EP MANIA

Perhaps the main problem for poststep, the main reason it isn't recognised as the uncontrolled eruption of revolutionary musical modernism that it is, is that it's erupting at a time where countless retromanic eruptions are happening simultaneously, and where everybody seem to be doing everything, all styles, all the time. No matter how incredible and groundbreaking poststep is, it's hard work noticing it in this ocean of stuff, and even harder when it's using the same online underground networks as everybody else, where everything is available and considered equally interesting, and no larger, deeper impact is allowed to be made outside of the music nerd circles. There's countless “electronic releases”, collections of files “released” by virtual labels, as well endless amounts of music to be found on sites like Soundcloud and Bandcamp, even endless amounts of music in different poststep styles, and very much of this is pretty good, quite a bit of it is even great, but in the end, who has the time to listen to it all – let alone more than once! How to choose? How to ever get a relationship with any of it?

Now, there's no doubt that a lot of the really massive stylistic innovations are being made within these online communities, and that if you ever had the time to check it all, you might find the greatest, most unbelievable and futuristically potent music right now, lurking in those bottomless depths. But in the end, developing a lasting relationship with anything in that ever morphing audiomaze seem impossible, you're always on the move, always checking new stuff. Perhaps this is why, even though the frontline seems to be the online communities, records are still released – and lots of them, even! Of course, releasing records doesn't magically create an impact in the world outside the underground subcultural circels. The fact that Dam Mantels Purple Arrow made it to vinyl did not make it noticed by a generation, it didn't make it the kind of unavoidable Unknown Pleasures-like milestone that it should have been. There's certainly a sense in which the physical records are pretty much preaching to the converted: Mostly they're pressed in extremely limited numbers – less than 500, perhaps only 200 most of the time – and sold exclusively to those already down with the programme. If we only consider the records, the musical revolutions captured on them are only heard by an extremely small elite – for some of them just a couple of hundred people worldwide – those dedicated to the cause and ready to put both time and money into it.

At this point it's worth noticing a couple of things: 1) Even though the records are pressed in such small numbers, it doesn't necessarily say anything about how “unheard” this music is overall, since so much of its audience is in the purely digital domain. 2) Even if it is unheard, it doesn't mean that it isn't as innovative or groundbreaking modern as, say, the big post punk names. Huge parts of post punk were these small do-it-yourself communities of dysfunctionally radical experiments, and with poststep, that's simply how the major part of the scene works. The circles where this stuff makes an impact are small, but it doesn't mean that the impacts themselves, regarding the depth of inventiveness and originality, are small. There's this line of thinking within music (rock?) criticism, where socio-cultural resonance is considered the main parameter of importance – or rather, where a lack of socio-cultural resonance is seen as a criterion for deeming music irrelevant. I've always considered that line of thinking extremely dull and inhibiting. It's wonderful when really great stuff also seem to have a huge socio-cultural impact, but just because wilful obscurity and lack of commercial success doesn't equate art or brilliance, it doesn't mean that the reverse is automatically the case. And really; if we were to judge, say, Pere Ubu, This Heat or The Contortions in terms of socio-cultural impact, we could pretty much discard them right away. They might have had a slightly larger impact than most current underground poststep artists, but they're still wilfully obscure underground avant-gardists, and today pretty much unknown to all but a small elite of post punk scholars. Their greatness came from their bloody minded and elitist drive to completely dismantle musical structures – to move forwards into even more expressive fields in David Thomas words. The same thing is going on with the best of poststep, and that is definitely “enough” to make it awe inspiring – and worth our attention.  

Anyway, to get back on track: You might feel inclined to ask why they even bother releasing vinyl when there's so few who'll know - or care - about it – let alone buy it. I think most of these microlabels are happy if they just break even, and they seem like basically vanity projects, which I actually think is sort of right, in a sense, though there’s much more substance to it than just “vanity”. I think the whole reason lies precisely in the insubstantiality and incomprehensibility of the digital storage networks. It might not necessarily be a conscious reasoning, but nevertheless it's almost like a direct attempt to give the music an element of longevity, of recognisable substance – proving that it exist by incarnating it in physical form. For a long time, the continued existence of vinyl – at least in the electronic department – was considered a DJ-thing. It was made because DJs bought it, used it and wanted it. This is hardly the case anymore – the number of DJ using vinyl seems dwindling, and is mostly concentrated around particularly minimal/functional styles where the whole point is to see a DJ manipulate DJ tools that are pretty uninteresting in themselves. Even though the poststep vinyl is pressed in extremely small numbers, I really doubt that they're all bought by DJs (I, at least, am not a DJ, and I buy a lot of them). How many DJs even play that these styles?

So, while vinyl is becoming more and more irrelevant as a part of DJing, it's nevertheless still being made, even with a style like poststep, that doesn't seem to have much use for it, being mostly an online community, and much less DJ-centered than dubstep proper – or techno or house for that matter.  Of course, there's also the audiophile argument, and I'm sure that's part of it for many buyers as well, but it seems to me that it's more of an afterthought – after all, no one under thirty is really an audiophile nowadays; it's not like the poststep audience isn't using the online networks as the prime source. Vinyl must have more to offer than just supposedly superior sound quality to still be around. Rather, it's a way of showing that this stuff – considered unfocused and aimless dabbling by the larger (rock-centered or retromania-informed) critical narrative – is not just that; that it's felt and created to be important, to mean something. That it's worth using both money (when music is otherwise considered free) and, perhaps even more significant, time on it (self releasing records is a lot of cumbersome work and trouble). Of course, this does not make it important or world shattering in itself (just like self released post punk records weren't necessarily great just by the effort put into self releasing them), but it does show that these people think and care more about their music than they're supposed to by the overall hyperstasis-narrative, and certainly more than they have to if that narrative was 100% right.

One of the greatest things about the continued vinyl presence in poststep is that the records being made are increasingly leaving the dull 12” format – which dominated dubstep proper (as it did with grime and 2step and jungle and most other functionalist dance forms) – behind. This is in itself a strong indication that the records aren't just made for the DJs, who are usually supposed to be the ones who want the widest, loudest grooves, but more importantly, it's sort of reinventing the EP as a powerful medium in its own right. There have been times before where most of the interesting action was happening on EPs, especially the early days of rave, where few managed to actually release albums (and rarely made anything good when they did), and EPs made it possible to nevertheless release records that could be heard as a whole, with room for variety and experiments. And right now, we're not only living in the richest, most overwhelming time since the early nineties when it comes to music overall, we're also living in an incredible golden age of the EP format. I don't think its potential have ever been used so brilliantly before.

A very practical thing about the EP format is that it allows producers to make extended and integrated collections of tracks without falling into the many traps that the album represent when it comes to electronic dance music. As it's well known, there's a long history of techno/rave/trance/house/etc.-artists failing miserably when tackling the challenge to make albums. Partly, this was because an album was seen as a “challenge” at all, rather than just a collection of good tracks. For some reason albums were suddenly considered something that had to be “grand statements”, or had to cover all bases (a little ambient, a little jungle, a little acid etc., all of it stylistic exercises), or had to have huge crossover appeal (endless guests and pointless vocalists). It was never really explained why this had to be, but eventually it became sort of a self fulfilling prophecy, everybody talking about how rave genres wasn't really album music, making it seem practically impossible to succeed without some sort of Gordian-knot-solving. But with EPs that problem isn't really there anymore, nobody expects an EP to be the Sergeant Peppers of post dubstep, or to have guest vocals from every trendy indie singer who wants to seem relevant. 

