While Fabric’s may not quite be the final word when it comes to dance music (as most flat-peak sporting, Berghain-queing enthusiasts will tell you), one thing they do capitalise on is well-timed releases. Their pedigree extends even further back than 2007, when Caspa & Rusko registered dubstep’s first big (mainstream) break with their mix on Fabriclive 37.
Now Fabric’s latest offering from scene lynchpin Pinch comes at a time when dubstep risks becoming something of a dirty word, one that can invoke thoughts of Bieber, Korn and Youtube refixes before DMZ, Vex’d and FWD. With credibility nearing an all time low Pinch’s mix pitches somewhere in between mid-life crisis and curtain call.
One of the first people to coax dubstep out of its London strong hold, Pinch is synonymous with the genre’s golden years. But for every straight-up dubstep cut (Jakes, Distance, Loefah) on his flagship Tectonic imprint, you’ll find an anomaly (Flying Lotus, Illum Sphere); someone you’d only lump in with the others because Pinch made it so. What the man seems to do best is look forward without losing his sight, stay cutting edge yet true to the darkside hoods-up-heads-down aesthetic of the sound’s early days.
Pinch’s classic sounding productions provide a solid base for a properly diverse set: Shed’s pounding 4/4 techno-mutation leads into the menacing dreadnaught dub of Pinch’s Henry & Louis Remix while Roly Porter’s (of Vex’d fame) cinematic mood-piece rubs shoulders with his acid-tinged Photek collaboration. His cuts set the tone, something that remains constant throughout: a kind of dark-meditative pressure that all these tracks add to in various ways. Most of the big changes come between tunes that rely on rhythm for this intensity (the footwork-inspired stutters and micro-sampling of Boddika, Distal and Addison Groove) and spacious, chest rattling sub-bass (Quest, Loefah and Pinch himself).
Pinch lets loose in the closing section with some undiluted LFO (courtesy of Distance) and it’s a bit of a risk, one that might have many Joy O fans reaching for the dial. In a time when 808s rule the day, it’s something that could be misconstrued as ‘backward’ or ‘obvious’ but Pinch creates sonic links within the mix that give these tunes a new context: it’s not a big jump from the skittering drums and acid-synths of Goth Trad’s mighty Mach to most of Boddika’s productions or Shed’s EQD project.
Dissecting across lines and boundaries on an increasingly confused musical map is interesting but clearly not something that matters to Pinch, who lets these dominate the mix without genre concern. At the very most, it’s a mix few would have tried in 2006 let alone 2003. Dubstep next to techno, Detroit-electro and acid-house throwbacks; a sign of what bass music has been and where it’s going. At the very least, it’s the sound of one of the scene’s pinnacle figures, making dubstep sound alive for the first time in a while.
