THE DROP: Outer Spaces – a free EP created on the iPhone

DopplerPad is an iPhone app that utilizes the touch screen to put a put a fully-loaded beat station in your pocket. What better way to see what it can do than put it through its paces by four top future groove producers? Outer Spaces, a free EP by producers Eskmo, Exillon, Jneiro Jarel, and Starkey, was created utilizing only DopplerPad, and you can grab the EP on DopplerPad’s website.

Starkey, Philadelphia’s leading purveyor of street bass, lays down some luvstep on “Hurricane’s Doppler.” The track is a funky, swirling attack of synths, snares, and – of course – bass. San Francisco’s Eskmo has released material on leading labels Planet Mu and Warp Records, and his “Eyephone Around the Pad” is a chugging mix of simple guitar riffs and left-field samples.

The offering by Exillon, “Popplerdad,” is the most danceable of the EP – a bouncy electro romp with midrange wobble. The wobble continues with a grimey track by Jneiro Jarel, who has worked with groundbreaking artists like TV on the Radio and DOOM.

For a relatively expensive iPhone app ($7.99), demonstrating worth is key. So while Outer Spaces is an interesting EP on its own, it’s an even better advertisement for DopplerPad. If you’re into future grooves, you should check out both.

LeninsTomb presents… Dubstep Dossier

This year, Valentine’s Day meant more than just flowers, chocolates and ham-fisted attempts at romance. It also marked the release of Luvstep, a long-awaited mixtape by Dirty South Joe and Flufftronix on the Mad Decent Radio podcast. The Luvstep mix codified a developing trend in dubstep and bass sounds, away from the metallic and industrial and towards the melodic and orchestral. Introducing the mix was Philadelphia’s Starkey, a DJ/producer whose sonic output fully fits within the luvstep realm, even if he opts for the grimier “street bass” descriptor.

Starkey’s debut full-length, Ear Drums and Black Holes, released last month on Planet Mu, is a monument to how far dubstep has come. Throughout its 15 songs, Starkey pays tribute to two-step, garage, grime, and all the musical seeds that have cross-pollinated to form dubstep in 2010.

On opening track “OK Luv,” waves of shimmering synths and chiptune effects build over a stuttering shuffle, a pattern that repeats on tracks like “11th Hour” and “Four Dimension.” “Stars,” the first single from Ear Drums, puts the warbling synths and vocals by Anneka in the front of the mix for a chilled-out feel. Starkey does get grimey, too, opting for pnuematic, grinding bass and epic, siren-like instrumentation on tracks like “Spacecraft.”

http://www.youtube.com/v/x3UHYpDvRWk&hl=en_US&fs=1&

Rappers Cerebral Vortex and P-Money turn the clock back to the grime glory days, reminding rappers, both underground and mainstream, that these gurgling instrumentals are the perfect complement to rhymes, once you master the two-step rhythms. Starkey proved this on his remix of Gorilla Zoe’s “Lost” for the ATL RMX album.

http://www.youtube.com/v/GysWv0O1KQM&hl=en_US&fs=1&

With dubstep producers like Rusko and Skream bringing back the rave, the scene needs a producer to advocate for luvstep. If Ear Drums and Black Holes is any indication, Starkey is more than capable. And remember, don’t fear the wobble.

LeninsTomb presents… The Verge

Welcome to The Verge: a column dedicated to music on the verge of a breakthrough. This inaugural column is inspired by the life-changing bass of the U Street Music Hall, and will focus on a few of the subsonic sounds coming to a system near you.

Rusko, the king of wobble, dropped the video for Woo Boost this week. The track is the lead single off his Mad Decent debut, O.M.G! As I’ve written about previously, Rusko is leading the way in the dubstep world with a singular sound that is aggressive and abrasive yet eminently listenable, like Charlie Brown’s teacher on acid. The video is the perfect visual complement to the ostentatious tunage. Obnoxious and glaring, the clip is a collage of broken video effects, swirling fluorescents, and a Union Jack-draped Rusko rocking a keytar. It is a total guilty pleasure, in all of its seizure inducing glory. The most defining visual is Rusko tearing through the green screen; it’s like watching the violent birth of something twisted and wrong. Enough words, watch the damn clip:

JAKWOB – MINIX MIX ANNIE MAC – BBC RADIO 1 (FEB 26th 2010) by jakwob

Starkey, the Philadelphia purveyor of “that street bass sound,” will drop Ear Drums and Black Holes on April 19. Ear Drums is probably the first album that totally encapsulates the concept of luvstep (an interview with Starkey did launch the Luvstep podcast, after all). The first single, “Stars” (featuring Anneka), is the polar opposite of Woo Boost: a track designed for chillout not knockout. The video, while less over-the-top than that of Woo Boost, is disturbing in its own way, matching the tone of the deceptively dark track. “Stars” is only one of the Baskin Robbins-like flavors that appear on Ear Drums, so get your first taste now:

http://vimeo.com/moogaloop.swf?clip_id=10193822&server=vimeo.com&show_title=1&show_byline=1&show_portrait=0&color=&fullscreen=1
Stars (feat. Anneka) by Starkey from Ben Curzon on Vimeo.

MIXTAPE REVIEW: LUVSTEP – The Mix That Saved Dubstep Forever

 DOWNLOAD HERE

This mix will make everyone fall in love with dubstep. Really. Even you. Yes you.

Philly Brick Bandts Crew leader Dirty South Joe and unheralded midwest born, now East Coast swinging DJ Flufftronix are the two most unlikely candidates to save a genre of electronic music with deep English and Jamaican roots. But it’s 2010, technology has changed everything, and, well, throw in the fact that the duo have ties to Mad Decent Records, and that’s really all you need to know. Mad Decent isn’t at the vanguard of the international underground by accident. Their ability to synthesize and repackage local and cultural dance music trends with alluring and intentionally bizarre packaging makes the label receive heaps of scorn from the blogosphere and music community in general. But what the label has done for Brazil’s baile funk, Baltimore’s club music, Jamaican dancehall, and soon traditional Latino rhythms and freestyle, the label has now done for dubstep. Dirty South Joe and Flufftronix’s Luvstep mix, in so unapologetically embracing the undulating basslines and massive dubplates endemic to the sound, and utilizing specific tracks that highlight the R & B, minimal and drum and bass tendencies of the sound, succeed in making the genre tolerable, entertaining and *gasp* fun.

American dubstep pioneer Starkey opens the mix with a five minute primer explaining the differences between and basically exploring, exploiting and destroying the notion of the heavier dubstep style describing it as “dark and moody.” That “dark and moody” sound is also constantly linked in the past tense, implying it’s dead, gone, and evolved into the smoother more palatable to the mainstream sound on the mix. Dubstep champions Skream, Joker and Caspa’s remixes are here, alongside originals from Starkey and Rusko. The rest of the mix is exemplary as well, as the XX’s mix of “You’ve Got the Love” is here, the most “barely there” dusbstep track of 2009 and an addition that speaks to mainstreaming of the sound for sure.

If a hater of dubstep, or someone not willing to have an opinion on the sound quite yet, you can do no wrong in listening to this for an hour as it’s emotive, evocative, and soulful, and at no point do you feel like there’s a knob twiddling madman attempting to stomp out your soul or melt your face with noise. It’s a fine addition that will add to the longevity and mainstream potential of the sound, and gives it legs in the American mainstream trending underground.

FINAL ANALYSIS: COP / DON’T COP