Our 3rd issue is available now and features:

The Bomb Squad - exclusive interview with Hank and Keith Shocklee
Flowdan - the lowdown from the Roll Deep MC and collaborator with The Bug
Dusk and Blackdown - navigating the bass cultures of London
Twilight Circus - dubbing from the Netherlands to Jamaica
Soulja - Rinse FM and FWD stalwart Sarah
An extensive history of UK Dub, including a top 30 essential tracks with comments from the artists and producers
2562 - next level dubstep
Bellevue - an investigation into the notorious Kingston mental hospital and its links with reggae
Badman Commandments
Reviews
And much much more.

NO adverts
NO rehashed press-releases
NO pdfs or downloads - printed version only

Buy it here.

Big up John Eden and Droid!

New mix of 2001-3 dark, heavy, ardkore 4×4 garage up here.

0:00 narrows - dreams 2003

4:12 harry lime - grouch 2001

6:22 narrows - dreams (morph remix) 2001

8.05 harry Lime - Terror Bass

11.03 sirus - junglist

14:01 sirus - dj never seen 2002

15.20 harry lime - just a beat 2001

18.03 harry lime - go back 2002

21:15 notorious - acid attack

25:32 sirus red and black 2001

28:46 more 2 da floor - skunk

29:20 harry lime - rubber bass

32:28 sirus - whiplash 2001

33:14 sirus - whiplash 2001 (reload)

37:21 dj faz - destiny  2001

39:32 osmosis - exodus

44:51 dj faz - believe 2001

48:16 notorious - acid attack

51:21 harry lime - terror bass mix 2

53:29 notorious - spin back

58:49 ends

This one’s wicked - roots of grime and dubstep! It’s the counterpart to the 4×4 Heaven set I did a while back. Banging!

Trying to let Real World know it’s happening, but no response yet. They probably have better things to do than think about some strange garage remix of a folk record! This isn’t coming out BTW - the distributor hated it!!! Hilarious…

“BBC - Radio 1 - Mary Anne Hobbs

Tracklisting: Wednesday 26th November

Flying Lotus - ‘Roberta Flack’ Martyn’s Heart Beat mix from ‘LA EP 2X3′ Warp
Scuba - ‘Tense’ Hotshore Dubplate

Exclusive
Qemists feat Wiley ‘Dem Nah Like Me’ King Cannibal mix Ninja Dubplate

Kwaidan - ‘Hoichi’ Highpoint Lowlife
Silent Witness & Sirius - ‘Proceed’ from the LP ‘All Sounds Electric Two’ Critical Vindicatrix - ‘Private Places’ Shackleton and MM remix Mordant Music
Omar Rodriguez Lopez - ‘Trilateral Commission As Dinner Guests’ from the LP ‘Old Money’ Stones Throw
Kromestar - ‘Pass The Light’ from the album ‘My Sound’ Dubplate

Mount Kimbie in the mix:
Mount Kimbie – ‘Untitled’
Mount Kimbie – ‘Untitled’
Mount Kimbie – ‘Maybes’
Dabrye – ‘Game Over’ feat. Jay Dee & Phat Kat
Jamie Woon – ‘Wayfairing Stranger’
Mount Kimbie - ‘William’ feat. Adonye Green

Exclusive
Appleblim & Geiom - ‘Flame Tree’ Berkane Sol Dubplate

Claro Intelecto - ‘When The Time It Right’ Modern Love
Subeena - ‘Call It Anger’ Imminent Dubplate

Hot City in the mix:
Hot City – ‘No Matter What I Do And Then You Work It’ unreleased
Hot City – ‘Head Work’ Highpoint Lowlife
Hot City – ‘Hot City Bass’ unreleased
Hot City – ‘Setting Me Free’ unreleased
Hot City – ‘Yeah’ Highpoint Lowlife

Stacy Epps - ‘Floatin’ from the LP ‘The Awakening’ Dubplate
Grevious Angel - ‘Darkness The Welcome Sailor Retold’ Dubplate
Distance ‘Free Me’ from the LP ‘Repercussions’ Planet Mu
Kito - ‘What If’ Disfigured Dubz
Radiohead - ‘Reckoner’ Nosaj Thing mix Dubplate”

