Pitchfork this month featuring...

[blackdown]

Cluekid, Chef, LD, Trim and Ghetto. link here. bigup!

[phletch]

top stuff....
chef set on the D/L
cheers for the heads up!

[seckle]

yes yes!

[oddfellow]

Good read as always. Really like the sounds I've been hearing from this direction. The clips on Dem2Ruff's myspace sound unreal.

[deamonds]

brilliant read as always

[ory]

Ha, can always trust Martin to know what's up. I've been loving this junglestep stuff à la Cluekid & LD for a while, can't wait to get my hands on these tunes.

[epithet]

Call it what it is Blackdown. BREAKSTEP. I know you got an aversion to that but fuckit man, you're beating round the bush like like a blind drunk trying to find a lost coin.

Exciting strand emerging ? WTF it's always been there, you just been in denial or maybe you got an agenda. Dark garage, breakbeat garage, mutant jungle ? Whatever man it came more from breaks nuskool and otherwise. Why continue the 'nuum nonsense ?

And FWIW burial is hardly a dubstep pioneer and his stuff is way more experimental than the niche those early breaksteppas carved out leading to the likes of those carrying forth the light into the darkness dubstep has descended into.

You're doing yourself a massive disservice sir.

UNITE THE CLANS !

[blackdown]

Call it what it is Blackdown. BREAKSTEP. I know you got an aversion to that but fuckit man, you're beating round the bush like like a blind drunk trying to find a lost coin.

Exciting strand emerging ? WTF it's always been there, you just been in denial or maybe you got an agenda. Dark garage, breakbeat garage, mutant jungle ? Whatever man it came more from breaks nuskool and otherwise. Why continue the 'nuum nonsense ?

And FWIW burial is hardly a dubstep pioneer and his stuff is way more experimental than the niche those early breaksteppas carved out leading to the likes of those carrying forth the light into the darkness dubstep has descended into.

You're doing yourself a massive disservice sir.

UNITE THE CLANS !

while in the ballpark of breakstep, it's clearly sonically different to it - the pads, the drums and the vocals - just check the chef show link. that's why i covered it.

as for the term 'breakstep' i avoid using it because the guys it's used towards dont generally like it. i didnt invent the term, but if people dont rate it, i'm happy to avoid it.

and i pointed out the jungle influence has always been there - read the piece. but this use is definitely different.

oh and i like 'nuum nonsense

[epithet]

Don't you think its evolution of the same genre though. I mean listen to horsepower in the early dubstep days to say reso now. Vastly different but still dubstep. Same as the breakstep stuff.

The thing with the 'nuum is, it seems to have discontinued or come to the end of the line. In terms of evolution and natural selection. Where to next ?

[quietmouse]

thank you for your hard work as always

[noodles dpr recordings]

Call it what it is Blackdown. BREAKSTEP. I know you got an aversion to that but fuckit man, you're beating round the bush like like a blind drunk trying to find a lost coin.

Exciting strand emerging ? WTF it's always been there, you just been in denial or maybe you got an agenda. Dark garage, breakbeat garage, mutant jungle ? Whatever man it came more from breaks nuskool and otherwise. Why continue the 'nuum nonsense ?

And FWIW burial is hardly a dubstep pioneer and his stuff is way more experimental than the niche those early breaksteppas carved out leading to the likes of those carrying forth the light into the darkness dubstep has descended into.

You're doing yourself a massive disservice sir.

UNITE THE CLANS !

while in the ballpark of breakstep, it's clearly sonically different to it - the pads, the drums and the vocals - just check the chef show link. that's why i covered it.

as for the term 'breakstep' i avoid using it because the guys it's used towards dont generally like it. i didnt invent the term, but if people dont rate it, i'm happy to avoid it.

and i pointed out the jungle influence has always been there - read the piece. but this use is definitely different.

oh and i like 'nuum nonsense

it's all good music, i've heard some great beats recently and it all falls into "itcanshakeanyspeaker" so peeps just enjoy our inner creativity which keeps us at the top of musical evolution tree...

[blackdown]

Don't you think its evolution of the same genre though. I mean listen to horsepower in the early dubstep days to say reso now. Vastly different but still dubstep. Same as the breakstep stuff.

we've been through all this countless times, people have different views, which is cool. it is what it is...

The thing with the 'nuum is, it seems to have discontinued or come to the end of the line. In terms of evolution and natural selection. Where to next ?

as far as i understand it, there's no one person who decides the 'numm has stopped.

it hasn't anyway, because "funky" is next... people who cant see that need to look a little closer into how things work in London.

[elgato]

as far as i understand it, there's no one person who decides the 'numm has stopped.

it hasn't anyway, because "funky" is next... people who cant see that need to look a little closer into how things work in London.

it does seem to mean different things to different people, definitely.

whats your definition of it? obviously its not something easily expressed, but i'd be interested...

[stanton]

It seems that there are few subjects more likely to ignite flames in people's keyboards than the genealogy of Dubstep.

