Dubstepforum.com

... Joy Orbison. Check the wider debate here.

Big tunes.

Very nice read as always and big up for linking Sonic Router

Hyph Mngo is such a sick track.

lil remark on the wider debate bits
when I read ur words Martin it gives me the impression u are stigmatizing the international scene or at least non Londoners for only making post d&b dubstep kind of generic wobbles shit...
don't u think u could find a lot of that sort of non inspired music coming from London as well ???
I don't want to start a quarrel like London against the rest of the world as it it could be pretty silly but that kind of regionalism arguments are a bit restrictive imho...
Good and innovative music can come from everywhere even it is true London is surely a more than honorable source...

yeah well i agree, no offence to all the international crew. i would clarify that it's less about location more about a mindstate. for example lots of starkey stuff fits into what we do, whereas plenty of stuff that just happens to come from london, doesn't...

yes u can find many other examples, Von D, Dj Madd, Helixir, Likhan, Autopilot, Egoless, DLX,.......
non of them are even from the UK and are not doing any generic or copycat shit
so yes much more a mind state or individuals related than any geographical consideration imho

for me martin has not said anything controversial. london culture and london producers continue to be the epicenter of the sound's forward progress. considering the exploding popularity of dubstep worldwide, the best producers outside the UK are still taking their cues from london.

Big up, great read as per usual, Joy Orbison is such a sick producer, can't get Hyph Mngo out of my head at the moment.

dq wrote:the best producers outside the UK are still taking their cues from london.

not too sure if it is still the case now
but my point was more to say than it is not so systematic that original and inspired music is coming from there as u can also have very generic and "empty" stuff coming from London these days
But surely the sound origin is there, no doubt or any controversy about that

i think a lot of people need to come to terms with the fact that a split has developed, whether people want that or not, it's the case.

I dont really think geography has much to do with it. Rinse is only 1 station doing its own thing. There are many other stations doing theres.

The real split is rather the (as Blackdown puts it) Metal-Step and 150bpm pushers, and the people who came to dubstep from other (non- dnb) roots.

Post dnb dubstep is a good way to describe it i guess.

People need to face up to the fact that when you say "dubstep" they dont mean what you mean, they think of "Metal-Step". To try and argue is futile as music progresses and moves forward.

Back to the geography for a moment. I hear amazing 2-step / Future Garage coming from all over the world, sure there are hot-spots like Nottingham, Leeds, Texas and indeed London. But London has become obsessed with Funky and I guarantee you Funky will follow the Garage in 97 route, it's already happening with Sweet Like Chocolate Boy Remixes, and the Grime mc's jumping on it.

I think to (almost) say Funky is the Saviour of disgruntled dubsteppers misses what the split has actually done.

"The Split" has made the disposessed that found dubstep disposossed again. And in that way what we are seeing is people going either back to there previous flavour of music with a "post-dubstep" aestetic, or finding another pre-existing genre and taking the aestetic there. Eaxmple of this can be seen with some of Funky/Dubstep crossover djs you mention.

This is how I would view the split, rather than as a geographic thing.

The geography of London is only prevalent to you as you live in London. To most other people Rinse is just another station, and the ease with which to hear another station on the bus etc.. has risen sharply with the main raving demographic all being iPhoned up and with that figure increasing constantly.

But hey thats just my two cents

mr. Clark,
heavy read, and will reply to the discussion on the blog. one thing though, can you give me examples of "elements of feminine pressure". i want to make sure what exactly that means to you.
cheers matey.

I agree with Whistla on this one.

BunZer0 wrote:

dq wrote:the best producers outside the UK are still taking their cues from london.

not too sure if it is still the case now

Nice read.

Will say that to be quite honest, London is definately not where I have seen the most inspiring music over the last year (Funky yes, dubstep no).

The north is where is @, russia, and the med.

Good read, is there a tracklist for the joy orbison mix?

Agree with Bun and Deams..

Joy could come from anywhere really, I dont think the LDN connection is relevant.

seckle wrote:mr. Clark,
heavy read, and will reply to the discussion on the blog. one thing though, can you give me examples of "elements of feminine pressure". i want to make sure what exactly that means to you.
cheers matey.

Mr S. Ekkle,

Feminine pressure is a simon reynolds term. the use and mis-use of female vocals runs through the hardcore continuum, from todd edwards to foul play to burial and now funky.

now on one hand you could say that female vocals are just like any other instrument or sonic choice, but they have a particular role in the nuum, such that they disappear when stuff get's too metally/blokey they disappear ie wobble, techstep etc.

personally i mostly tune out when stuff gets ultra diva-y too, with a few exceptions (some of the best r&b records for example, or Inner City Life) so to me there's often a perfect middle ground of 'feminine pressure' between it being to diva and to macho. Burial "Archangel" is a pretty good example of this. i hope that record has some fans here!

biggup all the debaters.



group hug?

DJ Whistla wrote:i think a lot of people need to come to terms with the fact that a split has developed, whether people want that or not, it's the case.

Yeah, I know it's not a popular thing to say but I think that's right. Every time there's a thread about someone like Caspa I think yeah, his stuff is the opposite of everything that got me into dubstep, but he clearly loves what he's doing and so do his audience, and I'm not going to tell them what they should be writing or playing or raving to. It's just that I don't think it's in any meaningful sense the same thing as what (say) Dusk and Blackdown are doing any more, any more than jungle and happy hardcore are the same thing.

The real split is rather the (as Blackdown puts it) Metal-Step and 150bpm pushers, and the people who came to dubstep from other (non- dnb) roots.

Post dnb dubstep is a good way to describe it i guess.

Meh, not sure I'd bring DnB into it to be honest - look at Breakage, Martyn, all those sort of people. No need to start making arbitrary divisions like that.

"The Split" has made the disposessed that found dubstep disposossed again. And in that way what we are seeing is people going either back to there previous flavour of music with a "post-dubstep" aestetic, or finding another pre-existing genre and taking the aestetic there. Eaxmple of this can be seen with some of Funky/Dubstep crossover djs you mention.

I dunno, it's more like the disposessed who found dubstep and were disposessed again when dubstep started getting big room and ravey have actually found something new, maybe. I think there's still a lot of intersection and common ground and cross-fertilization between the people who are going back to garage and the people who are going on to funky and people who are going wherever wonky is.

big up martin

i think its pretty amazing that a single tune can come along and its powerful enough to trigger this big discussion and get people talking all over the world in the space of only a few weeks

so massive respect to joy