Personally, even though it's obvious that “the album” have always been something rave styles have had trouble with, I've never bought the idea that rave music is by definition not album music. The trouble with rave-albums have other roots, one of them clearly being that major labels (or the artists themselves?) didn't really think instrumental albums would sell to a sufficiently large audience, and hence the guest star plague started. But I think an equally disastrous element simply was the time rave music happened to break through – i.e. when CDs were thought to be the future, or at the very least the future of albums. Of course, ever since the late sixties, “the album” had already been redefined as something increasingly “important”, but with the CD it didn't just have to be some sort of integrated whole, it also had to be bloody long, and even more so when the inflated length and the amount of extra stuff was pushed as a reason to eventually give up on vinyl and go all CD. This almost automatically made albums from the early nineties and onwards worse than albums from the previous decades, not because the quality of the music as such had diminished (au contraire, IMO), but simply because they – even when they didn't fall into the aforementioned traps – simply were longer than they had to be, and often contained some filler material that previous generations wouldn't have needed to include.

There's obviously no need to think of albums in these terms anymore, now that we're living in an age where the CD seems to be on the way to the dustbin of history, and “albums” are becoming just clusters of tracks that are not fettered by the limitations of physical media. Nevertheless, the mindset sort of remains, releasing an album is still seen as some sort of event, and this is why EPs are so refreshing, and where the most amazing stuff is happening. It's worth noticing that back in the fifties and sixties, albums were short. So short, actually, that they'd hardly count as albums now – often closer to 30 than 40 minutes. And now, EPs are sort of moving towards the same format, but from the opposite direction. To begin with, most poststep was still 12” territory, EPs were rarely longer than four tracks, and a lot of them had the incredibly annoying three track format popular in a lot of dubstep. But now, six or seven tracks are not unusual, often with playing times of more than 25 minutes, and full picture sleeves are more and more common (in itself showing the level of dedication to the physical media – usually you'll have to press at least 500 records to get a picture sleeve, otherwise you'll have to come up with some creative (and time consuming) way to have it made). All this is effectively making these EPs mini albums rather than singles with some additional filler tracks, and certainly, they're very often clearly meant to be heard that way as well. 

Personally I think it would be wonderful if this development eventually would make the poststep producers completely ditch not just the faulty “grand statement”/crossover-understanding of albums, but also the stupid “DJ friendly” vinyl formats (albums as double/triple EPs/12”s), and expand the EPs to actual small (and affordable) albums - LPs, really, rather than “albums” as they've been defined by the CD. To some degree this is actually already happening – labels like Keysound and Time No Place seem to be thinking in LPs this way, as is much of the skweee scene. And Planet MU released at least some of their newer albums (Kuedo, Last Step, Ital Tek) as LPs rather than double EPs. Still, though, it doesn't yet seem like a step people are ready to take (or perhaps have considered taking at all), so all the more reason to praise the EPs, small wonders in their own right as many of them are, and released in staggering amount throughout these last couple of years.

In you want to know where the crucial poststep is happening you'll have to follow the EPs. For a start, there’s something like four or five labels really leading the way, followed by a cluster of more uneven ones. Forget Hotflush and Hessle Audio and Skull Disco and (yikes) Apple Pips and all those labels – they were the boring part of poststep to begin with, and they certainly haven't become more relevant recently. Hyperdub have not completely lost it, I guess, but they're also moving in directions which – interesting as they sometimes are – are only tangentially related to the exiting things going on right now. No, the holy trinity – poststeps Moving Shadow/Suburban Base/Reinforced (as misleading as that comparison is in many ways) – is Rwina, Lowriders Recordings and DonkyPitch. Slowly, these three have moved from being upstart outsiders to being the most consistently amazing sources of poststep in 2011-2012. Right now Rwina is the absolute powerhouse, and my theory is that it has a lot to do with the fact that it started as a more rave-oriented dubstep outlet, fusing playful wobble with wonky structures and 8 bit weirdness. This bitstep element is still a part of the overall Rwina profile, but recently they've gone in all sort of bizarre directions, branching out to wider trends in the overall poststep scene (mangled footwork and trap deconstructions, ghostly soundscapes) as well as housing some of the strangest and most astoundingly unique names right now.

The two greatest releases of 2012 were two Rwina EPs: Jameszoos Faaveelaa and Krampfhafts First Threshold. I was extremely sceptical about Faaveelaa to begin with, the title seemed to suggest MIA-ish ghetto beat tourism in full effect, but I was pleasantly surprised - utterly amazed, actually - by some of the most bizarre, dysfunctional beat contraptions I’ve ever heard, wonderfully free from any kind of attempted street level authenticity or borrowed exoticism. Rather, Jameszoo takes the poststep hallmark of stumbling, lopsided beats and dizzy, hypersynthetic sounds to hitherto unheard, near nauseous extremes. Every bit as bizarre and absurd and absolutely new as anything poststep has come up with before. As for Krampfhaft, he’s basically just going a step further from his great Making Magic EP from last year, creating an even more otherworldly amalgam of warm cosmic drifts and febrile hyper-bubbling riffs. On “Cork”, “Twin Prime” and “In a Dream” he turns the icy minimal stutter-structures of Anti-G’s awesome avant bubbling style into baroque maximalism, while “Marram” and “Bones” are sort of futuristic torch songs, all inorganically shiny alien surfaces, yet oddly touching.

Krapfhaft and Jameszoo were the best of Rwinas offerings this year, but their other releases were also pretty great. Desto has been a part of poststep almost from the very beginning, but 2012s No Sleep was his best so far, all cascading bitstep ballads with roots in the Zomby-aesthetic, but also expanding it in directions Zomby never really explored. The opposite approach is found on Defts Masquerade, which is pretty much drawing from all over the hipster beats map (much like I feared Jameszoo would do), with elements of footwork, trap and funky, but he still somehow managed to make them all work together as a polymorphous hybrid rather than a forced show of eclecticism. The amalgam of trap/footwork and the general poststep aesthetic (queasy, dizzy-dreamy soundscapes, rhythmic non-linearity) was by far the biggest trend in poststep this year, and as such Deft was probably the one instance where Rwina seemed to do the same as everybody else, rather than changing the rules - even if Deft was one of the better examples of this trend (which, in itself, and rather surprisingly, actually produced much better and much more original music than it, on paper, looked like it ever should have).

Hot on the heels of Rwina were Donky Pitch and (especially) Lowriders Recordings, two labels that practically started the same way: Each started in 2010 with an EP by Ghost Mutt in some combination (split/remix) with Slugabed, showcasing the 2010 bitstep sound at its best. However, Lowriders have since spread out to a wide variety of poststep styles, all while becoming more ambitious with the formats (longer and longer EPs, picture covers, even cassettes). Donky Pitch, on the other hand, are sticking with simple white cardboard sleeves, as well as a stylistic combination of Rustie-ish para-electroid bombast and melancholy downtempo bitstep. Rusties Glass Swords album was the most dominant force in the beginning of 2012 - before the footwork mania broke through - and I think it’s great that Donky Pitch made room for those who wanted to go on exploring the potential of that sound, twist it into much stranger, almost unrecognizable shapes - such as Keyboard Kid 206 on The Transition or The Range on Disk - rather than follow the newest fad. And the last Donky Pitch release of 2012, Arp 101 and Elliott Yorkes Fluro Black, showed that the bitstep madness from just two years ago can still sound fresh.

With Lowriders, going in all sort of directions meant that not everything was equally successful, but they did come up with some brilliant releases, such as Halps Tic Tac Toe (containing some of the same dutch madness as Krampfhaft and Jameszoo, but combined with some of the slightly more “conventional” Rustie/footwork-inspired elements), Alephs Fourteen Dreams per Night (intricately convoluted beats, glittering bleepscapes, ghostly hollow atmospheres), and especially Doshys Electrophilic, somehow twisting incredibly rigid and minimal beat structures into something ridiculously slinky and bombastic. Strands Slam Funk! was more problematic - it did contain a couple of wonderfully raw bitstep gems, but sadly also some cringeworthy electro funk-pastiches. Equally uneven was the compilation EP Power Shuffles vol.1, an early attempt to chart the growing footwork fever. Now there’s definitely some amazing examples of footwork insanity taken-one-step-further on it (in particular Leatherfaces “Watch Me Do My Thang” and Motëms “Work”), but also some rather pointless stylistic exercises, and several tracks that are basically run-of-the-mill IDM with slightly jittery beats underneath.

