Tracks
Ekstrak: "Mass Dampers"
(2007)
By Philip Guppy | 31 January 2008
Is the sunshine creeping in on dubstep a little? If ever there was a subgenre that sat flagellating in the basement with its old 45's and 12"'s it was this one; if you take the dark out of dubstep are you even talking about dubstep anymore?
Hang onto your hats: Ekstrak just cracked a window. There's no question that this is all relative; we're not talking about a switch to the Archies here, but there's definitely a dose of Vitamin D at work in Ekstrak's "Mass Dampers." Given that the man himself claims a love of Jackie Mitoo and Simian (alongside such curveballs as Sepultura and PWEI), there really should be no surprise that he's not waist deep in the Thames silt with Burial or weaving lowlight folk into the mesh like Various. "Mass Dampers" is made to make bodies move.
Ekstrak has tuned this slow-stepping skank to be solar at its centre. While the base sense is bright and rasta vocal samples ride the undulation, the weary dub oil applied rigors the glow with venom (take that as snake or Spidey, both are an effective fit), polarising the digidub pulse that arcs out like decaying radio waves from the RKO mast. "Mass Dampers" may still drip and echo, with a thick bottom end that attempts to extract your innards with a low bass slip, but there's hip room built in and a fat lipped grin where a grimace should be. It's not like this is a novel development -- we've had impish waves breaking these waters before -- but it's good to see more light bleeding in. Despite the seemingly limited scope for change and variety at the core of dubstep, there are ructions being created that suggest progression in its ranks. Yes, it's likely that as a genre it will have to yield to other influences to truly develop and avoid stagnation, which may be a significant barrier given the resistance shown by some to the greater palatability laid on by acts such as Various. That's all bullshit self-defeating posturing at heart anyway. Elitism counts for nothing if the end result becomes rote, and let's face it, you can cream together anything as long as the end product satisfies.
Hang onto your hats: Ekstrak just cracked a window. There's no question that this is all relative; we're not talking about a switch to the Archies here, but there's definitely a dose of Vitamin D at work in Ekstrak's "Mass Dampers." Given that the man himself claims a love of Jackie Mitoo and Simian (alongside such curveballs as Sepultura and PWEI), there really should be no surprise that he's not waist deep in the Thames silt with Burial or weaving lowlight folk into the mesh like Various. "Mass Dampers" is made to make bodies move.
Ekstrak has tuned this slow-stepping skank to be solar at its centre. While the base sense is bright and rasta vocal samples ride the undulation, the weary dub oil applied rigors the glow with venom (take that as snake or Spidey, both are an effective fit), polarising the digidub pulse that arcs out like decaying radio waves from the RKO mast. "Mass Dampers" may still drip and echo, with a thick bottom end that attempts to extract your innards with a low bass slip, but there's hip room built in and a fat lipped grin where a grimace should be. It's not like this is a novel development -- we've had impish waves breaking these waters before -- but it's good to see more light bleeding in. Despite the seemingly limited scope for change and variety at the core of dubstep, there are ructions being created that suggest progression in its ranks. Yes, it's likely that as a genre it will have to yield to other influences to truly develop and avoid stagnation, which may be a significant barrier given the resistance shown by some to the greater palatability laid on by acts such as Various. That's all bullshit self-defeating posturing at heart anyway. Elitism counts for nothing if the end result becomes rote, and let's face it, you can cream together anything as long as the end product satisfies.