Dubstep Lecture

The term dubstep may just be a new branding experiment for illbient, but one of the genre’s most proficient enactors, Kode 9, lagging from a recent flight, shed some light on its dark contours when he spoke at length as part of the Red Bull Music Academy late last year. Kode described the music as a sideways outgrowth of the more reggae side of UK garage, which is to say music of choppy velocity that makes room for some dubby swing. The discussion is sadly lacking in many musical examples, but it’s rich with details, such as how much it costs to cut your own dubplate, who Kode’s working with, the pleasures in dispensing with 4/4 beats, and which British record stores are central to the scene. The file’s available as an M4A, which is, essentially, an MP3 with images embedded.