Sonic Router

FIRST LISTEN: Akkord001 & RIP This Month In Grime & Dubstep

Posted in News, Reviews   

I’m sad. I’m sad because one of my favourite torch bearers of dubstep journalism got retired this week. Yep, Martin Clark’s ‘This Month in Grime/Dubstep’ on Pitchfork got axed. He made a joke himself about not feeling so torn when his shortlived NME column got cut last year, but for me it marks something else; a change in the tide perhaps. A tide where one of this nascent scene’s leading pens gets stifled and told that it doesn’t fit into the current economics of journalism as it exists today. Sure the column shifted focus a little into the more recent character led episodes, but Clark’s writing, his ongoing almost-struggle with the explosion of dubstep and the ‘nuum that seemed to influence every [seemingly] new evolution, was incredibly grounding. His shit kept me trying. From the start he’s been a journalist to emulate, one so close to the movement he covers that he invests time and his personal stock into his label and Rinse FM show eventually becoming an integral part of it.

In his column eulogy he makes some interesting points about the manner or medium in which he chooses to invest in new artsits (ie. his label and his radio show) and his endless quest in not wanting to cover old ground. He uses Andrew Ryce’s recent Dubstep x House compendium piece for Resident Advisor as a touchstone for that fear of repetition, writing that it’s a subject he himself wrote about a couple of times previously, and I agree, it’s a view I shared once I’d read it. Not to take anything away from Ryce’s reportage or writing (which is as churlish, learned and thorough as ever), it’s just that we all seem to repeat ourselves a lot in the plight for daily coverage – the web map of interlinking articles on these topics must look like a sprawling html spirograph. But without writing a long and arduous justification of how we balance that with fresh mixes every week from artists that interest us, Blackdown’s points still resonate.

I’ve written before about how it’s getting harder to find voices to trust in a community where EVERYBODY IS CONSTANTLY SHOUTING about tracks, tunes, producers, albums, labels, mixes, DJ sets, live recordings and how much they love them; so when one of those voices that you respect gets told to shut up, it’s kind of a black day…

By way of balance then, here’s some delightfully bleak and simultaneously inspiring music from a collective of Manchester based producers operating under the name Δkkord. It’s their debut release, a mysterious 3 track 12” that displays the group’s “passion for minimalism, art, design, mathematics and sacred geometry”. We’re presenting it as matter of factly as it was presented to us, partly to mirror their lack of pre emptive chatter and party because waffle about stripped back drum work and juddering, oppressive bass feels a little bit futile today…

Akkord001 ships from Boomkat for Monday delivery.