Category: Grievous Angel

It’s about time I reviewed the latest crop of dubstep releases. Frankly it’s a bit of a mixed bunch.

Lets start with Bristol’s finest, ATKI2, with the Guilty Pleasures EP. I suppose for a start you can say that the b-side is possibly the sort of thing Random Trio should have gone for after Indian Stomp. Distillers’ Riddim is a strong ragga beat with some amenz and the requisite dhol stylings over the top. This is fun! Little bit of glitch factor, the ghost of a tune somewhere in there, and no wobble at all, which for some people is a good thing. Duty Paid is great too – possibly even stronger. More vibed up, rave-styled ragga dubstep – not quite ragga techno but not far off and those pitched up 808 subs are pure UK garage. Love it. Not terribly smart, but great to mix with, even if it does reopen all those “is dubstep breaks?” debates from the autumn of 2005.

Unfortunately the original mix of Guilty Pleasures itself is, well, a bit of a mess. On paper it should really work. Slightly glitchy post garage beats, high tech subs, a fresh female vocal… but it just doesn’t stick together. Too many ideas. So does Pinch rescue it? He’s the reason people are buying the record after all. And of course it’s a vast improvement; the vocalist is transformed into some of the old sino-dub. There’s that gorgeous space Pinch is renowned for. But compare this with say a D1 tune from 2005 and it’s obvious – the raw material just wasn’t that inspiring.
So… on to the remixes of Pinch’s Punisher. Like everyone else, I genuinely think Skream is a genius, and his version is a good mix tool, but in the end it’s just a bit too repetitive. There’s no satisfying drop, there’s no real sub explosion, and overall it just slides off your ears. Compare with his amazing Ancient Memories remix and you’ll notice a big difference in inspiration.

Of course Loefah’s mix can hardly fail to deliver. The louder you play it the better it gets and he is just the king of the bass. And the beats. And the samples. However, I’m not sure it’s quite up there with his best, and I think he could have done a bit more with that junglist open hat sample. Then again the sheer hip hop weight of it compensates. Pitched up a bit it’s fantastic.

Which is something that Oris Jay usually excels at. Wear the Crown was one of the best tunes of last year and he is, without question, the ultimate old skool dubstep don. Rob One Seven is so nearly great: swinging breakstep drums, twisted vocal sample, droning triangle wave noise in the middle, fab Sweet Exorcist bleeps and rave stabs… but it should really be a lot more atmospheric than it is. The arrangement is too repetitive and the bass line is too unimaginative and your excitement just fades after a couple of minutes. From Country on the flip just doesn’t work. It almost has the space but blows it by being too busy, and the bass sound is off. What makes it frustrating – apart from the fact that I was really looking forward to this release – is that I know for a fact he has better tunes waiting to come out.

Which brings us to the Timeblind Ghostification EP. The main cut, Copy Copy, is definitely worth the price of admission; Timeblind is all about glitchcore styled dubstep, but he keeps his fiddling under control and puts out a nice little skanker. But as you might have guessed, he’s too clever by half. Put it this way – one of the tracks is called the Ontological Ground of Being, which immediately makes you think this is someone who’s been reading too much K-Punk before writing his tunes. Which should be a good thing, but not when you’re pulling dodgy moves like releasing four minute noise scapes. You’re about twenty years too late for that one matey. But Copy Copy is going on a mix at some point.

So lets head back to the big boys and Tectonic Plate 3. Doubtless it’s sold out by now, as it should. It’s bee around for a while and Loefah’s System is just a motherfucker of a track. Obviously I prefer my vocal refix but that’s me. On the other hand… I’m not sure Digital Mystikz have ever made a really bad record, though some of the early ones weren’t too interesting, but Molten isn’t really one of their best. It’s another Coki wobbler, almost the same sounds as on the others, but the minor key strings don’t really cut it, actually sounding like a copy of Digital Mystikz, and the bass sounds have no real forward movement to them. And no, I didn’t like it much played on a system either. So, a bit of a disappointment there.

