The 2010-2012 Post-Dubstep, dance music aesthetic
It seems to me there definitely is a new and 2010-2012 club-dance music aesthetic happening. It borrows from some early dubstep (Loefah, Kode9) but it also borrows from deep house and techno. It's bass led. It's mostly coming from the UK but not exclusively. It's more hypnotic than wherever broken beat, garage, dubstep and jungle went to so like deep-house, the groove is probably more important than the drop or The One. I can't tell if it's part of the hardcore continuum or not as it seems to stride across the border between the 'nuum and house/techno. The problem is that we haven't got a good name for it. And we need a name for this stuff that doesn't have the "step" syllable in it. I'm also developing a real aversion for just taking an existing genre and slapping post- or future onto it. That forces you to define it in terms of being similar but different to something that's gone before.
So I need a short hand to refer to all this stuff and preferably without going down the rabbit hole of endless sub-genrifying; Those arguments about whether this particular track is minimal-electronic-techno or is actually post-rock drone! That's actually about social group exclusion isn't it, not about describing the music?
Unfortunately dubstep has now completely jumped the shark and so it's no longer terribly useful to call this stuff post-dubstep. Although there is a sense in which it puts the dub back into dubstep and some of the people mentioned below have been called dubstep in the past. Some people will try and tell you it also includes a bunch of self aware rap, hiphop, and R&B that has taken elements of the UK bass production style and applied it to sources and remixes; the likes of Drake, Lana del Rey, A$ap, Azealia Banks[1] and so on. I'm sure it's post-modern, it might be post dubstep, some of it is even good but it's not what we're talking about here.
There was a time when everything was like Radiohead. If you used recommendation engines or those graphical music explorers, no matter where you started you were always only 2 degrees of separation from a Radiohead album. Well this time around
almost every artist and album is apparently like Burial - Untrue and Street Halo. So if you want to explore, you could do worse than simply start there.
Still listening? Want to explore further? Try these.
http://whitenoisereview.blogspot.com
http://thequietus.com/
http://www.thewire.co.uk/
http://minorscience.blogspot.com/
http://mthrfnkr.com/
http://www.youtube.com/user/OOUKFunkyOO
http://www.last.fm/tag/post-dubstep
http://energyflashbysimonreynolds.blogspot.com/2009/02/hardcore-continuum-or-theory-and-its.html
And a long list of artists. Some of this is pre-2010, but it seems to me it still fits into the same grouping.
2562, Andy Stott, Applebim, Author, Balam Acab, Bass Clef, Benjamin Damage & Doc Daneeka, Benoit & Sergio, Benoit Pioulard, Blanck Mass, Blawan, BNJMN, Boddika & Joy Orbison, Bok Bok, Boddika, Bon Iver, Brokenchord, Bruno Pronsato, Burial, Caribou, Chairman Kato, Clams Casino, Cooly G, Cut Hands, Cuthead, Damu, Darkstar, Dauwd, Deadboy, Deepchord, Disclosure, Distance, DJ Rum, Doc Daneeka, Dropxlife, Duskky, Echospace, EQD, Eleven Tigers, Eskmo, FaltyDL, Fantastic Mr Fox, Fanu, Four Tet, Geiom, George Fitzgerald, Glen Porter, Gold Panda, Gonjasufi, Helios, heRobust, Hurtdeer, Jack Sparrow, Jacques Greene, Jahbitat, James Blake, Jamie Woon, Jamie XX, Joe Beats, Julio Bashmore, King Midas Sound, Komonazmuk, Koreless, Kryptic Minds, Kuedo, Late, Levon Vincent, Locked Groove, Machine Drum, Marc Romboy, Martyn, Master Musicians of Bukkake, Matthew Dear, Maya Jane Coles, Moomin, Mosca, Nicolas Jaar, Nocturnal Sunshine, Nosaj Thing, Orphan101, Pangaea, Pariah, Pearson Sound, Perc, Petrels, Peverelist, Phaeleh, Pinch, Pinch & Shackleton, Planas, Point B, Praveen, Praveen & Benoit, Quark, Raime, Ramadanman, Ruckspin, Salva, Sandwell District, SBTRKT, Scuba, Sepalcure, Shackleton, Shlohmo, Sigha, Sully, Synkro, Teebs, Tev95, The Field, The Weeknd, Tim Hecker, Tycho, Untold, wAgAwAgA, Xi, XXXY, Zomby
[1]Ok, damn you. Yes to 212. But no Drake, please!3 The Wash
An artist referencing musical map is no longer appropriate and although scenes still offer the opportunity to pigeon hole a collection of vaguely similar sonic structures (bpm, sample aesthetics, synth styles, rhythmic complexity and over riding rhytmic motifs as well as meta structures derived from certain combinations of the above) the only robust method to this madness is to reference by record label and collective against date. d(record label or collective)/d(date).
Record labels develop distinct styles that change and constantly warp in the flux of relentless media awareness. Referencing according to date allows you to draw parallels between related labels at different times and discover where new developments came from and how they spread. It makes more sense now to say: "that has a real hessel feel to it" or "that sounds like its straight out of dirtybirds". Case in point is Crosstown Rebels who had a massive 2010-11. Following their rise to prominence through the deep/tech house scene has displayed the above perfectly. It was like watching a drop of ink in a bathtub the way that their well informed and prescient retrospective on all that makes house what it is (disco, funk, balearics, chill, sexy, groove and hook(shotgun blast adjectival description (nested parentheses! FUCK))) permeated the entire scene within 6 months. Collaborations within the label's stable of artists and those artist's collaborations with other labels and club nights spread the word like wildfire allowing the analysis of style and aesthetic to be reinforced by a chronological awareness.
With a simple starting point like an artist or a record label further detailed and structured investigation can take place. Discogs, RA, youtube, bandcamp and last.fm are all the tools one needs at first. Such a method of discovery as well as strengthening the bonds between acts in a tangible way (crossover of styles and collaborations) also makes it much easier to find musical styles that you subscribe to and investigate those styles in a rigorous and expansive way.
The issue with developing such a multi layered mind map of artist, label and date is it's not terribly conducive to a productive work life aside from making the whole clusterfuck even more esoteric and impenetrable, but hey if it was easy...
Good words, btw.
And good as it is, that 5yearsHyperdub CD is not entirely consistent any more than my list is.
[1]Hence we find ourselves saying that's a tufrs tune or an albie tune or a maxpower tune rather than trying to pigeonhole it into a genre.
"...not entirely consistent any more than my list is." Aside from the fact that it gives you a specific entity at a specific point in time, a list of associated artists collaborators through which to research Cooly G's style pinpointing his position in the nebulous explosive mess that happened after 'Tempa' and 'Big apple'. A quick dig into discogs and last.fm armed with the above information gives you a dozen or so artists to plug into youtube giving you a better than good blaggers guide to what happened in that area of music at that time, who the main players were and how they interacted. Cooly G: Hyperdub late '00s what more could you need to know?
As an example type techno into google and see if you get any decent information or noise back. Type Jeff Mills in and you'll do a lot better. Type CLR (Chris Liebing Records) in and BAMMM!!! motherload.
I needed some shorthand and slipped back into the 80s. It won't happen again, promise.
Rhythmic tendencies, Bass weight and tempo? comes down to that dunnit?