Category: Turntables

Posted on

Mala in Sheffield, 16-5-07

After seeing Youngsta last week I was HYPE for seeing Mala in Sheffield. He’s my second favourite DJ in the world (after Shaka). Sadly I was never likely to get there – I tried to schedule this week’s trip to New York so I could get there but I was going to fly the next morning, so it was going to be a struggle – and then I went down with chicken pox and was quarantined at home. (In fact I should really have been in bed constantly, but until today I’ve been struggling to function normally – big mistake.)

Normally this would mean no chance of a review, but due to the immense power of the dubstep community, I can put together a decent report – and even pictures.

The Tuesday Club put Mala on in the Foundry back room with C90 crew on before and Junglist Alliance on after. This was a student venue, a school night, and it’s exam time, but even so, 500 dubsteppers were crammed in there. Trust me, that’s a result. As I noted in my Youngsta review, Juliun C90 reckons that Sheffield is now “well and truly in the grip of the dubstep virus”.

Mala pon dex

Happy crowd

The difference in the crowd in terms of numbers present and knowledge of the music from when I warmed up for the warrior dubs tour a while back to last night was phenomenal.” This is not such a long time – Halloween last year, when Loefah and Plastician played (and I was also sick. Bloody kids). And Godspeed 120 remembers Juliun doing a dubstep set at a Tuesday Club residents night this time last year, when there were about twenty people on the dance floor – things have changed.

Juliun C90 pon dex

As ever at dubstep events there was a great vibe in the dance, but it sounds like (and looks like) people were really going for it on the dancefloor. C90 crew rocked it with impeccable mixing.

Rich C90 pon dex

But it sounds like Mala was, as ever, on another plane entirely.

Mala takes over

It’s amazing that the two poles of dubstep DJing were representing in Sheffield one after another – the coldness of Yunx, the sweet heat of Mala.

His sound seems to have benefited from the intimate venue, especially with the extra weight brought in for the occasion. Apparently he was pure fire last night – dark, dubby, massive. Jah War, Miracles, Lean Forward and loads of new fairly fresh stuff all dropped.

Looks like people were worshipping the bass…

… getting munted…

… and getting happy…

… and giving some serious “defiant stare”…

Many thanks to the people at dubstep forum for the reports, especially to ikarai for taking such great photos.

Posted on

Blogariddims 22: Disintegrations « The Rambler

Blogariddims 22: Disintegrations « The Rambler
Unlike my previous Blogariddims contribution there was a plan behind this mix. But as I started putting it together I also decided on a different strategy for mixing too. On Voices from Afar the idea was very definitely to keep layering things, filling up the sound space as much as possible; I might have up to 5 tracks running at once. That was fine, but I was always a bit uncomfortable with the fact that I seemed reluctant to let any of the music – all of which I loved – speak for itself, without the friendly support of massive overdubs. Why not let the music do more of the work on its own?

Wow. Neo-classical ardkore mentalism from the man like Rambler. This should be heavy.

Bloagariddims is just incredible! You wouldn’t get another series of mixes anywhere else that would be this varied, yet connected, and above all, HIGH QUALITY. Droid exercises real sound control. It’s always a huge challenge to do a blogariddims podcast… Rambler’s last one was wicked so I’m looking forward to this.

Posted on

lower end spasm.: FWD>>


lower end spasm.: FWD>>
It felt very much like a homecoming on Friday down in Plastic People at JME’s birthday party and Serious launch, as grime MCs once again re-addressed the balance.

Top notch review of FWD / JME birthday by Alex Bok Bok.

Posted on

Grievous Angel presents Blogariddims 21: Fusion Dub. A mix of Miles Davis-inspired jazz, funk and soul, in dub

This time last year I was waaaaay deep into a series of pilgrimages deep into dubstep, a process that is still ongoing, though not as spiritually all-encompassing as it was. And part of my response to the influx of dubstep vibrations that have been flowing into me since 2005 has been a re-connection with deep dub sounds of… Miles Davis. My connection with Miles has always crossed over with dub, electronics and industrial. I got heavily into Miles, especially the electric period but also the Gil Evans orchestral period, at the same time as I got into Cabaret Voltaire – when I was 13, almost 14. It was only a year or so later that I realised how much of an influence he was on Richard Kirk and Stephen Malinder; all I knew was that the sonics and spaces of 2 X 45 were identical to On the Corner. In the same way as the threads connecting from the Cabs to acid to ardkore and thence to dubstep are obvious, for me, the thematic connection from Miles to dubstep is also clear, but it’s more a matter of influence than direct connection.

