Tag: dubstep
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On May 11th, I attended Warehouse on Watts for an event hosted by the Submersion Festival Team — The Rust and Aspire Higher. A stacked lineup including JEWELSSEA, Inspect3r, Nvctve, VCTRE, and Resonant Language. An experimental bass show with techno/club influences from JEWELSSEA and Inspect3r (1/2 of Nic Baker). After a promising weekend at Tipper’s Rendezvous, artists hit the road for individually curated lineups. The future of bass music, glitch hop specifically?
You may have heard the rumors of Tipper’s retirement— leaving traces of anxiety, “where does the scene go from here?” If you’ve been paying attention, artists like Resonant Language are practicing their lineup curations, moving towards individual tastes and promoting upcoming artists. If anybody’s paid attention, we’ve seen Resonant Language melding the dopest sounds in bass music: Nvctve, Onyx Garden, Richard Devine, Ooga, Alejo, and Crawdad Sniper are notable inclusions.
In a recent instagram story from Mickman, he hints at the changing landscape of contemporary glitch hop, saying “This I think will probably be the last time that a lot of us play together on the same show. We all love each other, ya know, me Detox, Schmoop, Res Lang, the boys….We’re not trying to play the same shows, where you just see all of us… we’re all super inspired by each other….but this next year its going to look a little different for each of us. We’re all stoked and glad that we can switch it up. It’s gonna be good, its a big moment for all of us, kinda scary! Everything happens for a reason, everything’s poetic, so yeah, we’re gonna crush this Mission (Ballroom) show, and then I think we’re not going to play again for a while… Everything’s getting a bit same samey, even for me!”
While this may dishearten fans who’ve grown accustomed to the Tipper n Friends reunion sets, I believe the glitch hop scene is headed for the New Age. Artists with opportunities to explore their roots, curating individual lineups, handpicking talent. An opportunity to express themselves and give back to the community.
How many artists was Tipper responsible for creating, not just through inspiration but handpicking artists for festivals? Artists are following in fashion, following the godfather in giving back to the community.
JEWELSSEA, Philly’s rising techno star, opened the floor — providing contrast to the night’s plethora of distorted neuro. Premiering earlier in May, REAL LOVERS ONLY!!, JEWELSSEA’S two- track EP highlights soul and R&B vocals, including Johnny Gill’s “There U Go”. The project’s upbeat, warm, and inviting— featuring intricate kick drums and soundscapes reminiscent of early nineties club. JEWELSSEA was an interesting choice for the glitch crowd, a choice made by Resonant Language. “I think Pat (Resonant Language) reached into his own pocket for JEWELSSEA. Especially after her boiler room style set,” says Vide, local Philly producer and half of Nic Baker.A success— the crowd maneuvered the dance floor early, as Warehouse on Watt’s is no stranger to techno, house, and UK garage. JEWELSSEA provides a charming, danceable energy emphasized by her own moves behind the decks. Looking for a night of grooving, vintage vibes, and an original perspective on dance music? Look no further. JEWELSSEA’S a treasure!
The transition from JEWELSSEA to local producer, Inspect3r, only made sense. Inspect3r, opposing half of bass techno alias Nic Baker, seized the decks for a combination of techno, neuro, UKG, drum and bass, the whole shebang. This was not my first Inspect3r set— a regular bookie of the rising Philadelphia bass scene, Inspect3r channels a versatile discography. Tracks like “No Chat/Kickin Hard” demonstrate a genre distorting ability, flipping dubstep into techno followed by experimental bass bangers from the Stuck In Motion EP. Insp3cter does it all, proven by crowd engagement time and time again, keeping you on the edge, changing tone on a whim, while staying true to his wide array of influences. Inspect3r’s about having a good time, a reflection of the party atmosphere curated during his sets. Have you caught a Nic Baker performance? What the hell are you doing? Highly recommend catching the Vide + Inspect3r combo for Baltimore club and techno-breakbeat inspired mayhem. We’re looking forward to the Submersion Festival appearance!
