You can tell dubstep is really starting to get big now. Really, really big. It’s not even a niche anymore; invading indie rock circles as much as techno-centric dance clubs, it’s not so much the Next Big Thing as The Big Thing. Legendary UK club – and record label – Fabric has devoted many a night now to the UK bass movement, and the almighty bass has even started to invade their monthly mix series with mixes by the likes of Caspa & Rusko, Martyn, and Instra:Mental – with mixed results. Now they’re introducing a new compilation series, focusing on unmixed tracks of new material by established artists, and the first one appears to be centered mostly on UK bass music, or dubstep if you will. Now go a few hundred miles east to Berlin, and you’ll find the home of the soon-to-be-legendary label Ostgut-Ton and its flagship clubs Berghain and Panorama Bar. Ostgut has its own mix series based on its own two clubs, just as Fabric, and they focus mostly on techno, just as Fabric. And, just like Fabric, they’ve started their own night devoted to dubstep and bass music, and in the same week as Fabric’s new compilation drops, they’re releasing the first volume of their own new series of dubstep mix CDs. It’s the stuff editorial dreams are made of.
It might not really seem fair to compare the two, as one is a compilation and the other is a mix, but they have similar intents; and I’d wager that Fabric only went with an unmixed format to avoid getting lost in the whirpools of ‘just another dubstep mix.’ Fabric has called their compilation Elevator Music; a quick google search reveals this is meant to highlight artists who are on the rise, but really, it just feels like Fabric is being honest. This disc is really, really boring. Simple as that. It’s a shame, because on paper, this is a really good collection of songs from some genuinely great producers. I’d go as far to say that most of these tracks could easily stand quite ably on their own. Packaged together, however, the the disc becomes an hour-plus of wimpy drums and fatalistic, half-hearted bass. The sequencing and even track selection are at fault here, not the producers. None of these tracks are particularly fast-paced, and most of them are around the same tempo. You’d think this would make for a good compilation, but it’s begging to be mixed; hearing the same beat in stoic five-minute chunks with absolutely no momentum is a bit of a chore.
There are a few highlights, however, predictably from the ‘big’ names. Untold is the star of the compilation, continuing his hot streak with the devastating “Bad Girls,” a track that could have been one of the stronger ones on his hotly-tipped Gonna Work Out Fine EP in 2009. It’s all hard edges and perfectly square blocks, bludgeoning relentlessly until the listener is as flat as the massive bass. Shortstuff brings his characteristic (and immensely satisfying) weirdness on two tracks, one solo and one with Brackles, and Martyn continues to establish his unique and untouchable techno/dubstep fusion with the beautiful “Friedrichstrasse,” a track that recalls his remixes of Efdemin’s “Acid Bells” from last year. The still-relatively-underground Hackman comes out of nowhere with the lushly funky “Pistol In Your Pocket,” which sounds like a natural progression on the stilted piano-house style of Untold’s recent work. Oddly enough, Starkey and Caspa/Rusko, two names who usually create the loudest, most exuberant tracks in the land both present soothing, chilled tracks. Starkey’s track particularly would act as a great way to wind down the album – if only it ever had a chance to be wound up in the first place. The rest of the tracks tend to lean towards a depressingly generic brand of house-infused dubstep, mass-marketed and factory-produced rhythms, and canned enthusiasm.
Ostgut – though not without their own unique problems – fare much better in this little showdown. Their compilation is based on and named after Berghain’s dubstep night, SUB:STANCE, and its first volume is mixed by Scuba, the man behind the consistently amazing Hotflush label. For a club that is so deeply immersed in its own self-mythology and brand, this doesn’t really sound like anything that could ever go down well in a club. In its own way it’s a rather kind, thoughtful gesture – it sounds like a mix that was made for home listening, rather than a disc that tries to emulate the club experience in 80 minutes. But at the same time, that venture lends itself to a number of liabilities; it’s kind of boring in a few places. Since it’s not necessarily made for the club, Scuba indulges himself in a lot of pretty sounds and ambling passages, and while the result is pretty it’s a bit odd to hear this stuff on a dubstep mix. Experienced listeners have come to expect hyper-speed dubstep mixes, and while it’s nice to have something different it doesn’t always feel natural.
One aspect where Scuba does succeed almost unequivocally is the transitioning. Even if the mix as a whole is somewhat uneven, the transitions between the songs are consistently impressive, and occasionally exciting. The early run from Sigha’s “Early Morning Lights” to Pangaea’s “Sunset Yellow” (off of his fantastic Hessle Audio self-titled EP) to Joy Orbison’s “Shrew” is an almost masturbatory exercise in legendary beat-blending. The mix, as every dubstep mix since last summer is contractually obligated to do, includes Joy Orbison’s godlike “Hyph Mgno,” and as usual when it drops, the effect is mania-inducing – but there’s a nagging feeling that it’s forced, that it doesn’t belong here. “Hyph Mngo” comes after a period of relative calm and is followed awkwardly (one of the few bum transitions) by the almost beatless James Blake remix of Mount Kimbie’s “Maybes” – an amazing in itself, albeit one that kills the flow dead in its tracks. But for the most part, the mix is a careful tour through a number of moods and tempos, and it’s ultimately quite successful even if it’s a bit slow-moving (and confusing) at times.
Both of these compilations have their own strengths and their own flaws, but when it comes down to it, only SUB:STANCE is really worth any time. While both are frustratingly slow, Ostgut-Ton’s compilation at least has more than one sound and exhibits a number of the different styles united under the vibrant bass music umbrella. Fabric’s Elevator Music is more likely to put you to sleep than get you up out of your office chair and dance, and suffers from crippling entropy on account of its unmixed nature. SUB:STANCE feels knowledgeable, and most importantly there’s a feeling of love for the music, where Elevator Music feels more like a quick cash-in product on a hot trend. Scuba’s mix is just more entertaining anyway; even if Elevator Music boasts exclusive tracks from a bunch of usually-great producers, there’s a reason those tracks were unreleased until now – it’s like an album of sloppy, careless outtakes. Scuba’s mix may not have the same roster of unreleased tracks (though it does have four exclusive Scuba tracks, all wonderfully weaved and continuing his bubbly dub fusion), but it features a huge list of already-released tracks that you know are really good. He even finds a way to work Shackleton’s most recent, completely unfriendly work into it, and ends the mix on a big fat purple note with Joker’s “Psychedelic Runway” – these two instances alone push it miles above Fabric’s shaky endeavour.
