Skream if you want to go faster

Skream is on a roll, there is no other way to explain him #nowplaying four different times on 22tracks’ dubstep playlist. Two tracks are from his free downloadable Freeizm series of zip files, one is his current UK Top Ten hit with Magnetic Man, and the other is a jungle throwback taken from his new album Outside the Box.

I blogged about Magnetic Man a few weeks ago, so if you missed that go here. Suffice to say that “I Need Air” entered the UK chart at number ten last weekend, and that the album is coming out October 4. Besides Angela Hunte, who sings on “I Need Air”, the album features Ms Dynamite, Katy B and John Legend.

On Outside the Box, Skream’s second solo album coming out next week, you can hear Cali rapper Murs, UK synth pop star La Roux and a certain Sam Frank, who sings on the record’s potential chart hit, “Where You Should Be”. Skream is definitely pushing for a crossover on his new album, but more in a musical sense. Unlike other young dance producers, he is (thank goodness) not pursuing some kind of muso credibilty with jazz odysseys or out-of-place indie rock vocalists. He’s doing something more dangerous than that: Outside the Box sees Skream broadening dubstep’s sound to include more a melodic, European sensibility. You can even hear this is in “Listenin’ to the Records on My Wall”, a track that references the hardcore jungle sounds of Skream’s (early) youth.

Here’s a record young Oliver may have have heard as 9-year-old. Like “Listenin’…”, J Majik‘s classic “Your Sound” (1995) cuts up the famous “Amen” break. The track was included on Grooverider’s Hardstep Selection Vol. II, a compilation by pioneering jungle DJ Grooverider, who was friends with Skream’s older brother Hijak, also a DJ/producer.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x5HifHi-eww

As much as I love dubstep, I don’t think it ever gets as devestating as this. And although I’m not interested in a revival, it is interesting to hear a young producer like Skream getting influences like these, as well as others, on board. If you want “proper’ dubstep, you can download his Freeizm collections. I’m looking forward to the Magnetic Man album. “The fear of selling out is always in the back of your mind but you grow up and get over it,” MM member Benga recently told Britain’s Metro newspaper. “Nothing stays underground forever. If we don’t do this, someone else will and they might not have done all the grafting and groundwork.”

Let’s stay outside the box.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1WUZf0JmBsU

Calibre: a personal drum ’n bass exorcism

I’ll come right out of the gate and admit that I have a troubled relationship with the musical genre known as drum ‘n bass. You see, I used to be a hardcore junglist back in the mid-to-late 1990s. After hip-hop in the ’80s this was the second time I could fully throw my weight behind a musical movement and feel part of what felt like a great leap forward. Even when the first generation of jungle/drum ‘n bass supporters lost interest (around 1998), I remained faithful. I loved 2-step garage when it replaced drum ‘n bass as the sound of the London underground dance music scene, but I was still hearing terrific new d&b records by the likes of Dillinja, Bad Company, Roni Size and Digital.

Even so, at some point, around 2002 or 2003, enough was enough, even for me. The music had just become too predictable, rhythmically unadventurous and one-dimensionally loud. Almost from one week to the next, I stopped buying and even listening to drum ‘n bass. It may well sound pathetic, but I felt personally betrayed by a style that had previously flung itself head-first into the future and had now made itself utterly redundant. The simple fact that drum ‘n bass is still around in 2010 baffles me, frankly.

But it is, and I’m not above admitting that every once in a while a record pops up in Mindmapper’s 22tracks drum ‘n bass playlist that gets me going. “Devil Inside” by Calibre (pictured) & ST Files, which is #nowplaying, is such a record. Both producers have been around for quite a while, in fact, ST Files’ first release came out back in 1992. “Devil Inside” is what we used to call a roller, with the rhythm track rolled out in a smooth groove. It features a beautiful, minimal minor chord piano melody that I like a lot, and what sounds like mobile phone interference.

For contrast, here’s a Calibre remix I used to love back in the dark ages AKA 2002. To be honest, I think I like “Devil Inside” better.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fgPC5Bu4h8w