King Midas Sound – Fact Mix 103
I went through a phase last winter where I began exploring the high period of “real” dubstep. It is unfortunate that the Americanized bro-ified appropriation of the genre would become the much-maligned and dominant face most prominently presented to outsiders in the early 2010s. It’s a phenomenon that has afflicted other genres that I have an affinity for, such as emo, post-hardcore, screamo, and metalcore. I was initially turned off to these genres, and dubstep, upon my initial exposures to some of their least tasteful manifestations. But with each, after I had become someone who spent much of my time following current and archived backlogs of discourse on development of alternative and underground genres/trends/subucultures in popular music, I’d eventually run into some “real” heads bemoaning the culprits who were responsible in steering the dominant direction of the subculture towards watered down, more accessible, and thus less “authentic” variations of the sound, which would “kill” the genre. More often this death didn’t occur, but members of the subculture felt a sense of betrayal and misrepresentation via the cognitive dissonance created by the discursive variances between the underground and those acts with major music industry backing.
A process regarding maligned music that I’d go through again and again, is an understanding that there is supposedly a point at which things went wrong, violating the pure and authentic roots of the music and its subcultures. To put things plainly, I was given the impression that there was “real” dubstep, which I hadn’t heard yet, and that it was good.
From what I’ve heard so far amongst the dubstep artists and releases christened with this “realness”, the highs are really high and there is a good amount of it that is fine, but nothing special. This is really no different than most other music subgenres, but it also helps that one of the most celebrated electronic albums of all time fits in categorically and aesthetically with the notion of real dubstep. The sound of “real dubstep” is a great sound: heavy low-end bass frequencies and empty space borrowed from the actual dub elements present here, which aren’t often present in the aggro brostep that hit the mainstream. The hollow sound that emphasizes space enables great potential for the creation of dark eerie atmospheres evoking the barren night-time city streets that club-goers would stumble out off while overcome with the simultaneous post-show exhaustion and sensory overload that creates a disorientating and psychedelic concoction. I’ve long been a fan of the abandoned night-time city streets devoid of life and light, and of music that seems to linger and thrive in shadowy alleys and on near-empty public transit. I had already discovered this was the case for a lot of trip hop, Memphis rap, the post-genre aesthetic of night bus, and several other flavours of the darker side of UK bass and electronic music. Despite my past biases and warped impressions, now I knew that this was the space and place for dubstep and me as the listener.
King Midas Sound stands out in dubstep as a band, not just one or two producers, and as one that would make vocals a prominent part of their music on albums such as the very good Waiting For You. Their music conveys much beyond just dark, urban loneliness,. Within it lays gripping displays of passion communicated through word, melody, and rhythm. It is cold and mechanical, yet warm and beautifully human, and the building blocks for this seeming contradictory status are overwhelmingly present in the fantastic mix they put together for FACT back in 2009. This not just a survey of what else had came through Hyperdub, Soul Jazz, or Tempa and made a splash in the dubstep goldrush of the mid to late 00s. It is an expansive survey of the reggae, dub, lover’s rock, and Warp-adjacent electronica that you can hear glimmers of on the band’s original material. It makes so much sense that this band would put Sade, Burial, Love Joys, and My Bloody Valentine (and to choose Touched, of all songs!) on one mix and make it all sound so cohesive. I also love the live recording feel of this mix, where a group member while have a little something to say periodically, such as Kiki Hitomi’s cheeky side-eyed and smiling “hey girl” (to a friend I presume, either in the room or listening to the transmission) or Roger Robinson’s use of a sparse ambient passage to deliver a touching poem meditating on the feeling of meeting the girl who seems like “she might be right.”
I love this mix, so much so that it is a strong contender for the best one I’ve come to know so far. There is maybe only one other opponent that I think can match it, aided in part because I have a longer connection to it than this one. I’ve yet to talk about that mix on the blog, but I will eventually. Until then, please do yourself a favour and get acquainted with the King Midas Sound sound.
Gasp – Drome Triler Of Puzzle Zoo People
I think I have to agree with sliebman on this one.
So often when I talk about music I like, as I just did with King Midas Sound, I will refer to a place, space, or time that the music evokes in my mind or that I think is best suited for an enhanced listening experience. In these cases I am identifying where, when, and how these albums fit into my life and the things I do, the places I go, and the things I feel within it. This is something that a lot of music listeners do. And this is something music streaming corporations know we do. On one hand, the ability to find an appropriate soundtrack to one’s life is an accessible and enjoyable method of enhancing one’s experience of living. On the other hand, I am aware that this way of listening and talking about music enables the corporate folding of musical expression into sanitized and standardized playlist packages via a gentrified appropriation of the “vibes” inherent within music. Music is often enjoyable when it works in cohort with the various moments of our lives, provided that there intentionality and depth that it brought into the mix by the curator and/or listener, rather than being treated as featureless and standardized background noise.
