If 2006 was the year of the ‘faux dub’ – strained reggae samples, brutally cut and paste over mediocre half step drums, injected with a dash of blatant post-colonial arrogance – then 2007 is the year where techno and dubstep finally tie the knot. Who would have thought that the wall dividing the two genres would crumble, much like the Berlin Wall did nineteen years previous? It was inevitable that the android-like, clipped & sparse minimalism that has for years been associated with post Soviet Europe would collide in a sonic train crash with the grimey depravity of a cracked copy of Fruity Loops in a
However, one must consider the extent to which the throbbing sub low frequencies that haunt dubstep like a rash will crossover into the thick, woozy kick drums of artists such as Marurizio. The DMZ slogan, ‘Come meditate on bass weight’, has never been so apt. Will we see dubstep nights becoming full of thick black spectacle-wearing Hoxtonites? Will countless rewinds be magically converted into epic, 3 hour continuous mixes? Time will reveal the answer. But for now, let us revel in this joyous union of what one may have previously thought of as awkward bed fellows.
