Posted by: Matt

Stateside Dubstep envelope-pusher Starkey just recently dropped his second full length album titled Ear Drums and Black Holes and it’s a doozy.

Released on Planet Mu records (helmed by Mike Paradinas aka Mu-Ziq for those of you who were around for the golden age of Drill N Bass), Eardrums… is a pretty rare beast in the Dubstep world where normally we have to choose between beefcake macho posturing (Brostep) and flowery nerd-baiting IDM masquerading as club music. While Starkey’s previous record fell easily into that second camp, this time out he’s managed to pull off the major coup of doing both at the same time. Muscular bass and memorable hooks play so well here that while it sounds great in headphones, you’ll probably find yourself getting down on the bus or at your desk or anywhere else. And in the club…watch out.

It’s not quite all roses however, as the academic flourishes might not sit well with those who like their beats 100% PARTY committed. Someone close to this writer likened Starkey’s sound to “stoned cats throwing up on a Game Boy”. While meant as a criticism, it sounds pretty perfect to me.

OK Luv

Club Games

11th Hour

Check out Starkey on the web:
Myspace

Posted by: Matt

Back In The Day* I was a really big fan of Ghostly International, a record label specializing in offbeat dance and experimental electronic music. Among other things, they deserve credit for breaking cutting edge club artists like Matthew Dear/Audion and Lusine. Unfortunately, Ghostly also had a streak of what one might at times refer to as capital-A Artistry, which meant a slow (d)evolution towards experimental pop and textural headphone masturbation that is all well and good in the grand scope of Music, but I missed my fresh beats too much to care and gradually lost interest.

Maybe this was just my own personal experience, or maybe Ghostly woke up and was ready to get funky again, but in either case they have gone and released what is currently my favorite album of 2010 to date; Mux Mool’s excellent Skulltaste. It’s an 80 minute bounce-fest that never gets tiring; it really does have something for everyone. Drunken Game Boy beats bounce around memorable melodies with an offbeat charm that carries through from beginning to end. If it had a solid vocalist it would be the best hip-hop album of the year, hands down.

RCRDLBL has been kind enough to host the whole album for streaming, which is something I wish more artists and labels would allow. Highlights include Breakfast Enthusiast, Get Better John, and Wolf Tone Symphony, but I definitely suggest you just hit play and let it run.

Check out Mux Mool on:
Myspace
Twitter

*2003

Posted by: Matt

I was recently turned on to producer & beatsmith Pretty Lights by a friend of mine, and while his music took a little while to grow on me, I have since come to consider myself a real fan. He expertly straddles the line between Bonobo/Ninja Tune-style chill-out and the more recent trend of bass-heavy glitch-hop, resulting in midtempo grooves that are perfect for anyone who enjoys dusty samples but doesn’t want to completely relinquish their gut-punchy tech. Also, Notorious B.I.G. makes a few appearances here and there.

Pretty Lights hail from Colorado, and are either one or two guys depending on when you ask. In the studio it’s just one man is at the controls, while live PL are a ‘they’ - one guy on laptop/controller/synths and a drummer. I always appreciate it when electronic artists go the extra mile to give their performance a boost, and Pretty Lights definitely seem to be all about their live show, having toured incessantly over the last year or two with both small club dates and major festival sets including Bonaroo and Coachella.

Speaking of touring, if you like what you hear in this post you can catch them live any day now in a major city near YOU. For The Beatery crew, this means the Mezzanine on 4/15.

Pretty Lights website (very nice design!)

Pretty Lights - Short Cut / Detour

Pretty Lights - Ask Your Friends

Lastly, here is the track that really hooked me when I was first checking them out. It’s a mashup, but it really works well and demonstrates the potential of the underlying beats!
Pretty Lights vs Westside Connection (Mr Physix Mash up).wav by Dirty Disco Kidz

Posted by: Matt

Several readers of my last post about the Wonky side of Dubstep expressed that they’d been expecting the tunes to be a little more…..wonky. The Rustie remix was probably the most off-kilter, and while the others did have a lot of the correct elements in (or out of) place, I did go back and listen and have to agree. I definitely pulled some punches in favor of tracks that I personally felt would be more palatable. That may make for a more pleasant listening experience, but it does a disservice to the educational value of this blog.

To correct that, this is my originally-unplanned follow-up. If the last batch of tracks were a few bumps in, these are head first down the hole, and far better examples of how the style got its name. It is worth noting however that while the genre tag is popular with music writers, it is less so amongst its actual practitioners:

“No one does ketamine right?,” [Zomby] asserted in a MySpace bulletin and blog post. “I thought it died in the late Eighties after that shitty Madonna tour ended…

Though I have seen a crusty white dude with dreadlocks rolling around in his own puke ‘going off on K’ in Brixton not long back,” he continues. “Dunno how inspirational an event for an artist that is however.” - Zomby (interview, The Quietus)

Untold - Stop What You’re Doing (James Blake remix)

Hudson Mohawke - ZOo00OOm

Mark Pritchard & Om’Mas Keith - Wind it Up

Starkey - OK Luv (Eprom remix)

If this kind of thing floats your boat, there is an excellent mixtape full of wonky dubstep and hip-hop goodness over at one of my favorite electronica blogs, Curb Crawlers by a Toronto DJ named Ultragamma. Great stuff. Check it out.

Posted by: Matt

As far as I understand it, ‘Wonky’ is a term coined by someone but adopted by the UK music press to describe a recent offshoot of dubstep which they felt aurally approximated one’s feeling while high on Ketamine - separate, distinct parts loosely associated into a stumbling, hallucinatory whole. Whether or not the music has any direction relation to the drug comes down to pure speculation, but the parallels are pretty clear, as you can hear from the tracks below.

Initially this style completely rubbed me the wrong way. I’d come to understand electronic music production as a very precise, controlled process where loose elements are indicators of unprofessionalism. Yet here we have entire tracks that are barely quantized, and somehow it not only works, it works well.

This music tends to hold up well to repeated listens due to its unpredictable nature. The beats and notes never land quite in the same place twice, and trying to keep up with it is pretty stimulating as a result. Which, of course, is counter-intuitive for a style so closely linked to anesthesia.

Hudson Mohawke - Fuse

Fool - Drama (Rustie remix)

Lukid - Time Doing So Mean

Would You Like to Know Moar?
Hudson Mohawke myspace
Rustie myspace
Lukid myspace