Coincidentally I was reading an old thread on here this very morning that had degenerated into an argument of sorts between Niner, Mos Dan and Paul Rose. It was all a bit silly but it did get me thinking about the formation of genres in music as being almost entirely retrospective, and in part due to musical journalism (journalism about music, not literally musical journalism, though that does sound like a splendid idea) as to actually write about music historically it's almost necessary to create labels. It's this notion that confuses people when they read/talk about continua, it's not necessarily a genealogical concept of the evolution of sounds, it's referring to music as political.

er, sorry for the waffle. Nice article Mr. C.

[noodles dpr recordings]

as far as i understand it, there's no one person who decides the 'numm has stopped.

it hasn't anyway, because "funky" is next... people who cant see that need to look a little closer into how things work in London.

it does seem to mean different things to different people, definitely.

whats your definition of it? obviously its not something easily expressed, but i'd be interested...

to me it's always the next thing (fad), that why ukg died a death and 2step- dubstep was born, we should keep on pushing the boundaries musically like d'n'b other wise people will lose interest...

[we eat our young]

funky" is next... people who cant see that need to look a little closer into how things work in London

I'm sorry, call me stupid if i'm wrong but how do things work in London???

Is it grime dj gets some of his boys together and a journalist on hand to record events and decide to make a new genre of music so they can be the top boy djs of said scene. Too lazy to even come up with a new name for it they just use an adjective which is so subjective it could describe almost any record at all.

Meanwhile niche runs things up north....

Hmmmmm

[blackdown]

whats your definition of it? obviously its not something easily expressed, but i'd be interested...

that there is a certain demographic of people (London, of mixed races, working class-centric) that generate very exciting UK music in fairly short cycles, that use a loosely similar set of reference points (UK, US and JA black music or music of black origin) using a loosely similar set of mediums (traditionally soundsystems and pirate radio, but online technology has evolved massively since the 'nuum theory was suggested).

hence:

rave/hardcore>jungle/d&b>UKG>dubstep/grime and now funky.

the patterns within each of these scenes are hard to ignore, which lends weight to the theory that they are all connected/related.

[kidlogic]

Don't you think its evolution of the same genre though. I mean listen to horsepower in the early dubstep days to say reso now. Vastly different but still dubstep. Same as the breakstep stuff.

we've been through all this countless times, people have different views, which is cool. it is what it is...

The thing with the 'nuum is, it seems to have discontinued or come to the end of the line. In terms of evolution and natural selection. Where to next ?

as far as i understand it, there's no one person who decides the 'numm has stopped.

it hasn't anyway, because "funky" is next... people who cant see that need to look a little closer into how things work in London.

Blackdown, can you point me to some good "funky" mixes that dont just sound like an old house mix with a few new tunes? I really want to give it a fair shot, but from what Ive heard of it Ive got a few crates of "funky" from when I used to spin house. Im really interested in hearing where it goes with the people involved though...

[noodles dpr recordings]

Don't you think its evolution of the same genre though. I mean listen to horsepower in the early dubstep days to say reso now. Vastly different but still dubstep. Same as the breakstep stuff.

we've been through all this countless times, people have different views, which is cool. it is what it is...

The thing with the 'nuum is, it seems to have discontinued or come to the end of the line. In terms of evolution and natural selection. Where to next ?

as far as i understand it, there's no one person who decides the 'numm has stopped.

it hasn't anyway, because "funky" is next... people who cant see that need to look a little closer into how things work in London.

Blackdown, can you point me to some good "funky" mixes that dont just sound like an old house mix with a few new tunes? I really want to give it a fair shot, but from what Ive heard of it Ive got a few crates of "funky" from when I used to spin house. Im really interested in hearing where it goes with the people involved though...

funky house same ole formula beatz that i sold in records shops 15 years ago, but now produced on newer equipment.
funky is house? house is funky?

[epithet]

it hasn't anyway, because "funky" is next... people who cant see that need to look a little closer into how things work in London.

Oh yeah sorry. I forgot the 'nuum is strictly Londoncentric. Beyond that we get into a multidimensional lattice Like how einstein's relativity made newtonian dynamics pretty much obsolete. It's all about non locality now. Artists as particles having an effect on others regardless of space and time. Or how galileo made an earthcentric universe irrelevent by showing how we revolved around the sun with london not being the point about which the musical unverse revolves ?

Seems to me 'funky' is a backward step then and hardly forward looking. I mean havent we been down that path ?

...but it did get me thinking about the formation of genres in music as being almost entirely retrospective, and in part due to musical journalism as to actually write about music historically it's almost necessary to create labels. It's this notion that confuses people when they read/talk about continua, it's not necessarily a genealogical concept of the evolution of sounds, it's referring to music as political.
.

Isn't it weird though. To know where you're going you have to know where you've been. So to write retrospectively is a cinch. To live in the present and extrapolate a future is a little trickier, so it would take a brave man to actually predict any future trend.

Anyone want to take a crack at it ? Isn't that what a memory of a possible future is ?