Fans of the Under-the-counter-culture posts here might want to peruse the Strange Attractor nexus. Strange Attractor has been around for ages as has Mark Pilkington. Their slogan is “celebrating unpopular culture”; their business is delivering attractively fascinating weirdness. Good work… You should investigate the FLickr stream too, there are some great images in there…
Eastertide dubstep
Kode9 / Space Ape: Backward
More downbeat dub with anthemic plinking synth hooks. Not as good as Kingstown but fabulous nevertheless. Space Ape reasoning in particularly good form. 9 Samurai you should know — that familiar “Test Dept does Prokofiev” Soviet horn figure with really rather bouncy filtered breaks and a lovely near-square-wave descending bassline. Really, really good and shows again that Kode 9 is taking dubstep back into grime and then onto something else entirely. A record you really will still be listening to in five years time — get on with the LP please Steve, I want to listen to a whole record from you!
Scuba: Harpoon / Dream
Paul Rose delivers a very fine slice of spacey, rich yet discordant tekky halfstep. Got that whole Drexciya ting going on but at half speed. I very much doubt that the rumours of this being the final Scuba are true; I certainly hope not cos this is very cool. Again, when’s the Hotflush CD compo coming?
DJ Distance: One on One
I passed on this first time and probably will again — it’s good but just a bit too banging for no reason. I want a summer of dubstep soul. Call me an old fart.
Virus Syndicate: Ready to Learn
That “ready for love” helium sample turned into a crunchingly grrovy bit of grime-step. Cracking record from just over the Snake Pass. Trim, Jammer, Ears and Fallacy (who?) voice the remix flip, ‘Major List MC’s’, which is more discordant but equally hooky. Great record.
DMZ comes to Sheffield
I thought I’d blogged this once already…
DMZ comes to Sheffield. I’m going and so should you.
Here’s what Julian C-90 said about it…
“c90 presents…
DIGITIAL MYSTIKZ (DMZ, Rephlex, Big Apple)
MC SPACEAPE (Hyperdub, Kode9)
For one special night the stable at the very forefront
of the dubstep
movement travels north from its native South London.
Digital Mystikz
will be joined by Hyperdub’s MC Spaceape to represent
at their first
Sheffield dance for c90. Expect bare exclusive dubs
and devastating
bass weight pressure.
plus resident selector Juliun c90
Friday 21st April, 9.30pm til 2am (last entry strictly
midnight)
@ Matilda Social Centre
111 Matilda Street
Sheffield
S1 4QF
£6 entry
‘Invitations’ available from:
Dulo, Cemetery Road
Forever Changes, Hickmott Road
Record Collector, Fulwood Road
D’n’B Arena, The Forum, Division Street
Powered by the Sama Roots Soundsystem.
Another c90 rrroadblock. Brap!
www.c90.org / info@c90.org”
Sufferah now up at Barefiles
Deapoh should have it up at
http://barefiles.com/download.php?id=456
But feel free to drop by and say hi — we love making the connection with people…
Hell Science Dept
And while I’m at it, the new one from Hell Science Dept is cracking. Tough tech-steppy dubstep — not the sweet, soulful shimmer I’m lusting after — I’ve been litening to lots of 80s-vintage Womack and 60s folk-soul recently — but very good nevertheless. And you can get it digitally from Juno for not much cash.
Autonomic’s new dubstep mix
Well, look, yes, I know you can’t download it RIGHT NOW, but you’ll need your copy as soon as the server is back up. Go on. www.riddim.ca. It’s not hard! Maybe barefiles will have it before May. I don’t know. Just use your loaf.
It’s brilliant, of course. The grime / dubstep mix from last year was, as you know, literally inspirational. The new one lacks vocal pressure — less grime — but it kicks like a mule. The re-edits are absolutely breath-taking. Seriously. It’s fairly obviou that my mix and his mix are close bedfellows.
BTW, Dubstep Sufferah is going to be up at Barefiles soon, but feel free to drop by here and get a link from me if you want a link.
Awww — sweetness from Gutta!
We’re getting some love from one of the big men of dubstep blogging and it feels great. Gutterbreakz has caught on to what we’re doing. Cool! And he’s on fire right now, even more than ever… Those posts about his uncle dying and the one of his kids were two of the most affecting blog posts I’ve ever seen.