Patrick Kay grew up in the UK, so he has EDM in his veins. He explains the origins of the current moment in electronic music below. It's really awesome and informative and you'll discover tons of great cuts in here you might've missed unless you're already a nerd about this shit in which case tell us how dumb we all are in the comments.
Hate it or loathe it, there’s no getting away from it – dubstep has reached critical mass on both sides of the Atlantic. Along with tumblr-wave slut-core rap (via Luke) and hazy waif-pop it’s been impossible to turn on the television, get online or discuss music without dubstep coming up, even if it’s only for someone to tell you how much they hate it. But dubstep isn’t just dumb party music. Honestly. You probably haven’t been losing sleep wondering where dubstep came from but I’m gonna tell you anyway.
To understand dubstep, you need to understand grime (ie, UK electronic hip-hop). To understand grime, you need to understand how the UK reinterpreted US house and garage into speed garage and 2-step garage. And to understand 2 step and speed garage you need to understand “”, a song by Roy Davis Jr which came out in the autumn of 1996.
Roy Davis Jr is a legendary house producer from Chicago, but it was initially in the UK that Gabriel was getting played by everyone; you’d hear it everywhere: blasting from people’s cars, at drum & bass nights and on house radio shows. I was 14 at the time and had a cassette of the song I’d taped from the radio. I forget sometimes how music back then was so much more segmented and ghettoised than it is nowadays; people were fiercely protective of whichever sound they were into and denigrated everything else. (I think it’s down to having to actually, you know, pay for music back then. People simply couldn’t afford to be too open-minded.) “Gabriel” forged a new path: its breakbeat groove made it acceptable to people who thought four-to-the-floor house was an abomination while Davis’ house pedigree and super-soulful approach meant househeads could still claim it as their own. Of course, there were plenty of people (you might even call them “normal”) who didn’t give a fuck what Gabriel was supposed to be and simply enjoyed it as a classic song. (The singer is a guy called and his 2002 album Studio Confessions is a nu-soul classic.)
Roy Davis Jr is a legendary house producer from Chicago, but it was initially in the UK that Gabriel was getting played by everyone; you’d hear it everywhere: blasting from people’s cars, at drum & bass nights and on house radio shows. I was 14 at the time and had a cassette of the song I’d taped from the radio. I forget sometimes how music back then was so much more segmented and ghettoised than it is nowadays; people were fiercely protective of whichever sound they were into and denigrated everything else. (I think it’s down to having to actually, you know, pay for music back then. People simply couldn’t afford to be too open-minded.) “Gabriel” forged a new path: its breakbeat groove made it acceptable to people who thought four-to-the-floor house was an abomination while Davis’ house pedigree and super-soulful approach meant househeads could still claim it as their own. Of course, there were plenty of people (you might even call them “normal”) who didn’t give a fuck what Gabriel was supposed to be and simply enjoyed it as a classic song. (The singer is a guy called and his 2002 album Studio Confessions is a nu-soul classic.)
Gabriel appeared when the dominant club sound of the UK at the time was speed garage. This was basically pitched up NY house, like this:
People into 2-step began to see US-style 4/4 as gay (like, literally homosexual) and people into 4-to-the-floor (usually older clubbers) saw garage as rough, crude and cheap. Another big difference is that 2-step nights would always have MCs– initially they were just introducing the songs and DJs and stuff before starting to do more and more spitting (eventually becoming grime years later).
So by the end of 1998 you had producers like Artful Dodger and Ramsey and Fen putting out 2-step – big bass, breakbeat drum patterns, and soulful vocals which were either sampled from R&B and house or originals sung to order. is Re-Rewind by the Artful Dodger and Craig David.
It was a chart smash in 1999 – a UK number one – and although the drums sound a bit dated now, you can hear the early genesis of dubstep in the half-speed breakdown. On a similar tip is by Ramsey and Fen.
This wasn’t a commercial smash because it wasn’t ever properly released but it was absolutely huge in clubs and on pirate radio. (It was only put out as a promo so people were paying up to £50 for copies.) You can hear the jazzy twist the best 2-step songs brought to the table – a flavour which unfortunately became less and less common as the scene expanded.
...alongside UK-made remixes with bigger bass, time-stretched vocals, rewinds and skippier snares, like remix of Tina Moore, plus Todd Edwards records. Like Roy Davis Jr, Todd was another US DJ who really defined a UK sound. (He’s from New Jersey.) Edwards was one of the few US DJs/producers to embrace UK speed garage – other producers like or thought playing their records pitched up, or re-working them with bigger bass, was a travesty! were used on a lot of speed garage, and subsequently 2-step, records due to Todd’s .
Anyway, with “Gabriel” Roy Davis basically created what would become 2-step garage: syncopated snare rhythms with a breakbeat rather than 4/4 kick pattern. My clubbing at the time was limited to a few nerve-wracking visits to a nightclub and some under-18s nights in sports club function halls. Throughout 1997 and 1998 four-to-the-floor and 2-step existed side-by-side – you’d go to a “garage” night and you’d hear both. By the end of 1998, though, it was all 2-step; people would even get annoyed if the DJ played any four-to-the-floor! A real split developed between people who liked 4-to-the-floor US house and garage and people who liked 2-step UK garage. (4/4 UK garage kind of faded away, later becoming ).
People into 2-step began to see US-style 4/4 as gay (like, literally homosexual) and people into 4-to-the-floor (usually older clubbers) saw garage as rough, crude and cheap. Another big difference is that 2-step nights would always have MCs– initially they were just introducing the songs and DJs and stuff before starting to do more and more spitting (eventually becoming grime years later).
