Afro Monk

The past three years in dubstep have been quite prolific. The sound has evolved and the genre of dubstep is becoming quite a well known animal in the clubs. It has been since Benga’s follow up of Newstep EP release, Dairy of an Afro Warrior, that much hype has been surrounding new albums to me. Silkie’s new album City Limits Vol. 1 has finally graced us and boy did it live up to the hype. This is just the beginning of the albums to slap us up with bass.

One of the biggest names in Dubstep, Skream, has been non-stop since 2000 producing banger after banger. This man has blown us away with Skream!, Skreamizm volumes, and tons of masterpieces. Skream is finally at work to follow up his release of Skreamizm Vol 5 with a new album. I’ve had the great opportunity to catch Skream recently and hear two of new tracks off the album. As far as I know these tracks are still untitled but boy do these tunes carry a sound of epic proportions. The sound has become a lot more open and driven with a blend of dope b-lines meeting epic synths building the tracks to deep peaks. The sound of both these tracks have a legendary feeling as they rise your body to a relaxed groove.

Skream has been working with closely with Joker, a new comer which has taken the sound and created his own signature sound we’ve all come to love. The two taken the alias of Parma Violet. Their track Skittles has been well recieved and hope to hear more collarborations from these two.

Talking about Joker… This man is one busy producer. Digidesign put this man on the map and now the name Joker has built up the most momentum I’ve seen. His signature hard sounding synths and beats have created a new take on the genre of dubstep. Joker has’t seen an album release yet but boy is he going to make the end of 2009 and 2010 his. His recent remixes & tracks are instant hits. He is hard at work with his solo LP which will feature Tron, My Trance Girl, and work with TC.  After that we’ll finally get to see what Joker & Silkie can do together when they collaborate and put out a an album together. Silkie’s recent Purple Love & Joker’s Purple city seems to be just the type of flavor I hope we see from these two. The next thing we’ll probably see from the man is a full length album with Ginz, Gemmy, & Guido. The four of them have worked with each other closely and finally coming together to release their first album as a whole. The Purple Trinity (Joker, Gemmy, & Guido) & Ginz will not let down and this piece of work will probably be a big step forward for the music.

The next set of albums that are about to be pushed out are Shackleton’s new work Three EP on October 12th 2009. The release will be pressed on three 12″s and feature nine tracks. He has mention how he decided to put together a collection of tracks and release them as three EPs and reason for this is that it’s not really a concept album just more of a collection of EPs.

2562′s new album is being released November 2nd and should be quite a crowd pleaser. It is a follow up of aerial a masterpiece of sound. This should be an album to pick up and enjoy with a good glass of wine and smoke.

Another prolific album due out late 2009 is Kromestar’s 2nd album, The Other Syde. His first album, My Sound, was on repeat for a month of mine. I have great expectations of this considering how his sound keeps mutating into all sorts of dark wild creations.

One of the most mysterious names in dubstep/downtempo is Burial. This man has created quite a name for himself and yet kept such a low profile. It was even once rumored that Burial was just another alias of Richard James. The rumors were smashed eventually. He doesn’t play out nor seem to desire the fame and hype of the culture. His debut album and Untrue are considered some of the best albums to come out in the recent years. No work on a new album from the man but we have seen a recent release from him on a split release along side, Four Tet. It has been annouced that a new track from Burial, Fostercare, will appear on Hyperdub’s next compulation.

Last on my list is a big name in music right now, Flying Lotus. His name has been growing and his tunes keep showing signs that it’s only going to get bigger and bigger. Flying Lotus has announced that his new LP will be coming out in 2010 and considering it his “most creative work yet”. His release alongside Joker is nothing short of amazing.

Dubstep is here to stay!
These upcoming months will bring many new vibes and flavors of music.
It’s safe to say that despite the growing trend of many recent releases being critized for consintrating on the wobbly bass that these albums and singles coming out will show the critics it’s not just about the wobble.

We all know that Technic 1200s and Pioneer CDJ-1000s are the standard in most clubs today.

Pioneer announced today their new CDJ-2000 & CDJ-900! They’ve upped their ante and put some serious work into these new CDJs.

The first thing you’ll notice is on their new flagship CDJ-2000 is an enormous 6.1″ full color screen @ 480×234!

The main features that stand out to me about the screen are the addition of the showing of the wave data, needle dropping, and advanced info shown about track including album art.

One feature that is available on both now is Pro DJ Link. You now have the ability to connect up to four CDJ-2000/900s to each other and use one source of music. Another big addition to the new line is HID controls which allows the CDJs to connect naively to software like Scrach Live, Traktor and Cross2 without time-coded discs.

One of the last features I want to talk about is Beatgrid. This is ultimately Quantizing for DJs. It will now make sure your cue points are set exactly where you’d want them for you automatically and on beat.

There are many other features added to both of the new CDJs but these are the ones I find worth mentioning.

Now my only complaint I find about these beautiful additions… The price.

CDJ-2000: $2,150
CDJ-900: $1,600

Remember the CDJ-900 does not sport the new LCD screen.

They will be released in December of 2009.

For more information check out http://www.pioneerprodj.com/