Dubstep

Dubstep is a genre of electronic music that has its roots in London's early 2000s UK garage scene. The name of the genre was coined by Ammunition Promotions. Musically, dubstep is distinguished by its dark mood, sparse rhythms, and emphasis on bass. Dubstep started to spread beyond small local scenes in late 2005 and early 2006, with many websites devoted to the genre appearing on the Internet and thus aiding the growth of the scene, such as dubstepforum, the download site Barefiles and blogs such as gutterbreakz.^[1] Simultaneously, the genre was receiving extensive coverage in music magazines such as The Wire and online publications such as Pitchfork Media, with a regular feature entitled The Month In: Grime/Dubstep. Interest in dubstep grew significantly after BBC Radio 1 DJ Mary Anne Hobbs started championing the genre, beginning with a show devoted to it (entitled "Dubstep Warz") in January 2006.^[2][3][4]

Characteristics

Musical score of the above recording

Dubstep's early roots are in the more experimental releases of UK garage producers, seeking to incorporate elements of grime into the South London-based 2-step garage sound. These experiments often ended up on the B-side of a white label or commercial garage release.^[2][5][6] Dubstep is generally instrumental. Like another, more vocal garage hybrid, grime, the genre's feel is commonly dark; tracks frequently use a minor key and can feature dissonant harmonies such as the augmented fourth within a riff. Other distinguishing features often found are the use of samples, a propulsive, sparse rhythm,^[7] and an almost omnipresent sub-bass. Some dubstep artists have also incorporated a variety of outside influences, from dub-influenced techno such as Basic Channel to classical music or heavy metal.^[7][8][9]

Rhythm

Dubstep rhythms are usually syncopated, and often shuffled or incorporating triplets. The tempo is nearly always in the range of 138-142bpm.^[7] Dubstep rhythms typically do not follow the four-to-the-floor patterns common in many other styles of electronic dance music such as techno and house, but instead tend to rely on a kickdrum based around the first and third beat of a bar (a characteristic inherited from 2-step garage) and longer percussion loops than the four-bar phrases present in much techno or house. Often, a track's percussion will follow a pattern which when heard alone will appear to be playing at half the tempo of the track; the double-time feel is instead achieved by other elements, usually the bassline. An excellent example of this tension generated by the conflicting tempo is Skream's Rutten, which features a very sparse rhythm almost entirely composed of kick drum, snare drum, and a sparse hi-hat, with a distinctly half time implied 69bpm tempo. The track is instead propelled by a constant sub-bass following a four to the floor 138bpm pattern, and a sampled flute phrase.

In an Invisible Jukebox interview with The Wire, dubstep artist and label owner Kode9 commented on a DJ MRK1 (formerly Mark One) track, observing that listeners "have internalized the double-time rhythm" and the "track is so empty it makes [the listener] nervous, and you almost fill in the double time yourself, physically, to compensate".^[10]

Bass drops, rewinds and MCs

Many dubstep tracks incorporate one or more "bass drops," another characteristic inherited from drum 'n' bass. Typically, the percussion will pause, often reducing the track to silence, and then resume with more intensity, accompanied by a dominant subbass (often passing portamento through an entire octave or more, as in the audio example).

Rewinds (or reloads)^[11] are another technique used by dubstep DJs. If a song seems to be especially popular, the DJ will 'spin back' the record by hand without lifting the stylus, and play the track in question again. Rewinds are also an important live element in many of dubstep's precursors; the technique originates in dub reggae soundsystems, and is also used at UK garage and jungle nights.^[12]

Taking direct cues from Jamaica's lyrically sparse deejay and toasting mic styles in the vein of reggae pioneers like U-Roy, the MC's role in dubstep's live experience is critically important to its impact^[13]. As the music is largely instrumental, the MC operates in a similar context to drum and bass and is generally more of a complement to the music rather than the deliverer of lyrical content^[14]. Notable mainstays in the live experience of the sound are MC Sgt Pokes and MC Crazy D, both from London^[15][16][17]. Production in a studio environment seems to lend itself to more experimentation, however; Kode9 has collaborated extensively with the Spaceape, who MCs in a dread poet style, whilst Kevin Martin's experiments with the genre are almost exclusively collaborations with MCs such as Warrior Queen, Flowdan, and Tippa Irie. Skream has also featured Warrior Queen and grime artist JME on his debut album, Skream!.