Nvctve stole the stage for a debut performance, shattering expectations with unique stances on halftime and dubstep. Nvctve’s mechanical, unpredictable, and experimental approach to bass production are authentic contributions to a genre saturated with similar sound design. Gaining the attention of Subtronic’s Cyclops Recordings, Nvctve isn’t shy to the spotlight, however this was a debut show, and honestly, you’d never have known! Dancing, smiling, amping the crowd, Nvctve demonstrated phenomenal stage presence — summoning halftime ballads from the Warp EP and Fester EP, drawing influence from COPYCATT and Frequent, cinematic and ferocious, while treating audiences to forthcoming masterpieces. The swift transitions from intrusive halftime-glitch to brain-blasting dubstep ‘tear out’ highlight the versatility of Nvctve. An insane set with the crowd in agreement, who reciprocated the artist’s excitement, raining Nvctve in dollar bills while shouting in triumph. Metallic, glitchy, intrusive with ambient overtones, Nvctve demands our attention! Highly recommend the 2024 Showcase Mix, a snippet of bass music’s promising future.Who’s bass music’s rising superstar with the Midas touch? VCTRE, known also for his collaborative project INTEGRATE with Black Carl! followed a fierce performance from Nvctve; and after waiting six years VCTRE didn’t disappoint. Pack the blender with halftime heat, neuro basses, southern hospitality, and emotional progressions, and you may produce a VCTRE track. Easier said than done. “Ring Master” from the recent East Kings Point album exemplifies VCTRE’s ability to sweep listeners to the dance floor — never losing energy amongst progressing bass lines and thundering growls. VCTRE’s ability to punch aggressive tones while simultaneously exploring emotional landscapes separates his craftsmanship from other producers. VCTRE isn’t looking for cheap thrills, but he’s still having fun along the way! Consistently releasing fire, VCTRE’s arsenal of tracks seemed infinite, slinging predominately original tunes the entire night. Might be wrong, but swear some of the most thrilling tracks have yet to be released. Will be on the lookout from VCTRE, who’s playing his debut Red Rocks show soon!
After one of the most impressive bass music lineups, Resonant Language took the stage— casually conducting the splitting of atoms. I mean seriously, operating a particle collider with his impact on inter-dimensional space that night. Playing favorites like “Input Slope” and “Non-Scents” from the Input Slope EP, Resonant Language seized our attention by the throat, spiraling audiences through glitched and glurchy sound design, chaotic breakbeats, while infusing danceable rhythms to move the crowd, and boy were they moving. Fresh off Tipper’s Rendezvous Festival, Resonant Language rode the momentum of a sold out festival, delivering a perfected performance, weaving crowd favorites, intricate remixes, and unreleased teasers.
During a brief conversation, Resonant Language explained he’s been producing for sixteen years, roughly six to eight hours a day. Can you tell? His devotion to the music scene is noted, not just production skills and lineups, but spending the majority of the show observing performing artists and networking with fans. Even so much as hugging a stranger before preparing for his set.Supporting Mickman’s comments on diversifying the glitch hop lineup, Resonant Language built an incredible show, each artist unique from the next, assisting the unveiling of the night. I’ll be the first to admit by hour three or four, “The music sounds the same”…. This is also coming from somebody who typically doesn’t listen to the same genre or sub-genre for more than an hour. When venues book similar sounding artists, there’s safety in the crowd reaction: Dubstep crowd loves dubstep, house loves house, glitch hop loves glitch hop, however, a powerful aspect of bass music is the multi-genre aspect, the blending. The larger bass music becomes, the less the sound’s confined to a specific genre. Bass house, psychedelic bass, glitch hop, halftime, techno… we’re beginning to see a dissolve of genre boundaries. Also who says a lineup has to stay unidimensional, confined to one sound?
