Darkness and Dubstep

[siberia]

kryptic minds is bringing the darkness

[intoccabile]

lol someone actually bumped this thread

But I agree. Kryptic minds nailed it.

[etidorhpa]

Dubstepforum in 'good thread shocker' haha....joke.

Had this conversation with people quite regularly, people are mentioning 'filty' dubstep and almost categorising certain dubstep with that tag right now, that's fine i guess....it's the inevitable 'let's go more extreme' reaction in production, a way to get noticed.

But, 'darkness' has always been present in dubstep, but in the past it has been about ATMOSPHERE, more subtle and more open ended, the listener can interpret it as 'darkness' if they will, but it's just a general moody atmosphere. The tracks were more spacious, had more soundscapes and were less in your face.
I think artists like 'Truth', 'Tunnidge' and 'Cyrus' are still fine purveyors of the more subtle, atmospheric moody vibes....but i tell you what the latest Kryptic Minds album is really doing it on that tip right now.

So yes, hopefully we'll start to see alot more of these sort of vibes creep back into the sound, i guess with the techno influences that are around at the moment this may happen.

[joe muggs]

I'm really surprised nobody's mentioned Shackleton in this thread yet.

While I think there is a load of validity in the stuff Ozols is saying about experience of the dark side of life being necessary if anyone wants to produce truly fearsome music that touches those deep and hidden places in the human soul, that experience doesn't only have to entail living in ghetto areas or experiencing brutality for yourself... I think some of the greatest musicians can come to that understanding through their own intelligence and contemplation - and certainly if you listen to the heaviest of Shackleton's tracks you know that in them there is an understanding and representation of aspects of humanity - and inhumanity - that we normally don't like to think about for the good of our own sanity. And that is the power of dark music and art, it can bring us close to things that are too big or too terrible to deal with in day-to-day life, and maybe, just maybe, help us to understand them a little more, or at least to appreciate their power.

I think a lot of ritual music is like that too. Listen to the drumming and chants of Haitian Voodoo ceremonies, or the trance music of the Master Musicians Or Joujouka from Morocco, or even to pure, raw acid house, and the hypnosis and release they can produce can take you to some dark places. Not dark as in necessarily evil, but dark as in hidden, the places that contain the urges and possibilities that normally our veneer of civilisation, routine and banality keep well concealed.

[-dubson-]

Dark music is different to dark sounds, all this chainsaw wobble stuff isnt dark at all to me. Its like watching a gore fest horror film or a film full of atmosphere, suspense, tension and where you never even see the thing that is scaring you so much. The gore film isnt darker, it just hits you harder at first, when you get used to gore its boring, and you have to move onto the next gorey film which is more extreme.

Take Kryptic Minds for example, all the sounds are nice, theres nothing really harsh there. But you put it together with some nice reverb sends and you have a real dark atmosphere.

[bandshell]

The darkness is in the space and atmosphere.