Step To It!

get your groovin' shoes out.   i've worked up a new mix for you that i would like to share.  this one is a dubstep mix i made earlier in the week, but figure friday is a perfect day to put it up here.

when i stumbled across dubstep, it had many musical ideas that i found exciting.   i had loved drum and bass for a long time in high school but found it to grow stagnant. but i still loved the emphasis on rhythms and heavy bass lines.  then i heard the second burial album.  the slinky drum lines, swung so they weren't in perfect time. with dollops of bass whipped in for good measure.  the rainy melancholy was refreshing too since most drum and bass is/was macho posturing.

what really struck me were the percussive lines.  they weren't 4x4, kick drums on the quarter notes.  but more like hip hop. a 2x4 line skeleton. kick drums spaced out a little more sparsely, with snares to punctuate and give the measure some backbone.  give it a little rhythmic lean.  they were way more interesting that the breaks that i had grown tired of in drum and bass. each song was pretty unique.  obviously there were variations on similar themes, but there  is enough interesting deviations to show that there are some real beatsmiths out there.  and i can really appreciate that.

i'm pretty proud of this mix.  and it holds a special place for me because it's the first dubstep mix i've shared online yet. i've made mixes for friends and given them out, but never posted them.  i have my opinions of strong and weaker spots. but i would love to hear what you think.  i will say one of my favorite spots is around min 37, the transition between headhunter and boxcutter. the drums and weird sounds create this really cool moment.  i have a lot to learn in the ways of mixing dubstep but i always really enjoy it because it takes a different touch than techno and house, obviously because its not just lining up kick drums.  but out of it comes these really intricate percussive moments that really shine for me.  all of my favorites made it on here, scuba, martyn, shackleton, zomby, with some other exciting tracks and remixes sprinkled in.  one i downloaded from xlr8r.com another one i found while "cratedigging" on amazon.com.  another one was recommended by the excellent online store boomkat.

step to it mix 

various productions - thunnk

fever ray - when i grow up (scuba's up high remix)

spatial - 70707

f - the untitled dub

badawai vs. juakali - crows 

horace andy/ashley beedle - watch we (pinch remix)

2562 - morvern

starkey - striking distance

zomby - mu5h

headhunter - prototype

boxcutter - lunal

appleblim - vansan (T++ remix)

scuba - the upside (martyn's down mix)

shakleton - naked (shakleton - tin foil sky)

as always, the mix was made in real time.  i planned this playlist out more than my previous mixes. i think i could still tweak until its perfect, but then again, i know i'm my harshest critic, especially when it comes to these mixes.  so i release it unto you via teh interwebs.

enjoy.