I wrote in a previous essay, its only a matter of time before bass music, EDM in general, reaches new heights. Stadiums, beach parties, international festivals, the sphere, NYE Ball Drop. While city-wide raves are certainly appealing, a major aspect of the growing landscape revolves around small, independent communities. The counter argument to stadiums and arenas are creating an abundance of smaller, grassroots festivals. More festivals, more music. The scene can grow equally as large without compromising community to larger spectacles. However, I’d argue Bonnarroo is quite large and the vibes are quite high.
Using the Grateful Dead for reference given the scene similarities to Tipper n Friends, I’ve stumbled over a lesson related to Jerry Garcia. Toward the peak of the Grateful Dead, Garcia became oppositional toward success, emotionally revolting against the climb to stardom from the underground. An act of self destruction for the world to see. While Bob, Phil, Mickey, and Bill readied for sold out stadiums, endless touring, Jerry spent a lot of time getting loaded. A lifetime working toward musical success, sidelined by the impending reality.
With bass music on the precipice of mainstream success, its important to ready ourselves for the reaction, the influx of teens and college aged kids, the rampant drug abuse, the mainstream venues and stadiums. The loser-suit opportunists with money who don’t actually care about the music. It’s important to maintain the sanctity that maneuvered the scene into the mainstream, and more importantly to stick around even when it’s not the “cool underground thing” anymore.
The emergence of bass music runs parallel to the emergence of psychedelic substances. With the legalization and emergence of psychedelics, we simultaneously posses the growing technology to guide psychedelic sessions. Bass music, feeling, is an integral advancement to the multidimensional nature of music, no? Could you imagine the technology of The Sphere, Function One’s, Tipper, Android Jones, dr0id visuals, and clean LSD? The possibility for awakening? Or even a bass adjusted bed from the comfort of a guided psychedelic session or your own home?
I love bass music, not just for the music but the culture and close ties to psychedelia, rave counterculture, the soul, the planet, the reminders of interconnectedness. The vibrations. Are we going to risk losing the message of awakening, spirituality, peace, and love to the emerging mainstream? And are we willing to overcome our oppositional mentality that “good music exists only in the underground”?
My psychoanalyst saw Jimi Hendrix perform in a bar basement on a single amplifier for a crowd of twenty to fifty people. Could you imagine the state of music if Hendrix never escaped the underground, never played Woodstock (my analyst also atteneded) if he spent his life playing those same shows?
Would we even have psychedelic bass music?
Food for thought. -
Have you noticed the influx of my releases lately?
Instead of releasing music last year, I mastered three tracks — a total waste of time, honestly. How do I increase my production fidgeting the same songs for a YEAR?
I don’t. I’ll take my chances producing a song a day. Always dreamt of being the lead singer of a punk rock band influenced heavily by Black Flag, The Descendants, and Minor Threat to be specific. Hardcore punk songs range from thirty seconds to a few minutes in length, a war of attrition. Track after track, an onslaught of anger and emotion. Elbows, shoving, mosh pits. A reverberation of chaos. Reminds me of artists like Midnight Tyrannosaurus, an artist who greatly influenced my dubstep journey.Growing up, I experienced trouble finding musicians with similar taste, preferring to drum alone in my basement. However, as the drummer, you typically take a backseat to the writing process, which could’ve been argued given my lack of music theory and reading ability. I knew how to hit things quickly, keep rhythm, be a nuisance.
Discovering MASCHINE’s software, I produced frequently, but still only released three tracks. The POPE project amassed roughly 11 tracks all together over two years, stiffened by benzodiazepines, mood stabilizers, and anti-psychotic usage during my MDMA trafficking case. Overstimulated times.After careful analysis of the SUPPLY EP’s release, I realized where I stood in the music industry. Nobody I know listens to bass music or IDM, a heavy influence on my production. Artists like Aphex Twin, Autechre, Hullabalo0, Kursa, EPROM and G JONES.