“FactMagazine - Top 10 Tracks: Week 4

GRIEVOUS ANGEL ‘DARKNESS’ (UNRELEASED)

One of dubstep’s most diverse producers expands his palette further, cutting up Sheila Chandra’s vocals from the recent Imagined Village album. As rude as folk gets? — Tom Lea”

This is one of the new “folk” dubstep tunes I’ve been working on which premiered on Blackdown’s show last week - some of you have heard me whittering on about this new direction. I’ve been listening to a lot of folk recently, little of it is terribly pure, but there’s something about a really good vocal folk tune that makes the hairs on the back of your neck stand up and bring tears of joy to my eyes. My relationship with folk is fairly shallow, but it does go back a loooong way. (One day I will tell you the story of when I played the Stonehenge festival with a very rough and ready folk band. We walked ten miles to the stones, and ran ten miles back pursued by police helicopters! But that’s a story for another day, and probably best re-told, and exaggerated, over a beer, face to face…) And in the last couple of months, I’ve become aware that there is a deep connection between folk music and UK Garage. (Yes, I know you’re probably sniggering at this point, but you’re not the one who’s just had his tune bigged up by FACT magazine, so hear me out! ) For, it seems to me that good folk music and good garage both share a sense of rollage, a sense which is obvious with UKG, but which to me is also prevalent in the drop of folk music… the way the rhythm hangs in the air, “the one” being dropped or ellided with the same grace as in very fine garage. To me, there was a sense that the two genres needed to come together, and blow me down if it wasn’t a piece of piss to do. The first version of the tune came together literally in half an hour - the edit of the original, the beat, the sawtooth bassline, all of it - which is much more quickly than most tunes happen. Frankly, it was almost spooky. The damn thing nearly wrote itself.  The sample, BTW, comes from an agreeably impure source - an album called The Imagined Village, which is a hybrid record put together by the guys behind Afro Celt Soundsystem (with a big hand from Billy Bragg, it seems) where they marry some serious traditional English folk musicians (Martin Carthy etc.) with some dance people (well, the afro celt soundsystem drummers, who are Indian, and bloody good), some rock people (Weller! jesus…), some left field people (Tuung) and, on one track Benjamin Zephaniah. So - some deeply untrendy names in there, and its on real world, so the usual caveats apply. But there’s some truly amazing music on there (though it gets a bit fiddle-de-dee towards the end), and it’s all traditional folk songs that have been re-arranged, sometimes to stunning effect. It’s the sort of thing I would normally steer well clear of, but I saw some of their performances from the Cambridge Folk Festival on the TV and, well, it totally fucking rocked! The combination of folk voices with big electronic subs and heavy drums and tablas was really exciting and the crowd were clearly going mental. And straight away I thought, “This could be dubstep…” Then, when I bought the CD, some of the tracks jumped out as being ripe for a garage makeover - in particular a version of the old folk tune “The Welcome Sailor”, which had some extremely elevated acoustic backing alongside vocals from Sheila Chandra, the classical Indian singer, whose voice suits these kinds of tunes down to the ground. Making it work was pretty easy and I for one love the result (and I know at least one or two other people like it too) - I think it’s the best thing I’ve done since Lady Dub to be honest. So go to the page and check the link for tunage. It’s very unlikely to come out, and I’m taking it down on the 23rd, so fill your boots. I’ve got my eye on one or two other folk things, but when they’ll happen I don’t know - there’s quite a long to do list at the moment!

Grime / Dubstep | Pitchfork
Top dubstep singles 2008:

1. Darkstar: “Need You”/”Squeeze My Lime” [Hyperdub]

2. Mala: “Miracles” [Deep Medi]

3. 2nd II None: “Waterfalls Peverelist remix” [Heavy Artilery]/”Clunk Click Every Trip” [Punch Drunk]

