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Transmission DUB: A little history and theory on the world of Dubstep music, along with some of the scene’s hot-spots here in the south of The United States…

By Christopher Flakus

I know the Lone Star State may appear like an odd home for alternative music and lifestyles. For many living out of state and the country, this may seem like an odd home for a bourgeoning electro-dance movement. I have been asked by out of state friends why I, of all people, choose to live and write here?

I always answer by saying, “I take it you haven’t been to Austin?”

This is Austin, Texas: the proud home for all things strange. Austin has built itself a reputation on weirdness; the local motto: “Keep Austin Weird” is a creative and unique way of allowing alternative culture to thrive. It is known also as ‘The Live Music Capitol of The World.’ This last term is an exaggeration of course, but I am hard-pressed to think of any other place where on any given night you can venture downtown and hear live bands of every imaginable genre. Whatever your music, whatever you do for kicks, it’s happening every night in downtown Austin. Punk Rock, Reggae, Indie Rock, and Country and Blues bands do nightly gigs all over the cities clubs and bars. Recently, more of these Texas night-freaks have been flocking to Sixth Street bars like Barcelona, Plush, and Flamingo Cantina for DJ-hosted ‘Dubstep nights.’

For those of you new to the genre, I’ll bring you up to date with a little history lesson on the who, what, and where of The global Dubstep scene:

The ‘hosted’ Dubstep club-nights are specifically centered around Dubstep acts and Dub-influenced electronic music. Elements of hip-hop, jazz, and even soul are present. But some of the originators of the scene cannot exactly be classified as Dubstep, although they are also of deep importance to this underground music movement, as it exists now. These largely unrecognized figures are always looming in the background of the sound, like an unconscious thought. The first audio-astronauts were always present if not in flesh then in spirit, pushing deeper into the final frontier of space and sound. Pole, for instance, can be considered ‘experimental’ in nature and sound. Pole is much less well known than bigger Dubstep acts like Benga, Rusko, and Skream. While acts like Pole and Scorn (The project of Mick Harris, formerly drummer of Grindcore/Death Metal band, “Napalm Death”) usually more secluded from the limelight, supported and adored by a strong cult-base of fans.

These early experiments are the missing link in the genetics of Dubstep,

Pole represents a more minimal and spacious kind of Dub influenced electronic music. However, most of the Dubstep you hear today comes from the UK movements known as “Gabber” and “Grime”. While Grime took it’s influence from two-tone, Dubstep has a tendency to use a standard 4/4 time-meter with the snare usually hitting on the third beat of every measure, this was adapted from two-step and “Grime.”

“Gabber” was also important for combining vocals similar to a Dub MC’s chanted rap, which is sung over the beat. “Gabber” was a distant cousin to “Happy Hardcore,” a kind of extreme drum and bass with an emphasis on speed and intricate beats. Bands like Digital Mystikz pioneered the early Gabber scene. The “Grime” sound influenced all of Dubstep, much more than “Gabber,” because it was a form of electro that began slowing down to a two-tone beat rhythm. Creating a sound that is generally considered the major precursor to the modern day sound of Dubstep. In my humble opinion Pole, as well as a lot of Jungle, Grime, and Gabber music are still excellent music that stands the test of time. I highly suggest that you all give a listen to some of these influential records if you are interested in getting an idea of the evolution of Dubstep.

This afore-mentioned project Pole may have begun to develop the Dubstep sound, but was certainly not alone in this effort. Scorn and others may have taken their cue from the little known under-appreciated solo album of Carl Crack, a DJ who was based in Berlin and famous for being the former member and DJ in the Techno-Anarchist Electro-Punk band Atari Teenage Riot. Before dying of an overdose, he recorded the only album he would release on his own before dying. This Dub madness of “Black Ark” is equal parts Dub influence and experimental noise. The album “Black Ark,” by Carl Crack remains one of the greatest efforts in experimental electronic music as well one of most fundamental albums in the evolution of today’s Dubstep sound.

I have always been a fan of weird literature. I grew up with fantastic Science Fiction and magazines like Heavy Metal. The connection to a new kind of lit, this form of storytelling is connected to Dubstep, even in the case of “Neuromancer,” a book written a decade or two before Dubstep. These books can also be considered as a sub-genre of Sci-Fi literature, known as Cyberpunk. Cyberpunk novels have often moved in conjunction with a kind of technological expression with its roots deep in cyber-culture and postmodern ideals. Or lack thereof. In the original “Cyberpunk” novel, “Neuromancer,” Dub music plays throughout the futuristic landscape of the novel. Written by William Gibson, it became a seminal Sci-Fi book. Dub music is mentioned throughout, playing constantly out of high-tech speakers in the lower levels of hive-like cities rotted with urban decay.