To make matters more difficult, I utilized my five year modern psychoanalytic education to confront narcissism, question transgenderism, and call out ghost production— landing me in boiling waters. Narcissists have distanced themselves or refuse to share my artwork based on the fear of ‘narcissism awareness’. The Philadelphia rave community and surrounding areas, typically left-wing-progressives are upset judging by the silent treatment, loss of followers, and direct messages.
However I’m worried about the current state of affairs: the implications transgenderism has on women’s spaces in particular.
I’m just asking questions.
How long has it taken to establish safe spaces and rights for women, and how quickly are we going to strip these spaces?
I get the vibe nobody local wants to associate or promote my work. The people who message for collaborations typically don’t follow my X or instagram, judging by the “its” and “thems” looking for work. The community hasn’t unfollowed me all together, I put effort into my delivery. I think they notice. However, nobody wants to get caught promoting the work of a “TERF” or “transphobe” in the rave community.
It’s often the local scene an artist gets their start, and that’s where I’m struggling. Artists I associated with are creating distance.The cherry is my claim of being an intuitive empath. The “source” for “discrediting” the transgender/transexual community.
“How can this guy be psychic and transphobic?”
To me it kind of makes sense: Deliver truth to an unlikely and unwilling crowd.A sensitive crowd.
The loss of support and lack of engagement isn’t detrimental, as I’ve only been producing beats consistently for one and a half years, three or four years all together. I became dependent on hardware synthesizers which I sold and overcame a years-long writer’s block. Less is more, especially when you grew up on video editing software.
Just means I have to work harder and spend more time delivering my message. Furthermore, I’ll admit the beats are still beginner and I shouldn’t expect too much praise. However… I do create my own sound design, visuals, artwork, and maintain physical appearances. The silence was deafening.The majority of artists headlining underground bass shows have produced for many years. Seppa, Resonant Language, and Bandito Jones said ten to fifteen years when I asked. Kursa, around sixteen. Many openers are producing equally as long, given the size of the community.
Furthermore, what’s stopping Philly from creating a larger underground bass scene? The Rust and Aspire Higher provide great lineups, but highlight established artists, all star casts. The Universal Emotion makes moves in the underground, and I’d love to see them provide multiple shows a month! However, The Ave is proof for the potential of bass music, packing crowds weekend after weekend for less than twenty dollars a ticket. Hopefully we see an emergence in bass music- a rise in events and venues.
The greater the music, the quicker and greater the scene grows.
During these realizations I’ve been grateful for the opportunity to write music furiously, attempting to garner my own sound and reputation. My analyst, Dr. Anthony Tereo has assisted my understanding of the creative process. More reps, more sets. Creativity is a muscle, and while talent helps, hard work triumphs. Rick Rubin delivers a similar ethos on his Tetragrammaton Podcast. Even the most talented artists struggle to overcome their egos.
The ability to practice creating songs, beginning, middle, and end, has shifted the quality of each song I write. I’m subconsciously holding less material in my brain. No need to think about thirty unfinished songs.
Finish them in one or two days, move on.
Art is about releasing the emotion, for me at least. Release and learn. A tool for self-analysis. But first, for godsake release the goddamn emotion. My art therapist at Sheppard Pratt Mental Hospital, Terry, preferred I smash, squeeze, grind, and splatter when creating art. She wanted me to express myself, to really release the repression. Chinese Medicine teacher, Trina, who intentionally pushed my buttons on campus hikes. The woman who jumped in glee when I finally rebelled against her demands as she hiked my sick body over hilltops.
Anger, she was attempting to release repressed anger.
How do we release anger safely?
As an intuitive, I struggle with my emotions along with the emotions of the collective. A canvas is the only thing standing in the way of self-destruction, and with the emergence of AI, imperfections may be the distinguishing characteristic of human art after all. Raw, authentic, human emotion.
Journaling blogs, splatter paintings, analog glitch feedback, quick-furious beats, and dancing to new releases are ways I typically release anger.