Which brings us to Loefah’s Voodoo on Omen’s new 666 label. God, it makes you sweat with excitement just reading that sentence, doesn’t it? Especially since it has a quite superb spoken word sample to play with, and Loefah in full downbeat drone mode, with just a touch of innovation in the arrangement. And… well, it’s not a bad record. If I’d got this as a demo from a new artist I’d be interested, no doubt. And of course, we’re comparing Voodoo with records by, like, the best producer on the planet, cos that’s how good I think Loefah is.

It’s just a bit boring.

I mean, it’s alright, and you could mix with it, and if you were Youngsta you coiuld probably do great things with it, but… You have to wonder if this was ever really meant to be anything but a dubplate.

So anyway. Mala. Left Leg Out and Blue Notez. You’ve got this haven’t you? I mean, you must have. Because this is one of the best singles ever to come out of dance music or reggae. Yes, yet another solid gold classic from Mala. Left Leg Out has been around for what, a year? And it’s brilliant 4 x 4, dark garage swing and heavy / light Rhodes stylings make me smile every time. Blue Notez. Wheras Blue Notez is simply amazing. Just buy it.

And if you think that’s good… there’s Coki’s Tortured / Shattered. If Molten is something of a below-par Coki wobbler, Shattered is right up there… superb heavy industrial dubstep, built for eq tweaking. It’s great. But Tortured is something else again. A political dubstep tune to follow in the wake of Anti-War Dub, it’s probably the record of the year, with simply the most memorable melody of any dubstep tune yet released, the heaviest bass, and the most plaintive vocal sample imaginable. Could almost be Prokofiev. A truly wonderful piece of music. It just doesn’t go on long enough.

So what does all this mean? I suspect we’re now past the point when almost all dubstep releases were, if not brilliant, then pretty damned good. And I’m already nostalgic for the summer of 2005. We shall all have to be a lot more careful about what we buy from now on. And I have to say that the gap between the premier division and the rest is widening. There are just a few people in the middle – Headhunter, Caspa, Hijack – when there should be lots of challengers.

Nevertheless, the really good stuff is toweringly good at the moment, undoubtedly the best music being made anywhere in my opinion. And my copy of Disko Rekkah arrives in a day or so – my favourite dubstep tune ever will finally be out, on Deep Medi rather than DMZ as I had thought would be the case, and I will be a happy bunny. I just wish the quality went a little deeper.

Blimey. Dubstep Sufferah 2 has been nominated for best mix in the Dubstep Forum awards! Just to be in there is a huge compliment. And it’s not at the bottom either!

It’s been quite a busy year for me. January I put up the second 94 jungle mix, Jungle Got Dub. BTW, this is up at http://www.grievousangel.net/JungleDub94.mp3. I should really re-master it – bit bass heavy. People seemed to like it though. There was the first in a trio of Phil Hine interviews in January too. March was big – the first in the Dubstep Sufferah series went up. I put some time into that, I loved doing it and it got a bit of attention and a couple of thousand downloads between here and Barefiles. Plus I went to the inaugural night at BASH – fucking mental and I met lots of dubstep people for the first time, and even better, saw Mala play in Sheffield with Space Ape. Just beyond belief. In April I did my first “modern” dubstep tune, or at lest my first halfstepp-y thing, Lickle Friction. (As you may recall Kode 9 had got in touch about some of the old 138 stuff back in, IIRC, 2003.) Anyway, Lickle was built around the Jammy’s / Scientist phone call mp3s that were doing the rounds at the time and was quite a nice little roller, and it’s been played out a bit apparently. Even bigger, me and John’s mix for the wonderful Dave Stelfox’s show on Resonance FM went out on the nineteenth of this month. It’s still up here. And I went to see Mala play too… In May I put up No Sunshine, my refix of Bill Withers’ Ain’t No Sunshine, which had been going round and round my head since January. I still love this, so much so I did a remix of it in a mate’s pro studio later in the year. It’s been played out lots. Plus I finally got to DMZ. And John released the first RSI Radio, which was great, and which I did some editing and mastering on. In June I did the second Tense Nervous House Music mix, where I caught up with the glorious renaissance of techy deep house that’s been brewing for the last few years, best exemplified in my view by Ame and Trentemoller. In July, I think it was, me and John did our first contribution to the magnificent Blogariddims series. Didn’t do much for the next few months – other than work on Dubstep Sufferah 2, which took a while, though not as long as the first volume did. It finally went up in October. It’s only done a few hundred downloads, but I think it’s the best mix I’ve ever done; when it first went up the demand took out my server in hours. After that I was just too busy with work to do much. So – three solo mixes this year plus two collaborations with John, which isn’t a bad tally.

