Feeling this is more insane

Revealed to the world as guest vocalist in the Magnetic Man project, Katy B has since released a few quite-good songs on her own, all indebting a lot to dubstep and the UK bass culture. Her new single changes this perception a bit and thus may, very well, become her first international breakthrough hit. Mostly because Broken Record broadens its influences and literally opens up to the world. Just hear that drum'n'bass chorus and you'll understand why.



www.katyonamission.com

Magnetic Man - Magnetic Man

An electronic project between three of the most famous dubstep producers out there (Skream, Benga and Artwork), Magnetic Man seem very aware of their supergroup status, at least considering all the larger-than-life vibes that come from their debut full-length. With strong wicked beats, anthemic synth lines, an interesting line-up of guest voices (John Legend, Ms Dynamite, Katy B, Sam Frank and Angela Hunte) and some really catchy melodies, everything in here seems designed to sound BIG. And so it is, with extremely physical sounds that reach their best when aiming higher, hands-in-the-air style, like the goosebumps-inducing song Anthemic. Or, even better, when all this is achieved while staying close to the best pop music rules, something which is done in many moments across this album and has its peak in the wonderful I Need Air. (7/10)

Magnetic Man - Anthemic (mp3)



Magnetic Man - I Need Air (video)



www.magneticman.net
www.myspace.com/magneticman

Keep Walking On My Friend

Five perfect minutes of futuristic beats, a dark awesome melody and some poignant break-up lyrics, in one of the finest crossovers between dubstep and pop ever done so far. And I'm pretty sure we'll hear much more of this kind in the near future.

Skream + Example - Shot Yourself In The Foot Again (mp3 via What's Good With It)



www.myspace.com/skreamuk
www.trythisforexample.com

Silkie - City Limits Volume 1

Maybe not the instant classic that some were expecting, but City Limits Volume 1, while being a good indicator of the current state of impasse that dubstep is living, still does that in the best way possible, and on its way it almost takes things one step forward. So this means that we have here the more abstract and liquid sounds that are starting to define this genre as of lately, a bit like what happened to jungle when it mutated into drum'n'bass back in the nineties - when eventually everyone started going too far into the softer side of things, killing the whole fun in the process. But, on the other hand, the beats are as fierce and powerful as ever, while the juxtaposition of different layers and the scientific attention put into every single last detail has reached an hallucinating degree of mind-travel-inducing sounds. (7,5/10)

Silkie - Purple Love (mp3 via Passion of the Weiss)



www.myspace.com/silkie86

Caspa - Everybody's Talking, Nobody's Listening!

In the last few months dubstep has been, in some ways, too much absorbed in its own sense of self-importance, so this album by London producer Caspa comes at the perfect time, feeling just right to counter-balance that current state of things: nothing but an unpretentious collection of jams that doesn't want anything else but to make you wobble to those mega-blastin' heavy bass lines coming out of the speakers. Shifting from one track to another with no particular care about coherence or conceptual unity, the main goal is none other than to cause a physical reaction, just like there's no tomorrow. And actually, when that is accomplished in the freshest way possible, who can complain? (7/10)

Caspa - Riot Powder (mp3 via Neonized Magazine)



www.myspace.com/caspadubstep

The Bug - London Zoo

It would be easy to label "London Zoo" as just the next step in dubstep evolution, with this genre blending itself with many external influences like dancehall or ragga, to create new exciting universes. But let's not forget that Kevin Martin, the man behind this project, has been around for more than a decade, while this itself is already his third album as The Bug. With that in mind, it's still clear that "London Zoo" is the synthesis of many things that have been happening in London's nightscape for the last few years. And like M.I.A., Spank Rock or Diplo, The Bug's strongest asset is to absorb the atmosphere of our times and create something that abolishes all frontiers, while still having a strong individual identity that guides the listener around and adds a special unique touch. And "London Zoo" is no easy-listening indeed: soundtracking fear and oppression in an almost aggressive way, this music is so claustrophobic, frantic and dense, that you shouldn't be surprised to reach the end gasping for air. Not for the faint-hearted. (9/10)