JG Ballard, an experimental Sci-Fi author who took a critical view of technology, sex, and the exponentially increasing amount of human dependence on technology, has celebrated this new brand of Sci-Fi. Ballard feels the focus of the movement is more on the inner landscapes of the human mind than it is on action or the adventure elements. The stories are meditations on human disintegration, madness, and of course the hope beyond hope that some good may come from our progressing scientific knowledge. What happens to our outlook and way of life, our values and principles, when technology moves faster than our ability to assimilate the mass information we are now receiving daily.

Ballard said, “Science-fiction more and more became an escapist fiction altogether, losing all interest in scientific change, losing all interest in commenting on the present day. I think the Cyberpunks of today have attempted to bring Science Fiction back to the present day.”

Gibson’s story is a Matrix-like vision of a future that resembles our present more every day. It is a time period that focuses on an online digital reality that is tapped into directly to the brains of mercenary hackers and street dealers who traffic drugs and information. It is a gritty and dirty sprawl, a city like Mexico after a disaster, yet still controlled by powerful and advanced corporate control. These mega-corporate entities have replaced world governments as the leaders of men. This literature is the bastard child of other genre-bending authors who influenced Cyberpunk itself and continues to find an audience among dissatisfied youth and digital non-conformists. It seems more relevant every day. This world resembles the schizo mind-fuck of earlier authors such as Philip K Dick (who wrote the books that were adapted into the movies “Blade Runner,” “Total Recall,” “Minority Report,” and saving the best adaptation for last “A Scanner Darkly” which was shot here in South Austin).
So, that’s neat… but what the fuck does it have to do with Dubstep?

Well, to answer that I turn to one of the most recent and successful authors to combine this Cyberpunk literary pastiche with Dub techniques. The man is the author Jeff Noon, whose book “Vurt” can almost be considered “Dub Sci-Fi.” This British Cyberpunk author wrote the music of Electro-Dub into his mind-bending novel, “Vurt.” Jeff Noon’s novel makes use of Electronica-Dub technique translated from the music into a literary form. Using this creative written form creates a kind of progressive literary style that is not often seen in Science Fiction. No time traveling robots, no aliens invading, no spaceships; instead we enter a world of post-modern drugs and music, an underground of cyber-youth much closer to our present than the future.

Noon uses Dub timing as the backdrop and metered form for his altogether poetic and hallucinogenic Cyber-Dub vision. Not to mention that Jeff Noon himself is a Dubstep fan, especially of the earlier projects like Pole.

Jeff Noon’s own thoughts on the electronic music world, Dub, and its importance to his writing.

In his own words:

“Over the last few years, I’ve been listening to a lot of experimental electronic music. Some of this is allied to the outer fringes of Techno Culture, people such as Pole, Autechre, Oval, and so on. Other musicians place their music in a more avant-garde setting. But what all these musicians share is an interest in computers as a creative tool. Reading interviews with the musicians, I started to learn a little about the machinery used, and the techniques involved. A musical signal is sent along a pathway. This signal passes through various software gates or filters, each of which has a different effect on the music. These gates are called things like ‘Decay’, ‘Reverb,’ ‘Echo,’ and so on. Sometimes, diagrams of the signal pathway would be included in the record’s sleeve design. I might well have been studying one of these diagrams, when the initial idea came to me. Could a piece of text be pushed along a similar pathway?”

All good Science Fiction tells a story of an idea in motion, as JG Ballard (Crash, Empire of The Sun) once said, “All Science Fiction eventually becomes reality.” Jeff Noon’s devised method of using Dub two-tone music to make a kind of “Dub Poem” which flows over the storyline of his books like King Tubby vocalizing over his turntables with a rapid delivery of lyrics over the beat.

The book’s called “Vurt,” order that shit. It will either trip you out to the point you never read this blog again and think, “Fuck that kid, he ruined my brain forever.” Or, hopefully you will say, “Awesome, I’m glad I read that book, it successfully re-wired my brain into a higher reality. Thanks Chris!”

So, I went down to Barcelona this last Sunday and shot this video for the Blog. I spent time filming out on Austin’s Sixth Street, making my way finally to club Barcelona, one of the most important spots in Austin Dubstep. Every Sunday night all the Dub-freaks in the scene gather outside the door into Barcelona. It’s well known as the best spot for the weekly gathering of the tribe.