Almost up there with Rwina, Donky Pitch and Lowriders was Civil Music. Though they’ve released as much good music recently as at least the last two, this highly prolific label is also a bit too diverse - stylistically as well as quality-wise. Artists like Darling Farah (minimal dub techno), Kotchy (oldschool downtempo beatscapes) and Brassica (retro disco) seems to place Civil Music among the retromanic “we-like-anything-as-long-as-it’s-good” electronic labels, and some of their best know poststep acts (Drums of Death, Om Unit) are rarely that interesting or original. However, they also released great EPs like Xliis twisted rave-step kaleidoscope Neon High, or Pixelord and Kuhns Supaplex and Kings, swirling reinterpretations of footwork as cosmic clockwork contraptions. I’d say both Pixelord and Kuhn were better and much more fascinating before they decided jump the work-wagon, but they do also show what can be done with the style without losing its sense of urgency, or resorting to pastiche. All that said, Civil Music actually made their greatest contribution to poststep this year through albums, but more about them later. 

Completing the top 5 of poststep labels we have Error Broadcast. They started out mostly as a downtempo label, but with a good sense of the “post hop” end of that scene, i.e. the end that also sort of belong to the overall poststep mess (they released Shlohmos debut EP Shlo-Fi, for example). Since then they’ve spread out extremely far, and not always in equally successful directions (i.e. more housey things like B-Ju), but all the same they sometimes come up with totally unexpected, almost indescribable records. This year it was Montgomery Clunks Mondegreen EP, which was just the kind of constantly morphing, dis-and-reintegrating freak-neo-rave that Hudson Mohawke would love to make, but is far too self consciously clever-ironic to come up with. Pretty great was also OLs Body Varial, which managed to fuse frantic footwork beats with hollow-eyed, almost burialesque slow mo-atmospherics in a way that made it seem like they’d never been apart to begin with. 

The top 5 is only the tip of the EP iceberg of course; in 2012 there also came lot of great EPs from many other places - whether it was new labels yet too small and sporadic to seem really established, or relatively big labels from completely different areas opening up to poststep - far too many to mention in detail. A couple of personal favourites include the complex, sprawling neon-doomstep of Bit-Tuners Signals (Hula Honeys), the muffled dream-juke of Howses Lay Hollow (Tri Angle), and The-Drums Heavy Liquid (Audraglint), a hallucinatory maze of vocal fragments, slow motion beats and gloopy melodies, sort of recreating the feel that made Burial so great, but from a completely different starting point, and as a result sounding very different. You could say that The-Drum is the greatest so far coming from the American micro-continuum that also include the likes of Kingdom, Egyptrixx and Nguzunguzu - the last of which released no less than two great EPs this year: Warm Pulse (Hippos in Tanks) and Mirage (Time No Place) - though the last is actually a physical rerelease of a digital release from 2010 (there’s the vinyl idealism again). Miage is one of those rare examples of how inventive and weird house-leaning poststep actually can be, while Warm Pulse is going into even more abstract and ethereal territories, somewhat reminiscent of Fatima Al Qadiri or a less abrasive Jam City.

In addition to the favourites, some further honorary mentions: Computer Jays Savage Planet Discotheque vol.1 (Weirds Science) as probably the best and most forward thinking 2012-example of Californian sci fi post hop (the Flying Lotus, Free the Robots etc. tradition), the ellipsoid ethno-step of Fresh Touchs The Ethiopian (Angular), Pixelord doing what he does best - stumbling somnambulist bitstep - on Keramika (Hit and Hope),  and Hudson Mohawke X Lunices TNGHT (Warp), which is actually quite good even if it isn’t as great as it has been hyped up to be, let alone compared to what other people have done in this area in 2012 (i.e. Montgomery Clunk and several of the Rwina/Donky Pitch/Lowriders-acts). There’s still a scene for experimental, complex grime (what I called “hypergrime”), and this is also an EP-thing (when it gets physical release at all), some of the best examples this year being Slackks highly unorthodox Raw Missions (Local Action), as well as Noaipres complex, but sadly much less noticed Noaipre (Ho Tep). And then there was the skweee scene, back in full effect in 2012 after a slightly inactive 2011. Here six track EPs/mini-LPs was where the most interesting things came out, either by scene veterans like Daniel Savio and Mesak (Valiant and Holtiton, both on Laton), or relative newcomers like Lazercrotch (Lazercrotch on Poisonous Gases) or Yöt (Bitch Bender on Raha & Tunteet). Oh, and Burial released his best since Untrue, the 30 minute EP/mini LP Kindred.

Now, I didn’t really plan for this piece to be a “best of 2012-thing”, but I guess the way it’s gotten out of hand, and the fact that the year is over by now, means that it’s become one nevertheless. Hence, and even though my main point is that the EPs are the ones to get first and foremost, I suppose I should get into the albums as well. Because in 2012 there was also released more poststep albums than ever before. As mentioned earlier, “the album” still represents a problem to most poststep producers, and as a result, most of the ones that were made this year weren’t quite as good as the EPs that preceded them. This was especially the case with four highly anticipated - at least by me - debuts, all of which disappointed, albeit to very different degrees: Slugabeds Time Team (Ninja Tune), Dam Mantles Brothers Fowl (Notown), Eproms Metahuman (Rwina), and Debruits From the Horizon (Civil Music).

It shouldn't be surprising that I had unreasonably high expectations for Slugabeds debut album; after all, it was pretty much his Ultra Heat Treated EP that finally woke me up to just how world shattering a force poststep was, and could be. That said, given that the two EPs preceding it, after he went from Planet MU to Ninja Tune, both showed a mellowing of his style, towards an altogether more warm and welcoming sound, I was prepared that Time Team probably wouldn't be the further development from Ultra heat Treated that I had hoped for. Still, it could have had at least some tracks developing his more harsh, splintered and far-out side. It hadn't. The wildest and most fractured track was the title track from his first Ninja Tune EP, Moonbeam Rider. So yeah, I was massively disappointed when hearing the first clips, I even considered not buying it at all. Eventually I gave in, though, and I'm glad I did, because even though there's a lot of irritation things about it, and even though it's nowhere nearly as good as it could have been – not even as good as it at least should have been, as a showcase for a softer, more relaxed Slugabed – it's nevertheless still a great, deeply original album, mostly not sounding like anything ever made before. But it takes some time getting into.

My eventual approach, my excuse (to myself) for buying it after all, was yet another comparison with the post punk period. I wasn't old enough to care much about music during the post punk years, and consequently I've come to many of the records somewhat higgledy piggledy, or even “backwards”. The first record I heard by Pere Ubu was Song of the Bailing Man, the first by Ultravox was Vienna, and the first by Tuxedomoon was Ship of Fools. Heck, for a long time I only knew the reformed Wire of the late eighties. And I loved those records, and still do as a matter of fact. As probably the only person in the world I like Song of the Bailing Man as much as Modern Dance and Dub Housing, or Ship of Fools as much as Half Mute (though the Foxx-era Ultravox rules supreme, obviously). However, had I discovered the music in real time, blown away by Modern Dance and Half Mute as they were released, I would most likely have felt the same sort of disappointment that a lot of post punkers apparently (and to me, bizarrely) felt with Song of the Bailing Man (I don't really know how people felt about the later Tuxedomoon, but clearly, a “mellowing” had happened there as well). And even though I prefer the early Ultravox, I’m still thrilled by most of Vienna, in a way I perhaps wouldn't be had I been betrayed by them “going commercial” in real time. Well, you could say that Slugabed is both going in the direction of Song of the Bailing Man with Time Team – a lighter, more quirky/absurdist sound – as well as “going commercial” to the degree that it is possible within this style: closer to the stoned down tempo grooves preferred by most Ninja Tune fans (I suppose), and even an electro house-ish single (“Sex”, perhaps his least original and interesting track ever). 

