Crawling Similar To An Ant

I.D. and Baobinga - Still Tippin (Hush Up Riddim) (From Bass Music Sessions 2010)

A lot of bassentric rap remixes tend to go in the wrong directions, often so far into the deep end that the low end loses its original purpose. That, and there's almost no point to a lazer bass version of a Gucci track when he's already rapping over such. On paper, these feats might seem like a perfect match for Hip-Hop in this decade, but in reality it's pretty much always bad. Which is why this is at risk of being in the wrong hands especially due to the monumental importance of Still Tippin to the communities that would go on to make such remixes, the people who learned about Houston in 2005. It was a big track to me no doubt, having been collecting Screw tapes for only some time before the single got it's northern exposure. The Hush Up Riddim fits like a glove, and I might be able to picture this outside of a club and inside somebody's car on vogues. Still very much a DJ track, but it retains the original twang without having to use words like "syrupy" or "lean soaked" that are rarely avoided when any Texas references are made. No over the top cut-up techniques exercised here ether, with or without the Paul Wall verse. Lots and lots of delay though. Part of the Bass Music Sessions album, a free release out March 1st that you can read more about here.

Dubstairsteps

Baobinga & I.D. - Man Down 2009

An exclusive promo track to go along with Tongue Riddim, the first release on Baobinga's new Build label. I am very happy with the way this leans towards Kuduro, something I wish Dubstep would do more often. I will take these kind of drums over Drum and Bass sounding hats any day. Kuduro is scary, Dubstep sometimes just sounds dorky (thanks Taliesin).

Speaking of Dubstep...

I thought They Only Made Red Vinyl These Days...

Daniel Haaksman - Pobum Coco (Sharkslayer Bass Dub Remix) (from Gostoso remix 12" 2009)

...And those were just Serato discs.

Great dubby House version of Haaksman's own Baile space funk creation that Man Recorder were nice enough to throw up for free. Schlachofthbronx, Rob 3, and Joao Brasil throw down on the EP too. Haven't heard the whole thing yet but that's because it doesn't come out till September 11th. That happens to also be my birthday, so if your reading this over there in Berlin you know what to give me for a present.

Backseat Leanin

Bass Shaka Screwstep Mix

Now Dubstep is even more undanceable. Great for crawling around on the floor. Probably not a great idea to drive and listen to it, this might happen.

Via, Via Cold Tropics.

Dear God

Untold - Anaconda (from 12" 2009)

Been a while since I posted any sort of Dubstep or Funky business up here, and what better way to end that streak with this apocalyptic son of a bitch. Is there a genre called Doomstep yet? How in the FUCK do you dance to this?! I'd probably run away if I heard this at a club. The bass is almost on a Ghetto House tip at times, but crawling on the floor rather than four on the floor. This track scares the fuck out of me, but it's also one of the best things I've heard all year.

Recent Weird Hybrids

(Picture from Brooklyn homebody Linden's Remikks collection)

Genres are annoying. Making up genre names on the other hand, is a lot of fun. It turns out that one of the names I had made up in my head just came true, sort of. Mad Decent's Nick the V threw up a short little mix of Dubstep and Juke, appropriately titled Jukestep. While it isn't made up of hoe shout outs over rediculous amounts of bass, it's a pretty great meshing of two different worlds that together could produce some adorable babies. Some of the wubbliest Dub tracks are fuzed together by the always creepy DJ Nate's "Maybe Sum Day" stuck right in the middle. It makes sense to me because A) I couldn't footwork to save my life, and B) because I don't even understand how one is supposed to dance to Dubstep, not that I haven't tried. I usually just nod my head or something. Obviously people do it, but I'd be pretty impressed if someone tried to cut up a rug with Nick's mix, and I'd imagine it happening only if a Chicago dance crew and one weeks lineup at London's FWD club crash landed on Navy Island and had some crazy party at Errol Flynn's old estate.

In other Juke Hybrid news, Gavin over at Unfashionably Late provided a great little re-cap of the annual Chicago Puerto Rican Pride Festival up in Humboldt Park. I went too, but kind of just walked around in a daze and didn't do a good job of picking up any mixtapes and rather just scoped the park for fine PR girls. The park was so packed that I missed the Violator Juke Squad tent, but Gavin didn't and talked a little about the Ghetto House meshes with Reggaeton that are not out of the ordinary in a city filled with cars blasting both genres equally. He threw up an excellent remix of Jowel Y Randy by DJ Cholo that is a good example of both current Reggaeton trends, and these two forms meeting.

It's obvious enough that I listen to a lot of slow music, and the mixtapes of Screwed and Chopped Reggaeton and Cumbia by Houston's Choppaholix have been getting a lot of play around here. An interesting contrast to the Cumbia Rebajada from elsewhere, the batteries in their equipment are fine. Everything is slowed down in city of syrup fashion. Slow Cumbia is cool, slow Reggaeton is just kind of weird. Decide for yourself.

