I’m sort of grotesquely fascinated with dubstep’s seeming permeation into all forms of dance music over the past half decade or so. Tracking these style-bound techniques from one sound to another – dubstep to techno, for example – can often be an exercise in obsessively splitting hairs, a matter of degrees so immeasurably small as to be unsure whether we’re just digging too deeply (admittedly, yes), putting words in artists’ mouths, undermining an artist’s individuality, or simply spotting ghosts. Both dubstep and minimal have carried on a legacy as detail oriented styles of electronic music (at least where “post” prefixes are concerned), for instance, but where minimal’s details are bound to arrangement, dubstep’s are often bound to production. Putting that generalization into practice is, of course, a different matter entirely. There’s certainly an esoteric element to the differentiation, but often it’s the only divider there is, which brings up the question of why even bother in categorical separation?
In the case of British artist BNJMN’s second LP of 2011, Black Square, it’s becoming more apparent that dubstep’s ubiquity is not only jumping fences in its subtleties or anything markedly genre-bound, but simply in its use of more pop-oriented immediacy. It’s as if detail-oriented production might have been compromising something by making itself accessible. That’s not to say Black Square is a pop record, very far from it – it’s about as deep you can burrow into the notion of microhouse – but it’s willing to abscond abstracted melodies in favor of embracing an immediacy on which to build a palatable foundation.
BNJMN is quick to build impenetrable walls of crackly melodic sound, which often lay heavily across the constant muffled 4/4 thud like a comfortable woolen blanket resulting in the quick passage to unconsciousness. There’s a good consistent mixture of sticky retrofuturistic R&B synthesizers, brightly saturated melodies, dubstep snares clacking over 4/4, and minimal’s penchant for overt understatement. “Primal Pathways” is a strong opener with failing-transmission static layered atop slowly ebbing synth melodies and a pulsing kick punch aimed less at the teeth and more for the bowels. BNJMN slowly builds his synths, one on top of the other, and lets it ride itself out. “Wisdom of Uncertainty” is more particular with its dubstep leanings, built around a grime-y bassoon baseline, wavery skipping vocal samples, and decayed urban synth flourishes. There’s a diversity across Black Square, especially in the details.
There’s an ease and grace here that’s rare outside the Gas school of ambiance when it comes to BPMs upwards of 100. Admittedly, BNJMN does recall the Wolfgang Voigt project simply by how widescreen and all-consuming he manages to push his synths as well as his muffled throttled kick drum. But despite an often employed 2-step momentum, things manage to stay in the realm of “micro” and “minimal” even with roots deeply embedded in 90s British bass soil. It’s an especially refreshing concoction in a time where the influences BNJMN puts on display have resulted in a mostly off-the-rails situation of trading in identity for crowd-pleasing indulgences.
Black Square is at its best when it stretches its legs and unfolds its songs on a geological scale. The title track opens with a colossal glacial synth loop like a primordial white-furred beast breathing slowly in and out as the sure-footed kick rattles the whole thing with tectonic aptitude. The start and stop build of counter melodies manages to guide the singular behemoth instead of simply laying on top of it, which makes it all the more striking when those melodies run their course and leave the exhaling synth on its own again. With his debut and sophomore LPs arriving in a matter of months from each other, BNJMN has already shown some significant strides in defining his computer-visioned sound, pointing toward a promising future.
