Beyond Dubstep

Unless you've had you ears tucked away under the settee next to a stack of Noel Coward long players or exclusively tuned in to the confines of Radio 4 for the past ten years, then chances are you've heard of dubstep. Its popularity has been steadily rising for many years with its roots able to be traced back to everything bass-wise that has come before it; be it the dub heavy sound system culture that itself emigrated from Jamaica, the future forward strains of drum & bass that impacted on the entire world, the champagne and cocaine excesses of garage and 2 step, or the gritty urban reality of grime.

Dubstep itself has now been around for about a decade, the tone being set in its early stages by the more experimental offerings tucked away on the b-sides of garage records. From those tentative beginnings through to the low-end rumblings of spare, dry minimalism from the likes of Skream and Digital Mystikz, to the beginnings of avant garde exploration by the Skull Disco crew, through to the full blown, free-form eruption of the sound today, the scope of dubstep is such that you can both love and hate it depending on what end of the spectrum you're tuned in to. At the most primal/adolescent core of the music is an angry, dreadnought bass and whip cracking snares combo. It bears a remarkable resemblance to the dark, stepping thrash of the hardest of drum & bass, only disembowelled of most of its percussion, and stands as the most recognisable form of the genre. Like drum & bass before it, it is rapidly succumbing to its own stagnation, pressing forward solely with the advancement of new effects to place on those snares and ever deeper ranges of hertz with which to wobble one's organs. At the other end of the spectrum is a more promising future. Producers are taking influence from the aforementioned strains of UK bass culture, but are looking further afield for their influence too. So whilst Skream is scoring chart attention via his somewhat dubious Magnetic Man outing and the inclusion of dubstep on Skins has marked the official popularization of the sound (some would argue its death knell), other artists kick against the pricks, refusing to be categorised by a term that is rapidly outgrowing the confines of a comfortable media tag. It was only a few years ago that the first crossovers of techno and dubstep were occurring; now the scope of influence is coming from every direction imaginable, from pop to hip hop to jazz and even classical. One wonders how long its popularity can last though, given that historically, interest in new forms of breakbeat music tends to peak amid a flurry of hype and proclamations of genius, then wane and eventually dry up while attention is lavished on the next big thing. For now there is enough thought provoking material being released to stave off that question and there are three young producers in particular who are responsible for some of the most forward thinking output in the ever-changing manifesto of a sound that is being polarized by its own characteristics.

Hot Flush Recordings are without question one of the labels heading the assault on breaking new ground within the realms of dubstep and all its myriad, bastard children. Undoubtedly the jewel in their crown right now is Mount Kimbie, a ridiculously talented duo comprised of Dominic Maker and Kai Campos. Their initial offering, the Maybe's EP highlighted them as ones to watch, while their next EP, Sketch On Glass confirmed their arrival as a serious talent. Their tracks stutter, twitch and crackle like exposed, live wires, working around recondite loops and intricate melodies. They believe the broad-mindedness of the producers working within the scene comes down to the sheer disparity of their backgrounds. “I think it's got something to do with the internet as well,” Kai told me in a recent interview. “The generation of people who are making exciting dance music now, compared to the drum & bass scene in the early to mid 90's when the people making it were from similar backgrounds or places; the people making it now are from everywhere because the internet allows you all to access whatever you're in to from wherever you live.” That unchecked access also helped to make Mount Kimbie's debut album Crooks and Lovers. “We sampled quite heavily for the album,” confesses Kai. “I had some sessions on Last FM sampling the first few seconds from various songs that came up under a Basic Channel playlist. I just skipped through and pressed record without checking what songs they were. After a while I had a ridiculous amount of low-fi samples, which I relabelled and cut up in to bits. They helped make the album.” While techno helped make Mount Kimbie's Crooks and Lovers, it manages to escape obvious reference points, instead inhabiting the spacious divide between a plethora of genres. Looking to forge new ground on their next release, we can expect further innovations from the duo in whichever direction they take.

At just 21 years of age, James Blake is fast becoming one of the most talked about names along the IDM branch of dubstep. Although his discography boasts only four releases to date, his handle on post-dubstep, R&B wonky business is fearsome. Rightfully appearing on one of the vanguard labels of open ended dubstep exploration, Hessle Audio, his complex, innovative approach to music has seen him labelled by some-time collaborators Mount Kimbie as “basically an incarnation of Joni Mitchell.” Utilising his voice as just another instrument to be stretched, pushed and sampled to the limits, his melodic productions roll, stumble and flail towards an invisible resolve. He incorporates pieces of R&B, funk, jazz and classical into his tunes whilst sounding light years beyond any of them. With further EP's set for release and an album based around his unadulterated vocal beauty in the works, people's ears are going to be playing catch up with James Blake's sound for some time to come.

On to his second album and rapidly emerging as a bona fide artist, Darren Cunningham, better known as Actress is perhaps the most far reaching of these artists in his sound. His debut album Hazyville was primarily an excursion into the foggy depths of late night house and techno, whilst more recent twelve inch releases and his latest album Splazsh remove the parameters entirely and head towards the space inhabited by greats like Miles Davis, Prince, Sun Ra, Moodymann and Mad Mike Banks. As label head of Werk Discs he is also responsible for the crushingly weighty release of Zomby's Where Were U in '92 masterpiece mash-up of future-retro, hardcore breakbeat. His sly, underhand releases on the Thriller label had techno, house and dubstep jocks alike salivating over their crates, while his recent album Splazsh is already sitting high atop many premeditated best-of lists for 2010. Strains of dubstep, techno, IDM, funk, boogie, house, jazz and more can all be heard worming their way through Splazsh, but not in ways that may be obviously recognisable. Working outside the confines of contemporary dance floor arrangements, Cunningham folds, spindles and mutilates his beats to hold his ideas, the results immediately arresting, if not always easily digestible.

The greater future of dubstep is anything but certain, but with the producers behind these subsidiaries all forging their own pathways ahead, we can be sure that wherever it's headed, there's going to be a killer soundtrack along the way.