So it was that when I was asked to do a solo outing in the brilliant Blogariddims series, I almost immediately decided to go on a voyage into Miles – in dub. I was going to include a lot of other fusion artists, but not much that I have in that genre really made the grade, so instead I threw in some of the soul and funk that influenced Miles in this period. And naturally, I used as my raw material much of Bill Laswell’s fabulous Panthalassa CD, which adds a layer of dub and re-edits to Miles’ originals. I simply re-edited and re-dubbed what Laswell did. All in all it’s an appropriate way for Blogariddims series to greet Beltane. I hope you enjoy it.

You can subscribe to Blogariddims, and download individual mixes, here: http://www.weareie.com/audio/blogariddims/Blogariddims.xml. This mix will be up for May 1st.

Tracklisting:

0:00 Miles Davis: Bitches Brew intro
0:59: Miles Davis: Agharta Prelude Dub
5:06: Miles Davis: Miles Runs the Voodoo Down (Edit)
12:19: Parliament: Dr Funkenstein (Live) (edit)
19:10: Miles Davis: What If
22:44: Curtis Mayfield: Stone Junkie (Live)
28:28: Miles Davis: Billy Preston
33:51: Headhunters: God Made Me Funky (Edit)
39:21: Miles Davis: Black Satin
43:14: Miles Davis: Bitches Brew (Edit)
46:59: Miles Davis: In A Silent Way / Shhh Peaceful (Bill Laswell dub)
54:49: Curtis Mayfield: I Plan To Stay a Believer (Live)
57:30: Miles Davis: It’s About That Time

Liner notes:

0:00 Miles Davis: Bitches Brew intro
This snippet is so recognisable – those sharp parps are the perfect signal to wake up for the mix.

0:59: Miles Davis: Agharta Prelude Dub
Sheer, unadulterated, slow motion funk bliss. A dub of one of the tracks on Panthalassa, the original is from the Agharta album, which was recorded live at the Osaka Festival Hall in Japan on February 1, 1975. A lot of critics think is one of Davis‘ two greatest electric live records alongside Pangaea (which were both recorded the same day – Agharta in the afternoon and Pangaea in the evening). The band has its roots in the seminal group assembled for On the Corner. Saxophonist is Sonny Fortune, guitarists Pete Cosey (lead’n’headfuck feedback) and Reggie Lucas (rhythm), bassist Michael Henderson, drummer Al Foster, and percussionist James Mtume. Bill Laswell edited “Prelude,” down from over a half-hour and I took it down to five minutes so all you have here is pure funk jazz fire.

5:06: Miles Davis: Miles Runs the Voodoo Down (Edit)
Probably my favourite cut off Bitches Brew, this, at least it is now it’s had a bit of vigorous pruning. The album was recorded over three August days in 1869, right after the Woodstock Festival. Miles famously would assemble musicians at short notice, forcing them to think on their feet with minimal guidance – which must have been a total head-fuck. You can tell how the band are right on the edge of mapped territory on this tune, but they’re locked tight. It starts off all gorgeously loping, before slowly lifting off into heavy, fat jazz that almost has dubstep’s “wobble” in the low end. I took out a lot of the free jazz bleating in the middle and made sure there was plenty of Miles’ red hot but laid back groove, and even so we fit atonal jazz funk gold at around 10:39.

12:19: Parliament: Dr Funkenstein (Live) (edit)
God, I love Parliament. This is probably the best track off 1977’s Parliament Earth Tour album. It’s just a fat, minimal, drum and bass funk locked groove. The recording isn’t that hot but the playing is unbelievable so I slashed it down from its original 15 minutes and dubbed the fuck out of it. The end of it is very Apocalypse Now, the scene at the bridge as shards of Miles’ horn float through the wreckage of Parliament.

19:10: Miles Davis: What If
From one deep funk track to another, but dear god is this heavy. Previously unreleased track from Panthalassa, I edited it out of Laswell’s mix of Black satin/What if/Agharta prelude dub. It was called What If by Laswell because we was wondering, “what if this is Pete Cosey (on lead guitar?)”, but actually it’s Maclauglin. The real star is Michael Hendeson’s bass line, an awesomely solid, endlessly repeating syncopated figure that’s just irresistible. This one just rocks.