In a previous blog post, I proclaimed my thirst for music that is unvibeable, in that it disrupts mundane routines and transplants you into its own world that is untethered from the one you exist in materially and existentially. Drome Triler Of Puzzle Zoo People achieves this. It shifts from punishing powerviolence blasts of aggression to uncanny and delirious sound collages to loose and spiraling psych rock jams. If a vibe was ever established, it shifts again and again in quick succession.. The indecipherability of the album title only enhanced the inability to pin this record down and put it in a box. I really cannot think of a situation where Drome Triler Of Puzzle Zoo would be the perfect soundtrack, where it could fade easily into the background behind some other human activity that isn’t listening. Moreover, even if it does evoke some material location, it is some fever dream vision of a “toxic jungle” conjured by the murk and mist of the bizarre and beautiful sampladelic sound paintings.
Much of what I’ve said above about what Gasp has accomplished with Drome Triler of Puzzle Zoo also applies to their An Earwig’s Guide to Traveling compilation. While I’d be contradicting myself perhaps if I said I was looking for more music with Drome Triler Of Puzzle Zoo People vibes, I do hope to find artists and works that achieve unvibeability and deny utilitarian and commodified appropriations of listening.
Iron Deficiency – Morning in the burning house
Iron Deficiency is a force to be reckoned with. You’ll find that is the case on this record, and if you catch them at a gig. While studying in France earlier this summer, I went to a Touche Amore gig in Lyon and was handed a flier for an upcoming hardcore show. Coming through town on tour were Initiate, whose rise seems to be on the upswing in the aftermath of their Cerebral Circus record released in April, and Move, who put out one of the best hardcore EPs in 2021 and dropped their debut album on August 11th. Iron Deficiency was to open the gig, and upon first listen of Morning in the burning house, it was apparent that this band would be extremely my shit. I once heard Devin Swank of Sanguisugabogg explain how one of the objectives of his band’s writing process is to create “bad boy riffs:” the type of nasty heavy guitar work that would inspire people to commit acts of mischief and malevolence at the gig. Iron Deficiency has riffs that go beyond bad boy and straight to diabolical territory. Any compulsion one feels to trangress notions of civility are only further encouraged by the ferocious performance and incisive screed of their vocalist. I mean, the first track on the record is titled “A call to rage.” At the gig, the crowd raged and so did Iron Deficiency, with one guitarist even leaping off the stage to do some mid-set crowdkilling. Afterwards, the band joined the masses to mosh for the next two sets, setting the tone for what was the most violent and chaotic pitting I’ve seen to date at a gig. It was scary, and I loved it.
Jim Legxacy – Homeless N**** Pop Music
I really ought to go back and review past bold proclamations I’ve made on the site or the radio show and see if they hold up. But before I do that, I’m gonna make another one: Jim Legxacy is gonna be a star someday. He’s fairly popular currently, but he could be big big. And maybe the only thing holding him back from that currently is that he’s a London-based artist making music that straddles the lines in between the American dominated-genres of hip hop and R&B. But Lexgacy isn’t just another artist making half-sung half-rapped tunes, he’s pushing into some innovative and exciting directions.
In the early 2010s, writers began grouping the music of artists like Kelela, SZA, Jai Paul, Miguel, Frank Ocean, and The Weeknd under the heading of Alternative R&B, due in large part to the tendency of artists such as those listed above to incorporate influences of electronic music (particularily future garage and UK Bass) or indie rock (often dream pop or neo-psychedelia) into an R&B framework. But now, with the popularity of artists like SZA, The Weeknd, and Frank Ocean being at Billboard Chart-topping and Coachella headlining levels for several years now, alternative R&B has seemingly usurped the sound it was an alternative to become one of the leading sounds in pop.
Yet it still seemed like quite a shock hearing the opening track to this mixtape as an advance single. Hyped in a Pitchfork track review, it felt like an event-style song, that could be heralding the coming of a new star building on recent developments in popular alternative music and going beyond them. On a guitar line seemingly lifted from some long lost midwest emo album, Lexgacy delivered a soft wavering croon in which he addresses someone who once promised to teach him how to dj, but doesn’t want to do so anymore. The pain in his voice makes it clear immediately that there is much more that Lexgacy has lost with this person pulling away from him. This he confirms with cutting observations such as “It’s been a while since you acted like you loved me, I know that you don’t worry about me, I’m sorry I worry about you.” These kinds of melancholic guitars and blunt lyrical vulnerability form a musical core alongside UK drill samples, Latin and Afrobeat rhythms, and some wildly touching flips of mega pop stars that prove that Legxacy is as much a force as a producer as he is able to write and deliver crushing lyrics that navigate the complexities of heartbreak, growing up, and dealing with expectations to maintain a certain level of masculine hardness throughout all of this. With an already well-established unique sonic fingerprint and knack for writing songs and lyrics that deliver heavy blows to the heart, I think the sky is the limit for Lexgacy’s music to be gamechanging in the years to come.