friendly sounds of two-step and started to do stripped down dubbed-out instrumental remixes of two-step tracks. The name dubstep just means "dub plus two-step" so yes, dubstep does have a good bit to do with dub. So you're wrong about that part. But you are right to pick up a jungle sound from the tracks I posted--dubstep is about two or three steps along the "hardcore continuum" (copyright 2009 Simon Reynolds) from jungle, and shares a good many characteristics of the jungle sound.

Now, as far as what dubstep actually sounds like is concerned, the Digital Mystikz track I posted is a very straightforward example of the sound that was considered dubstep when the scene really came into its own, circa 2007 or so. The Burial track, as I think I mentioned before, is an example of a pretty ambient and cerebral offshoot of dubstep, as is most of the dubstep Nick Ink listens to (Nick, I think that's a fair characterization--do you disagree?). Now, the American dubstep artists you cited in your post, cbs, are a new breed that's been gaining prominence in America over the last year or two, and while they are wildly popular, they are in some circles considered an overly-commercial, overly-macho watering down of the entire dubstep genre. A lot of people who've been listening to earlier dubstep artists for years hate the new shit. Which brings us to where we were when you jumped in. I'm not fully interested in outright hating on Skrillex and Bassnectar, but when I listen to them, I don't hear much connection with the sound of dubstep that I've grown used to over the last few years, and I also don't like what they're doing nearly as much. To me, it sounds much closer to standard American techno/electro music that's been getting played at clubs here for years, and as such, like nothing very special at all. I will admit that a huge movement has been coalescing around it here in America, one that dwarfs the original dubstep movement (hell, Skrillex was on the cover of Spin last month), but the fact that that's happening does not, in my mind, de-legitimize the original dubstep sound or the artists that created it, any more than No Doubt selling millions of albums made "Spiderwebs" a better representation of ska than "Israelites" or "Ghost Town." Maybe Skrillex and those associated with him are an evolution of the genre, or maybe they're a corruption of the genre. I don't particularly have a dog in that fight. I will say, though, if Skrillex is the wave of dubstep's future, I don't think I like dubstep's future nearly as much as I liked its past.

P.S. Isn't it funny that now I'm the one dropping knowledge about this genre, considering that two and a half years ago I started this thread not knowing shit about it?

[Nick Ink]

Andrew, that's a great explanation, and I agree with every word of that - well, the first para and a half anyway. I've never heard of Skrillex, and from the vibes on this page, I'm pretty sure I don't want to!

I would like briefly to express my horror at the realisation that the Sonics are a gurAZH band, as here they're a GARRidz band, just a different kind of GARRidz to So Solid Crew etc.

As an aside, this has been (for me) a massive year for beat-orientated music. A lot of it is minimal techno, microhouse and only Zomby is really dubstep, so I bring it up here only in passing, but man alive there has been some great stuff. Soundcloud links under the titles, for anyone interested:

Andy Stott - Passed Me By, Zomby - Dedication, Dalglish - Benacah Drann Deachd, Bruno Pronsato - Lovers Do, Moritz Von Oswald Trio - Horizontal Structures, Nicolas Jaar - Space Is Only Noise, Alva Noto - Univrs, Isolee - Well Spent Youth

[cold before sunrise]

andrew: you have got to be kidding me. you're attempting to explain a dance scene i've been familiar with since high school by cut and pasting from the wire? seriously, you'd best step. i'm a firm believer in learning by doing so unless you're coming to shambhala to form a valid opinion for yourself, all you're doing is making yourself sound like somebody's grandpa.

[elpollodiablo]

When I moved to New York, dubstep was this thing that tech nerdy DJ-like dudes and ex-ravers were into; now it's this thing that packs underage kids in at frat bars in small Ohio college towns.

[Andrew_TSKS]

Pollo--yeah, exactly! Also, cbs just broke "19 year old on a screamo forum" style on me, haha.

Fun Skrillex trivia I just learned this morning: he sang for a relatively popular emo band, From First To Last, from 2004 until 2007, while they were signed to Epitaph. He is on their albums Dear Diary My Teenage Angst Has A Body Count and Heroine--one of which I own! I sorta own a Skrillex album! Hahahaha. He can be seen singing for From First To Last in this emo-as-fuck video from 2004:

From First To Last - Note To Self

Isn't that a hilariously fun fact to learn? I think so!

[Andrew_TSKS]

Now having a facebook conversation about how dubstep is becoming the music of "scene," taking over from emo. Which is kind of blowing my mind, for reasons that are probably obvious.

[cold before sunrise]

haha... bieberstep?

[cold before sunrise]

this makes me smile.

[alistarr*]

Zomby has a new 12" coming out next week apparently, titled Nothing - seven tracks long.

[Nick Ink]

Zomby has a new 12" coming out next week apparently, titled Nothing - seven tracks long.

Oooh, nice. Thanks for the tip-off. Been dipping back into Dedication all year. I find it a little slight, but lots of fun in occasional doses.

Not dubstep for a moment, but I wanted to say I'm digging the new Gui Boratto (and I can't be bothered to switch to the np thread - sorry!)

[Ah_Pook]

ive been listening to the Attack The Block OST a bunch lately, which has some kinda dubsteppy bits on it. mixed in with traditional film score souding stuff and a healthy whack of carpenter synth stuff. its pretty cool if you like that kinda thing.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FjP0Oyx7eds
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=awUviTwo8vQ
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kk4M0IeiC1M
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=flnAhu5JotM

etc