And the videogame beat goes on. At this rate, a long-form investigation of the trend is becoming necessary as 16 bit bleeps and bloops become the proverbial post-punk for this brand-spankin’ new decade. Just as well, the Joy Division knockoffs were overrated as fuck. Meanwhile, we still haven’t quite found the right term to characterize the post Dubstep/Grime/Wonky/Purple synth madness that’s been infecting UK Bass music nor appropriate nomenclature for the cool-nerd stoner music that emcees like Wiz Khalifa have been kicking around recently. I’d bother coming up with some genre-tags in order to increase my cred amongst the ever-ballin’ music journalism community but by the time they stick, we’ll all have moved on to God-knows-what anyways.
As for today’s business, Swindle is a Grime veteran whose Planet Mu distributed Airmiles EP features tunes too complex to be tossed off as “instrumentals” and relegated to DJ crates rather than the listening public’s ears. While the title track features an acidic descending bassline and rave ready beat, the rest of the tunes go deeper offering intriguing mid-range mutations. Take Daredevil: starting with a Joker-aping synth intro, it shifts into high gear with high-speed Sega Genesis cosmic funk before morphing into a slap-bass solo and coming round full circle. With its constantly shifting instrumentation, it’s best defined as “progressive” in the sense that the beat doesn’t repeat…it progresses. Who knows what to call it, but one thing’s for sure: it’s better than wannabee cassette music stealing samples from Italo-disco. Best enjoyed with RC Cola, twizzlers, gummy worms and (one assumes) illegal stimulants.
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MP3: Swindle – Daredevil