Structure

Mala of Digital Mystikz

Early dubstep releases inherited a structure similar to those used in drum and bass and UK garage, typically comprising an intro, a main section (often incorporating a bass drop), a midsection, a second main section similar to the first (often with another drop), and an outro.

This rather rigid format has evolved in recent times, unlike in grime, where the focus tends to be on providing a musical framework - commonly eight- or sixteen-bar loops - for MCs to rap over. As a result, some grime DJs, such as Plastician, have begun playing more dubstep,^[8] and some grime MCs, such as JME, have released tracks with a dubstep sound or MCed directly over dubstep beats. Coki and Mala of Digital Mystikz have experimented with abrupt, 16-bar intros and have produced tracks with dub vocalists,^[18] and dubstep artist and label co-owner Sam Shackleton has moved toward productions which fall outside the usual dubstep tempo, and sometimes entirely lack most of the common tropes of the genre.^[19]

History

Origins of the sound: 1999–2002

The Mixing Records record shop, formerly Big Apple Records, in Croydon

The sound of dubstep originally came out of productions by El-B,^[5] Steve Gurley,^[5] Oris Jay,^[9] and Zed Bias^[20][21] in 1999-2000. The term dubstep was first used by Ammunition Promotions,^[5][22][23] who run the influential club Forward>> and have managed many proto dubstep record labels (including Tempa, Soulja, Road, Vehicle, Shelflife, Texture, Lifestyle and Bingo).^[9][3] The term's use in a 2002 XLR8R cover story (featuring Horsepower Productions on the cover) contributed to it becoming established as the name of the genre.^[20][24] It gained full acceptance with the Dubstep Allstars Vol 1 CD (Tempa) mixed by DJ Hatcha.^[25][26]

The club Forward>> was originally held at the Velvet Rooms in London's Soho and is now running every Sunday at Plastic People in Shoreditch, east London, as well as holding regular parties at The End in Holborn.^[7] Founded in 2001, Forward>> was critical to the development of dubstep, providing the first venue devoted to the sound and an environment in which dubstep producers could premier new music.^[27] Around this time, Forward>> was also incubating several other strains of dark garage hybrids, so much so that in the early days of the club the coming together of these strains was referred to as the "Forward>> sound".^[28] An online flyer from around this time encapsulated the Forward>> sound as "b-lines to make your chest cavity shudder."^[29]

Forward>> also ran a radio show on east London pirate station Rinse FM, hosted by producer/DJ Kode9, owner of the Hyperdub label.^[30][31][32] The original Forward>> residents included Hatcha, Youngsta, Kode9, Zed Bias, Oris Jay,^[9] Slaughter Mob, Jay Da Flex, Slimzee and others, plus regular guests. The line up of residents has changed over the years to include Youngsta, Hatcha, Geeneus and Plastician, with Crazy D as MC/host. Producers including D1, Skream and Benga make regular appearances.^[27]

Another crucial element in the early development of dubstep was the Big Apple Records record shop in Croydon.^[3] Key artists such as Hatcha and later Skream worked in the shop (which initially sold garage and drum and bass, but evolved with the emerging dubstep scene in the area),^[5] while Digital Mystikz were frequent visitors. El-B, Zed Bias, Horsepower, and a young Loefah regularly visited the shop as well.^[3] The shop and its record label have since closed down^[20] and reopened under the name Mixing Records.

