Volume I (2015)
6 tracks, 24 minutes
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The producers Commodo, Gantz and Kahn are three of dubstep’s biggest names of the past decade, and Volume I, their first three-way collaboration, was always going to be a release with expectation on its back – this was the biggest supergroup the scene could have hoped for.
Now, you see, I’ve just typed that last sentence, in the full knowledge that I have no idea what I’m talking about. It’s the vibe that I get from reading about the release, anyway, but I have to say I’m not as up on the comings and goings of dubstep as I’d like to be. And I would like to be. When I listen to good dubstep it hits me hard and makes me wish I’d been totally immersed in the scene since its late 90s inception. What I lack in the intimate knowledge and vocabulary of dubstep, I make up for in just thinking ‘oh my god this is so sick!’ at the top of my mind-voice when I hear it. I know what I like, and Volume I is exactly that.
This album is an amazing journey of sound and it doesn’t even clock in at half-an-hour. There’s no doubting the dubsteppedness here – the pulse is slow, the producers use of layered delays and reverb are enough to rival the classic Jamaican studios and the bass is suitably cavity-worrying – but there’s also a refreshing lack of cliché at work. For starters, they employ hardly any of that stereotypical dubstep wobble-bass. This isn’t party music, either. No happy-go-lucky, carefree dance party anyway. The music here is dark, intense and menacing. You’ll be dancing to it, but you’ll do it with a moody expression on your face.
What it does have is a very strong Middle Eastern feel. Although Istanbul native Gantz has the most obvious connection, each of the producers had worked sounds from across the region into their work before (he typed, in the full knowledge that he had no idea what he was talking about), but for this album, it forms the basis of each composition. Synths that echo the qanun zither or ney reed flute; samples of Turkish singing and sweeping Egyptian string orchestras warped and distorted into unsettlingly slow melodies and ominous drones; electronic and affected beats undergird rhythmic flourishes from darbuka (goblet drum) and riqq (tambourine); mountains of minor seconds, minor sevenths and major thirds that turn it all into an otherworldly hijaz – the Middle East is there in every element, and they fit so comfortably within the dubstep milieu that I’m astounded that there isn’t already a huge scene devoted to just this fusion.*
Volume I is the perfect soundtrack to watching a storm roll in from the horizon on a warm day, seeing the sheets of rain and feeling the peels of thunder in your belly. I know, because it was the album on the speakers while me and my mates hurriedly packed down our barbecue while casting worried glances at the churning sky in the distance getting closer and closer. Commodo, Gantz and Kahn’s beats and bass gave it all a suitably apocalyptic edge and definitely made us all feel a little like we were in a cool thriller film.
Even though I know so little about the dubstep scene, I’m glad that I have the wits to recognise a real musical event when I hear one, and this wonderful album certainly lives up to the reputations of its three big-name producers. It’s just a shame it’s so short. No Volume II seems to be out there yet, but I check diligently. Until then, turn off the lights, turn up the bass and fall into another world – for 24 minutes.
* If there is, why didn’t you tell me? I want to be invited to your parties!
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