Had I heard Time Team first, on its own terms, might I not have grown to love it in much the same way as Song of the Bailing Man, even though I subsequently discovered the real, revolutionary deal? I'll never know, but even though I doubt that Time Team would ever had felt as great to me – it has quite a lot of flaws that The Bailing Man doesn't – it definitely has a unique and wonderful charm all its own, and manages to turn the terrifyingly fractured pixel topologies of his earlier tracks into gentler, more dreamy-disoriented shapes. Most of the time, anyway. Because, as I said, it does indeed have some problems, and they mostly come from Time Teams particular format, i.e. from his trying to come to terms with “the album”. First of all, it is, paradoxically, a shame that the album is released by Ninja Tune, because that's a label specializing in extravagant luxury packages appealing to vinyl-philes. Meaning, in this case, that the vinyl version is a triple EP, with two discs containing the actual album and an extra one of bonus material – much of which is actually better than several of the “official” tracks.

In any case, the consequence is that the album is a huge, heavy and pretty clumsy object, practically demanding to be a colossal work of art. But as it's usually the case with those records, it just means that it's too long, with its triple format getting annoying and unnecessary rather than luxurious or awe inspiring. Not least because of its second problem: There's a couple of not so great tracks – in particular “Unicorn Suplex” and the aforementioned “Sex”, where Slugabed seem pretty ordinary, without the weird structures that makes even his more laid back music strange and fascinating. In addition to that, there's two tracks from previous EPs, which didn't really need to be included, so all in all, the album could easily been trimmed down to an EP/mini-LP, OR it could have contained the best – if not all – of the bonus tracks without having to put them on a separate disc. Heck, I'd say all the best could be distilled on a single LP, compact and straightforward, and as light as his new direction suggests, and it would have been a killer, without a single  superfluous second, and definitely the best album of the year – because when he's really good, his new style is still that good. Ah well. Time Team is still a brilliant album, it has this sunny, lightheaded feel that makes his asymmetrical beats and fractal pixel-webs seem as warm and soothing as they seemed hostile and disorienting before. And tracks like “New Worlds”, “Mountains Come out of the Sky”, “Climbing a Tree” and “Make a Wish” are quite simply astonishing, beautiful. So yeah, as much as it disappointed me and wasn't what it should have been, we're still talking of one of the very best albums of 2012 (perhaps the second best).

Much more problematic is Dam Mantles Brothers Fowl. Here I was practically as excited as with Time Team, and perhaps even more so, given that Dam Mantles EPs have been consistently great. Perhaps his last before the album wasn’t quite as mindblowing as his first two, but almost nothing could be, and it was certainly amazing by anybody else’s standards – merciless forbidding and sorrowful ghoststep, as deeply moving as the best of Burial, yet pretty much unlike anything else on the poststep scene. How did he go from that to the cosy feel-good-melancholia of Brothers Fowl, not really substantially different from most by-the-numbers downtempo out there? Again I bought it, with pretty much the same excuses as with Time Team, but this time it didn't really help, and even though Brothers Fowl is perfectly listenable, it never clicked or seemed remotely relevant. Here, later Tuxedomoom would definitely be the most obvious comparison, given the jazzy elements and overall smooth, “sophisticated” sound. Or perhaps The Raincoats Moving, which I (probably even more alone in this than with Pere Ubu) actually think is their best, (slightly ahead of Odyshape and much better than the first), period. After all, Moving is jazzy, slightly “backwards looking” (it's basically folk-inflicted canterbury-prog, innit), smooth and full sounding – just like Brothers Fowl.

But it doesn't work: Both the Tuxedomoon of Ship of Fools and You, and The Raincoats of Moving, still had deeply original ideas, and even though Brothers Fowl do use a few synthetic sounds and abruptly arranged samples, it’s all made to fit discretely and tastefully into the overall mood of slick, harmless “sophistication”. In other words; the few original elements it does contain are ironed out, nothing seems strange or unexpected. And even that could perhaps be acceptable if only the actual compositions were better; after all, the final step elevating Moving to be the masterpiece that it is, is the incredible uniqueness and quality of its songs, and Dam Mantle have certainly shown himself more than capable in that direction, with amazing tracks like “Grey”, “Two Women” and “Not a Word”. On Brothers Fowl, however, the tracks are just too goddamn polite and anonymous to make any lasting impression. Sure, as mentioned before, it’s a listenable album, I can listen to it on its own terms and it seems OK - as downtempo goes, you might even say it’s one of the better offerings - but I’d never have heard it several times, or have bought it, or taken any time to think about it, if it wasn’t for those EPs that preceded it.

With Debruits From the Horizon, you could once again say that a sort of mellowing out had happened, but this time it was not as much towards a more smooth and laid back sound, but rather towards a more organic and human sound, with less of the insane, hyper-angular syncopations that made his previous music so fascinating, so shockingly new. Instead, the album was much more based on a traditional afro/ethno-funk aesthetic (including lots of talkbox), and contained much more fluid, straightforward rhythms, anchored by African samples that more or less created the entire structure of the tracks, rather than being cut into sharp blasts of ethno weirdness as on previous Debruit EPs. So once again not the blast it should have been, though in all fairness it’s still a really weird and original album - especially the last half -, and in many ways as brilliant and unique a reimagining of ethno-funk as many post punkers with similar inspirations.

My disappointment with Eproms Metahuman is perhaps a little surprising, given that I’ve never quite followed him with the same interest as many other poststeppers. Not that his EPs weren’t good - they’re excellent examples of the wobbly end of bitstep - it’s just that many other producers seemed more crucial in that respect (Slugabed most of all, of course). However, I heard that Metahuman was on its way exactly while I was still really disappointed with Time Team, and I guess I sort of hoped that Eprom - who often seemed more raw and brutal (if not quite as far out) than Slugabed - would do things right, and make the uncompromised bitstep masterpiece that Time Team wasn’t. It didn’t quite happen that way, and it’s also a pretty unfair way to meet the album. In many ways, Metahuman is a brilliant album, and if I forget my personal expectations it’s certainly close to being one of the best. And when it doesn’t quite make it, it’s once again exactly because it tries so hard to be “the album”. Eprom wants to show us that he’s both capable of twisted, bleepy harsh-step (“Prototype”, “The Golden Planet”, “Needle Trasher”) as well as moody sci fi atmospherics (“Honey Badger”, “Floating Palace”, “Raytracing”), and that’s all right, he is capable, and comes up with some awesome takes on both. What he doesn’t quite manage, unfortunately, is to turn this into a much longer and more coherent package, i.e. “the album”. Metahuman is coherent all right, but it’s primarily because it’s pretty samey-sounding most of the time. “Tunes” have never been Eproms strong side, what makes his music memorable is the formal inventions - sound and structures - and he doesn’t seem to have had enough ideas in that department to fill a full 45 minutes. I wouldn’t say that there are tracks on Metahuman that are bad as such, but several of them seem a bit anonymous/filler-ish, and a “mini album” approach could have worked wonders. I’d still say it’s among the ten best albums of 2012, but as with Time Team, a more sharp format would have made it a candidate for the very best.