Besides my own stuff, it’s been quite a good year musically. Obviously I’ve been focused on dubstep, of which more in a minute, but there’s been loads of good house too. As for reggae, I have yet again failed to fulfil my new year resolution of buying fresh reggae every month, but not for want of trying. Just wasn’t feeling much this year. No doubt Eden’s end of year round up CD will show me where I went wrong. I think 2006 will go down as the year that dubstep finally fulfilled its potential on vinyl. Anyway, all my favourite tunes this year were dubstep. My top ten should hold no surprises really, but here they are in order of them embedding themdselves deep into my mind and obsessing me:

1. Loefah: Ruffage / Mud

Jesus. What a fucking tune Ruffage is. I think Loefah is the best producer in the world right now and I tell you, he’s only just started. Mud needs a big system to really work, though it sounded fab on dubstep warz, but Ruffage is just… “rough… beats…”. It’s an AMAZING record, deep and lush and throbbing and saturated with flavour, I just love the electro style Loefah’s been pushing this year. You think this tune is just all groove and no soul, but… it does… Obviously Disko Wrekkah is even better, the best record to come out of dubstep and it will be the biggest dubstep record of 2007, assuming it comes out – which I expect it will. But that’s not out yet… I’ve had it since the start of the summer – probably my high point for the year – but it’s been so much a Loefah signature tune I haven’t dared play it. Maybe it’ll go on a mix when the release date is coming up. In the meantime go to DMZ just to hear it, and listen to Ruffage. Fucking mental. I should put up the vocal dub mix of Ruffage I did for Sufferah 2, see if anyone wants to play it out…

2. Pinch: Qawalli (VIP mix)

Oh boy. The deepest, heaviest, low slung deep funker of a track that dubstep has produced. Ultimate squidge. Right up there with the great deep, aquatic techno and house tunes…

3. Skream: I (Loefah Remix)

Loefah sends this tune into a downward spiral of bass that never ends. It rocks. Loefah thinks I is better than Request Line – and it is now.

4. Loefah: System

There’s just nothing to this tune. Couple of synth horn stabs, primitive electro beat… there’s a couple of bars with a variation in the drum programming at the end that would take this track into a whole other universe, but he just casually slings in a taste of it… and it’s just unadulterated genius.

5. Skream: Dutch Flowers

The “big” Skream track you’re not supposed to like but what a tuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuunnnnnnnnnnnneeeeeeeeee!!! I know Blackdown doesn’t like the digidub influence in dubstep and especially in Skream’s work but I have to say, I just love it and this tune exemplifies that digidub template while taking on a ridiculously happy, bouncy energy. Love it love it love it and it’s a CRIME it didn’t get a female vocal version to take it into the August top ten… maybe next year…

6. Benga: Zombie Jig

Probably 2005 really but it was on the CD (which, ahem, was patchy IMO), so… Is Benga more talented than Skream? I guess they’ve worked so close to each other for so long that a comparison is pointless, but in any event Benga has truckloads, I just wish he could get a few more records out.

7. Virus Syndicate: Major List MCs

Is it dubstep or is it grime? I don’t know that, but I do know we need more records like this – unbearably funky but intensely spacious backing matched with outrageously tight ensemble vocal flow.