Tego Calderon -Punto y Aparte (screwed and chopped by Choppaholix from Choppaton)
Choppaholix - Track 17 from Choppacumbia vol 1)


Now I would like the following genres to be made or at least thought about: Crack House, Screwstep, Screwed and Chopped Merengue, Socastep, Dubtech, Mornana, Tsapika Funk, and Nyambingi Bounce.

Rose City Rudeboy

Cory O - Dubstep Mix 2009

Wandering through Jamaica above is Portland's own Cory O, longtime friend and king of the Crown Room in the cities mini Chinatown. You can catch the man spinning records pretty much every week if your in the Rose City, doing the House thing, the Rap thing, and in this case the Dubstep thing. He tried to teach me how to DJ once but I don't really get beat matching. We also got in this huge fight outside of the ridiculously stupid club the Tube one time, after some dude called me a douchebag for riding around in a shopping cart I found(?). Portland has a lot of shit going on, sometimes this involves breaking someone wearing a Keffiyah in the face (damn that sounds bad out of context!). Back to the mix; it's definitely devoid of any of the recent UK Funky/2 Step thing, definitely for the hard dudes who like BASS and smoke tons of weed. So like, Portlanders. This kid is moving on up, opening up for A-Trak in July! Go see him play, atleast show up and play a game of pool and bob your head.

Some Notable Mixes

Taliesin - Virtual Light 2008

An old one I missed from last summer. NYC native now ex-pat in Budapest somehow gets away with having Merce Cunningham introduce Bone Crusher in his homage to the low end. A short but sweet collection of left field bangers with the politics toned down a notch from his election week Apricity Mix, but with the signature Taliesin painterly like Basshead collage steeze. I've scratched my head so much its started to hurt.


Douster - ZZK Mixtape vol 6 2009

The sixth in ZZK Records' wonderful(and free!) series of mixtapes, this time around from Frenchman now in Argentina Douster. Starts things off with a Cumbia lazer bass version of Clipse's Zen and keeps consistant with the Club Zizek sound. I even like the nintendoness of his own remixes. Be sure to catch this guy in your city on the ZZK North American Tour that starts next friday.


DJ Fantasma (of NGUZUNGUZU) - Chicago House Mix 2009

My favorite Ghetto Acid Club DJs passed this mix of West side record digging my way that has provided me with some good times during rush hour on the EL Train. Fantasma rummaged through the likes of Barney's Records and Tapes to create this wonderful overview of forgotten warehouse joints from the Percolator era. Pioneers of left field club music, these guys graduated with a MFA in Ghetto House.

Anteaterstep

Vince the Prince - I Eat Ants (from generationbass.blogspot.com 2009)

My boy from Amsterdam over at Generation Bass made this strange tribute to his favorite animal that I have been seriously scratching my head to lately. It's like Rusko locking himself in a room and listening to the Smithsonian Animals of Africa LP for a month straight while smoking himself retarded. Keep close tabs on the music he throws up on the page, he's a large source of my transnational bass education.

Canada Stand Up!

Fiberglass Pants - Dub Sept Mix 2009 (direct download)

A northern homie sent me this short but sweet mix from a Montrealan responding to the Grievous Angel Devotional Dubz project I talked about a few weeks ago. Non-Dubstep songs forced into loops that seem to decay into infinity for about 45 seconds until the next one begins. Really creative use of a strange selection of tracks, he even rocks a Paul wall and Chamillionaire song! What he says about it:

"oh point of interest on the mix i just sent: if you think it's all rolling by a little fast well it is, i played my first 15 tracks and looked at the time on the recorder and it was 18min something! so yeah if not for serato i don't think it would be physically possible to change records that fast..."

Much appreciated my friend, and those of you out there with mixes or tracks, send em to me!

There Goes My Shirt

Hudmo - Oops (Oh My) (from the internet 2008?)

Glasgow's Hudson Mohawke raverdubstep version of Tweet and Missy's classic narcissism joint. This time around your looking at yourself naked in a mirror, high as fuck off pills with house music blaring from downstairs, feeling rather uncomfortable with yourself than turned on. From the few mixes of his I have got a hold of, this dude is kind of on some other shit, a dark UK sound for the A.D.D. generation but on the Late Night Tip. I imagine I will be coming back to this guy in the future.

No Fabulous on this one ether which is a plus, because he sucks.

Sabo XLR8R Podcast

Sabo - XLR8R Podcast

I had been subscribed to the XLR8R podcast for a minute now, but it took Vamanos to wake me up from sleepin on this amazing mix from NYC's Sabo, full of banging South American house joints that scream Brazil among other countries down under me. The first time I heard this I was walking around at 2am in my westside neighborhood with cop cars everywhere due to a drive-by shooting that occured about 3 blocks from my house at Ashland and Ohio street. On some west coast shit! I was sure to get questioned, but they must have sensed the funky ass vibes I had as I roamed the streets blaring favela raver music. "That guys alright, he's just feelin the Ghetto Bassquake". Highly recommended stuff right here.