And what, then, was, the best album of 2012? To my surprise that happened to be Starkeys Orbits (Civil Music), which came out not much more than a month ago. His 2008 debut album, Ephemereal Exhibits, was quite good, but suffered a bit from the same kind of “samey-ness” as Metahuman, and the follow up Ear Drums and Black Holes seemed like the typical attempt to simultaneously cover all bases and make cross over pop, resulting in the equally typical overlong mess. Subsequent EPs also contained an annoying mix of ace hypergrime and bitstep on the one hand, and lame indetronica on the other, and as a result I’d pretty much written him off. Hence my surprise, for what a return to form Orbits is, totally getting it right where both Ephemereal Exhibits and Metahuman didn’t. It oscillates between soft/atmospheric and hard/ravey - often within single tracks - and he’s got exactly the wealth of ideas, futuristic originality and melodic depth necessary to make that simple dichotomy work for 55 minutes. It’s also interesting that he’s only very sparsely using either 8 bit elements or the collapsing rhythmic structures that makes most ravey/wobbly bitstep so insane, instead he seems to use grime as a starting point, taking the bizarre, angular fanfare-riffs and inorganic syncopations far into the hysterical - often almost getting close to Krampfhafts psycho-bubbling sound. A huge part of Orbits is simply everything I could ever have hoped “hypergrime” would turn into, but in addition to that, the more “cosmic” tracks approach the sci fi synth-aesthetic in a way that works just as brilliantly as, say, Kuedo, and yet is Starkeys very own. Orbits is thrillingly futuristic in both vision and execution.

As for other great albums this year, it’s worth mentioning a couple of debuts that were positive surprises, though mostly because I didn’t have great expectations for them to begin with: Jam City have always been one of the better Night Slugs-acts, but that’s not saying that much in my book, and I haven’t been particular overwhelmed by him. However, with Classical Curves he completely abandoned the house vestiges and explored an unapologetically inorganic, “vibeless” soundworld - and was all the better for it! It was all shiny, slick, synthetic surfaces, and in that way you could probably say that there was some small relation to Rusties maximalist sound, but where Rustie is often silly, colourful and hysterical, Jam City was cold and empty, with an almost ballardian twist. Not exactly music that “touches” you, but it was nevertheless deeply fascinating, and perhaps the strangest album this year.

Another artist that never quite impressed me before was Distal, but with Civilization (Tectonic) he made one of 2012 most convincing footwork-based (and trap-based too I guess) poststep offerings. It was probably a bit too long and uneven (“the album” again), and sometimes the use of “authentic”-sounding “ghetto” vocal samples got annoyingly close to parody/pastiche, but mostly it was brilliant exactly because it didn't try to be wild, raw, street-real dancefloor music. Rather, it took the element of abstraction within those styles and ran with them, turned them into increasingly bizarre shapes. Rather than just sprinkling some footwork over a stale IDM-dish to spice it up, Distal, when he’s best, dissects the sound completely, and then reassemble it in ways that doesn’t really sound like anything else around.

If Civilization came up with some of the most refreshingly strange footwork deformations this year, but just didn’t work equally well all the time, the most consistent deconstruction of the style was probably Ital Teks Nebula Dance (Planet MU), which was in many ways an heir to Kuedos Severant: Panoramic and bittersweet synth music made strangely unstable by alien rhythms. Nebula Dance had a bit more going on in the beat department, the tracks were often extremely dizzy and jittery, but on the other hand, the melodies were rarely memorable - an old Ital Tek problem, which also means that it was a good move to make this album substantially shorter and more focused than the previous one. You could argue that it’s still close to simply being too nice and smooth, with all sounds blending in endless digital reverb, but in the end it works, perhaps because the way it manages to incorporate the footwork rhythms seems so obvious; the end result doesn’t really sound like footwork at all, or like some other style superficially decorated by footwork, it’s its own, fully integrated thing.

The more club-tinged part of poststep - the area where things have become more and more house/funky-oriented lately -, actually also delivered a couple of surprisingly good albums: San Gabriels Wolfe (Time No Place) was almost like a colourful party version of Nguzunguzu (though some parts were a bit too “funny” for their own good), while Dusk+Blackdowns Dasaflex (Keysound), despite a couple of tracks suffering from some of the most cringeworthy funky clichés around, also managed to fuse elements of grime and funky in a way that seemed both charmingly lightheaded and almost playfully futuristic. Diametrically opposite this light and elastic music, Lorns Ask the Dust (Ninja Tune) made the already extremely dark and sorrowful sound of his 2010 LP Nothing even more dark and sorrowful. Together with the Bit-Tuner EP it was pretty much the ultimate amalgam of “ghoststep” and old fashioned doomstep, and basically just building on a style that has been pretty well established for several years now; yet rarely done this good. One of the years’ most overpowering albums, actually, even though it’s probably a bit too pompous for some.

The “ghostly” end of things - i.e. the grey area where poststep meld with hauntology and other post techno/post everything deconstruction strategies, was generally very active this year, and makes me wonder where poststep stops and the larger experimental strategies right now take over. That’ll have to be a question for another time; for now, I’ll just mention 2012s best albums from this interzone: Offshores first (and, sadly, last) LP Bake Haus seemed a bit of mess to me to begin with; unfinished sketches, run-of-the-mill beats and an overall melancholia that often sounded almost like indietronica. Not my kind of thing and not exactly futuristic. But nevertheless, Bake Haus just worms itself into your brain in its own haunting, desolate way, and I find it really hard to put my finger on why it works. Lukids Lonely at the Top, the first of his albums to really get me, is similarly difficult to figure out. Dreamy decay-ology of the kind I normally find a bit too dreamy and gaseous, but here it’s got just the right edge. Finally, I guess the two Ital-albums Hive Mind and Dream On (both Planet MU) sort of belong here, even though most would probably say they represent a kind of psychedelic retro house. Well, perhaps they do, but the disorienting, kaleidoscopic sound and the weird, grooveless use of half dissolved samples is totally “now”, as far as I’m concerned.

OK, so more than enough for now. I planned that this should have been all about the EPs, and yet I ended writing more about the albums. Perhaps I’m still caught up in the idea of “the album” myself. Ah well.

Caught in the eternal present - more poststep

There has been a lot of talk about the lack of a clear genre name for all the stuff going on in the post dubstep territory, and as always people seem obsessed with the relationship between clearly defined stylistic signifiers and equally clear names for sets of signifiers sufficiently coherent to be seen as a style in itself. Whether the lack of solid styles with solid names is seen as a positive sign, suggesting a state of becoming, a not-yet-there flux just waiting to finally develop, or as an ill omen of a permanent, retromanic lack-of-vision where everything is half assed magpie microstyles, never containing anything forceful or groundbreaking enough to last longer than an instant, at least people seem to agree that this is somehow the crucial point. Which is a shame, because it get us stuck in the same old template for thinking about electronic (dance) music – i.e. whether  it's developing through organic step-by-step scenius interactions, as most people now seem to agree that it should, if it is to be classified as proper “authentic” street level electronic dance music.

Well, that's not how this stuff is developing, and that's a big part of what makes it great, and interesting. As a big fan of everything from acid to gabber to jungle to wobble, I certainly understand why that dynamic is important and fertile, but it gets so incredibly tiresome that it's always the way people are thinking about it, almost as annoying as rock critics using their old templates of auters and album statements to judge rave music. And it's why it's really a shame that post dubstep seem to be slowly disappearing as a catch-all phrase for this music (the snappier poststep never got a chance it seems), only to be replaced by the ridiculous and pointless “bass music”. Because what actually made it a truly useful name was exactly, as the post punk comparison should make clear, that this is not music to be understood like previous electronic dance music, or – and this is probably the most important point – as that music’s “listening” counterpart, was understood. The old rave/IDM-divide does simply not exist in post dubstep, the producers are not thinking in those terms anymore, they're making music that – on a track to track basis - might or might not be danceable, but it’s not a central part of the musics identity. Which is also why it is a misunderstanding to suggest that poststep is somehow the “new IDM”, even if it does fit that description in a lot of ways.