8. Mala: Left Leg Out / Blue Notez

I love Loefah’s stuff but I expect Mala will eventually be seen as the greatest producer to come out of dubstep – the spiritual force of his records ensures that. It’s almost a cliche now to compare Mala with Shaka – my favourite DJ ever as regular readers know – but the comparison really does stand. His and Coki’s records are, in the main, dub missiles designed to pulverise dancefloors on plate. Mala is as interested in the transcendent potential of sonics in and of themselves as any 1980s industrialist and much Digital Mystikz output this year has translated that vibrational arsenal directly, and gloriously, into vinyl. But it’s not the sucession of wobblerz that will cement Digital Mystikz’ wider reputation – it’ll be the more emotive tracks tracks like these.
9. Digital Mystikz: Ancient memories (Skream remix)

Feel the jazz funk vibes seep in tt=he darkness!

10. Headhunter: Sleepwalker

THE standout track from the Tempa All Stars two double pack.

And a few more that didn’t quite make the top 10:

BlackDown: Lata

Intimations of greatness here – Martin walks it like he talks it…
DQ1: Wear the Crown

The bad-man producer. Difficult to choose between this Headhunter.
Digital Mystikz: Earth Run a Red / Conference / Haunted

Sheer dread heaviosity. (Can get a bit wearing compared to the best of their contemporaries though.)

Digital Mystikz – Anti War Dub

Super 4×4 excursion and ubdoubtedly a classic (but doesn’t quite have the legs it might have done)
Random Trio: Indian Stomp (from the Cyrus EP)

Such space, such minimalism… terrific tune and a great mixing tool.

Caspa: Rubber Chicken

Great, laidback, deep funk tune, possibly the ultimate wobbler… but hold tight for next year’s LFO King, which I’ve had for fucking months and is dayglo rave aceness.
Toasty – The Knowledge (Vex’d Remix)

Boxcutter – Brood / Sunshine

Great, creative single package – didn’t quite make me want to get the album.

And lots more – this was the year it became impossible to stay utterly on top of all the dubstep releases. It was even harder to properly absorb all the radio shows, even with the help of the magnificent talents of Deapoh and Boomnoise. These two have between them rendered a hugely valuable service to both today’s dubstep massive and future generations by recording and hosting all the key radio sessions. Boys, this was your year.
Outside of dubstep? Well, as mentioned both Ame and Trentemoller have really rocked my world. In rock, I did not prove immune to the attractions of Arctic Monkeys. When my wife got the CD I listened to it all, then put it straight back on and listened to it all the way through again. And again. I haven’t done that with a CD for years – not even Burial’s. (And yes, it is a great CD, not for me quite as good as other people have found it to be, but a lot better than, say, the Hatcha mix CD -amazing selection, terrible sequencing… but enough dubstep!). So yeah, the Arctics are the best British rock group since the Stone Roses as far as I’m concerned – just looking at the festival shows on TV it was obvious to me how much tighter they played than all the other bands and how much better their songs are.

Anyway… a very good year, especially with the quality of dubstep and dubstep related events I’ve been able to make it to this year, principally DMZ and BASH. I didn’t expect it to be as good as it was.

I’ve done a second volume of the Dubstep Sufferah mix series.

It’s a similar format to the first one – select dubstep tunes, with significant additional dub FX and re-editing. However, this time there is even more emphasis on bringing out dubstep’s roots – and indeed the whole ardkore continuum’s roots – in reggae, especially in Brit soundsystem culture. Some commentators have denied that there is a cultural lineage between reggae, but I think that point of view doesn’t take into account some fairly well established history. Not that I expect anyone to agree with me when I say, somewhat exaggeratedly, that dubstep actually is reggae!

Also for this mix, I’ve focused on adding a significant vocal, or at least MC, element to this otherwise primarily instrumental music. It’s noticeable that most of the biggest crowd responses at DMZ are for the vocal tunes, of which only a small proportion have been released, and I really wanted to lighten a mix that would otherwise have been fairly relentlessly minimal with vocal colour.

It also helps to create a time travelling, cut up sense of dubstep emerging form an 80s reggae dance not only is the mix opened with some live Saxon and Asher Senator, and little known Brit digital dancehall mixed with some sweeter dubstep in the middle, but there’s loads of additional MC samples sprinkled across the mix. I’d like to thank Dublin reggae and jungle maestro Droid for his kindness in furnishing me with a generous helping of live dancehall, as well as John Eden for providing the Saxon material via his blog.

