Dubstep Inspires Bassline, Bassline Influences Dubstep

"Remaking the Night Sky," Graphite on paper. By Michael Schall. Show up now at Pierogi Brooklyn.

Long melodies written with sub-bass are generally the province of the bassline circuit. In a genre like this, where less attention is paid to sound design, that makes sense. It deals with a smaller sound palette and makes up for it with melody, similar to electro. But even in bassline, creating comprehensible melodies is an achievement, because wobbly sub-bass is such an unintuitive sound.

With a piano, for example, the notes are laid out in order; one related, subtlety different note after another. But wonky bass has such a wide variety of textures, pitches and speeds that putting them all together seems like it would be a daunting task. Even when successful on this front, however, bassline can leave more to be desired, since it has a tendency to lack depth of mood and tempo.

But now, such melodies in dubstep have begun showing up on on Culture System’s radar.

The most prominent label to push the sound is the young Sludge Records, situated in Brighton. Sludge was (presumably) birthed from Ed Solo’s "Sludge" dub from last year. Solo, who unsurprisingly is very comfortable with bassline, released this song which marked a distinct departure from the rest of his eclectic sound. Then recently, he released the "Age of Dub" on the new Sludge imprint and killed it. Next, Crissy Criss dropped "Don’t Mess About," arguably burning Solo.

Although it is hardly recognized at the moment, New York dubstep will not to be left out of this shift, thanks to DJ Dore. A couple weeks ago, Dore dropped "Dark Ecology (dubstep remix)," and it deserves a place alongside Sludge at all dance music distributors. Also notable among Dore’s portfolio are "Hidden Dub" and "Snowcone." Although loopier and simpler in composition, "Hidden" is a good listen. "Snow" also has a tendency to get loopy, but builds into an expansiveness of melody (albeit less rhythmic) that surpasses the aforementioned dubs, Sludge included. All these songs are on his MySpace page.

You can catch Dore, and the rest of the Code of Arms recruits at Synctank at Bar on A this Saturday, January 10th. The event, which we covered last time around, will again be hosted by Slouch. He released a new EP with The Great Mundane, which is available for free download at Mundane’s Web site. (It’s well worth your time.)

But they’ve got their competition cut out for them. London’s murderous Zomby will be performing has cancelled his appearance at Trouble & Bass’s show at Studio B the same night.