4. Kuma: “Dawn Stepped Outside Horsepower remix” [Immerse]

5. Shup Up and Dance: “Epileptic Martyn’s No Strobe Mix” [Z Audio]/TRG: “Broken Heart Martyn’s DCM Remix” [Hessle Audio]

6. D1: “Oingie Boingie” [Tempa]

7. Skream: “Hedd Banger” [forthcoming Tectonic]/”Angry World” [unreleased]

8. Grievous Angel: “Lady Dub 2Step Remix” [Devotional Dubs]

9. Quest: “Stand” [Deep Medi]/Silkie: “Horizon” [unreleased]

10. Ramadanman: “Blimey” [Hessle Audio]

11. TRG: “Feel For You” [Subway]/Al-Haca “Kryptonite TRG remix” [unreleased]

12. Sully: “Trackside”/”Jackman’s Recs” [unreleased]

13. Pangaea: “Router” [Hessle Audio]

14. LD and Cluekid: “Guerrilla Warfare” [unreleased]/ Kode9 vs. LD: “Bad” [Hyperdub]

15. Cult of the 13th Hour: “Wickedness” [Soul Jazz]

I’ve been promising this for ages. Now the Devotional Dubz mix is finally out - thank god, took forever! - I can start clearing out some of the backlog of other, less vital mixes. First up is my first ever 2step mix, even predating the Abstract 2Step mix. It’s from - as you can tell from the pic of the sleeve of the tape - August 2000, so it’s from when most of the classics had come out and the scene was turning very 4×4 (as chronicled on the 4×4 Heaven mix) and very aggy, as the police shut off all the garage raves, and scene turned into grime, and later, dubstep. Oh and house as well, with brilliant DJs such as DJ Roo going house, never to return - wonder if he’s bought Do You Mind yet…

So, this is a live mix, off tape - dubbed to my Mac via my lovely new toy, a mint condition Nakamichi CD2 tape deck, which I have plans for! - and therefore done all in one take, live, no edits. In fact I had to turn the tape over half way through, irritatingly in the middle of It’s a New Dawn. So that’s actually one edit then - I wasn’t going to leave a gap was I? So the mix isn’t perfect, there’s a couple of clatters, and the sequencing isn’t as neat as I would have liked, but it’s still a massively vibey little piece. And there’s some tunes in there that I’ve never really heard anywhere else - they’re all probably old news to someone like Ben UFO, but In the Air Tonight (yes a cover of the Phil Collins song and Belaeric classic!), Rinse Out and Bad Acid weren’t big on radio at the time and don’t seem particularly canonical. Sadly I don’t have access to most of these tunes since they’re all in storage for the next few months, so I can’t redo the mix, but I think you’ll really, really enjoy this little thing. In fact, this tape has been a car journey favourite for me and my wife for the last eight years and surely there’s no higher recommendation than that.

Get it HERE. 170Mb 320.

Tough 2Step Mix August 2000

DJ Chubbstarr & A. Fernandes feat MC Preshus: Rinse Out (1999)

Same People: Dangerous (1998)

Missy Elliott: She’s a Bitch (1999)

M Dubs feat Lady Saw: Bump’n'Grind (1999)

Ramsey & Fen: Love Bug (1997)

The Bomb Squad: Bad Acid (1999)

DJ Zinc: Super Sharp Shooter

Carlito’s Revenge: Real Man

DJ Zinc: 138 Trek (1997)

Carlito’s Revenge: Jump Up

Section 13: Freak the Funk (2000)

<can’t remember> It’s a New Dawn (Feelin’ Good) remix

Sevi G / Groove Chronicles: In the Air Tonight (1998)

Dem 2: Baby You’re So Sexy (Big Time Scary Dub Mix) (1999)

<can’t remember>: Let it roll

Two Ton Bad Boy: Worries In The Dance (1999)

Basement Jaxx: Jump’n'Shout (Dem 2 Remix) (2000)

Artful Dodger: Woman Trouble (1999)

If anyone can fill in some of the blanks I’d be grateful…

The first Devotional Dubz mix is now up on the FACT Magazine site. Do please check it out. It’s probably the best thing I’ve ever done. Here’s some backstory.

In the summer, I put out Lady Dub, the first of the Devotional Dubz series of dubstep / dark garage refixes of r’n’b tunes, which was the counterpart to the harder ragga techno styles on the double album, Belief is the Enemy, that was released at solstice. Lady Dub is a refix of D’Angelo’s nu-soul classic Lady, or rather of DJ Premier’s remix of it; it turned out to be fairly popular, helping to propel the garage revival that we’ve seen this year. It also offered a different vision of dubstep, one that reaffirmed the form’s original tolerance for sweetness and vocals while offering the biggest booming 808 sine waves I could manage.

