Chalice Dubstep Masquerade: Techno Music and a Festival Atmosphere - Essay Example

Chalice Dubstep Masquerade: Techno Music and a Festival Atmosphere Dubstep is a term used to describe a type of post-garage form of music that was originated in Croydon in South London. The genre can be attributed to two major influences. The first came from musicians such as Scream who were working with Big Apple records, which no longer exists, and the second was a show that happened at a place in London called Forward (The Rise of Dubstep). The development of the sound which lent itself particularly well to pop music promotion went from the U.K. to the United States, providing a techno sound with a driving bass that was particularly appealing to large festival style crowds. A festival that originated at The Canopy Club in Champaign Illinois provided a venue and crowd that was electric and exciting. Attending the Chalice Dubstep Masquerade provided an opportunity to find out about the dubstep experience. Dubstep has infiltrated both popular music and regional sounds, creating a new technologically based music that is still currently driving sectors of the music industry. According to Gaerig and Nocito who wrote about dubstep for Spin Magazine, dubstep began as a reaction to U.K. garage music, itself an innovative, underground club movement that had been polished to a pop sheen” (60). The type of music created for the genre was slow and intense, which meant that as it crossed the ocean into the United States, American teenagers related to its similar feel to rock radio. In the process of promoting the music in the United States, the feel of the new sound made into a popularly relatable mix meant that it could be translated via festivals. Gaerig and Nocito continue on saying that the new festivals that are cropping up all over are particularly geared for the frenzy of the sound that is aggressive and based on the desire to create a dance atmosphere that is without restraint (60). The dance atmosphere of the dubstep genre can be described by the drive that the music puts into the crowd. According to Yunigan, the music is hard to describe because it comes from a number of different sources, but it is highlighted for downtempo rhythms that have an off-kilter sort of shuffle. The power of the DJ to create the sound has made them into musicians, just as Brewster and Boughton describe when they wrote that beat –mixing gave disco DJs the power to be more creative with the music that they played in different venues (136). There are two broad categories that describe dubstep, with the first being darker and more melancholy with beats that are low energy, but with the other side of the music being heavy on the bass as it is rich in dance driving aggressiveness. The dance version of the music is described by Yunigan as grimy with electronic sound that is attracting fraternity types across American campuses. It is a sound that is passed around with DJs picking up the concept and translating it for their crowds. While the DJs work on creating wild and relentless frenzy at their venues, the festivals drawing bigger and bigger crowds, some musicians work on the complexity of the rhythms and mood that are at the core of the style. Some of it becomes so complex that Yunigan describes it as difficult for dance, citing artists like Mount Kimbie, James Blake, and Untold as examples of this more musically challenged work. These musicians are not for the festival crowd, but for using in a more domestic environment. Although the popularity of the genre has made it much more commercial and has created crowd pleasing shows like those performed by Rusko, the DJs picking up and translating the sound are sometimes accused of ‘bastardizing’ the work. In a video where he discusses dubstep, producer/musician Deadmau5 discusses why he hates the concept of dubstep, he first provides a discussion on dance music when it was not really popular. He puts his career into perspective and provides his feelings on the rising success of his music. He discusses the sound of dubstep as a type of music that is more focused on loudness rather than the ‘dynamic of the signal’. His perspective is that the art of the music is lost through a lack of engineering in the process of creating the sound. The complexity that some report to exist in the music is then lost when it is taken by DJs and engineers who create without anything but the need to create a level of sound rather than the sound itself. He describes the use of the volume knob the resource of the level of sound, rather than the idea of just intensifying the bass. At the Canopy Club in Champaign Illinois the Chalice Dubs Masquerade has been appearing on a regular basis. The event includes artists such as DJ Lincoln Jones, Positive Vibr8tions, Midnight Conspiracy, DJ Solo and a long list of other providers of the dubstep sound. The event is held in an amazing venue, which is an old theater that has been enhanced with enormous 35 foot murals of rainforest murals which line the theatre walls. The mostly back and green murals provide a strange contrast to the techno lights of the show, casting an eerie pall over the whole event. The stage is set with a backdrop of flashing neon lights with abstract fractals swirling over the screen. Dancers with neon lit costumes and swirling neon lit hula hoops punctuate the visual experience of the venue. The promise of the bass in dubstep was not missing as the music drove the audience into higher and deeper states of frenzy as they moved, even if it was only with one fist up in the air and jumping up and down. Although the names of the compositions were lost in the unending experience of them, I did feel that some of the work from DJ solo was exceptional as it moved from kinetic phrase to overlaying techno sound on top of a deep and essential bass line. One piece by Midnight Frenzy created a sort of pulsation over the deeper tones, making it raise the rate of frenzy just a bit more in the room. It was easy to be lost in the music with one’s own body joining in the almost mindless frenzy of movement that connected the body to the sound. The bass hit a chord deep inside and created an environment that was almost without definition as the music moved from one set of rifts to the next. The experience was a mass of black, punctuated by light that almost seemed to be a part of the sound. Dubstep is an experience when it is seen in the festival atmosphere. It is the experience of what the bass line can do to the body, driving it into a sweaty, movement intense frenzy in which the complexity of the music can be legitimately seen as lost as Deadmau5 suggests. The volume is so high that much of what might be within the release of music into the crowd is likely lost. However, the slow, strains of movement of the music as the electronic sound grasps the listener by the neck and shakes them with its intensity is an experience that is far beyond the average music festival attendance. The event at the Canopy Club was worth the travel to see it with friends. The venue was created through the explosion of neon lights that lined as many surfaces as possible, even those of the dancers of the show. The swirling hula hoops of black, highlighted with glowing lights created a visual frenzy along with the auditory drive of the bass. Reading about the genre creates a sense of the feeling of what the music can evoke, but experiencing it is the only real way to understand the change that takes place in the venue. Although it is available as pop music and has been used as a format for a variety of artists, the festival atmosphere of the dubstep genre is where the whole body is part of the experience as the bass line drives the attendees heartbeat, motivating their muscles to become a part of the intensity of the crowd as it gyrates and pumps their fists in the energy coming from the stage. Works Cited Brewster, Bill, and Frank Broughton. Last Night a Dj Saved My Life: The History of the Disc Jockey. New York: Grove Press, 2000. Print. Gaerig, A & Nocito, J. “Dubstep 101”. Spin Magazine, 58-60, October 2011. Print. “The Rise of Dubstep”. Youtube. 27 April 2012. Web. 24 July 2013. Yunigan, S. “The Year in Music: Dubstep’s Identity Crisis. NPR Music, 30 December 2010. Web. 24 July 2013. “Why Deadmau5 Hates Dubstep”. Youtube, 5 October 2012. Web. 24 July 2013. Read More