Review: Hektagon - London

Before I get serious, a couple of things to set straight;

a) I am not the nicest guy in the world. I am usually grumpy when I wake up, have rather obscene opinions of virtually everything, and babble to myself incoherently the majority of the time, usually disgruntled, making me look like I have been testing crack lab concoctions on myself.

b) I am not General Major Killjoy, I usually like a laugh as much as the next guy. Or a good tune, a good rave, etc. etc.

However, half the time I post on here it seems I have donned my tartan slippers, and sank back into my angry chair.



There is something holding me back from liking this album, and I really should, in the whole 'support the underground' way. I have found it too flawed after listening to the likes of 2562 and Martyn's albums though.

The first two proper tracks on the album, Old Days and Night Life, plod along with rolling basslines and melodies, but there seems to be nothing to stop the first two just being filler tracks, good, but with no impressionable qualities whatsoever.

Whoever Cameo is, I want to kill him. This Is London is by far the worst on the album. A painful dubstep/grime crossover which seems forced at best. The tune isn't too bad overall, but the bass stabs seemed somewhat generic. But Cameo, this shitbag, is such a bog-standaard grime mc "spittin' ova da trak" It de-values the track entirely. Wasteful lyrics wreck an average track.

Cue a forgetable interlude, and yet another track, before we reach Tokyo. Good sub-bass stabs, and nice airy melody which stands out as one of the best on the album... Until 2.20 when a pointless melodic piano intersects, before going back into the swing of things.

An average stab at a C64 based track follows, 'Crying' is alright, but again doesn't quite grab my full attention. A few more following, but again not great.

My personal favourite is pretty much right at the end. 'Inside The Tube' is great, it has the melody which several of the other tracks seemed to lack, with high pitched synth stabs and a sweeping bassline. Really nice track.

Overall then, this is a good effort which just doesn't hit the right notes for me at all. Maybe it is because my reviewing skills have been jaded (as explained before) by 2562 and Martyn this year. But I cannot see this going all that far. I wanted this to slap me in the face as a major contender in the scene, and I really do hope Hektagon will go far in the future, because the album does display he has a lot of skills, but has not captured my attention unfortunately.

Coincidentally, I put 'Dinosaur' by 2562 on after listening, and this confirms that:
-In a similar style to 'Inside the tube'
-My style of dubstep at the moment
-That normal dubstep is perhaps a little stagnant

6/10

ps. The Ultimate Jizzbiscuit tag is only on here because of Cameo. What a jizzbiscuit.

pps. Check my Interview with Hektagon here

Pre-Pub quiz Track Of The Day

I have not been able to get this out of my head at all for the past couple of weeks or so, it's just beautiful.



This is from Subeena, a relatively new signing to Planet Mu, and a shit-hot tip for the future. This is a lot more relaxed and downbeat than her usual outputs, but by god is she good. Look out for an interview on Kmag soon ;)

Follow the bad girl *here*

Preview - Dub To Dubstep

Another Piece what I done for Kmag... See you at the front!




Channel One Sound System have been an integral part of roots, dub, reggae, and have broken down many barrier between music for a long time... 30 years to be exact.



Starting out in 1979, set up by brother Mikey Dread and Jah T. have traversed across the entire nation, and indeed 8 other European countries, to bring heavyweight bass and dancefloor business to the masses. Having played Glastonbury and the Big Day Out tour in Australia and New Zealand, Channel One Sound System are one of the most recognized and established veterans within the game.

Their long-awaited 'Dub to Dubstep' tour kicks off later this week, marking the beginning of a six-date showcase of one of the world's leading music genres collaboration between the scene's leading artists and DJs. The tour starts in Leeds on 28 November and will visit Birmingham, Bristol and London.

This tour has been brought together by Vagabondz and the ever-hard working Punch Records; the tour has a lot on offer. Mikey Dread will act as the selector, with Ras Kaylib on the mic. If that wasn't enough then The Uplifter, Jazzsteppa, Kromestar & RSD will bring the bassweight. In fact so much bassweight your knees are guaranteed to be turned into jelly by the end of the night.

Jazzsteppa should need no mention whatsoever. They have been making waves in the scene for the past couple of years now. A live infusion of dubstep with hints of roots and reggae, it is always a live show to be remembered.



The Uplifter brings a whole new experience in roots and dub, with percussion, collabs from guest vocalist and MCs, as well as animated art visuals spanned across the set.



BBC 1Xtra and Rinse resident Kromestar is a true don in the dubstep scene, heavy tune after heavy tune, and with releases such as Kalawanji, as well as outputs on Noppa, Southside Dubstars and Hotflush, has become one of the most respected dubstep artists on the scene.