Origins of the scene: 2002–2005

Dubstep producer Skream, one of the most widely known names in the scene

Throughout 2003, DJ Hatcha pioneered a new direction for dubstep on Rinse FM and through his sets at Forward>>.^[3][21] Playing sets cut to 10" one-off reggae-style dubplates, he drew exclusively from a pool of new South London producers—first Benga and Skream,^[21] then also Digital Mystikz and Loefah—to begin a dark, clipped and minimal new direction in dubstep.^[33]

South London collective Digital Mystikz (Mala and Coki), along with labelmates and collaborators Loefah and MC Sgt Pokes soon came into their own, bringing sound system thinking, dub values, and appreciation of jungle bass weight to the dubstep scene.^[20] Digital Mystikz brought an expanded palette of sounds and influences to the genre, most prominently reggae and dub, as well as orchestral melodies.^[34]

After releasing 12"s on Big Apple, they founded DMZ Records, which has released thirteen 12"s to date. They also began their night DMZ, held every two months in Brixton,^[35] a part of London already strongly associated with reggae.^[36] DMZ has showcased new dubstep artists such as Skream, Kode 9, Benga, Pinch, DJ Youngsta, Hijak, Joe Nice and Vex'd. DMZ's first anniversary event (at the Mass venue, a converted church) saw fans attending from places as far away as Sweden, the U.S., and Australia, leading to a queue of 600 people^[37] at the event. This forced the club to move from its regular 400-capacity space^[4] to Mass' main room, an event cited as a pivotal moment in dubstep's history.^[9][38]

In 2004, Richard James' label, Rephlex, released two compilations that included dubstep tracks - the (perhaps misnomered) Grime and Grime 2. The first featured Plasticman , Mark One and Slaughter Mob,^[39] with Kode 9, Loefah and Digital Mystikz appearing on the second.^[40] These compilations helped to raise awareness of dubstep at a time when the grime sound was drawing more attention,^[20] and Digital Mystikz and Loefah's presence on the second release contributed to the success of their DMZ club night.^[41] Soon afterwards, the Independent on Sunday commented on "a whole new sound", at a time when both genres were becoming popular, stating that "grime" and "dubstep" were two names for the same style, which was also known as "sublow", "8-bar" and "eskibeat".^[42] In the summer of 2005, Forward>> brought grime DJs to the fore of the line up.^[43]

Growth of the scene: 2005–2007

Dubstep Section at BM Soho, London

2006 saw interest grow in the sound. Building on the success of Skream's 2005 grimey anthem "Midnight Request Line," the hype around the DMZ night and support from online forums (notably dubstepforum.com^[7]) and media,^[4] the scene gained prominence after Radio 1 DJ Mary Anne Hobbs gathered top figures from the scene for one show, entitled "Dubstep Warz", (later releasing the compilation album "Warrior Dubz").^[37] The show created a new audience for the scene, both in the UK and worldwide, after years of underground hard graft.^[7] A successful year for the genre culminated in Burial's self-titled album appearing in many critics' "Best of..." lists for the year, notably The Wire's Best Album of 2006.^[44][45] Dubstep was also featured prominently in the soundtrack for the 2006 sci-fi film Children of Men,^[46] which included Digital Mystikz, Random Trio, Kode 9, Pressure and DJ Pinch.^[47] Ammunition also released the first retrospective compilation of the 2000-2004 era of dubstep called "The Roots of Dubstep," co-compiled by Ammunition and Blackdown on the Tempa Label.^[48]

In 2007, dubstep started to gain substantial international attention, with the help of ambassadors such as Baltimore DJ Joe Nice and Matt Carl from Canada.^[7] Regular Dubstep club nights have been held in cities like New York,^[49] San Francisco^[24], Seattle, Houston, and Denver,^[50] while Mary Anne Hobbs curated a Dubstep showcase at 2007's Sónar festival in Barcelona.^[9] Non-British artists have also won praise within the larger Dubstep community.^[9] Joe Nice has played at DMZ,^[51] while the fifth installment of Tempa's "Dubstep Allstars" mix series (released in 2007) included tracks by Finnish producer Tes La Rok and Americans JuJu and Matty G.^[52] This rapid growth internationally of the music has undoubtedly been aided by the Internet and other sources of broadcast such as London's popular and original Rinse FM and similar stations such as Sub FM and dubstep.fm.