The Bug - Skeng (feat. Killa P and Flowdan) (video)



MySpace page

Benga - Diary Of An Afro Warrior

Mechanical and hypnotic beats, a profound bass and a doped atmosphere with industrial resonances... Must be a dubstep record then. Benga is a young talent producing underground anthems inside the dubstep scene since the age of 16 and now, with 21, his debut full-length shows no signs of him getting tired or losing inspiration. Partner-in-crime with Skream, his sound follows dubstep rules almost by the book instead of taking a more personnel and unique approach like, say, Burial or Kode9. But there's still a lot in here to go mental for, besides the usual formal ellegance and mind-blowing properties found on the best dubstep releases. Operating small changes inside the genre's own foundations, a closer look to this album reveals many new external influences that range from jazzy tones to electro and minimalism influences, incorporating a more organic attitude to this music that opens new possible paths to be followed in the future. (7/10)

Benga & Coki - Night (video)



MySpace page

Pinch - Underwater Dancehall

Released on the same day as Burial's monumental latest record, "Underwater Dancehall" by dubstep producer and DJ Rob Ellis (aka Pinch) runs the risk of being overshadowed by "Untrue", something which would be quite unfair. Being one of the most respected figures inside the dubstep community, his first full-length record is an ambitious conceptual double-album with a curious approach: the first part consists mostly of tracks with added guest vocalists, while the second half has the exact same tracks with the exact same order but excluding the voices. Funnily enough, this simple fact makes a huge difference in the final ambience, with the vocal-versions being much more open, thanks in part to the contributions of jamaican toasters and r&b vocalists. On the other hand, the instrumental half feels much darker and mechanical, living in special place of its own, a languid world almost closed to the outside. Either way, as a whole it's easy to identify Pinch's trademark technics as a producer, with a sparse collection of sounds used to obtain a narcotic atmoshere with maximum effects inside our brain. In fact, with an almost clinical precision, "Underwater Dancehall" is run by a self-restrained approach guaranteed to awe anyone that immerses in its sounds and analyses them. Using subterranean layered beats, a profound bass and a few haunted samples, each track then has an individual identity, with and without vocals, building an immense pallette of soundscapes and emotions. (8/10)

MySpace page (Tectonic Recordings)

Burial - Untrue

No one knows for sure who he really is, but Burial is undoubtedly dubstep's most prestigious agent. And in a slow year for dubstep full-length records, "Untrue" is destined to mark 2007. His first album, out in 2006, was considered one of the year's best by many people (including myself) and naturally expectations were high, but after hearing "Untrue", it's hard to imagine anyone feeling disappointed.
It's fair to say that his sound is strongly identifiable. Suggesting post-apocalyptic urban landscapes where there's not a living soul to be seen, it's late night and there's only empty, dark and abandoned spaces, "Burial" was dubstep's milestone and marked its entry into adulthood. With "Untrue", we're once again taken to the following days (or nights) after the apocalypse, a scary and at the same time beautiful place, but there are also other aspects that make it more eclectic. For once, besides the fact that the beats are sharper and the synths are more emotive, the use of echoed soul voices, already one of his trademarks, is much stronger, with some titles seeming, for the first time, drafts of actual songs, even if these are blurred voices heard through a lot of static. The claustrophobic and imponent atmosphere is again present, but there are also lighter elements heard, though not in a conforting way, but instead inserted with a lot of grain, as if these were nostalgic notes of a time before the apocalypse, reminding us of something that no longer exists. There's also a very subtle narrative line throughout the whole record, making "Untrue" a conceptual work with strong visual suggestions, building a poetic universe to which we can't help but be immersed in, only to be blinded by its unique and powerful light. Coming from a place of its own and whispering the future in our ears, is "Untrue" an act of obsession? Sublime, enigmatic and moving as few other things, here's a fascinating record by one of the most fascinating musicians of today. (9,5/10)

