I love the old school motown vibe that this track gives off. The vocal harmonies reminds me of the Temptations or some where along the lines of Chi-Lites. I love the rawness of the vocals as well. It’s not auto-tuned or overly produced.. This track is frickin’ DOPE!! Much thanks to my nephew, Joal for schooling me on this track.

Hope you all enjoy!

Pleasantly surprised that someone else at a sit-down restaurant knew about underground electronic music, I replied “yeah! Do you like dubstep?”

Which received an adamant “No! I don’t understand it at all! What is it that you like about that sound?”

Caught slightly off guard, I had to wing a response but was able to come up with something coherent. I began by saying that it’s absolutely essential to appreciate dubstep on a proper system with a subwoofer or two (or 20). Listening on anything less (god forbid, laptop speakers or iPod earbuds) means you’re missing out on much of the low end, which is a highly important part of the sound and intended impact. Good club systems can make the music feel like bliss; there’s nothing quite like that visceral impact when the subbass drops into your gut!

Next, I brought up that although there is a lot of bad, formulaic dubstep, there are plenty of gems to uncover as well (this happens to be the case with any electronic genre, really). And since dubstep has become rather popular of late, a lot of talented producers from around the world have been innovating the field from various stylistic angles (witness: dubtech, west coast sound, purple, etc).

Generally, I feel that dubstep still has a lot of creative potential because it is relatively welcome to strange new ideas, sounds, or reinterpretations of existing styles (drawing upon hiphop, jazz, techno, etc). Sure, it’s developed some fail-safe crowd pleasing tricks already, but the genre doesn’t rely primarily on these types of tracks. This can’t be said about certain other dance genres out there.

As the popularity has risen, it’s been nice to see more people of diverse backgrounds coming out to the shows. It’s no longer just dudes-who-don’t-dance standing in a dark room:

Hah!

Nowadays, there are plenty of both boys and girls, and people have figured out how to dance to the music! Which brings me to one of my favorite aspects about dubstep, the simultaneous regular and double time feel (or half time depending on who you talk to). Not only does this allow for ingenuity in production, but it also encourages greater freedom of movement and expression. Imagine two rivers side by side, one flowing twice as fast as the other. Dancing to dubstep is like being able to jump between these two currents at will, with the faster one being bouncy and active while the slower one allows more spacious, flowing movements. Trying new ways to combine the two makes dancing to dubstep very fun and engaging!

Finally, as with every electronic genre, it’s up to the performers to vary things up. If you’re playing an all dubstep set, you better be thinking about how to create shifts in energy, mood, density, timbres, etc. Otherwise, it’s all too easy for the set to become static, causing people to lose interest and complain that dubstep is “boring”!

Enough of my thoughts now, what do you love or dislike about dubstep?

National Monkey Day in the US of A is December 14th.

Some great music coming out of Bawlmore these last few years…most recently from Get ‘Em Mamis, a couple of lady rappers who spit harder than a cobra in a dead-end alley. They’ve been blowing up over the last year or so…

I found this in-depth interview on Aural States from approximately fifteen minutes before they got hella famous.

Going down the road from spinning real vinyl on turntables, to using Serato and learning CDJs, and now finally on to Ableton has had me thinking a lot about the role that music technology plays in DJing. A post by Anodyne over at glitchhopforum.com touches on this issue. The post is titled “hardware inferiority complex” and shows a video (posted below) demonstrating the possibilities with the AKAI APC40. For those of you who don’t know, this is a new midi controller designed specifically for tight integration with Ableton Live.

Anodyne comments, “Ok, so I’ve got a less than one year old Novation Remote Zero SL controller that I LOVE. But now I’m seeing people doing amazing things with the new APC and it’s making me feel like I’m just not cut out for performance anymore.”

The following is part of my response: “any controller is just a tool… while it may be true that the APC is easier to setup / use for what is done in this video, that isn’t to say you can’t accomplish similar with other hardware. and at the end of the day, if you’re having fun and the audience is feeling how you’re building your set (which takes into account *so many factors* beyond just hardware), then it doesn’t matter at all what you’re using.

there’s always a better drummer at the next club, and always a more ideal live setup. it’s often limitations that drive artists to new heights of creativity & invention, depending on your willingness to probe these limits. no need for inferiority complexes now, that’s just what the controller industry wants you to believe.”

After which Anodyne agrees & decides his issue was more of gear lust (perfectly fine in the music community!) rather than a “hardware inferiority complex”. Still, this brings up a bunch of interesting issues on the role of technology in music. Does the value of tech tools change depending on the audience? Do simple music fans or dancers care about shinier toys as much as fellow DJs, musicians or critics? What matters more, the strength of the tracks you play and sets you build or what equipment you use to do it? And how does playing original productions vs. other artists’ tracks weigh into this?

Given YOUR personal experiences and background with music, I want to hear your thoughts on all this.

-Lokae (nerd mode)