Technically, the mix is something of a hybrid. A lot of vinyl mixing, a fair amount of digital mixing, and a load of editing in Live. It’s not a purely authentic vinyl mix and I doubt you could do this on decks; that’s not the point. It is however meant to be a properly constructed mix you can return to.

The narrative arc of this mix follows a classic dubstep mix blueprint. Heavy, harsh, grinding first third, some sweet respite, and some bangers to close. Following a sweet reggae and dub intro, I went straight into an increasingly punishing selection of banging dubstep classics that becomes more industrial and claustrophobic with each track, culminating in a series of monstrous wobblers. I particularly like the cut up of Virus Syndicate’s Major List MCs over Pinch’s Qawalli VIP in this section; they seem made for each other. The heaviness is finally relieved by Iration Steppas’ classic Scud Missile dub, which takes us into an altogether softer, darker, dancehall tinged section.(I’ve been amused and delighted by Skream’s championing of digidub on his Rinse FM show, more power to your elbow Olly, even more so since you’re also championing the jazz funk sound of my Essex youth!) Dark garage originator and fellow Sheffield resident DQ1 does the bridge into deeper dub and more rolling beats; the last third is petty much ravetastic, focusing on Loefah re-edits. He’s the king of the beats and my favourite dubstep producer by a mile (my favourite producer in any genre in the world actually) and while he may be frustrated at not doing deeper tunes, at just doing beats, frankly they’re so great I don’t care.

And that’s it really. I’m very happy with the mix; while all the tunes are familiar to the initiated, I hope they have been dubbed-up and edited enough to sound fresh, and this mix wasn’t about showing off unreleased tunes, it was about creating some particular atmospheres, showcasing what has been arguably dubstep’s most fertile period thus far, and possibly, creating an ear-friendly route in for the uncommitted. I hope you enjoy it; let me know either way.

Dubstep Sufferah Volume 2.

A LAME-encoded 192K mp3 which weighs 104.5Mb is here.

A LAME (Insane) 320K mp3 which weighs 174.1Mb is available for a limited time. Down now!

0.00 Asher Senator / Saxon Sound Intro
1.11 King Tubby / Johnny Clark: A Ruffer Version (Jackpot)
4.45 Digital Mystikz: Ancient Memories (original mix) / (Skream Remix) (DMZ)
10:18 Skream: I (Loefah Remix) (Tempa)
13:48 Digital Mystikz: Conference (Soul Jazz)
17:34 Virus Syndicate: Major List MCs (Jammer Instrumental) (Planet Mu)
18:41 Pinch: Qawalli (VIP mix) (Planet Mu) / Virus Syndicate: Major List MCs (Jammer Vocal Mix) (Planet Mu)
23:36 D1: Degrees (Tempa)
24:59 Digital Mystikz: Haunted (DMZ) Grievous Angel Vocal Edit
28:28 Skream: Glamma (Tempa)
31:16 Digital Mystikz: Earth Run a Red (Soul Jazz)
35:11 Iration Steppas: Scud Missile Dub (Universal Egg)
37:48 Appleblim: Cheat I (Skull Disco) Grievous Angel Vocal Edit
39:57 Mickey Murka: We Try (Version) (Unity Sounds / Honest Jons)
41:29 Benga: Zombie Jig (BengaBeats)
43:27 Kenny Knots: Watch How the People Dancing (Unity Sounds / Honest Jons)
44.49 Skream: Dutch Flowers (Tempa)
46:48 Selah Collins: Pick a Sound (Version) (Unity Sounds / Honest Jons)
47:12 DQ1: Wear the Crown (Tectonic)
52:09 Headhunter: Sleepwalker (Tempa) Grievous Angel Vocal Dub
55:55 Caspa: Rubber Chicken (Tempa)
58:43 Loefah: Mud (DMZ) Grievous Angel “Signal” Dub
63:11 Caspa: For the Kids (Dub Police)
65:40 Grievous Angel: Lickle Friction (CDR)
69:07 Loefah: Ruffage (DMZ) Grievous Angel Vocal Dub
71:43 Loefah: System (Tectonic) Grievous Angel Edit
76:03 Ends