Topped off by Rob Smith's RSD, who has previously collaborated with the likes of Massive Attack, and with more releases than you can shake a bass bin at. 2Kings, More Rockers, Punch Drunk, Tectonic and Grand Central but to name a few, the man is nothing short of a legend.

This is not a tour to miss, catch them smashing the dancefloor at the following;

* 28 November: Beaver Works, Leeds
* 3 December: The Rainbow, Birmingham
* 4 December: Trinity, Bristol
* 9 December: The Den, London
* 10 December: Digital, Brighton
* 12 December: Old Firestation, Bournemouth



Note: The Bristol leg is looking relativly stupid in the face at the moment... The addition of Gentlemen's Dub Club is no mean feat.

Quote of the Century

This is poetry at it's finest. Plain simple. thanks to Ned for finding this on YouTube during the Portcullis Annual Gangsta Rap Off (PAGRO)

Yes We Finally Seen A Black President..Wish Pac could See This. We gotta Keep Changing For the Good So Our Kids will Be Good

Major Lazer - Keep It Going Louder

Today I have not been well. As per usual, this was self inflicted pain, a hangover a tad unjust. So when I woke up I was alerted to this video. I have been pondering all day about this video as a result.

Major Lazer "Keep it Going Louder" from Eric Wareheim on Vimeo.

First off, credit where due, Eric Wareheim has done a major (geddit?) job on this video, it's great. An onslaught of colour indeed, and seems heavily borrowed from Chris Cunningham's Windowlicker, but for a more LSD-addled audience. Very impressive.

But who-on-earth commissioned this bag of wank to be released in the first place? This track is indeed one of the worst of 2009 by a good country mile. It's painful, autotune, botched up wank. Served on a plate of steaming shit.

This was commented by Tekton on Hijack, and is a good summary, before I launch into a rather typical rant.

Major Lazer are 99% utter toss.

The refixes are way better then the album and as you say the crash of genres is awful. its taken the worst of kuduro/bmore/bashment etc and made a fuck ugly baby.

Theres some wicked stuff in those genres and this misses the lot.

Major Lazer seem like they are trying their utmost to wreck their beloved genres. Why Diplo is wasting his time trying to undo all of his service to the dance scene is beyond me, forcing out turgid shite hand in hand with Switch. The track made me feel so sick, it has been accountable for making my hangover 95% more painful for the next few hours as I struggle to ponder why someone would try and autotune Bashment.

I believe an email should be sent out to Adam & Joe to re-start Vinyl Justice. This is just unacceptable.

Agro 20/11/09

A night, not some more pent up rage being vented from me.

I may not go out anywhere near as much as I did before. I was burning the midnight oil with a flamethrower about two years ago, so I just don't have the energy anymore. Lame.

However, that does not stop me from recognising a good night when there is one going.

This was one.



Got there around 11.30, only to have my head shattered by a wall of bass in room 2. Apparently the dj's were Silly Tango b2b Jon Five. It was a nice amalgamation of possibly the most bass fuelled dubstep known to man, the stuff which isn't amazingly creative, but powerful enough to shatter your hip in several places.

Oddly enough, the sound at Timbuk2 was pretty fucking amazing by most standards. Loud? Check. Clarity? Good. The extra rig is usually a hindrance in that place, and the sound is usually awful there, but no such happenstance tonight, which was a relief.

On to Lethal... Now I can't call myself a music buff when it comes to darkside dnb, but that was some good shit. As long as my gabba fist is occasionally in the air then it's a good reaction, but with enough melody to stop my mind from collapsing. (Which had evidently been the case for a fair few spectators surrounding me)

XTM was interesting. I could not decipher whether it was terrible djing or interesting broken dnb tracks, but the first 15 minutes were an assault of beats so broken that I my inner grandad could not take. Very interesting, just too much for me. I did notice that he had clearly brought down a friend of his to act as Rave-master general for the set. Pouncing up and down on the dancefloor, almost in aggressive way, forcing everyone to put their joints at a serious risk. Towards the end of the set, with hints of drumfunk, but mainly darkside, it developed into a nice groove, but not instantaneously memorable.

Benofficial is a great local dj, not just going on the Duhbstep tip, but with a fantastic infusion of minimal techno, normal techno, and the highlights of the aforementioned genre, just a massive shame he was clashing with Panacea.

I want to at this point write up Panacea's performance, but there is no worth. Whatsoever. Everyone knows Panacea is stupid good live. There was never any doubt. So gabba fists back in the air for the best part of a good hour whilst being utterly shocked at how abysmal his stupid haircut is. Please Mr. Mathis, just shave it off.