Dubnostic Mass

Taliesin - Apricity Mix 2008 (direct link)

Got to give some serious props for this mix by my man Taliesin. One of the scariest mixes of it's kind, it even has the beast himself on it! There are plenty of rap bangers and remixes throughout, but it has the dark feel of a bleak dubstep mix if it were done by Robert Davis. Lovely stuff that fit well with walking through the shitty rain-filled Chicago night.

Tracklist:
NGUZUNGUZO - HATE2WAIT (Kingdom Refix)
“?????” - Kubo Remix
Dev79 - In Ya Face
CardoPusher - Low End Legacy
Vybz Kartel - Empire Army
Dead Prez - Politrikkks
Wisp - Whisper
Thark - Apatia
BD-1982 - Seeing Orange
Connor- Belles
Aleister Crowley - Gnostic Mass
Duran Duran Duran - Unholy Dracula Vagina Alien
Flying Lo - RobertaFlack (feat. Dolly)
David Banner - Shawty Say (feat. Weezy)
Saigon - Come on Baby (Inst.)Bi
Mali - Pale Twop
Shit Mat - Big Ben’s Big Remix
Jahdan Blakkamoore - Bus it Pon Dem
Small Professor - Kelis

Still Catchin Upstep

Komonazmuk - Miss Her (from Night at Delux/Miss Her 12" 2008)

A dreamy one that goes HARD from last year. Begins as a lullaby, becomes infested with duppies by the minute mark. Bass like Mustang engine rather than wubbuwubbwubbwubb.

Absent of Nudie Suits

Grievious Angel - Devotional Dubz Fact Magazine Mix 2008

I'm pretty slow with this Dubstep thing so beg my pardons. I actually hated it at first, and blame it on Burial and the lame shit I heard around the time The Wire first started hyping it. All that said, this is another great mix I slept on from last year that you hopefully didn't. GA's own words from his blog on what he claims is the best thing he's ever done:

"In the summer, I put out Lady Dub, the first of the Devotional Dubz series of dubstep / dark garage refixes of r’n’b tunes, which was the counterpart to the harder ragga techno styles on the double album, Belief is the Enemy, that was released at solstice. Lady Dub is a refix of D’Angelo’s nu-soul classic Lady, or rather of DJ Premier’s remix of it; it turned out to be fairly popular, helping to propel the garage revival that we’ve seen this year. It also offered a different vision of dubstep, one that reaffirmed the form’s original tolerance for sweetness and vocals while offering the biggest booming 808 sine waves I could manage.

Each Devotional Dubz release will have a DJ mix that acts as a kind of sonic manifesto; therefore the first one focuses on the other side of dubstep, the landslide, horsepower, mala side that traces a lineage back to soul and dancehall and broken beat, just as jungle traced a lineage back to r’n’b as much as to bashment. It includes exclusive refixes and blends of r’n’b tunes, alongside unreleased Grievous Angel garage tracks that have previously only been heard on Blackdown’s Rinse show, and some special edits of dark garage classics. It’s lush, it’s spacey, it’s skippy, and at the end it’s unremittingly heavy, but all the way it’s pure garage flavour.

Turn it up and feel the sunshine. Volume two will be out in a few months when I’ve got some funky stuff out of the way".

R&B tunes rehashed with echoes that would make Tubby proud. Very recommended

Explorer Dub

Shackleton - Live on Breezeblock Radio 2008

Had to throw up this amazing set from the outer edges of Dubstep. Shackleton is one of the more unorthodox in the world of wubble, heavier on the percussion than most with bass coming out of the walls rather than a subwoofer. Former label partner Appleblim has summed up Shackleton's music as a nightmare to a DJ, and well put for matching up these drum rhythms with a crossfader would drive me nuts. Therefore this mix is turntable free, basically a half hour long Skull Disco track with no complaints here. Basic Channel meets a laptop with Abelton.

Wubbwubbwubbwubb

Innasekt - Archetype (from split 12" with Tes la Rok 2007)

Heard this first on Mago Bo's great Blogariddims mix from last year. Perfect example of some Dubstep thats borrows from both the atmospheric side and the wubble. Not so much for dancing as it is for spacing out. Innasekt is the group of London Djs Sully and Sneer.

Oh, and this mix of theirs from 2007 should be heard.

Steppin in Caracas

Pacheko - Bi Polar Bear (from Lo Dubs Analog Crash Mix 2008)

Venezuelan Dubstep that sounds like a flooded raquetball court if it were hotboxed. A little bit of the atmospheric side of things, and a lot of the wobbly "makes me feel like a gangster" sound too. The dubbier remix by Starkey is also nice.