22:44: Curtis Mayfield: Stone Junkie (Live)
The marvellous Curtis in cheeky mood from this seminal soul live album, recorded at the Greenwich Village‘s Bitter End club on a freezing January ’71 night and released on the brilliant Curtis/Live! Album. Stone Junkie calms it down a bit from What If, but the chill factor is back with the FX. This is the sort of soul Miles was listening to pretty relentlessly throughout the seventies.

28:28: Miles Davis: Billy Preston
Another fantastic heavy funk work out, this is from the 1974 sessions that yielded the Get Up With It album. Most critics don’t seem to like this one but I love it, so much so I did a remix of it. This is just a dub of the original.

33:51: Headhunters: God Made Me Funky (Edit)
This is thee archetypal fusion track, here ripped to fuck. Herbie Hancock famously went looking for a bit of earth in 1973 and put together a funk band, The Headhunters. Yes it’s from the largest-selling jazz album of all time, but here’s it’s had the wanky sax solo ripped out, which makes the lush, faded out funk heaviosity that much more effective.

39:21: Miles Davis: Black Satin
From On The Corner – Kode 9’s favourite album of all time – and it’s a corker! Black Satin is built around a spanking hot cyclical break from Jack DeJohnette, with a set of discordant counter point tones bouncing around it and shimmering fuzz guitar drifting from the shadows.

43:14: Miles Davis: Bitches Brew (Edit)
This track is just mental. Absolutely dead serious, utter funk badness and jazz freakiness. This is just total, wailing madness which stays utterly the right side of formlessness, the energy surges and crackles and frankly it’s terrifying. The original edit loses its focus (sacrilegious though it is to say it) so I sharpened it up quite a lot by keeping the spotlight firmly on Miles – which doesn’t fit into the commonplace revisionism of praising the sidemen, but this is really about going with Davis into the nightmare. Across the chasm.

46:59: Miles Davis: In A Silent Way / Shhh Peaceful (Bill Laswell dub)
You simply don’t get any higher – or darker – than Bitches Brew, so it was time to let some light in with some lovely, twisted, sardonic chillage from 1969’s fantastic In A Silent Way album. If you’re reading this before downloading the mix and wondering if it’s all going to be a bit too much like onanistic jazz freakery, then fast forward to this bit cos it’s just lovely. Literally everyone in the country should own a copy of this album and we’d all be happier for it. And – despite the virtuosity on display throughout the rest of this mix, this is the one tune that absolutely anyone can learn to play on the guitar in half an hour. It’s that simple. But what Miles and his band do with it here is just priceless.

54:49: Curtis Mayfield: I Plan To Stay a Believer (Live)
Another one from Curtis / Live, and what a fantastic song this is. I won’t drizzle it with clichés (for once) but this simple, direct soul is the ideal partner for In A Silent Way, a similar cleanser.

57:30: Miles Davis: It’s About That Time
But Miles, even after his astonishing displays of malevolence throughout this mix, can out-do Mayfield when it comes to conveying purity and innocence, as he does on the very brief It’ About That Time.

That’s it. be interesting to see what Paul Nomos makes of this one!

Posted on

Kode 9 and Space Ape in Sheffield

Kode 9 destroyed Sheffield tonight.

He was playing on the Valve sound system opening up, with Julian C90 doing the early early set. And Julian was excellent, playing some dub and then a lot of very deep electro-y dubstep, bit angular and a bit brave but very enjoyable. The floor was very sparse, just clumps of people, but there was a bit of a mood of anticipation. People were listening. Then bang on 9.30 kode took over, opening up with Sine of the Dub, played in its entirety with Space Ape adding occasional deep inflections, before heading off into some lush instrumental dubstep deepness. I closed my eyes rocking out to it for a long time before opening them and finding that the floor had pretty much filled up. Space Ape was striding back and forth across the stage following some metronome within the beats while Kode gently inserted his groove deep into the crowd, and suddenly it all came together on Jah War, and with the first rewind of the night, the crowd just exploded. They’d managed to captivate a pretty big proportion of a crowd of new-school D’n’B heads. It was firing.