Austin’s local Dubstep hero DJ Shark-Week has been spinning since the scene’s early inception about a decade ago. “Whatever you are into, Dubstep has elements of it,” Shark-Week explained to me in an interview after his set. Wearing a backwards cap and a humble grin, DJ Shark Week wears the unmistakable expression of a man who does what he loves, and knows he does it well. “ For me, Jimi Hendrix is like, the greatest thing.” In Dubstep, you wouldn’t expect Hendrix to have a place in the music, but he does–every DJ has his own influences and all is fair game…if you got the skills to make it work.

Despite the creative and experimental qualities of this music, it remains a relatively unexplored genre. The possibilities of Dubstep are like the unfolding surface landscapes of mars. Once discovered, there is no telling what the effect may be, not just on electronic music, but our ever-changing digital landscape as well.

The emphasis on heavy bass and low frequency oscillation creates a large range of song-writing possibilities. UK’s DJ Kode 9 is a musician and producer who has done much to shape the sound of Dubstep. Not only does he record and produce new artists, he has imbued a sense of intellectual purpose into the music itself. As Dubstep’s pioneer and founder of arguably the most important label in this kind of music, Hyperdub, Kode 9 holds a well-respected position as the scene’s musician/philosopher; Kode 9 studied cybernetic culture and afro-futurism in college. This last term is perhaps the most important to Dubstep, Afro-futurism can be considered a literary, musical, and visual expression of world-wide dilemmas and beliefs which are of great importance to black culture throughout the world. Think of it as a kind of hyper-modern method of interpreting the most ancient ways. One of the most memorable Dubstep tunes comes from Burial’s debut album, the track “Gutted.” The song opens with a quote from the film, “Ghost Dog” by Jim Jarmusch. The quote makes reference to The Bushido code of Samurai, but can be applied to nearly any ancient system of values and principles. As the musical arrangement of beat and melody begins to gain momentum, a voice states proudly:

“… Me and him, we’re from different, Ancient tribes. Now we’re both almost extinct. But sometimes you gotta stick with the ancient ways, the old school ways. You understand me?”

This combination of old and new ways is combined with an ever-changing world of technology and culture. The sound created is an appealing dichotomy in which technology is both a hopeful dream and a mechanized nightmare. This artistic expression is becoming an ever-increasing reality, whether written by Cyberpunk authors, or Dubstep DJ’s. Few genres of music have addressed this subject with such a sophisticated approach, and the fact that these artists are doing so using minimal samples and lyrics proves beyond a doubt that Dubstep is an important and original part of music history. It is happening now. We are witnesses to music in motion.

The sound of Dubstep can range from atmospheric chill-out, to a straight-up bass explosion of dark-dance music. Kode 9 describes the sound of the scene:

“It’s a sound that comes from south London in particular. It came out a darker and more dub side of 2step and UK garage. It’s very sub-bass driven, often quite minimal. There are a lot of the kind of ghosts of dub and dancehall within the sound.“

Along with this list of influences, Kode 9 has also emphasized the importance on the actual feeling of listening and experiencing the reverb in your bones:

“Dubstep is really all about the sub-bass—just feeling it; it’s about the physicality of the sub-bass and also about the space, there a lot of space in the music.”

Kode 9 remains a fairly public voice in the often isolated and anonymous world of Dubstep music. To hear more on his philosophy and sound, check out some online interviews I found on the Dubstep site “Dubstep Fr.” (http://dubstep.fr/index.php/kode9-interview-part1).

There is a primitive edge to the sound, a raw and tribal feeling that evokes movement in the most frigid of hipsters. When you visit a Dubstep night, everybody is dancing. It seems the crowds grow larger every week, which is rare for such a relatively new musical scene.

Every Sunday, a very varied and motley crowd gathers outside the iridescent entrance to Barcelona. Biker guys, gangsta types, punks, fresas, jocks, and all kinds of girls….from those cute little scene girls with the nice pixie haircuts, lipstick lesbians, and rasta chicks. It’s an all-inclusive thing, a real original. After finishing a cigarette, I descend down a dark staircase into the flickering bowels of a pulsating dancehall. The sound can be aggressive, confrontational, as is the case with DJ’s like Rusko (UK) and younger artists like Caspa“(UK). Some US acts include Bassnectar who will be playing the Austin City Limits festival in a few weeks here in town…I believe that party starts on the first of this October, so if there is any of you local cats reading this, be sure to check out Bassnectar.