What proper, popular rave sound would post dubstep be in opposition to (or be leeching on), like with the old IDM vanguard and rave/hardcore/jungle? Wobble? Well, there's a small contingent of first generation “true dubstep”-heads that might fit this description, but they're more like detroit purists than IDM people really, and to the degree that they're actually part of post dubstep (rather than just, well, making die hard old school dullstep), they're a pretty negligible part. The rest seem either completely removed from wobble (neither defining themselves as opposition or trying to copy it), or, in a few cases, actually make wobble (Taz Buckfaster, Doshy, Akira Kiteshi etc.). What about UK Funky, then? Well, it's pretty much a small connoisseur scene, not a big popular rave form, and there's certainly no opposition between it and (most parts of)  poststep; I often find it impossible to distinguish it from the larger poststep-map – more and more I'd say it's similar to something like 2tone within post punk. Bassline? If there have been any relationship – hostile or parasitic – between bassline and poststep, I've never encountered it. Juke/footwork? See UK Funky, except even more so: totally not a popular rave form, actually pretty much an avant garde in itself, so the relationship between, say, Kuedo/Distal and juke is much more like the relationship between Contortions/Blurt and free jazz, rather than between Plug/Squarepusher and jungle. Plus, it actually seems like at least partly a two way connection.

What I'm trying to say here, then, is that not only is the stupid dance/”intelligent” divide something that only an old guard of electronic-dance-critics - plus perhaps a few younger ones schooled in that line of thinking - look for, while producers and listeners of the (post) dubstep generation doesn’t even seem to think, let alone care, about it, but it is also exactly why the lack of clear, sharp genre lines is not an indication of uncommitted, cheaply eclectic postmodernism. Rather, it signifies poststep as a polymorphous, constantly evolving mass of genre-goo, where that very characteristic – the morphing instability, the frantic drive to change and reorganise, is the core of the music, rather than a lack of core. Which is where – once again – the post punk/poststep analogy comes to the fore. Because really, isn't it odd that post punk is seen as this pinnacle of creativity and radical formal invention, when it was every bit as unfocused and incoherent as what is going on in poststep today, exhibiting the very characteristics – a myriad of momentary not-quite-genres, a fractured overall messy-chaotic aesthetic, rampant and bordering-on-dysfunctional mutations of frontline contemporary dance music – that are identified everywhere in poststep, except that there it's seen as the very proof of the scenes inability to be truly innovative and significant. It's tempting to call this a double standard, but most likely it's simply due to the historical perspective – rave history have conditioned rave critics to think in scenius terms, whereas that line of thinking has played very little role in relation to rock.

In addition to this, the huge differences between post punk and poststep as more overall zeitgeist representatives is obviously also part of the reason why the comparison is rarely explored, and the same characteristics is seen as groundbreaking innovation in one case, and as retro-regressive dabblings in the other. Post punk was loudly conscious of and outspoken about the fact that it wanted to be groundbreakingly innovative and have some impact on society, as well as just generally conscious and outspoken, really thinking about what it was doing and its relation to the world around it, and it wasn’t afraid to talk about that. Poststep doesn't seem to have any ambitions in this department, but perhaps this is exactly a reflection of the zeitgeist. After all, it would be pretty weird if there was a 100% matching post punk-poststep correspondence, considering that things have changed so much as they have. Rather, the amazing musical inventions of poststep could perhaps shed a little light on a rarely explored aspect of post punk, namely that its relentless formal creativity didn't just happen because a bunch of radical people wanted to create radical music – it also happened because it could, because the formal potential was there. Suddenly, vast stylistic possibilities – avant garde techniques more or less unexplored in rock, the ambitiousness and formal infidelity of prog - were up for grabs by the post punk do-it-yourself freedom and perpetually-change ethos. However, if all that had already happened before, no amount of will-to-be-radical would have made it possible to be as inventive with rock music ever again - as rock history ever since clearly shows.

With poststep, there's certainly an intent to invent, it's just not driven by the politically charged matter-of-life-and-death determination that post punk had, it's more like a stumbling and confused attempt to reflect the ever-fracturing, ever-reforming maze we're all stuck in today. Nevertheless, just like with post punk, the invention is happening because it can: huge untapped potentials have now suddenly become available, and as a result, the poststep aesthetic is just as weird and disturbing and plain now, as much a distorted and yet true reflection of our time, as post punk was in its time, whether it’s the synthetic surfaces (OMD, Japan, Rustie, Jam City) or the twisted mess underneath (Pere Ubu, The Pop Group, Burial, Dam Mantle), or everything in between. And the potential right now comes from possibilities opened up by the dubstep generation dissolving techno and rave-cultures age old dance/not dance-divide. Abstraction and complexity is not in opposition to popular physicality any more. Poststep certainly can be as chilled and un-physical as the most self-consciously anti-hardcore I-think-therefore-I-ambient-IDM/electronica (newer Kuedo and Zomby-stuff, the Tri Angle-label, if that counts as poststep), but the crucial point is that it doesn’t set it apart from - and isn’t meant to set it apart from - the rest of the poststep community, just like softer, more ethereal post punk records like The Raincoats Odyshape, The Flying Lizards’ Fourth Wall or The Durutti Columns LC, were still unquestionably part of post punks cornucopia of invention, even if they didn’t share the harshness and sharpness usually associated with it.

The point is perhaps best illustrated when comparing post punk with progressive rock: In a way post punk pretty much re-established the prog quest for stylistic experimentation and shattering of rocks established norms and boundaries, but any “official” connection with prog was definitely not a part of the program, it was rather something that had to be disowned by the practitioners, much like the current poststep vanguard is eager to stress their unironic love for every possible street beat style out there, thus trying to avoid being called “the new IDM” - something that would taint them with associations to drill’n’bass’ jungle-mockery or po-faced pseudo-academic click-scapes, and therefore something that has to be avoided as much as post punk had to avoid being called prog. And there are differences, of course, post punk wasn’t simply prog part 2, but rather progs artistic ambition reborn without the cult of technical difficulty, an experimental impulse driven by an emphasis on primitivism, roughness and open ended everyone-can-do-it avant garde strategies, rather than traditional “skills”. Which is pretty much mirrored in poststeps relation to IDM: Poststep might be brain-music, but it does not, unlike first generation IDM, assume that dance music is by definition not brain music, and thus something that has to be either rejected or “improved”. Instead, poststep recognises the potential complexity and strangeness inside dance music and uses it as a starting point for further experimentation, creating weird mutations by force, test tube anomalies that wouldn’t develop “naturally” by the usual ‘nuum dynamics, rather than using dancefloor signifiers as window dressing, like IDM did with drum’n’bass. In this respect, as much as a new IDM, poststep resembles a whole generation of the kind of outsiders that almost every popular rave scene always has (4 Hero, T-Power, The Speed Freak, The Mover, Oliver Lieb, Terror Danjah etc.), trying all sorts of stylistic experimentation from within. Except, of course, that poststep simply hasn’t got an actual stable rave scene to use as base.

If post punk cultivated stylistic flux and radicalism as a continuation of the (presumed) punk promise - permanent revolution as the only way to avoid the (presumed) seventies rock stagnation, as well as a way to fight the political changes of the time -, poststeps constant process of dismantling, deforming and reimagining the musical landscape, could be described as an examination of the future we’re supposed to live in, an attempt to analyze the hyperworld we were promised, or an exploration of the treacherous interzone between the illusory surfaces representing that hyperworld - the only thing we ever got -, and the ever growing instability and uncertainty underneath. This is perhaps neither as heroic or as easily recognised as the fight post punk was fighting, but it’s nevertheless a valid and necessary reaction to the world we live in. The world got cold and scary at the beginning of post punk, and as a result, post punk became cold and scary music. The world got woozy and fractured at the beginning of poststep, and that is what poststep sounds like (I’m generalizing massively here, of course, given that its exactly my point that neither post punk nor poststep can be summed up by univocal terms - there’s lots of post punk that isn’t “cold and scary”, just as there’s lots of poststep that isn’t woozy and fractured).