Raves. Booming subwoofers, next-level visualizers, psychedelic mentalities, and people looking for a party. Often when I didn’t have a safe house, I wound up at a rave until three in the morning, a home away from home. Somewhere to dance, smoke, and hang – look at the moon.
Dancing especially. If you’ve meet me at a rave, you’ll find me standing next to the subwoofer, dancing for the next four to six hours. There’s something unmistakably healing, like i’m shaking off the bad juju!
What if we’re able to steer more troubled youth toward rave culture, safe psychedelic practices, artistic expression, music? Instead of self-destructing and falling victim to societies ills? What if the goal is to get more involved, build local communities, advance art and consciousness?
What if it all starts with you and your involvement? -
In absence of raves, my weekends are spent at the Lehigh Valley’s Mahoning Drive-In movie theater, the USA’s oldest drive-in theater premiering vintage favorites, cult classics, and horror masterpieces, often catching films like Cannibal Holocaust, Alien, Scanners, and Chainsaw Hookers: raw, nostalgia trips through distorted, creative genius. Body bags and all.When I stumbled upon DIGITIST’S DEMONSTRATION OF FORCE, the lurching landscapes, mechanical-infused sound design, consuming growls, and punishing bass lines mirrored the sanctuary of a badass horror movie. Tension, destruction, survival.
Who doesn’t like a good scare?
From the start, Barbarian seizes audiences with ripping textures and demanding progression, transcending listeners through dramatic rhythm shifts, flexing production skills, while offering forward thinking sound design over combinations of dubstep and hardcore. For the UK fans, right? The impressive contrast of genres is masterfully articulated and certain to leave dance floors crumbling.
DIGITIST masters ‘tear out’ dubstep, a sub-genre pioneered by Excision, Zomboy, Midnight Tyrannosaurus, and MARAUDA highlighting heavy metal atmospheres, compressed-brostep bass lines, and chaotic crowds. However, DIGITIST’s authenticity is unquestioned, showcasing originality and blending genres like UK garage on his track ‘Interloper’ after assaulting listeners with dubstep monstrosity ‘Crude Oil’. The EP demonstrates unique experimentation, ethereal ambiance while combatting demonic drops and screeching highs. DIGITIST conducts a symphony from hell.Cinematic, DEMONSTRATION OF FORCE captivates listeners with seven incendiary tracks. Roughly twenty-five minutes. Replay value?
Like a bowl of pretzels and a tasty beer:
“Can you ever eat just one pretzel?”
While I typically enjoy the Tipper-sphere of music, the r/spacebass, experimental bass producers, I’ve been returning to my roots: dubstep, particularly because it expresses anger. A forgotten emotion, and especially important to Modern Psychoanalysts – subconsciously rooted anger, the genesis of neurosis.As a Slipknot, Korn, and Tool fan, I particularly loved dubstep for the ability to thrash, a noticeable difference to glitch hop and house. Isn’t it important we have music to represent these repressed times? The full spectrum of emotion?
Finishing the project with THAW, a drum and bass inspired song, DIGITIST concludes DEMONSTRATION OF FORCE like any decent horror flick: leaving the audience demanding more! DIGITIST possesses a unique sound palette, blending the lines between alien experimentation and the demonic underworld. Inspiration from producer comrade, EXECUTIONER, on tracks like UNCIVILIZED are highlighted, another upcoming producer known for intriguing arrangement, top tier sound design, menacing auras— who deserves increased attention.
Dubstep, riddim, UKG, hardcore, drum and bass: DEMONSTRATION OF FORCE represents a production milestone for producer DIGITIST – a robust, multidimensional listening experience. Not to mention a FULL EP VISUALIZER on the DIGITIST YouTube channel, featuring VHS style distortions, digital tracers, and bad-trip voyeurism.
A name to remember in the evolving landscape of dubstep and experimental bass, DIGITIST leads by example!
The artwork alone speaks volumes. Can you judge an EP by its cover?
DEMONSTRATION OF FORCE provides the argument.
THE BADBOOB 