Each Devotional Dubz release will have a DJ mix that acts as a kind of sonic manifesto; therefore the first one focuses on the other side of dubstep, the landslide, horsepower, mala side that traces a lineage back to soul and dancehall and broken beat, just as jungle traced a lineage back to r’n’b as much as to bashment. It includes exclusive refixes and blends of r’n’b tunes, alongside unreleased Grievous Angel garage tracks that have previously only been heard on Blackdown’s Rinse show, and some special edits of dark garage classics. It’s lush, it’s spacey, it’s skippy, and at the end it’s unremittingly heavy, but all the way it’s pure garage flavour.

Turn it up and feel the sunshine. Volume two will be out in a few months when I’ve got some funky stuff out of the way.

00:00: Jill Scott: Slowly Surely (Grievous Angel’s Erzulie Edit)

02.20: Craig Mack: Brand New Flava (Grievous Angel’s Iron River Edit)

05:19: Grievous Angel: Lady Dub

08:07: Jill Scott: Watching Me

09:30: Vaccine: Wishful Thinking (VIP Mix)

12:03: DJ Abstract: Touch

15:18: Jill Scott: Crown Royal (Grievous Angel’s Fucking In Sunshine Edit)

17:07: Jill Scott: My Love (Grievous Angel’s Deeper, Tighter Edit)

19:29: HorsePower Productions: Gorgon Sound

21:56: Grievous Angel: Lady Dub (2Step Remix)

25:10: Groove Chronicles: Be Happy

28:09: Grievous Angel: What We Had

31:47: El B: Bison

31:58: Groove Chronicles: Faith In You

34:13: Dru Hill: Freak Like Me (El B Remix)

39:11: El B: Two Thousand

40:34: Our Lady of Rage: Afro Puffs

42:00: Grievous Angel: I Love Dem

49:13: Ends

That’s pretty much all you need to know, but let me expand.

I don’t believe  in the great man theory of history, or the great man theory of management for that matter, but it is a fact that key people are nodes in the network and make cultural life happen. Sarah at Tempa is the classic example, tirelessly promoting a multiplicity if post-ardkore scenes. I had the privelege of bigging her up in person at the wonderful Beyond night a couple of weeks back. And it is no exaggeration to speak of Droid in the same breath. He is a man who links the dancehall diaspora with European electronica, arthouse with rough house, and text with sound.There are few like him and it has been a wonderful experience working with him on Woofah. Similarly, it has been a wonderful experience working with him on the Blogariddims series. Where else can you find such a high-quality series of podcasts that are both diverse yet connected, constantly stimulating yet not falling into the trap of mere electicism? Almost nowhere - there’s been nothing like it, and a vast reservoir of musical inspiration has been opened up by the series.

Now, after a monumental 50 episodes, the series is coming to an end, and it’s a special edition with contributions from a load of the regulars.

There’s a delightful circle-jerk across all the contributors going on; our predecessor is Paul Autonomic, John’s is up here (I’ve no idea what he’s going to write about, probably denounce the whole project!), while our successor is Leeds reggae supremo Matt B. Naturally me and John decided to do a Woofah-style instrumental grime mix. It’s only short - obviously - but pretty heavy, with the main cut being Big$shot’s massive Glitch, which is, this week, my favourite record of all time! The other guys are going to have to work hard to drop anything better!

Anyway. Big up droid. Droid’s a bad man!

If this is for real, this is absolutely fantastic and very, very funny!

Big up Dubway and everyone else involved for having the balls to do it!

Long live jungle, garage, grime, dubstep and funky!

I had a great time, hooked up with Blackdown who introduced me to the - as you know - fantastically talented Farrah. And his lovely partner. Hooked up with boom, met melissa bradshaw for the first time (yay!) and bigged up sarah (double yay!).

and of course kode played my new tune - funky version of move down low which I finished a couple of days ago, , which I sent to him last night, and which he cut today. Talk about instant gratification! This is the first time I’ve heard one of my tunes on a big system (bizarrely) so it was a big time for me.

funky is so hot right now…