And then it got really good. Kode dropped a succession of devastating, fat, funky steppers that were an object lesson in magisterial bass inventiveness. Some were pure bass-and-drum throbbers, there was a couple with some excellent use of (I think) Wu Tang and Sizzla, and some were recognisable big tunes by other artists (that I’m a bit far gone to remember now!). It was just glorious. The music was alive. It was inspired. It hit some kind of peak with Mala’s Hunter, and then suddenly shifted up a gear with all sorts of crunchy, hooky subs and melodies. In fact there was quite a lot of housey-groove and acid riffage going on, which was both delightfully eighth-triplet hard-garage-y and seductively, oceanically tuneful in that nagging way that the best house has. Really infectious and even if this is not what people mean by the techno 4×4 sound of dubstep, I’m all for it – I’m even more interested in swinging house influences.

By half way through it was obvious that Kode 9 has an unbeatable arsenal of heavy , bouncy steppers. The most flavoursome of these was a quite shockingly fat Sleng Teng refix that simply convulsed the dancefloor. But you have to set that against the incredible atonal deepness of the heavily filtered version of Backwards Kode pumped out. Maximum-heaviosity dubstep dancehall devastation one moment, seamlessly segued into monumental emotive dub the next.
And Space Ape, while not as primally mental as when he played with Mala here last year, when he was able to get right onto the floor and raise hell, just got heavier and dreader and sharper and funkier throughout the set. Of course, he looked great, and danced even better. I’ll put some pix up later.

Kode closed with Left Leg Out – some 4×4, Hammond organ-led, deeply swinging dubstep brilliance that shows just how far down that house virus goes, and it was clearly a gauntlet laid down to the pure-breed d’n’b heads in the audience: can you touch your musical sensuality THIS deeply? And while it’s tempting to suggest, based on the music that followed, that the answer in most cases must have been kniown, the fact is that there were hundreds of people absolutely fucking having it to Kode and Space’s set, who were absolutely prepared to go wherever Kode 9 was taking them.

Because it was proper, full-on, emotive, grown up music. And it absolutely rocked.

A word about the legendary Valve sound system. It was very nice during Kode’s set – big, rich, beautifully clear and undistorted – like the best hi-fi you could imagine. Compared to the system in Mass, it was missing the “bottom octave” – there was a big chunk of low end missing compared to when DMZ is at its peak, and there was no comparison with Iration Steppas’ system for pure, world-encompassing, round / spherical bass. Nor of course with Shaka’s system, but that’s just something else again – it’s not a soundsystem, it’s a vehicle for spiritual transformation. In the hands of Mala and a few others, the system at Mass is capable of similar results. The Valve system sounds very nice but it is not capable of that kind of deep personal impact. With the system turned down (for “the warm up act”), it was really clean, very solid, but very obviously had some way to go before it could really overwhelm the senses. Unfortunately, when turned up for host clubnight Tuesday Club’s resident DJ MIkey J, or indeed for Adam F, actually had very little more to give. Yes it went louder, yes there was more low end, but by god you suffered for it. The volume was instantly accompanied by great gobfulls of painful mid-range distortion, the sort that really fucks your hearing, a nasty square wave on the whole of the low-end and a honking lower mid crunch in place of the sort of warm, deep rroundness you’re looking for from a big system.No wonder they were giving out (very welcome!) free ear plugs when you came in. By contrast, the Mass system would be much cleaner for a given volume level, and the really low end would be handled much more sensitively. Iration would have been something else again in terms of low end articulacy. But I really must hear it in the flesh to be sure – I have the session on Friday 27th April pencilled in as a possible first blood, though it’s likely something will come up to stop me…

In any event, I think Kode 9 and Space Ape had the best that the Valve sound system had to offer. Had they suffered being provided with the greatest loudness the system could provide, I suspect the result would have been unlistenable. Though not as much as the 180 bpm drum and bass (it wasn’t really “jungle”) that followed. I liked some of it and I really tried to get into it, but after two hours it was obvious that the modern incarnation of what was once the worlds most rhythmically inventive musical genre had finally succumbed to monocultural drudgery. I know this is both an all too familiar critique of modern drum and bass and yes, I really did enjoy one or two of the tracks (I was wryily amused by Mikey J selecting a Sleng Teng riposte to Kode 9) – but does EVERYTHING have to be at this dull 190 bpm funkless treadmill pace? And yes I SEE the connection with formulaic and functional hardcore, but it ain’t working for me. Does it all have to be that fast and that samey? No. During Adam F’s set I was just thinking “this is verging on heavy metal” when he dropped… a load of heavy metal, with funkless breakbeats under it.

