Dubstep, Evolved

2011 has already seen releases by mainstream mainstays from total opposite ends of the pop-spectrum, Radiohead and Britney Spears, that exhibit dubstep beats and characteristics, so I feel like it's time to talk about a fledgling genre learning to fly.

I'll start with a disclaimer.... I'm no expert, or even, in most cases, a fan of electronic dance music. I approached the genre in the last few years from the alternate angle of a fan of ambient/experimental noise. In it's early iterations, DJ's and producers' experimentations with bass frequencies and beat echos laid the groundwork for a dark, new, mostly-instrumental genre. Artists like Burial and Mount Kimbie fine tuned those atmospherics into an art form that defined, and set apart, the genre. And now, in 2011, we have witnessed the arrival of fully formed genre palatable for mass consumption. In addition to the previously mentioned 'dubstep-influenced' records, there have also been at least two exceptional, fully-formed, pop records released by dubstep producers already in 2011.

Ghostpoet is a producer, who's beats and tone are unmistakably dubstep. He's also a rapper who combines elements of grime with an almost lazy, intoxicated, or disaffected delivery. The result is a vocally driven, hip-hop album by an artist steeped in the world of dubstep. It's also fantastic, and representative of what's happening on the frontier of the music world in a way that records by artists trying to incorporate that "cutting-edge element" into their calculated repertoire can never achieve. Start with "I Just Don't Know" and "Survive It" and get hooked.
James Blake is another young dubstep producer who decided to throw vocals into the forefront of his 2011 release. As impressive as Blake's string of mostly-instrumental EP releases has been, his Self-Titled full-length 2011 release is a revelation. Blake channels Justin Vernon circa-Bon Iver, Antony Hegarty, and even, at times, D'angelo with his falsetto crooning over his own dubstep production. It's about as good a debut LP as I've heard. It sounds like right now, it sounds like the future, it sounds like the past, it sounds like soul, it sounds like a singer-songwriter, it sounds like experimentation, and it sounds so comforting and safe..... it sounds like the narrow spot between our world and the next.