Dubstep Radio

Yes, I admit this post is about four months behind the times - I’ll make it up to you guys in the next couple posts which will be focused on more current tunes - but I have to get this out there!

Dub Police, along with Sub Soldiers, [the dirty, bass-heavy, bastard children of their parent label Storming Production], have dropped some mind fuckery tunes in the last two years. Although they have put out the odd record that didn’t really blow me away, the quality tunes and producers on their roster make up for it tenfold.

Some of the most notable artists who have released tracks on this label are: Caspa; L-Wiz; N-Type; The Others; Distinction; Orien; Dubwoofa; Unitz; and, of course, Rusko [Chris Mercer], who has always been one of my favourite dubstep producers.

He has now put out two ultra bass-weight EPs on Dub Police, and one double LP on Sub Soldiers, and a handful of tracks on other various artists compilations.

SNES Dub [b/w Hornz Cru, True Powwa] came out in 2006, and because of its earlier nature in the evolution of dubstep, I find myself having a harder time enjoying this EP. A lot of purists would say this is some of his best work to date, but I’d consider them stuck in the past. I find older dubstep and the roots of dubstep rather boring.

In early 2007 Rusko dropped Action Dread [b/w his remix of Caspa’s Cockney Flute]. I absolutely love Action Dread - its just so chill, dubby and melodic. It has this sort of dub-techno vibe to it that makes it amazing for stacking up with 2-step in mixes [check out my shambhala 07 mix at 20 minutes in if you want an example].

On September 27, 2007, he put out Babylon: Volume One, which contained two of the sickest dubstep tunes I’ve heard to date - Cockney Thug and Jahova. Seriously retarded dance floor smashers. Who said dubstep couldn’t rock a party? I’ve seen people get so bruk to these tunes that they were wheeled out of the club on a stretcher. I figured I should also include my quick 80s mashup of Cockney Thug: Cockney Love Girl - Rusko v.s. The Outfield

He also put out The Original Cut, on the three track compilation [ DubPolice 014 ]. Honestly, although this track is pretty heavy, it doesn’t live up to the standards he’s set by those last two. On top of that, he also put out Jah Love on a six track compilation on Tempa.

There is one Rusko track that I haven’t been able to cop yet, which is a whitelabel pressing with two remixes of Mike Lennon’s When Science Fails. His remix is on one side, and Hektagon does his version on the flipside. If anyone has heard this I would appreciate some feedback on it! [edit - i did find a preview clip, sounds fucking hot!]

Caspa and Rusko have been tag teaming up a storm - officially they only released three collaborative tracks [Custard Chucker, Bread Get Bun & Cockney Violin] - but together they just did Fabric 37, which is loaded with awesome, unreleased goodies. Heres a tracklist, enjoy the mix, but remember to buy it it if you like it ; )

01. Caspa - Born to do it - Sub Soldiers
02. L-Wiz - Girl From Codeine City - Dub Police
03. Caspa - Cockney Violin - Dub Police
04. Uncle Sam - Round the way Girls - Tes La Rok RMX - Argon
05. Rusko - Jahova - Sub Soldiers
06. Caspa - The Terminator - Sub Soldiers
07. Cotti - Legacy - -30
08. Matty G - 50K VIP - Argon
09. The Others - Africa VIP - Dub Police
10. Distance - V - Chest Plate
11. Caspa - Big Headed Slags - Sub Soldiers
12. Rusko - Too Far - Sub Soldiers
13. Coki - Sponge Bob - DMZ
14. Caspa - Louder - Pitch Black
15. Caspa & The Others - Well �Ard - Sub Soldiers
16. Unitz - The Drop - Dub Police
17. Rusko - Hammer Time - Dub plate
18. Rusko - Mr Chips - Dub plate
19. Orien - Look At My Eyes - Dub Police
20. The Others - Fun House - Dub Police
21. Rusko - 2 N A Q - Sub Soldiers
22. Rusko - Cockney Thug - Sub Soldiers
23. Rusko - Cockney Thug - Buraka Som Sistema RMX - Sub Soldiers
24. Skream - Guru - Dub plate
25. Rusko - Beta Max - Dub plate
26. D1 - Im Loving - Tempa
27. Caspa & Rusko - Rock Bottom - Destructive
28. Orien - Rainbow Tear Drops - Dub Police
29. ConQuest - Forever - Dub Police

I definitely love the whitelable concept. Everytime a track drops on a whitelable I get so hyped up, and with good reason! Lets put it this way - two of the hottest tunes of 2007 dropped on a whitelable. Why? …Well, probably because the producers who made them couldn’t afford to copyright the vocals they used! But regardless, these tunes are both hot as fuck. Unlike those cheesy deep house remixes of great reggae tracks that make you want to almost cry because its so painful, these tunes do the originals more than justice. So, two hot tracks from two totally hot and very different producers.