It just wasn’t very nice at all, and the contrast with the multi-hued dubstep Kode was dropping couldn’t be greater. Dubstep really is the grown-up, music of the present (who knows what it the music of the future). I don’t know how long it will stay like this. Grab it while you can. For, right now, people like Kode 9 are playing records that are just about as much fun as you can get right now — so right on so many levels.

I queued up for an hour under the stars over the seven hills of Sheffield to see Kode 9 and Space Ape tonight on this, one of the last few days of my 39th year, and the sheer overwhelming musical delight of what they delivered made that sacrifice absolutely worth it, and it brought a large measure of the magic of DMZ up the M1 to Sheffield.
It was fab. I loved every minute of it.

Posted on

Blogariddims 17: Grievous Angel presents Tons of Boxes

 

This month I’ve done the 17th mix for the mighty Blogaridims podcast series. It’s a load of my favourite dub, roots and dancehall tunes, done “live” on decks and dubbed up using an Access Virus synth as an FX box. I inflicted some serious damage on these tunes with that hardware.

(Edit: many years later I sold the Virus to UK bass producer Chris Lorenzo, who is an extremely nice guy and very knowledgable, also a great producer.)

Download here:

http://www.grievousangel.net/GAMixes/Tons_of_Boxes.mp3

Mixcloud:

I originally did this mix back in late 2001 or early 2002, a few months after moving back up to Sheffield from London, and while experiencing withdrawl symptoms from not having seen Shaka for a while. It’s a heavy mix – 20 minutes of hard dub followed by an increasing amount of vocals (leavened with some out-there FX), melting into sweet soul reggae and a couple of classics, before dissolving into cold, painful dub. I sent a 74 minute version of this out on CD to a few people at the time but this is the first time it’s been available as a download. Editing it down to an hour and re-mastering it has made it a bit punchier in my opinion. Enjoy…


0.00 Velvet Shadows: Dubbing & Wailing
3:32 King Tubby: Explosion Dub
7:29 Gregory Isaacs: Leggo Beast
10:51 Sly & the Revolutionaries: Cocaine
14:31 Roots Radics: Mission Impossible
17:38 Barrington Levy: Rob & Gone
20:34 Ranking Joe: Choice of Colour
24:20 Mikey Dread: Barber Saloon
29:12 Linval Thompson: Don’t Cut Off Your Dreadlocks
32:25 Big Youth: Pride & Joy
34:51 Big Youth: Pride & Joy (Grievous Angel Dub)
37:33 Lee Perry: Bury the Razor
40:58 The Silvertones: Feel Alright
43:27 Niney The Observer: Blood & Fire
46:22 Delroy Wilson: Better Must Come
48:59 Scotty: Riddle I This
51:27 Susan Codogan: Do It Baby
54:26 Linval Thompson: I Love Marijuana
57:43 Linval Thompson: Marijuana Dub
1.02 Ends

0.00 Velvet Shadows: Dubbing & Wailing
Absolutely killer, deep-funk loping roots Tubbys dub of the Velvet Shadows Wailing Of Black People.

3:32 King Tubby: Explosion Dub
The absolute solid gold classic Tubbys dub, justifiably famous and here given a seriously overdriven, squelchy makeover.

7:29 Gregory Isaacs: Leggo Beast
Gregory entirely absent sadly, but devastating instrumental steppers intensity is present and in full effect. On the Swing Easy / Spirit of Umoja riddim and apparently produced by Dennis Brown and Augustus Pablo, but I have no more information than that…

10:51 Sly & the Revolutionaries: Cocaine
A slight downshift in mood but still in militant steppers territory, this was featured on Sly Dunbar’s 1980 Black Ash Dub lp. Made by Sly’n’Robbie, Ansell Collins and Bingy Bunny, and mixed by Scientist. Fabulous.

14:31 Roots Radics: Mission Impossible
Pure deep space dub rocking from 1983’s “Scientist & Jammy Strike Back” LP.

17:38 Barrington Levy: Rob and Gone…

from Levy’s 1983 Poor Man Style LP. Gets into some serious dub distortion.

And now we’re into the vocal selection. … and my fuckd up WordPress won’t let me post any more than that…

 

Posted on

Dubstep round up

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.