Soul music for the digital age

That strange, sexy sound slinking out of south London could just be the antidote to everything that is overproduced in music today. Dubstep, an offshoot of UK garage, is perhaps the most hyped subgenre to emerge in the British dance music scene since drum-and-bass in the 1990s and grime a decade later.

Its roots lie somewhere in Croydon, which previously gained infamy as supermodel Kate Moss’ hometown; it is now more known, at least to devoted music fans, as the birthplace of dubstep’s first supergroup Magnetic Man. This unlikely, unglamorous crucible is as far from the mainstream as dubstep’s deep signature wobble is to mashups, Auto-Tune and Lady Gaga. If you ask me, it’s perfect that way.

Slow And Finely Graded

Laptop lullabies: James Blake’s haunting self-titled debut album, written in the 23-year-old Londoner’s bedroom, is folk and gospel filtered through synths and drum machines.

But if Magnetic Man is courting the charts as a collective, there are those who are pushing on solo. James Blake, second in the BBC’s Sound of 2011 poll, is slowly — maybe even unfairly — being tagged as the young auteur who could just sell this underground sound to an equally young audience. All of 23, the north Londoner has been causing a commotion since unleashing his version of Feist’s 2007 album track Limit To Your Love in January. His cover, with its silence, tension, and unsettling sub-bass, is simultaneously minimal and warm, and becomes more rewarding with each spin. Staring out the window as the song staggers out of your headphones, like I tend to do, conjures a Vanilla Sky ambience.     

His eponymous debut is not something you can leave idly in the background either. Tracks like Measurements and I Never Learnt To Share are spellbinding, to say the least. What makes James Blake’s work noteworthy is that it is brazenly experimental; in an era of quick, disposable dance music, something so slow and finely graded is guaranteed to stand out. Forward-thinking his collection of songs may be, it doesn’t exactly fit into the kind of dubstep proferred by artists such as Caspa and Rusko. It’s more like space soul: Bon Iver-type gospel and rhythm ‘n’ blues filtered through sequencers, synths and drum machines.  

Dubstep balladeer: The Scottish-Chinese Malaysian musician has R&B roots, and sounds better the more electronic he gets. 

Singing And Studio Sorcery

Jamie Woon, another name in the Sound of 2011 longlist, has the luck — or the misfortune — of finding himself in the twitching heart of dubstep just like James Blake. First and foremost a singer-songwriter, the 27-year-old rising musician appears to have arrived on the scene fully formed, with a 2007 EP “Wayfaring Strangers” tucked under his belt.

On his influences, the Brit School alumnus — he graduated one year after Amy Winehouse — is quick to reveal his R&B roots, tipping his hat to the somewhat questionable Boyz II Men. His mother Mae McKenna is a noted Scottish folk singer, and clearly she has also inspired his bluesy sound. 

It all shows on Night Air, his 2010 single. Melding cool beat science and wouldful warmth, it kisses roots music with the bloom of youth, carving itself into your head with lyrics like “I’ve acquired a taste for silence.” The accompanying video has an Avatar-like eerieness. 

Story Of Changing Times

Wobble wobble: Leeds-born Rusko is one of dubstep’s more visible proponents. His hit single Hold On, featuring Katy B, was featured in a recent episode of Skins USA.

The Londoner has certainly come a long way from his acoustic past and going down this electronic path is indeed a good way to evolve. As The Guardian’s Paul Lester notes, “He’s better the more electronic he gets, and luckily, there’s something about him that makes dubsteppers want to use him as a blank canvas.” If his debut “Mirrorwriting,” to be released in April, strikes a careful balance between singing and studio sorcery, Jamie Woon should be able to shed his coffee-shop crooner persona and legitemately join the league of musicians leaving us all in a state of charmed confusion.

“If music is the food of fashion, it can also tell a story of changing times,” wrote Suzy Menkes. The International Herald Tribune’s fashion editor may have been giving her account of the autumn/winter 2011 collections in Paris. But her warm approval of “slow fashion” — “rare in these days of instant images and Twitter gossip” — dovetails rather nicely with the emergence of soul music for our digital age: dubstep.

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