Short Circuitry September-October

Kode9

Memories of the future: Hyperdub in 2009

Attempting to draw a summary line around just how important and influential Kode9’s Hyperdub label has been over the past five years of its existence is about as futile a gesture as describing all its artists with the blanket definition ‘dubstep’. Still, Hyperdub is still largely recognised as the label that brought the future sound of London in the early years of this decade to more widescreen attention – not least through the unprecedented adulation of Burial amongst both mainstream and more niche circles. Impressively for a label with such a pedigree and ear for defiantly forward thinking – but not necessarily particularly accessible – sounds, the last eighteen months have been even more crucial. As the genre made moves far beyond its south London crucible, Hyperdub’s escalating release schedule acted as a tracer of its more outré mutations, from the future pop of Darkstar’s ‘Need You’ through Zomby’s heavily psychedelic untitled EP.

In recent interviews Kode9 has been quick to distance himself from the range of terms cooked up to describe the material his label releases – even the word ‘dubstep’ carries with it implications in the popular consciousness that simply refuse to tally with the majority of Hyperdub’s remit. As his own sets have begun to absorb an increasing volume of the Africanised house variations coming out of the more experimental end of the growing UK funky scene, so the label’s output has further distanced itself from the mid-range wobble of the second generation of jump-up chancers and pushed into less predictable and ultimately more rewarding territory.

In the midst of its current expansion as mindless rave-fodder, it can be quite easy to forget just how thoughtful and experimental the early tracks emerging from the core of original dubstep producers really were. Almost totally out of step with the gradually imploding UK garage scene, early tracks from the likes of El-B, Horsepower Productions and Kode9 himself reconceived junglist influences as a reaction against increasingly simplistic and superficial dance muzak.

I’ve only just gotten round to actually buying it, but this year’s fantastic The Roots of El-B compilation gathers together some of his lost material from the turn of the millennium. Running concurrently to two-step’s explosion in popularity, his tunes exhibited some of the traits dubstep would begin to make its own a couple of years later – predominantly instrumental but scattered with deft vocal fragments, brimming with dark atmospheres and bursts of sub-bass. It’s a mark of just how before its time Lewis Beadle’s production was that it sounds just as modern a decade later, when a huge number of current producers, from Burial to Untold, Pangaea and the entire Blunted Robots stable, are making tracks drenched in El-B signature sounds. Placing a track like El-B’s ‘Express’, its crushing subs married to a deliciously swung beat, alongside ‘Rawkus’, Brackles’ latest for Planet Mu, is indisputable evidence of his continued influence on the scene he helped to create. The CD also comes with excellent liner notes courtesy of Martin Clark, placing Beadle’s music in context of what came before and what has developed since.

Hyperdub’s fifth anniversary compilation has been eagerly awaited since Kode9 previewed several tracks on Benji B’s BBC 1Xtra show in February. The lead-up release of a fair few of the disc’s brand new tracks on 12” has been even more of an appetite builder, so it’s fair to say it was never going to be a disappointment. What is fantastic is just how complete it feels – with one disc of brand new tracks from almost all the artists associated with the label and a disc of classic material, it manages to look simultaneously to its vastly influential past and forward at the sheer vitality of the genre’s progeny post-2009.

The second disc’s trip through the label’s archive serves to cement its reputation for innovation, as well as making the majority of these tracks available on CD for the first time. For non-vinyl aficionados the compilation serves as an opportunity to pick up a decent chunk of one of the most impressive back catalogues of any modern electronic label. Kode9’s churning ‘9 Samurai’ remains one of his most menacing moments, an eerie parallel drawn between London’s burgeoning postcode wars and the rising martial drums of Kurosawa-inspired Japanese warfare. Two tracks later, ‘Bad’ with LD provides a tantalising look at his current smooth flowing and hyper-percussive direction – a great distance traveled in only five years.

While the first half of the disc is stained the kind of monochrome befitting the early years of the genre, the latter part is devoted to the technicolour explosions of the last year or so – Rustie’s masterful remix of Zomby’s ‘Spliff Dub’ an absolute highlight. Along with Ikonika’s ‘Please’, also featured, it’s one of the tunes that wrenched this writer’s attention firmly towards the diversification of the genre – both tunes’ visceral impact remains utterly undiminished since their distinctive 8-bit cascades first burst into life. One of this year’s finest releases, the deeply processed digital soul of 2000F & J Kamata’s ‘You Don’t Know What Love Is’ captures something of the opulent eighties in a squelching synth line and heavily effected vocals, yet manages to sound utterly modern in its body-winding halfstep swing.

For longer-term followers the first disc is the big one. As befits the label’s most well known son, the collective attention of the majority music press has been focused on the emergence of a new Burial track, ‘Fostercare’, the first since 2007. As expected it’s beautiful, if more evolution than revolution, his vocal manipulations more intangible but filled with a greater sense of loneliness than ever before. It’s given greater weight for being placed in close proximity to the first CD’s early track ‘South London Boroughs’, which captures a time when his music was still brimming with direct aggression, the grind of bass and flickering drums quite unlike the textural ambience of a large proportion of Untrue. Elsewhere, Kevin Martin turns in deep dubwise explorations with his King Midas Sound project, a world away from his gut-wrenching aggression with The Bug, and Flying Lotus and Samiyam’s contributions both show marked progression and refinement of their unquantised, smoked out hip-hop.

It’s becoming increasingly evident that the real gems in Hyperdub’s current roster are among its least outspoken. Ikonika’s ‘Sahara Michael’ takes her melody drenched constructions one step further and sets supernova bursts against implied techno propulsion to dazzling effect. Her recent DJ sets have become ever tighter and increasngly energetic over the past twelve months, and the staggered, drunken effect of her productions over a huge soundsystem bears very well indeed for next year’s full-length album. Still, the highest praise has to be reserved for Darkstar, whose long-awaited ‘Aidy’s Girl Is A Computer’ has finally been released. It’s wondrous in its simplicity, a beautifully understated slice of garage-pop that builds to a final, heartbreaking crescendo. It’s almost certainly the best thing on the entire compilation, and is likely to be the single of the year when it comes out on 12” in a few weeks’ time.

After the mix ‘n’ match nature of previous editions of Short Circuitry, dedicating an entire wedge of column space to one CD compilation might seem a little limited. Still, it’s difficult to overstate how essential Hyperdub’s output has been, and continues to be. For anyone with even a little interest in electronic music, or in understanding how computer-based music can be just as expressive as its analogue counterpart, it’s the single most essential purchase of this year.

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