Evolution of the sound: 2007-present

BBC Radio 1 DJ Mary Anne Hobbs

Techno artists and DJs are now assimilating dubstep into their sets and productions.^[9] Shackleton's "Blood On My Hands" was remixed by minimal techno producer Ricardo Villalobos (an act reciprocated when Villalobos included a Shackleton mix on his "Vasco" EP) ^[53] and included on a mix CD by Panoramabar resident Cassy.^[9] Ellen Allien and Apparat's 2006 song "Metric" (from the Orchestra of Bubbles album)^[54][55], Modeselektor's Godspeed (from the 2007's Happy Birthday! album, among other tracks on that same album) and Roman Flugel's remix of Riton's "Hammer of Thor" are other examples of dubstep-influenced techno.^[9] Berlin's Hard Wax record store (operated by influential^[56] dub techno artists Basic Channel)^[57][58] has also championed Shackleton's Skull Disco label, later broadening its focus to include other dubstep releases^[8], whilst the same label's sound can be heard as an influence more and more within the genre, with producers such as 2562 and Martyn adopting a similar minimal aesthetic.

Some critics have also seen a dubstep influence in the Britney Spears song "Freakshow" (from her 2007 album Blackout), which Tom Ewing describes as "built around the 'wobbler' effect that's a genre standby."^[59][60]

Much like drum and bass before it, dubstep has started to become incorporated into other media, particularly in the United Kingdom. In 2007, Benga, Skream, and other dubstep producers provided the soundtrack to much of the second series of Dubplate Drama, which aired on Channel 4 with a soundtrack CD later released on Rinse Recordings. The sound also featured prominently in the second series of the teen drama Skins, which also aired on Channel 4 in early 2008.

As the genre has spread to become an international rather than UK-centric scene, it has also seen a number of women making headway into the scene in a variety of ways. Alongside Soulja of Ammunition Promotions and Mary Anne Hobbs, an influx of female producers, writers, photographers and DJs all have broken through, in the up-til-then male orientated scene, without making gender an issue. With key 12" releases on Hyperdub, Immigrant and Hotflush Recordings, producers Vaccine, Subeena and Ikonika have introduced a palette of new sounds and influences to the genre, such as double-time bass drums, 8-bit video game samples, hand percussion and lushly arranged strings ^[61]. Mary Anne Hobbs commented that the mood at dubstep nights is less aggressive, or more meditative, leading to a larger female attendance at events than with the genre's precursors, noting "Grime and drum 'n' bass raves tend to be quite aggy. People in dubstep clubs tend to have a more meditative approach, which is inviting to females. You see the female-to-male ratio constantly going up – it’s got the potential to be 40:60".^[61]

Journalists Melissa Bradshaw^[62][63], Emma Warren^[64][65], and dubstep documentarian and photographer Georgina Cook have all had massive impact on the cultural importance of the music. Cook's Drumz of the South flickr page documents the evolution of the scene in a photographic timeline of sorts, and was for a time the only photographic archive of the key events such as the early FWD and DMZ nights in London^{[61][66][67][68]}.

The summer of 2007 saw dubstep's musical palette expand further, with Benga and Coki scoring a crossover hit (in a similar manner to Skream's "Midnight Request Line") with the track "Night", which gained widespread play from DJs in a diverse range of genres. Radio 1 DJ Gilles Peterson named it his record of 2007, and it was also a massive hit in the equally bassline-orientated, but decidedly more four-to-the-floor genre of bassline house^[69], whilst Burial's late 2007 release Untrue (which was nominated for the 2008 Nationwide Mercury Music Prize in the UK) incorporated extensive use of heavily manipulated, mostly female, 'girl next door' vocal samples^[70]. Burial has spoken at length regarding his intent to reincorporate elements of musical precursors such as 2-step garage and house into his sound.^[71]

See also

• List of dubstep musicians

References

External links

• DubstepForum popular dubstep message board
• FWD>> influential dubstep/grime club night
• Barefiles A highly influential mixes archive website for international followers.
• GetDarker An online magazine full of interviews, articles, photos from events and videos.
• BBC Collective dubstep documentary filmed at DMZ 1st Birthday, 2005. Interviews with Mala, Loefah, Skream, Kode 9, Youngsta...
• Blackdown blog by UK music journalist Martin Clark
• The Month In: Grime/Dubstep Columns by Martin Clark on Pitchfork
• Gutterbreakz long-running dubstep blog
• Drumz of the South longtime archive of key dubstep photography.
• Riddim.ca Long-running grime/dubstep site. Home of the Hyperdub articles archive.