The first, Coki - this guy has been destroying dancefloors since the birth of dubstep. He is one third of Digital Mystikz (DMZ), the other two thirds being Mala and Loefah. Together they also run a label (DMZ) and a dubstep dance (DMZ).

Now, to be honest, I wasn’t aware of the second producer, Innerling, until I heard this track by him, and was so impressed I had to hunt it down. Apparently he also does silk screening? Gotta love well rounded talent. Going forward however, I greedily hope he focuses his energy on producing more sick tunes!

Unknown - Burning

Unknown - Intercom

Seriously though, you should really try to bag both these tunes if you still can. It might be a little bit late to cop the Burning track on vinyl [edit: chemical has it], but theres still copies of the Intercom track floating around at bm-soho or juno, even though boomkat is sold out.

There’s been a lot of talk of the Burial album being something of a next step in dubstep, and for good reason – it is the first full-length release on Hyperdub, dark grime king Kode9’s label. But if this album had simply dropped from the sky, I doubt that this talk would be so pronounced. To me, Burial sounds much more like an evolution of what became known as trip hop in the mid-’90s. Not to say that dubstep hasn’t had a heavy hand in the formation of this album – Burial himself has talked about his time spent listening to Rinse FM, London’s pirate radio station that has become an epicenter of dubstep; and tracks like “Wounder” and “Southern Comfort,” with their bouncy rhythms and creeping synth stabs, certainly will be mixed into countless grime DJ sets. But thinking about the rhythms outside of a dubstep context quickly brings the subtle rhythmic compositions of Mezzanine-era Massive Attack to mind; Tricky’s fantastic 1995 album Maxinquaye is never too far away either.

The thing that really distances this album from dubstep’s sonic crack is the way Burial takes the mood out of the background and places it front and center. While El-B and some of the Tempa label roster have done some of the pioneering work of lending dubstep an almost tropically atmospheric sound, Burial has succeeded in casting a unique shadow over the music, so thick that it becomes the predominant force of the album.

This industrial haze came to be as a technical by-product. Frustrated in his attempts to emulate the clean and exacting style of producers like Photek, Digital and MJ Cole, Burial decided the best way to construct drums with the little experience he had was to simply layer noise over most of them, disguising the lack of processing equipment he worked with. Instead of breaks that sound like they were sent through a sponge on the way to the speakers, we hear the smooth crackle of noise from the radio, which cements the beats together fantastically. In another case of inexperience turned into subtle enhancement, the drums on Burial aren’t sequenced in a traditional sense – they’re simply laid out in a wave editor side by side – resulting in slight timing inconsistencies that make the listen even more worthwhile. Comparisons to characteristically crackly players like Pole and Basic Channel abound, but Burial, a self-described jungle freak, didn’t come at it from that angle. It’s quite a nice surprise to know that he came to this sound as a product of his own necessity.

The best by-products of Burial’s combination of inexperience and good taste are the big, open spaces – almost like he couldn’t stomach the testosterone of hard dubstep. The short vocal and instrumental samples dropped effortlessly into the mix (hear “Gutted” and “Broken Home” for particularly beautiful treatments) spruce up these sci-fi deserts and add a surprising emotional appeal, one rarely associated with dubstep. Burial uses this trick selectively, and along with the stripped-down drums, it makes for a ghostly, almost meditative moodiness.

The presentation of the record is also key to it finding new ears – it is, of course, an album, which is something of a strange concept in Burial’s little corner of world, populated almost entirely by 12″ singles meant for DJs. The only other dubstep-associated release that I can compare to Burial is the Vex’d full-length De Generate, but Burial feels significantly more coherent and unique.

So, as has happened with scores of creative movements, it might be the rookie creator that brings the widest lens on his particular genre. Burial has spilled the contents of dubstep into something far more accessible and unique. His influences better step it up.