Some of the originators of the scene, such as Burial, whose album “Untrue” according to the site Metacritic (http://www.metacritic.com/) was the second highest rated album of 2007. Interesting side-note: the identity of Burial’s DJ was anonymous (after all, it wouldn’t be the first time an electronic artist fudged his identity) until 2008. Whether this move was a statement on creative property, the role of musician as media personality, or simply a personal choice has been subject of much speculation in the scene. Burial’s only comment was:

“I’m a low key person and I just want to make some tunes, nothing else”

DJ Mary Anne Hobbs, a UK Journalist who championed Dubstep on her BBC Radio1 Experimental radio program. Widely regarded as the woman who broke open the Dubstep scene on a global level, she showcases Artists such as Kode 9 and Burial on her newer show “Dubstep Warz.” Dubstep acts were often debuted on her show. Her description of Burial’s album re-mix, Untrue, could be easily applied to the genre of Dubstep as whole:

“ This mix is a work of art in itself. It is the most wonderful mosaic of sound I have ever heard. It doesn’t even sound like it was made on this earth…it could be a transmission from a star in a distant galaxy. It excites senses in my soul that I didn’t even know I had, it makes me feel like I am falling in love with music at a completely different and way deeper level.”

Mary Anne Hobbs will be at Club Barcelona on 9/20/09, a must-see event for Dubstep freaks in town. Home- town hero, DJ Shark Week, will be spinning and celebrating his birthday at this along with “Je,” and “Chango.”

Whether it’s two-tone Ska, Reggae, Dub, Afro-Beat, Electronic Dance Music, Dubstep music is so inclusive it even pulls guys into really fast IDM stuff like Aphex Twin or Venetian Snares. Kode 9 explains the homogenous nature of his genre, and delves into the reason this genre has taken off in America and other countries around the world:

“ I think the reason people find Dubstep slow when you come from drum and bass is because there’s so much space in the music. In a sense it’s a more interactive music because you actually have to add yourself, you have to fill in the rhythm between the spaces yourself, make it up yourself, then dance; you know that’s what you’re dancing to. So in a way for me it’s interesting because some of the elements that you dance to aren’t there actually but they’re there virtually.”

And now for you cats that have been wondering this whole article: is it still as fun as the raving I used to do as a kid? Well, there are a lot of similarities to the all night raving and rolling that we all used to love so much (Oh, god we used to do it A LOT) but there are also some key differences I must point out. The low tone churn of the bass and the Dub and Reggae influence have somewhat changed the face and attitude of the fans as well. To quote Diane in the novel “Trainspotting”, “”Times are changing, music is changing, even drugs are changing,” and how right she is.

Kode 9 is not one to mince words; the mystic of Dubstep declares that Dubstep has managed to do exactly what Diane suggests, “So if Dubstep can have an influence on drum and bass, it might help pull the speed down a little bit and just focus things more around the sub-bass again as opposed to those kind of midrange distorted bass lines which kind of took over everything and please an audience who are on lots of pills and speed. That’s not really the vibe of a Dubstep night; you know it’s mostly a skunk, mostly a weed smoking audience as opposed to people on uppers.”

I can confirm this myself, purely out of a Journalistic concern for total coverage and my own profound sense of integrity and professional ethics. I asked the fans outside the club how they liked to get down to their Dub while at home and on their own.

—–à I need not say more than my interviews lead to some pleasant introductions to new friends who each share my healthy love for some heady marijuana and some sick-ass basslines. But another word to the wise: bud is still illegal and the club owners are some hip motherfuckers, but show some respect and light up before you go out to the dancehall. All it takes is one dumb ass or one narc to ruin the party for everybody, so never forget-this is all about the music.

So hey, Dubstep might not be for everybody, but if you fit the bill you sure as hell won’t find a better way of spending your evening than getting down with some killer Dubstep, and enjoying a fat bowl of whatever choice poison you’re into these days.

For those new to Dubstep and looking to check it out, a final and most important suggestion:

PLEASE PLAY AT MAXIMUM VOLUME

Until next time

Enjoy the beats

“Take a trip in a stranger’s head. Along rain-shot streets with the stash riders, a posse of hip malcontents, hooked on the most powerful substance you can imagine. But as the Game Cat says, be careful. Be very careful. This ride is not for the weak…”—-VURT

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