Chatter for 2009-08-08

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Chatter for 2009-08-07

  • RT @ZombyLDN: Genius of love… http://bit.ly/DP5xZ choooooooooooooooooooooonnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnn #
  • @joemuggs lol check wet look too. Lovely bloke btw – the real thing. Back story is NUTS. Sworn to secrecy. He'll be a star #joyorbison #
  • getting ready for radio tonight. http://www.sub.fm from 8-10PM. new beats from simbad, floating points, untold, pangaea, joy orbison (via @BenUFO) #
  • @joemuggs I want to be charitable about sr. So I am. #
  • So. Harpy VIP is now where I want it. What to do tonight? Need to do erzulie03 mixdown but want to make wobble. Tastefully, mind. #
  • RT @joemuggs: @grievousangeluk Wet Look is like a POST CRUNK STELLA! http://bit.ly/18LAAW #joyorbison #
  • @joemuggs: Wet Look reinvents garage. it's a good tune. get in touch with him now before he's impossible to get to… #
  • RT @maryannehobbs: @grievousangeluk @sbtrkt gentlemen.. you were spectacular . thank you so much 🙂 #
  • @maryannehobbs you're a legend. that was a top show all round. @sbtrkt has some choons innit. in reply to maryannehobbs #
  • I like to bang it hard rave style but with good music. #
  • listening to laura marling… fucking amazing record… just gets better and better and better #
  • listening to laura marling… fucking amazing record… just gets better. Actually a more complete album than the imagined village #folk #
  • i like to slam down massive wobblers before pulling out my d'n'b – you know, proper music ^^^ #simonreynoldsisawobblefan #
  • @shortstuffmusic @maryannehobbs glockenspiels losing out to claves! #
  • @coreymaass thanks corey. Live i'm half garage and dubstep and half funky / wheredoyoucallit in reply to coreymaass #
  • thing is… if caspa remixed hyph mngo…it could be a great record… #
  • @coreymaass yeah big up subswara been right on it! in reply to coreymaass #
  • @laripley Wobblies vs levellers etc "the world turned upside down". Knee trembler not wobbler lol 🙂 #

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Chatter for 2009-08-06

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Gender and the nuum, Reynolds doing it properly

Posted up last month but in development for some time, though clearly freshly updated, Reynolds on gender and aggression within the nuum.  Comes with some interesting re-assessments of grime (read: “REYNOLDS STILL LIKES GRIME SHOCK”), some attractively snark-free analysis of dubstep (if you ignore the comments): THE NUUM AND ITS DISCONTENTS, # 5: MASCULINE PRESSURE: or,(REAP)PRAISING THE “HARD” IN HARDCORE. via Energy Flash.

I think the main point I would make in reflecting on Simon’s piece is that there is perhaps a cycle between the different male archetypes – from gangsta to lover to rebel to mystic etc, and back again. Lots of performers / MCs will cycle through these personae in the course of a set. Or at least, a career. Just look at Wiley, James Brown, Marley etc. Certainly, scenes will cycle through these archetypes. So dubstep majors on the mystic persona, which is a natural evolution from and complementary to grime’s gangsta persona, which is a natural evolution from garage’s lover persona, etc. You can often see reggae performers deliberately take on these different persona in the course of a single performance. And all the different scenes can occupy multiple personae – but one tends to dominate. So garage had gangsta elements, mystic elements, rebel / political elements etc as well as the Lover archetype.

So it’s less a case of these being divergent paths as points on a continuum.

I think I might be about to put different phases of the nuum on different sephiroth of the tree of life, and no good will come of that, so I will stop now!

BBC Radio One played a whole Grievous Angel mix last night

Listen to my mix for Mary Anne Hobbs on the radio one website.

15 minutes of banging, heavy dubstep, ragga techno, grime and funky.

The other mixes on there are worth checking too – sbtrkt’s excellent “bastard son of 2step and techno” stuff and Mr Beatnik’s lovely downbeat soul and jazz selection.

Catch it live at U Dun Know at Video Visions Bar in Dalston on Saturday alongside LVis1990.