The Sect was probably the best though, such a punishing set of dnb, tune after tune was just epic. Then I realised my inner grandad had had enough and went into shutdown. Fuck. (coincidentally, my girlfriend's inner grandmother had also shutdown)

It was almost an achievement for me to have stayed almost the entire night, but alas, far too lame.

So in conclusion, great night, shit reviewer.

Writing for Matt-U

I promise I will be using this blog a lot more often from now on, whether it be my articles for magazines, seperate interviews, disparaging comments or just me ranting to a computer screen about life. Not that you needed to know that.

I must say, I had a lot of fun writing the article for Matt-U, the guy has been great support throughout the article, and with a lot of enthusiasm which previously I haven't encountered. The questions I originally sent him were of a bog-standard variety, but the answers provided were truly AWESOME.

I must give him his bit of worship from me, as this has really rejuvenated my love for writing, and can't wait to meet him in person. The article is a great read, and I feel like a 10-year-old on the build up to Christmas for the release of this article, even though it should be up on Kmag later today.

If you do not know, get to know.

http://www.myspace.com/mattudub

Interview with Desto

Here is my interview with Finnish dubstepper Desto, on life in Finland, C64, and ghetto bass sounds. The interview can be found on Kmag --->

Finland isn't the first place you would automatically associate with the dubstep scene, but after releases from Tes La Rok and Clouds, combined with an ever expanding scene in Helsinki, Finnish dubstep is not only on the rise, but has developed its own unique sound in the process.

Desto has been making waves in the scene recently, championed by the likes of Joker and Vex'd, not to mention lots of airtime on Rinse.fm. Desto's music is heavily driven by C64 based melodies, and crushing electronic bass lines. With new releases coming out on both Ramp and Noppa, now was the perfect time to chat with Desto about his releases, and the scene in Finland as a whole.

How did the dubstep scene in Finland kick off?

A handful of people were into it in '06. It kicked off with a few squat parties in Helsinki and moved to a couple of slowly growing club nights like Slam It! run by Tes La Rok and Dead-O of Clouds and Alas run by Teeth & RRKK.

Some of the guys were attending Forward and DMZ parties at this early stage and brought back some of the vibe which was then reinterpreted in Helsinki nights. Early on we had N-Type, Chef and Pinch over and these were some of their very first gigs outside the UK.

A big part of the crowd early on was producers and DJs who were into dubstep and the DJ / producer scene kicked off nicely out here. Notably the Finnish dubstep forum, Step Ahead, brought people together to share information and vibe off the sound which I feel has had a positive influence on our scene. Right now dubstep is getting more mainstream, new event organizers moving into the field from other genres. Production-wise Finland has a very nice level and loads of young producers coming up.

How has Finland developed its own style of dubstep?

I'd say the Finnish dubstep sound is the way it is because we've always made sure that the nights include all styles instead of just throwing in the most popular banger after banger. Back in '06 dubstep was the genre that invited producers to build around a loose framework of 140bpm and sub bass and bring in their own musical influences which appealed to us. Nothing in dubstep was "big" or "dirty". It was about the sound really. We just like to keep it diverse as we come from different musical backgrounds and histories.

Who were the earliest influences on your style of music?

I started listening to Kraftwerk's Computer World on my big brother's Walkman when I was three. That album is like nursery rhymes for me and I have a very strong bond with those songs. We also had the Commodore 64 that I nowadays use for my music, so C64 games were a big influence. I used to tape the tracks to cassette as a kid. As for dubstep, I come from a background of hip-hop, mid-to-late 90s jungle/DnB and IDM so hearing Loefah, Benga and the Mystikz tunes in '06 really had a strong impact.

Looking forward to the new releases?

I'm excited that the releases are finally coming out. The oldest tune on the Noppa release, Cold VIP, was signed two years ago so I guess the saying all good things take a little time applies here! It's cool to release on Tes' label as he's a very old friend and I've been feeling Ramp's output for some time.

I like the fact that both releases have extra effort put into the graphic design of the records too and the fact that they're vinyl releases is very important to me. I'd never go for a digital-only release.

Excluding Clouds and Tes La Rok, any other Finnish dubsteppers we should look out for?

There's a lot of good up-and-coming heads that will hopefully be heard of in years to come but right now Late and TMU are making music that really moves me.

Desto - Broken Memory - Ramp Recordings (RAMP027) by stholdings

Disappearing Reappearing Ink / Broken Memory is out on Ramp on November 30th while The Desto EP featuring Gremlinz / Wizard Of Wor / Dark Matter / Cold VIP will be released on Noppa in December.