Myspace page

Shackleton / Appleblim - Soundboy Punishments

Apart from a few exceptions, some of which tend to be considered album of the year by many people including myself, (hello Burial), dubstep music is still mostly released in vinyl-only maxi-singles and white labels, keeping the anonymous underground aura that is still attached to the scene. For the common public, this makes it harder to keep up with all the news, but from time to time comes a full-length album that does us the favor of updating everyone with some of the most interesting stuff circulating for the last few months on DJ's plates, underground clubs or pirate stations. We already had "The Roots Of Dubstep" and its take into, hum, dubstep roots, including most of its underground classic gems; the Dubstep Allstars series, released through Tempa, already in its 5th volume and constantly collecting some of the most recent scene's cuts. Now "Soundboy Punishments" comes to fulfil another hole, covering almost all the work put out by producers Shackleton and Appleblim, of Skull Disco. Not the most hyped dubstep producers, their work has nevertheless been one of the most solid and mesmerizing to date, always building geometric and mechanical doped beats and basslines and dressing them with minimal surreal elements like cavernous sounds, thunderous synthesizers, robotic percussions or, in Shackleton's case, some mid-East influences. It's also visible the influence that the german minimal technno scene has on this guys, with its hypnotic digressions and alternative takes into the common space and time vectors, culminating in an epic 18-minute track remixed by Ricardo Villalobos, as if two titanic worlds melted together and slowly danced to the end of the world. Enigmatic, futuristic and post-apocalyptic as ever, this is music that has the power to look at the darkest sides of our urban culture and with that, slowly involving our brain and touching our soul. (8/10)

Boxcutter - Oneiric

Dubstep continues its logical progression. After years of being confined to underground clubs, pirate radios and white labels, we already had two genre-defining records ("Burial" by Burial and "Memories Of The Future" by Kode9 + The Spaceape), a lighter and infectious approach ("Skream!" by Skream), a successful attempt to mix dubstep with folk songs ("The World Is Gone" by Various) and now a new twist, bringing industrial and metalized electronic sounds to dubstep's trademark elements. Keeping with the same old comparisons, Boxcutter is doing something very similar to what Photek did to drum'n'bass exactly ten years ago. What does all this mean? If last year we had post-apocalyptic records, "Oneiric" is the apocalypse itself, harder and faster, full of furious, hallucinating and difficult-to-decipher rhythms, with a nervous and confronting atmosphere that, with a few rare exceptions, makes it almost impossible to breathe. Yep, as intense as that. And no, this is definitely not music to relax. (7/10)

Various - The World Is Gone

Various Production is a mysterious project of two London producers and their debut album, The World Is Gone, is the strongest proof so far that dubstep, besides being the hottest musical genre nowadays, is also starting to become a vyrus and infect other styles. Basically, this album is doing with dubstep in 2006 what "Dummy", by Portishead, has done with trip-hop in 1994: grabbing an emerging musical style, so far largely used in instrumental music, and constructing songs with melodies over it, sang by tormented voices. This results in something literally never heard before, making the listener first gasp with surprise and then gasp again, but this time with enthusiasm. A symbiosis between many extremes, uniting the past (folk songs) and the future (dubstep digital rhythms), The World Is Gone is perfect music that could also be the soundtrack to ancient rituals performed in an advanced technologic civilization. Dark, luminous, scary, beautiful, haunted and bloody good.

Skream - Skream!