The big problem, of course, is that by the very nature of this fractured, timeless world, it’s almost impossible for the relevant stuff to be recognised, as it’s seen as just more of the endless, coexisting post modern micro-styles recycling the past (because now, unlike in the time of post punk, experimenting with and combining different elements from styles where you don’t “belong naturally” - as well as the very fact that you don’t belong naturally to a specific style at all - is deeply suspect and certainly mean that you’re just making another post modern amalgam). And even if this wasn’t the case, the mere amount of other stuff out there, right now, all the time, everywhere, means that even the most radical and groundbreaking poststep will, at least to some degree, be drowned out. Burial, Rustie and Zomby (and perhaps Flying Lotus, if we can say he belongs here) are perhaps relatively big names, but they’re still mostly for the cognoscenti, and their influence is almost non-existent outside poststep. In this way, poststep might reflect the zeitgeist, but it’s also, by the very nature of that zeitgeist, caught in its maze of distractions and equal irrelevance of everything, and therefore unable to change and challenge it directly.

Still, as soon as you start to recognise the subversive weirdness and dysfunctionality of poststep, you’re able to seek it out, and to reject all the stuff that is just regressing to safe, tried and tested forms. And to increasingly see our current world through this lens: Monstrous synthetic shapes simultaneously silly and disturbingly unreal, glittering cascades of time-debris and half-formed digital microorganisms, haunted mental landscapes where time and space is disintegrating, blending and caught in splintered patterns, propulsion and determination constantly eroded by stumbling, queasy disruptions and unstable  gravity. It’s there and it’s amazing, but it’s also hard to discover because there’s so few championing it as the powerful vision of now, (rather than just mentioning it along all the other stuff we like), and there’s so much else around. It’s an uphill battle for these artists, but even if they’re not winning the overall war, the fact that they actually have qualified cannon fodder to send into the all consuming black hole of now, is sort of a victory in itself.

Soon, hopefully, some more concrete examples of the amazing wealth of new poststep still pouring out right now!

10 WOBBLE RECORDS

So, the wobble end of dubstep have won, at least in terms of popularity and overall influence, and despite all the right knowing people saying that it’ll be over and forgotten in a few years. Now, it can obviously not go on being “the new thing”, but game changing new styles never can. Jungle, as the all commanding new order, was also over in 1999, but that didn’t mean it was forgotten, or its influence gone, and I see no reason why dubstep should be - hell, its developmental curve have been so much slower compared to nineties rave styles that it already seems like the current peak have lasted longer - isn’t it already something like five years now? - than jungles peak did (was that even four years?). Not that that’s necessarily a good thing, rather it makes dubstep look slightly less vibrant and uncontrollable, but it certainly makes it even more unlikely that it’ll be forgotten - soon it’ll have been a dominant electronic style (or family of styles, rather) - in one way or another - for ten years, that’s not something that’ll just disappear.

Anyway, it feels good that it went the way it did, wobble almost lived up to all the hopes I had for it, I love the way it pisses of all sort of old guards (within dupstep or otherwise), and the fact that its bloody everywhere, with tons of crap being pumped out. That’s how it should be, a sign that it truly have made an impact. I can’t say the current dubstep mainstream (“brostep”, or “EDM”, apparently) does that much for me, but then, I haven’t expected it to do so. Rather than bandwagon jumping drum’n’bass producers, the wobble aesthetic now seem to be fusing with electro house, to form a new all purpose rave music, much like punk rawness/intensity eventually ended up as a part of a wider “real rock” sensibility in the eighties. It’s all about the Skrillex/ Deadmau5-axis, of course, and while Deadmau5 doesn’t seem all that exiting to me, Skrillex is actually pretty good. Sure, he might not have that many tricks up his sleeve so far, and the electro house part of the equation is a bit of a drawback, but he’s nevertheless really good at using wobbles potential for catchiness and dynamics, redefining it to meet his own ends. It would be tempting to go all the way and see him as some sort of, I dunno, dubsteps Sex Pistols, but that would be taking it too far. Perhaps something like Metallica is probably a better comparison, if a historical comparison have to be made.

While Skrillex have made several great tracks, and while he certainly is ten times as exhilarating as venerable “dubstep legends” like Mala or Scuba, the best of the pioneering wobble tracks that paved the way for his current success are much greater, and deserve some exposure. And interestingly, even though a few of critics are waking up to wobble (still a minority compared to those mocking it as a degenerate fad), I have so far not seen anyone trying to create a guide to some of the best tracks around. So, I guess I should do it then, given that I’ve believed in it right from the start. Of course, given the scenius nature it will only be some of the best ones, I’m sure there’s a lot that I’ve missed. Also, it might seem a bit regressive to do it in terms of ten records, after all only a minority of wobble ever made it to vinyl. But I guess it’s showing the dedication of this supposedly short lived throwaway-music: Vinyl was probably absolutely unnecessary for the development of wobble, but it was still being made, the people involved in the scene had a strong enough sense of connection and belief in this music to want physical, enduring objects of it, no matter how inconsistent and functional it was conceived. So here you are, some of the greatest rave music of the last five years, ten immortal wobble objects for posterity:

Stenchman: 2MuchKet! (True Tiger, 2008)

The True Tiger-label was a significant player in the transition from early proto-wobble to the real thing, a transition that is almost complete here, with Stenchman being one of the first big names in the “filth” end of dubstep, complete with stoopid/”wacky” juvenile humour and a recognisable “sick” image – performing in a gimp mask and having a bit of a cow-obsession. All the things, in other words, that the old, right-thinking dubstep guard hated. “2MuchKet!” is still not quite as hyperactive and pompously extravagant as wobble would eventually be, but it’s a blast nevertheless, and the b-side is also looking ahead with “Dubnet”, an early example of the later fad of wobble cover versions (basically – taking a well known theme and playing it with tear out wobble bass, a joke that got pretty thin really fast), and “Cut in Half”, which takes the development of pure wobble-centric madness a couple of steps further than the title track. It would be the absolute standout track of the ep if it wasn’t for the lame and far too long joke-sample in the middle.

It’s interesting to compare 2MuchKet! with Sukh Khights equally awesome Born Invincible, a slightly earlier True Tiger release, which is arguably just exactly on the other side of the border between the minimally brooding early wobble and the real rave deal: it’s staunch and punishing, but not really letting loose with the unhinged derangement that makes later wobble so thrilling. In between them, the two eps creates a perfect snapshot of this crucial dubstep transformation.

Nevamis: Nevamis EP (Down South Dub, 2008)

Pure rave-step of the kind that uses wobble-bass as a massive, underlying propulsion throughout, but never as actual rhythmic or melodic focus. The wobble is there, deliciously heavy and rubbery, but the infectious, sky-soaring, almost hands-in-the-air-trancey rave riffs are the most obvious hooks. Not an example of the wobble aesthetic being cultivated on its own terms, in other words, but a brilliant demonstration that it can just as well be used as a catalyst for creating exhilarating new kinds of straightforward rave music.

Akira Kiteshi: Pinball (Black Acre, 2009)

With his fake japanese name and colourful sound, scottish producer Akira Kiteshi was one of the most promising of the early wobble producers, yet after a couple of minor anthems  (this being the best of them) he seemed to change strategy and went into more experimental poststep territory as A.K.Kids. Not a completely surprising development, given that “Pinball”, in all its freaked out rave madness, was almost dysfunctionally twisted, and had a sharp 8bit-edge not a million miles from the rave/poststep/bitstep-intersection (Eprom, Taz, Suckafish P. Jones), while the b-side, “Noglitch part 1&2”, pretty much went all the way into woozy, wonky territory. Eventually, perhaps stimulated by the Skrillex' succes, he have now returned more or less to the wobble fold with the Industrial Avenue-album, which contains some good tracks (both full on wobble and some more poststep-leaning ones), but nevertheless is a bit... well... uneven overall. The irresistible insanity of “Pinball” is still the best he's ever done.

