good god, Martyn's new single is just about the warmest, tightest piece of bliss-summer dancefloor beauty that i've heard in a long long time. All I Have is Memories is wonderful enough and perfectly placed on Appleblim's new Dubstep Allstars volume 6 but its the AA side, Suburbia that makes me feel like legging it to the nearest field and leaping around like a moron with complete strangers for 12 hours. Unfortunately, that kind of behaviour would probably get me arrested so i'll do my best to describe it.
submerged bassbeats then instantly an almost housey melody, gorgeous minimal and evoking a perfect day of sun-drenched collective laziness. A droning edgy bassline, malevolently junglist but slightly mixed down to keep it happy and sharp stark breakbeats occasionally flittering into 2-step skips. Final layer- disembodied voices, warm shadows playfully morphing just out of eye-sight...
What can you say- dubstep (does this even exist anymore?) has run off in several different directions- the aquacrunk of Rustie, Flying Lotus and whatever dream weapon Kode9 feels like releasing this week and then this one, perfectly exemplified by the aforementioned new Allstars comp.
What could have been a perilous flirtation with techno (signalling jungle's death-knell) has started unearthing gem after gem and this feels like it's just the beginning. Simon Reynolds has admitted to being underwhelmed by the 2562 long-player due to its inability to assert itself beyond a Basic Channel template and maybe therein lies the danger, instead of genre experimentation you end up with genre-swapping. But i've yet to hear it myself and Appleblim hasn't fallen into this trap at all so right now the summer is looking very bright indeed.