Grevious Angel in the Mix
Grievous Angel – ‘I Love Dem’ (Devotional Dubz)
Toasty – ‘Knowledge’ [Untold Remix] (Hotflush)
Grievous Angel – ‘Culture Killer’ [Discomix]
Joy Orbison – ‘Hyph Mngo’ (Hotflush)
Narcossist – ‘Metronome’ [Grievous Angel remix] (White Label)
Grievous Angel ft. Rubi Dan – ‘Move Down Low’ [VIP mix] (White Label)
Pearson Sound – ‘Wad’ (Soul Jazz)
Grievous Angel – ‘Harpy’ (Keysound)
Big$hot – ‘Glitch’ (White)
Naphta – ‘Soundclash1’ [Grievous Angel Remix] (Keysound)
23Hz Vs Numaestro – ‘Zuno’ [Sully Remix] (White Label)

Reynolds in contrarian wobble-embracing shock!

I do love Simon and regularly defend him against his detractors. But his natural contrarianism can lead him to some strange value judgements at times. To wit, he hath discovered 16 bit and seems to be arguing that this is is an example of post-Spongebob wobble being, well, fun, in contrast with the half baked noodle of the deeper side of the scene. (via blissblog.)

Which is fine in itself – I have often defended, online and in print, the better-quality elements of  jump-up style dubstep as the natural successors of the Prodigy but… oh Simon! Do keep UP!

Yes you are quite right that “this is not only a good laugh but actually quite musical i think”. “We” like 16 bit. We liked that track a long time ago and we still do – we being, you know, proper dubstep heads with taste and everything, the fans going dribbly over Joy Orbison and apparently being all chin-strokey about it.  But no, we’re NOT “all for these bastard children of “spongebob” because we actually know what that means! Because it does not typically mean Prodigy-style jump up splattercore that still has its roots in grime/garage/jungle. No – it means heavy metal student toss. That’s the reality – if you actually go to the clubs and know the scene and how it develops.

(Just as we knew that wonky within dubstep was not conditionend and defined by ketamine, even if drugs are – newsflash! – used by some producers some of the time. But that is an old and ugly dispute in which there is no profit in revisiting.)

If you want more of that big and bouncy rave-y wobble that’s actually good, then check out Starkey (on, let us not forget, Blackdown’s label – yes Blackdown, who has led the charge against content-free wobble-metal), and yes you’re already on Raffertie, well done, and check out Sully’s heavier bits, and so on and so forth. All of whom we’ve been talking about for, literally, years. (Yes I know Simon likes Blackdown and his CD! That’s not the point…)

So yes, you’re right, but you’re a bit late, but then again so what, that doesn’t matter, and good luck to you for bigging up Raffertie and Zomby. Fine.

What DOES matter, to me anyway, is that Simon has drawn what is in my view an uttery false – and quite damaging – opposition between 16bit and Joy Orbison (with whom I played on Friday) – false IF YOU ACTUALLY KNOW WHAT’S GOING OFF IN THE CLUBS. To wit:

“i mean, where would you rather be–in the midst of a crowd aving it apeshit to this sort of scato-splatterbass? or in the midst of headz sagely nodding (off, more like!) to moist ‘n’ milky minimalism such as this “talisman” of a track?” By which he means Hyph Mngo.

Now I suspect Simon hasn’t seen Hyph Mngo played in a club or dropped into a mix himself.  I have done both.

And Hyph Mngo FUCKING GOES OFF. It is a BANGER. People go APESHIT MENTAL TO IT. It is a solid gold RAVE TUNE. I mean… those sampled diva vocals… Simon can articulate what they mean, what they convey, in terms of hardcore and smashing the dance far better than I can. He played it as his last tune on Friday. Pulled the previous tune back, played Hyph Mngo from the start, stupidly long intro and all, and of course, most people in the room weren’t such music nerds that they’d heard it loads before. But they got it immediately. It was massive. Earlier in his set Joy didn’t play 16bit, or Spongebob, but he opened with some grime bangers, played lots of dirty (AND tasteful) garage, lots of crude and crunchy bassline – loads of tunes that link directly into 16bit. And it all fitted perfectly with Hyph Mngo.

So to dismiss Hyph Mngo with a flick of the wrist just because Hancox or whoever likes it is just silly!

And if Simon only knew the antecedence of Joy Orbison, he would be scrambling to interview him. Seriously. Becuase it’s fascinating, it confirms all his most important ideas in the most visceral, physical way possible, it brings to life much of what he has been observing and theorising for years. Literally. But that’s a nugget of information I am not at liberty to share at this time. However… Simon, get in touch with Joy Orbison, absorb the rest of his tracks, find out where he’s from and where he’s going.

You’re going to love it!

And while you’re at it, get into some uk funky – and check out what happens when Zed Bias and MJ Cole play it! And the new broken / latin stuff that’s coming in! Best scene for years…

Chatter for 2009-08-03

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Chatter for 2009-08-02

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