So by the end of 1998 you had producers like Artful Dodger and Ramsey and Fen putting out 2-step – big bass, breakbeat drum patterns, and soulful vocals which were either sampled from R&B and house or originals sung to order. is Re-Rewind by the Artful Dodger and Craig David.
This wasn’t a commercial smash because it wasn’t ever properly released but it was absolutely huge in clubs and on pirate radio. (It was only put out as a promo so people were paying up to £50 for copies.) You can hear the jazzy twist the best 2-step songs brought to the table – a flavour which unfortunately became less and less common as the scene expanded.
Another massive part of 2-step was unofficial remixes of US R&B. Dubstep has continued this tradition with any house, or rap hit having dozens of unofficial dubstep mixes available on YouTube. Then as now they were generally poor quality but some were decent: the Groove Chronicles remix of Dru Hill’s "How Deep Is Your Love" was on of the best examples.
The move towards dubstep really came with Oxide and Neutrino’s “”. This was huge in the summer of 2000 both in terms of making 2-step garage a mainstream chart thing and introducing a harder, bass-driven sound to mainstream audiences. It sampled dialogue from Lock Stock & Two Smoking Barrels and the theme from “”, a really popular BBC hospital drama. People like So Solid Crew and Oxide and Neutrino then began producing heavier, MC-led 2-step garage which was massively popular – they had a few . “” by Deekline and ED-209 was also massively popular – a chart hit which wasn’t much more than drums, a silly sample and a bass drop. Sound familiar? Grime godfather Wiley started out as a garage/2-step MC with (skip to 1:51 to hear his verse – “Oi, it’s the paper boy I’m in effect…”)
I paid £10 for this on vinyl – one song on one side only! Groove Chronicles really defined the more underground side of 2-step. Artful Dodger had chart and mainstream success while Groove Chronicles put out loads of limited-edition classics on small labels - including .
This is from 1999 and is almost certainly the first dubstep record. Half-speed breakdowns, big bass, drops, wibbly noises… it’s all here! The archetypal wobble sound can be heard – it’s made by a synth producing two or more signals, one of which is modulated by an LFO envelope filter. (Er, I think – feel free to correct me in the comments.) These kinds of songs were still a small part of the 2-step garage scene – by late 1999 I was able to get into clubs regularly and you’d go to a 2-step night and hear soulful 2-step tracks like , with vocals sung especially for the track, alongside dodgy, tinny 2-step remixes of US R&B like , plus harder dubs like “1999.”
“Modern” dubstep really started emerging in around 2003. In 2004 Rephlex Records put out two volumes of a compilation called “” which was all dubstep! It featured artists like Horsepower from Germany and Slaughter Mob. It was mixed by who also had some productions on it – at the time he was called Plastikman but he had to change his name when the much more famous and established techno producer (Richie Hawtin) complained. The Mecca of classic dubstep was a night called FWD in Brixton in south London, although Bristol in England’s south-west was an early centre for the sound too. Bristol has always been important in UK music – reggae, dub, UK hiphop, then jungle, then drum & bass, then trip hop, then drum & bass again, then grime/dubstep. I went to univesity in Bristol from 2002 to 2005 and there was a record shop called Rooted which had a big sign in the window at the time saying “South-west England’s only dubstep stockist!”
About 2005 or so people like , and were putting music out which was basically modern dubstep. Dubstep nights at the time were all about chaps in hoodies leaning against the wall and smoking weed (at least until the smoking ban). No girls, no sex and no aggro; just nerdy guys getting excited over tube saturation distortion on a Reese bassline. The spacey, cold vibe of this golden-era dubstep can sometimes seem a galaxy away from the euphoric mutant rave of 2012 brostep.
Dubstep began to really take off in the mainstream when major labels began commissioning dubstep remixes of pop hits around the tailend of 2008 – including classics like Skream’s version of La Roux’s “”. 2008 was also the same year that future dubstep superstar Sonny Moore – – began pushing his own slant on the sound after stints with emo and metalcore bands. Skrillex has taken the bass, drops and catchy samples at dubstep’s core and added a dollop of chart-bothering fairydust, essentially creating a one-man popenomenon eclipsing the sound he drew inspiration from. Even on the 2004 Rephlex compilation there were US producers making the sound, but I’m not really 100% sure how modern American proponents like Skrillex and got into dubstep and popped it up. Now we’re in 2012 and plenty of people are following in Skrillex’s cute little footprints with ever of dubstep. Even K-pop producers are skip to 2:22 if you hate really sexy girls in hot pants).
In contrast there are still people like who are staying true to the original mid-2000s spirit of the sound.
In contrast there are still people like who are staying true to the original mid-2000s spirit of the sound.
So now you know more about the origins of dubstep than you ever wanted, needed or cared to. I’ve forgotten about loads of stuff so please add more info in the comments.
brought to you by
7 comments:
We don't say "EDM". We say "music you got aht to an' 'ave a fachkin' dance to innit."
Always enjoy your posts, PK. Don't know if this is anything you'd be into but they're from Bristol so check 'em. Def not the dubstep.
http://gonga.bandcamp.com/album/precession-ep
@ anon: liking Gonga. What happened to the singer? Sounds like the grooves of Mars Volta with kind of Muse-like vocals. You in Brizzle?
Just listening to the second one. Channeling Kyuss! I'm gonna buy this as soon as I get my debit card re-issued (don't ask).
Great article. You really forget how different the origins of dubstep were to what it's like these days
PK,
Naw baby, I'm state side. Glad you like them. Big time overtones of Kings of the Stone Age (Kyuss) fa sho.
Thanks for the info PK, I never knew Gabriel was the source of all dubstep! I can imagine you as one of the boys in a dark club in Bristol geeking out over new records. You reminded me of old tunes too and how much I hate (and don't miss) MCs.
Post a Comment