Although he's only 20-years-old, south-Londoner Oliver Jones, aka Skream, is one of the most visible and admired producers inside the dubstep scene. His Skreamizm vinyl series became some of the most sought-after maxi-singles while his debut album was awaited with huge expectation. So here it is and the least we can say is that being the flavor of the month didn't hurt him, on the contrary. Skream!, the album, is dubstep in its purest form, with a strong emphasis on the "dub" side of the word. Although the paranoid sounds and claustrophobic atmospheres that define dubstep are still present, there is also space for some less darker sounds, making this the most luminous album so far to be released in this genre, thanks to a strong influence from Jamaican styles such as ska or reggae. With a huge talent to create original textures with so few sparse elements and using a strong and profound bass that supports everything, Skream creates one of those brilliant cases where the final result largely exceeds the sum of its parts.

V/A - The Roots Of Dubstep

As its own title suggests, this is a compilation that traces dubstep genealogy, collecting previously released maxi singles from 2000 to 2004, making it easier to understand what were its origins, which were its influences and how it evolved during time. Besides its musical excellence, it also serves as a fantastic musical document that captures the exact moment when drum'n'bass, UK garage and two-step were transformed, slowed down and fused with dub elements, giving an important attention to space and silence, originating a new hybrid founded in a profound bass and geometric rhythmic structures, one that targeted the mind as well as the body. At this moment, dubstep is living its most exciting period, slowly coming out of London's underground clubs and pirate radios and having so many paths to go and explore, as shown in two of this year's best albuns, "Burial" by Burial and "Memories Of The Future" by Kode9 and The Spaceape (which were already something else). Right now anything can happen. "The Roots Of Dubstep" makes it easier to understand how it all became possible.

Kode9 + The Spaceape - Memories Of The Future

So it's official: dubstep is the sound of 2006 and Hyperdub its most important label. Some months ago we already had Burial's debut album, which is setting out to be the record of the year. And now the man behind Hyperdub, Steve Goodman (aka Kode9), puts out his own landmark, one that is simply and hauntingly brilliant. If "Burial" was already the soundtrack for the post-apocalypse, "Memories Of The Future" is post-post-everything. As if there's nothing left in the world, the sun has long disappeared, taking all forms of life with him, and we only have shadows, empty spaces, darkness, echoes and a sense of fear and loneliness in the air. Musically, this translates once again in an obsessive attention to the sounds geometry, an almost claustrophobic one, where only the absolutely necessary is heard. But if "Burial" was mostly instrumental, "Memories Of The Future" has the collaboration of declaimer Spaceape, reciting its scary poems in a monochordic and haunted voice, just like a prophet would sound after the end of the world, adding to the fear sensation that makes this album so unique. Somewhere in a line between life and death, and in the words of Kode9 himself: "14 dread filled flash-backs and flash-forwards from a world trembling in an echology of fear".

Burial - Burial

Let's just start by saying this is probably one of the most important music releases in recent times. Ground-breaking albuns that are nothing less than genre defining don't happen often, with the best example probably still being 1995's "Timeless", by Goldie, responsible for taking jungle and drum'n'bass out of the underground and into the world in all its glory.
Cut forward to 2006 and we're introduced to dubstep, a new genre that has its origins in UK garage, slowing down its rhythm, cutting its voices and applying new sound techniques inspired by dub. And Burial, the mysterious London producer responsible for this urban masterpiece, will surely be remembered as its standard-bearer.
Of course, as with all visionary musicians, Burial doesn't limit itself to one genre, instead creating an intimate and personal view of how he sees what music should be: minimal, dark, post-apocalyptic, subterranean, mysterious, hypnotic and also moving... The result? A bit like walking alone into the spaces that were once occupied by raves and finding them totally empty and abandoned to degradation. Meaning that, after "City Watching" (2000) by Two Banks Of Four, and as its album cover brilliantly suggests, we have a new soundtrack for the urban city night, one that is much scarier but without a milligram of less beauty, just on the contrary. Not a single sound in here is unnecessary, not a single sample is out of place, not a single rhythmic texture is less than pure poetry, creating a suffocating ambience but full of melancholy, as if the haunted echoed voices that are sometimes heard in here were nothing less than an interpretation of our deepest feelings. We're not the first ones to say it, but we agree: Breathtaking.