(12.06.07) Cred-heavy London imprint Soul Jazz Records presents a compilation of
exclusive tracks trailed as Future Dub and Dubstep from key artists
associated with a largely UK-based scene. Big punchers such as Skream,
Scuba, Digital Mystikz, Kode 9 are assembled, as well as Sunday supplement
crossover it-boy, Burial. Channeling the future sound of South London
boroughs, Box of Dub seems to set out to draw more clearly the links
between contemporary Dubstep producers and their pioneering precursors –
early dub explorers such as King Tubby and Scientist. Judged in terms of
the degree of innovation or “futurity” manifested by these contributors,
the results are mixed, though overall the material represents a decent
overview of various trajectories within the sphere of dub-derived
electronic listening music.
Burial’s is unsurprisingly the most self-conscious sound design display
here, with its radically re-contextualised 2-step garage meets downtempo
ghost-house template. “Unite” comes all draped in dreams-to-dust
melancholia, a rain-soaked home-run through dusk-dawn urban shadowlands; a
carpeted walking sub-bass, echo-infused chipmunk soul-diva wraiths (echoes
of 90s jungle-mongers, Omni Trio) twirl across a static-infused backdrop
swathed in spectral strings, as a sparse piano seeks space within the hiss
and grain of a no-going-back-up comedown anthem. Heavily mannered. The
different drum award, though, would have to go to the conspirators in Sub
Version – Rhythm & Sound sidekick, Paul St Hilaire (aka Tikiman) along with
Jay Haze/Michal Ho. Their two tracks, “The Light” and “Rise Up,” are the
most questing of the set. The former hosts in-your-face Tiki-vocals,
teeming with attention-deficit percussion edits and run through with a
queasily modulating bassline. The latter is a more reduced affair that
harnesses the big warehouse techno kick drum to peculiar floor patterns,
threaded through with mechanical dizrhtyhmia, the whole morphing into a
bizarre acid meets bleep versus garage collision, overlaid with more
whacked-out vocal harmonies. Weirdly wired wording.
Turning from hybrid adventuring to genre consolidation (or fossilization
depending on your viewpoint), Skream’s “Sub Island” sees probably the most
authentic (in terms of authenticity to ‘genre’) Dubstep producer of the
bunch displaying the characteristic shifting between the jumpy-clunky UK
garage beat and a tech-infused dub-style bass. His other offering, “Irie”,
is a Disciples soundalike that could have been fished out from any point in
the early-90s London digidub scene (cf. the Club Meets Dub comps on ZipDog
Records). Digital Mystikz’s “I Wait” is likewise digidub-inclined, with
little of the rhythmic prestidigitation that sets Dubstep apart from
earlier dub derivations – that of a sparse rhythm with an implied
double-time hidden within its surface half-tempo beat. Far from this, DM’s
second cut, “Guilty,” voids its centre almost entirely, offering only a
pedestrian plod for its minimal diminished chord dirge to squat inelegantly
on. Unpretty vacant. Scuba’s “Subaqueous” lifts a drum figure that’s
everything but “When the Levee Breaks” rockism, injecting some movement
only with a sub-bass snarl, while peculiarly retro-IDM-style synthesizers
make melodic curlicues. From King Midas Sound, a project curated by Kevin
Martin (aka The Bug) and Roger Robertson, comes an ill trip-hop trudge of
rained-on rhythm in “Surround Me,” a half-stunned vocal mouthing its
lovesick half-tale. Sick transience.
More vibrant refreshes come from Kode9, who gratifyingly ups proceedings,
his “Magnetic City” setting up close to the Kingston quarter of Berlin, a
minimal tech-referencing model on an oblique drive by a Hardwax factory
vacated by all but a twilit minor chord droning. Tayo meets Acid Rockers
show how a breakbeat can sneakily insert itself successfully into an
ostensibly dub-reggae template to provide an interesting twist, with a
resonance assist from a squelchy descending synth-bass figure, and a
massive low-end bassline tug.
So, ultimately, what might appear to be Soul Jazz’s first compilation of
Dubstep in fact ends up as not so much a documentary of the state of the
Dubstep art 2007, as a set of signposts at a crossroads pointing to the
peripheries – interstices through which other sub-genre sounds seep in to
catalyze the formulaic, seeking new forms.
Box Of Dub is out now on Soul Jazz. [Purchase
