zoopersound

Weekly Wrap Up #1

Januar 19, 2006Dubstep,Grime

After contemplating for quite a while what I should do to keep the blog up to date and organized, I’ve decided to wrap up all grime/dubstep tings in a handy (virtual) box each week from now on. Expect reviews, event announcements, links to mixes, blog trackbacks and so on… Which of course doesn’t mean that I’ll stop writing individual post about these topics.

zooper.events

Two Three dubstep- and grime-related events to check out in Berlin this weekend:

Friday, 20.01.06
Dangerous Drums meets Beat It!
23:00 h – Watergate
Main Floor („Tech Funk“): Meat Katie (Lot 49, Kingsize, UK), Circuit Breaker (Viper Jive, Lot 49, Berlin), Fortsch (Watergate, Berlin)
Water Floor (Dubstep & Electro): DJ Pinch (Tectonic, Subtext, UK), Warlock (Rag and Bone, UK), DJ Vela (Dangerous Drums, Berlin), ED 2000 (Dangerous Drums, Berlin)

Saturday, 21.01.06
Revolution N°5
103 Club, Falckensteinstr., X-berg
Ras Kwame (BBC 1Xtra, London), MC Fumin (Fire Camp, London), MC Tor (London), San Gabriel (Live Demo, Berlin), Sick Girls (Berlin)

Saturday, 21.01.06
Antifa-Soli-Party
22:00 h – K9, Kinzigstr. 9, Friedrichshain
Dubstep/Grime: 2krazy & j-trex (Freakcamp), Katana (Dangerous Drums)
Drum’n’Bass: Bumper (Audiomassive), Randy Reger, Zirkulardynamik

zooper.news

Biggest news this week is that Plasticman has finally given in to the pressure of Richie Hawtin’s lawyers and decided to chance his name to… The Plastician. Read more about this and his move to BBC Radio 1 here or read this rather old (2003), but still interesting interview that touches on the name issue as well.

zooper.blogs

DJ /rupture unveils the origin of Slew Dem’s „Joyride“ beat and comes up with a very remarkable vocal version of Lady Saw on the original riddim. Check out another version of the riddim here!

zooper.radio

The first radio show of the week award goes to last weeks „Dubstep Wars“ special on Radio 1’s „Breezblock“. Mary Anne Hobbs had gathered some of dubstep’s most important figures in her studio who provided exclusive dj mixes (loaded with nuff dubs, trust me) and gave background information on the scene. A thread about the show can be found here, some nice photos there, and since the „listen again“ feature on the BBC has expired on Monday, I’ve posted a MP3-recording of the show here. (Just to let you know, mates: it’s a rip of the webstream (at 128 kbps) and not recorded from DAB!)

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Grime & Beyond

Januar 05, 2006Grime,Propaganda

Cameo @ GRIMETIME – Foto: © Voco Me!

Grime geht ins Theater! Im Rahmen der Reihe „Beyond Belonging – Migration“ veranstalten die GRIMETIME-Macher im „Hebbel am Ufer (HAU)“ einen Showcase mit Resident-DJ Cameo und den MC s Purple (der auf der gerade erschienenen Mix-CD „Eye Of The Tiger Vol. 1“ gefeatured wird), L-Man (N Double A) und Rugrat (Musical Mob). Lokaler Support kommt u.a. von Jahcoozi (Kitty Yo), Quio (AGF/Undergound Essentials) und G-Serve (Twen FM/Underground Essentials). Hingehen!

Grime & Beyond/GRIMETIME London–Berlin

plus dj’s
G-SERVE (Twen FM/Underground Essentials)
GAUCHO (Broken Bootlegs)

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Ten Tunes For 2005

Dezember 22, 2005Dubstep,Grime,Other Styles

Tune of the year:

Skream: „Midnight Request Line“ (Tempa)

The obvious choice. With „Request Line“, Skream has not only singlehandedly bridged the gap between dubstep and grime, but also gained recognition from other electronic music scenes. And this guy sits on loads of brilliant material which is still waiting to be released. (Still worth checking out: Skream mix and interview from August on Blackdown’s blog.)

2. Jammer: “Merkle Man” (White)/Bear Man: “Drinking Bear” (White) – Good to see that grime MCs don’t take themselves too serious anymore. (I’ve got the whole “murking/merkle” business now – but what the hell do “neckle” and “seckle” mean? Can anybody fill me in, please?)

3. Kano: “They Don’t Dance No More (4×4 Remix)” (679) – Whatever the haters may say, this is an awesome dancefloor remix. It’s uplifting, it’s bumpy, it’s the best 4×4 tune of the year.

4. Distance: “Empire” (Hotflush) – Outstanding „breakstep“ track. (Most of the Toasty releases have also to be mentioned, especially „Guesswork“.)

5. Rossi B & Luca feat. N.A.S.T.Y.: “Run 4 Cover” (More 2 Da Floor) – Not just another remake of Damian Marley’s “Welcome To Jamrock”, but a goddamn heavy yardie-style banger. (Although the N.A.S.T.Y. boys’ one-dimensional gun lyrics (”When it comes to knives, here we have many, When it comes to guns, here we have many…”) are be a bit annoying.)

6. Dexplicit: “Bullacake” (More 2 Da Floor) – Another producer who has left his mark in 2005, creating devastating riddims like Fire Camp’s “No” or the remix of Akala’s “Roll Wid’ Us”. Shows his stylistic versatility on this massive 4×4 bassline anthem.

7. Ruff Sqwad: „Underground“ (Ruff Sqwad) – Let them show you how they do it in the underground…

8. DJ Narrows: “Hardcore (Take Me Higher)” (Storming Productions) – Forget about the a-side (”Kick Daan Ya Door”), which is basically the same uninspired “acid garage” stuff Narrows already came up with years ago. But “Hardcore (Take Me Higher)” truely lives up to its name: A great ‘ardkore jam sounding like from waaay back in the day and destroying any dancefloor. (Also on the old school tip and banging: “Take Me” by Dubchild, on Storming Productions as well.)

9. Recloose: „Dust“ (Peacefrog) – There’s a whole world outside of the post-garage continuum, and someplace in the southern hemisphere (to be precise, in New Zealand) there lives a young man from Detroit who created this fuuunky, fuuunky piece of afrobeat. It has a bumping bass drum, a funky guitar lick, hypnotizing horn stabs and everybody’s favourite vocalist Joe Dukie (of „Fat Freddy’s Drop“ fame) on the microphone. What else could you want?

10. Shy FX & T-Power: “Sheets” (Digital Soundboy) – Maybe you’ll think I’m completely nuts, but anyone who has the guts to turn a cheesy little slow jam like “Between The Sheets” into a drum’n’bass monster gets my both thumbs up! And yes, I own the Isley Brother’s original recording as well as Biggie’s “Big Poppa”. You know what I’ll close my NYE set with this year…

If you’re looking for extensive reviews of the year in grime and dubstep, you are (once again) strongly recommended to head over to Martin „Blackdown“ Clark’s site. Until the end of the year Martin has opened up the sacred webspace of his blog to artists and fellow bloggers from both scenes for their first-hand accounts of the last twelve month. New reviews are being posted daily (the participant’s list already includes Plasticman, Burial, Skepta and Kode 9).

And as we’re at it: London’s leading Pirate station Rinse FM has finally managed to restore its infamous online stream and promises to keep it up permanently. If that ain’t a good look-out for the two-double-o-six, then what?

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