Around this time last year I did a spring-tide mix of old and new house, which I called Tense Nervous House Music. It was kind of a follow on from Beltane and was specifially inspied by spending time in the old temples on the island of Gozo. Now, as is very obvious now, this Spring was dominated by my going out to various Dubstep events, which have all been fantastic. And yet, in some way I can’t quite describe, my mainlining dubstep over the last of years has ineluctably led me back to house. Partly it’s because of a renewed appetite for that delicious syncopated deep house pulse. part of it was knowing that a favourite dubstep producer likes proper deep house, and increasingly seeing dubstep through a house lens. (The fact that quite a lot of people on the excellent Faith forum, which is the coolest house forum in the world, are quite into dubstep helped as well.) And part of it is the fact that this year I finally cottoned onto the fact that there’s been a quite fabulous renaissance in house with the emergence of the “minimal” style.

Now admittedly, not much of this stuff is that minimal. And yes, some of it sounds a bit too close to electroclash for my liking. In fact, most of it just sounds like deep house or tech house. But there’s some cracking stuff in there and most of all, it just demonstrates the indefatigable ability of house to renew itself.

Hence, this Beltane, I found myself splurging on reasonably fresh house music, and the product is Tense Nervous House Music Volume 2, a digital mix of new-ish house that has, as usual, been subjected to some heavy dubbing. It starts off all deep with a brace of Ame tunes – and yes, Ame do thoroughly deserve the hype they’re getting from every deep house head in the world right now – moves onto some increasingly twisted sleazy minimal, before climaxing with an edit of the very wonderful Carl Craig remix of Theo Parrish’s Falling Up and a couple of Trentemollers – who also thoroughly deserve the hype that is being showered on them at the moment – before winding up back where we started with an Ame dub.

I like it.

Tense Nervous House Music, Volume 2.
68 minutes 40 seconds. 157.2Mb. 320K LAME-encoded mp3 (at the “Insane” setting).
Find i here: http://www.grievousangel.net/TenseNervousHouseMusicVol2.mp3.zip

Here’s the tracklisting:

Tense Nervous House Music, Volume 2
0:00 Dimensions 6: Living In the Sunshine (Ame Ohio Dub)
3:18 Dimensions 6: Living In the Sunshine (Ame Main Mix)
7:19 Nigel Hayes: Augustus (Ame remix)
13:08 Blaze: Lovelee Dae (Carl Craig’s 70 Degrees & Sunny mix)
14:40 Kirk Degiorgio presents Esoterik: Starwaves (Jimpster remix)
19:15 Spirit Catcher: Street Hawk
22:18 Booka Shade: Blue Rooms (Original Mix)
25:38 Audio Soul Project: Reality Check (Mix 2)
28:55 Layo & Bushwacka!: Life2Live (Jesse’s Stripper dub)
31:25 Terra Deva: Fresh Start (Derrick Carter’s All Hail The New Ugly Re-Dub)
33:25 Sharon Jones: Want to Need To (Trentemoller remix)
38:38 Terry Francis: Music Freak (Nathan Coles House Mix)
43:20 Spirit Catcher: Voo Doo Knight (Grievous Angel Edit)
47:25 Theo Parrish: Falling Up (Carl Craig Mix)
51:06 Trentemoller: Serenetti (Original Mix)
57:31 Trentemoller: Minimal Fox (Original Mix)
62:20 Dimensions 6: Living In the Sunshine (Ame Ohio Dub)
68:00 Ends

Cos most of the tunes on here are just fabulous

Dubstep Sufferah has had 141 downloads from Bare Files.

Wow. Most of ’em are in the 20-40 d/ls mark. That’s a big surprise!

http://www.barefiles.com/download.php?id=456 — or drop me an email for the link.