pitch pie

It’s a fact that the latest years in electronic music were carved by the German techno influence. The rebirth of techno after the minimalistic wave have found Berlin as its nest, and today is from the German fields (or labels) that the most influential DJs, news and specially music are emerging. On the other hand, a giant when it comes to musical culture has been left behind by the electronic music community. London, the former capital of acid and deep house, jungle, punk and indie rock apparently doesn’t offer much more than Germany and even France when it comes to electronic music nowadays. How is that possible?

Rumors are that a big responsible factor for the fall of the British musical empire rests on its inhabitants having found home-sweet-home in an underdog genre, whose artists are mostly unknown outside the UK border: dubstep. A style that, unlike other movements and genres in electronic music, has some difficulties when it comes to being accepted worldwide.

Designating dubstep is a complex job, starting from the fact that it mixes drum’n’bass, hip-hop and 2-step, a slightly variation of garage house. It results in an approximately 110 BPM, arrhythmic and bass-focused music, filthy of elements and frequencies. The style emerged in the late 90’s on London’s black neighborhoods and had FWD party as its most important development media – the party still takes place in Shoreditch’s club Plastic People. By the way, dubstep was the first music genre to develop in the fast 2.0 internet era. The listeners were basically South London ex-drum’n’bass fans but radio stations like the pirate Rinse FM and even the giant BBC were responsible for making dubstep a synthesis of the UK youth identity.

Since its birth in 1999, the genre has grown and divided itself in branches, having today its own independent culture, scene and public. It actually has been an inspiration for a genre called “post-dubstep”, which includes names like Mount Kimbie, The XX, Joy Orbinson, among others. But according to Fabric club booker Shaun Roberts, the designation of post-dubstep is not valid as dubstep still exists, and it’s only applied as a journalistic designation for experimental bass line focused music made in the past years. The existence of an experimental sub-genre that feeds itself entirely from dubstep is a clear sign that it might be a major reference when it comes to electronic music, especially because unlike other waves like deep house, techno and nu disco, it’s not a revival: it’s still an unexplored genre.

Nowadays, the bass line is the most influential characteristic of dubstep in electronic music, which can be noticed in some artists’ productions such as Siriusmo, Martin Buttrich and English deep house sensation Maya Jane Coles. From deep to tech, the “fat bass” has been earning its space – and also playing random dubstep tracks on mixes has become a regular trend.

Listening to music superstars’ tunes, one can get the idea that Europe has being seen as a big source of references for current R’n’B, therefore the Londoner most popular genre couldn’t stay out of the charts, as we can notice listening to “Judas” from mother monster Lady Gaga or Britney Spears’ “Hold It Against Me” – produced by Christopher Mercer, a.k.a. Rusko, well-known English dubstep DJ and producer.

As a conclusion to all of these examples, it gets pretty clear how the bastard child of house and drum’n’bass has become a massive source of influence for electronic music today, and just like minimalism has made its way through many genres today, the time might have come for producers to drink on a new source.

Issue published on Housemag magazine Ed. 24 / june 2011

Tags: dubstep