Mutant offspring of dub and techno are ravaging the landscape, raping your children’s ears at half-speed, doing the slow motion Bigfoot shuffle on dark dance floors where disembowelled bass bins stand sad and punished, one to a corner, the beaten byproduct of an increasingly somnambulistic life cycle.
Montreal promoters play host this weekend to a couple of groundbreaking artists based out of San Francisco, representing the best of North America’s contribution to the slow and bass-heavy dubstep genre that has captured the imagination of DJs, producers and potheads the world over.
Ottawa-born DZ was raised on hip-hop, discovered drum’n'bass in the ’90s, and exploded in the dubstep world with tracks appearing on the Hotflush, Black Acre and True Tiger labels since 2007, ranging from a light, dancey retool of Bobby Caldwell’s What You Won’t Do for Love to the floor-punching aggression of dubstep monster Down. He spins with resident Wally and special guest Lazerface at Passeport’s Forward weekly tonight, April 16.
"My main influences have always been old school hip-hop, hardcore and breaks," DZ told Lalla Land. "Believe it or not, I don’t listen to a lot of dubstep on my own time. I started digging drum’n'bass in about ’98 when the sounds started getting darker and more bass-heavy. Dubstep grabbed me because of the similarities I heard between the breaks that I used to love, the swagger that the music had in the halftime, and the DIY aspect of the scene and the punters.
"Coming from the free-rave days, the concept of dubstep and ‘pushing the reset button’ with the music was a breath of fresh air to me, especially in the studio, but also gave me a chance to flex my DJing much further than I had been able to since the late ’90s. I don’t see many similarities between the two anymore."
Born Dean J. Grenier in the San Francisco bay area, DJG has a sound that hollers at King Tubby or Lee "Scratch" Perry, its faraway calls for freedom referencing roots reggae through a sea of echoing eddies. A track that nestles comfortably in the warm niche between techno, dub and step, his cut Bunker is just about the illest shit I’ve heard all year.
"It all goes back to dub for me," confirms Grenier. "I love dub reggae music madly: King Tubby, Mad Professor, Scientist. Dub is not only a sound palette but it is also an idea, a way of approaching music, using space, echo, bass, delay and the sound system. Beyond that, dub and reggae also have a feeling for me. Just as I am influenced by the tension and energy of techno I feel the soulfulness and spirituality of dub and reggae. I’ve always loved the aesthetic of dub reggae in other forms of electronic music, like jungle, Meat Beat Manifesto or Deadbeat. I’ve also been greatly influenced by the U.K. digidub artists such as Vibronics, Iration Steppas, Alpha and Omega, and so on."
DJG and MC Jacob Cino perform at Komodo Dubs Saturday night (April 18); Montreal DJs Hosta and R-Star complete the bill ($10-$15 at SAT).