Ebola + Face 2 Face: Galash (Lo Dubs, 2010)

An odd but really excellent EP where former breakcore producer Ebola remixes “Galash” by Face 2 Face – sort of a french afro-grime vibe combined with heavy wobble-sludge, and delivers three more tracks with an awesome combination of grumbling, grunting zombie rhythms and borderline-melodic bass-riffs, embellished with samples, rave-effects and 8 bit bleeps for good measure. It's not exactly your “archetypical” wobble, even though it's not that easy to put your finger on what gives it its unusual edge, but on the other hand, wobble is definitely what is. As such it's a brilliant example of the degrees of invention actually possible within the wobble aesthetic, at least at the time.

Downlink/Vaski: Biohazard/Zombie Apocalypse (Rottun, 2010)

Usually I'm not a big fan of the Rottun-end of the wobble scene, it always seemed to be the part of it most clearly just being contemporary drum'n'bass-producers joining the bandwagon, complete with painfully clichéd techstep-meets-heavy-metal graphics. Nevertheless, this split 12” is surprisingly good, with inventive, constantly morphing riffs and ridiculous, almost playfully pompous fanfare-melodies. As brilliant a mastery of rave dynamics as any.

Doctor P: Big Boss/ Black Books (Circus, 2010)

There has to be some Doctor P in this list, but I guess by now “Sweet Shop” is so ubiquitous that it doesn’t make much sense to choose that - it’s pretty much the wobble anthem. You’d think Doctor P would use his success to produce a heap of “Sweet Shop”-clones, but his output is actually pretty slim, with just two proper 12”s and a bunch of split records/collaborations/compilation tracks. Perhaps because of this, the quality is really high, the “Sweet Shop” b-side “Gargoyles” is pretty much just as good as the hit itself, as is both tracks here. All remnants of “proper”, brooding half step-dubstep are completely gone, and instead we’re treated to a rollercoaster ride of catchy melody shrapnel, constantly interchanged with hysteric midrange-noise and bleep cascades, and driven by an almost rock-like beat that is so straightforward that it’s practically unnoticed. As rave, and as now, as it gets.

Borgore: Borgore Ruined Dubstep part 2 (Buygore, 2010)

I’ve always wanted to like Borgore, I love how he goes out to deliberately annoy the old guard of “real dubstep” defenders and even takes pride in having “ruined” the sound (all in the punk/“it’s just not music”-tradition), and it would be great if this guy, so universally hated by all the right thinking people, was actually great. Sadly, as a wobble producer, he is often a bit mediocre, his riffs not really different from any other run-of-the-mill-wobble-producer, and what have mostly made him noticed is his overall funny/“provocative” image, which, except for the dubstep ruining part, is actually pretty lame. The predictably ironic gangster/misogyny-image have never really been that funny, and by now it’s such an old and tired trick that it’s utterly embarrassing. Still, Borgore at least made one really great EP, so he can be included here, as he really ought to. 

Interestingly, what makes Borgore Ruined Dubstep part 2 great is not in the full on wobble department that most people associate with the guy. The A side, “Kinder Surprise” - a collaboration with Tomba - is a nice enough metallic wobble attack, but not exactly exceptional. Instead, it’s the two, slightly poststep-ish b side tracks, “Afro Blue” and “Money”, that really makes the difference. They’re still using typical wobble-tricks (mostly melodies being played with those tearing mid range sounds), but at the same time they’re doing completely new and unexpected things with them. “Afro Blue” is a really unique track, almost a sort of wobble torch song, but not in the usual pop sampling sense: Instead it uses an odd, dragging melancholic melody (not completely unlike those amazing early Darkstar-singles), oscillating between introverted sadness and explosive mid range aggression. “Money”, on the other hand, is almost a sort of circus-wobble, combining a cartoon-silly (and irresistibly catchy) 8 bit melody with metallic grunts and ramshackle beats (plus annoying ironic rap at the beginning, but that’s easily ignored). Intriguing to ponder what would have happened if Borgore had dedicated himself to this style instead, seems a bit like a lost potential.

Tomba: Brace for Impact EP (Buygore, 2011)
Interestingly, Borgores much less know co-conspirator Tomba did the pure, full-on wobble-horror much better, at least on this little gem of an EP, a tour de force of hyperkinetic riffs and all sorts of thrilling rave tricks. The title track is overflowing with almost trance-like euphoria, “The Goblin” is all metal-gothic gloomcore-pomp, while “Seven” is the greatest example I’ve heard so far of the weird pairing of smarmy pop vocals and punishing power-wobble - something that have become increasingly popular all over the scene the last couple of years (and which is, of course, a big part of Skrillex’ sound). In particular, the ep excels at the “grunt-step” wobble variety, like a horde of towering, Godzilla-sized pig-robots marching through a nocturnal megapolis, crushing everything in their way while puking out cascades of green ooze through writhing hydraulic cyber-snouts. I guess people who look down upon this stuff - which is ridiculous to be sure, but also so far out and exaggerated that it’s absolutely exhilarating - deserve their boring retro garage.  
    

Silent Frequencies/Document One: Game Over EP (Neostep, 2011)

A split sitting somewhere between the overly melodic style of the Circus-camp and a more straightforward wobble architecture, and the result is just incredibly great. Especially the two Document One tracks are arguably some of the best, most thorough rave I’ve ever heard, in any genre, as relentlessly inventive and explosive as anything by Hyper-on Experience or the early Prodigy.

Tim Ismag & Ibenji: Shock Out/ Choose Your Destiny (Wicky Lindows, 2011)

I could fill half of this list with Wicky Lindows-records, the label have put out an impressive series of releases which combine the most catchy and hard hitting wobble-tricks with some of the most ridiculously bombastic and complex arrangements out there. 'Nuum-purists would sniff and dismiss it as busy, inauthentic pseudo-rave, as “fake” as IDM-drill'n'bass, unlike the “true” and “real” sound of the “streets”. Even the label name, referencing Aphex Twins “Windowlicker”, seems to make this point. But I've never bought the idea that 'nuum music should be “real” and “true”, that's the kind of rhetoric used around the most mind numbingly dull legacy detroit techno, and whenever I hear it used I know there's a good chance that the stuff being defended (“real dubstep”, retro garage) will be hopelessly boring and tasteful, while the stuff being attacked could very well be fun and exciting, which is just the case here. 

The Windowlicker-reference makes sense in a completely different way: That track came out in 1999, and for a lot of the current wobble-step producers, it might simply be one of their first exposures to far out electronic madness. Sure, it was sort of a parody, but if you didn't know the context and history, and just was exposed to it out of the blue, it might very well have seemed world shattering (and the “real stuff” would perhaps seem a bit pedestrian if you only came around to it afterwards). As always, it's a sign of health that new generations doesn't have a submissively humble relationship to the great (real or imagined) ancestors, it's moving things forwards that they don't know the “right” classics and don't try to pay homage to them. And in any case, the element of insane, unhinged bombast and complexity have always been a part of rave music: With machines you don't have to be a prog virtuoso to make that kind of over-the-top stuff, anything can be done, so why not go all the way. In this way, the best Wicky Lindows-tracks remind me (again) of Hyper-on Experience, not by sounding like them, but by having the same sort of mad, exhilarating inner logic, a paradoxical combination of locked-on-target-linearity and constantly morphing, ridiculously baroque structures. This one is a great example.