Following on from the hugely popular 1st Volume that came out last October, Ministry of Sound and Joe Muggs present Adventures In Dubstep And Beyond Vol.2 – your guide to the true innovators in underground Dubstep and bass music.
For many, the Dubstep genre is associated with one sound – bass wobble. And of course there’s plenty of that to go around, but with this release fully compiled by one of the UK’s leading connoisseurs and commentators on the scene, Joe Muggs is here to showcase a far wider reaching sound of Dubstep. As he explains “it has always been an insanely flexible area of music, that keeps on chucking out tracks that are not just examples of the latest micro-trend, but which will stand the test of time just as, say, great techno tracks from the past do.”
With 100% creative control, Joe has once again come up with 2-discs that combine both the newest names mixed with the godfathers of the scene, ranging from exclusive dubplates and unreleased material to lost classics from back in the day. It’s a tour-de-force in the most exciting bass music around, Joe explains further, “the comp is mainly about trying to take what we did with Volume.1 a step further in all directions: more sonic variety, more different influences, more light and shade, more strangeness, more intensity, more surprises. It ranges from smooth soul to metal riffs, disco-funk to angry grime – in fact there's even some angry disco-funk-grime in there... There are tracks that range from house to jungle in tempo, but it's all about the mix and the flow of the listening experience, so hopefully it all works well as a whole - it's certainly not just about cramming loads of incongruous sounds together for the sake of it.”
With 34 tracks across the compilation, there’s a wealth of music to explore as Joe delves that little bit deeper than most. On the artists he’s most excited about, “Mr. Mitch is a huge talent in grime who lives down the road from me in Southeast London, and I think is going to be making big moves this year... Lunice is the most amazing off-beam hip hop producer from Canada, who's just been picked up by Diplo for his Mad Decent stable, also an incredible dancer - which I think shows in his rhythms - well worth looking up on YouTube... Modepth is one of the few people taking the spaced out, sad Burial template and doing really original things with it... But as with Vol.1, this is about veterans doing fresh things too - there are brand new tracks by godfathers of the scene Zed Bias, El-B, Slaughter Mob, Terror Danjah, Hatcha etc (the Zed Bias one being a track written especially for this album!) that sound as innovative as any of the younger artists.”
Joe continues, “And if there is a certain concept that links the tracks together it's that they stand out from genre dictates, they each have a character of their own. I think tracks like the Africa Hitech, Skinnz and Geiom (another special for the album) show this most perfectly - they're each unique, very experimental, yet completely rooted in the dancefloor. I also hope that with tracks like the Evol Intent and DVA tunes on Disc 1, it shows that the harder side of dubstep is just as capable of originality and individuality as the more spacey, funky strains.”
And with that Mr. Muggs has spoken. Once again he’s captured the very essence of what makes Dubstep and bass music the most exciting sounds in electronic music today. As a keen evangelist of the artists, culture and music for many years, there are few people better placed to take on the responsibility of compiling such a release. And for that reason, Ministry have pulled off a real coup.
It’s time for the music to do the talking – enjoy.