Photograph Carl W. Heindl

SIDENOTE: HERE IS THE BEEF

Dubstep has arrived. With its roots in rave, jungle and UK garage and its sounds forged in the mid-2000s by young British producers like Skream, Benga, Digital Mystikz and Kode9, dubstep is a deeply underground, bass-heavy sound that has evolved at a rapid rate. It’s exploded from small London basement parties to international stages, with scenes developing in many cities, Toronto included.

Although the local dubstep community is centred around a tiny hub of DJs, producers and promoters, it is increasing in size. The music is being incorporated into more club nights, with many a drum ’n’ bass DJ, and even some techno heads, touching on it. More obviously a marker of the music’s local growth is that larger events production companies like Embrace are now booking the biggest names in dubstep. Sunday’s event is one of the most significant in T.O. to date and should help bolster our bubbling scene.

Less than four years ago, there were but two teams of promoters bringing dubstep to small Toronto venues: Subtrac and Dubslingers. Subtrac — the crew of Brandon Sek, XI and Bombaman — produced the Dubstep Dance parties, with Sek in particular being the visionary responsible for the first local bookings of Kode9, Loefah and Skream.

The Dubslingers crew, consisting of DJ/producers Jawbone, Sub Human and Coi and DJs Capro, Crendore and Sidenote (and now also Link), formed three and a half years ago.

“We’re kind of a ragtag group of guys who ended up playing a lot together because we were some of the only ones doing it,” says Andrew Gray, a.k.a. Sidenote. “It was pretty easy to connect. ‘Who’s playing dubstep? Oh, there are three of us.’ ”

Gray — a long-time acid house, drum ’n’ bass, downtempo and IDM collector who had his dubstep epiphany after hearing Digital Mystikz “on a proper sound system” — recalls the effort that went into finding the music.

“It was different when we [Dubslingers] started playing dubstep because there were very few releases and digital DJing hadn’t quite picked up yet,” he recalls. “We’d wait weeks between the records we’d order by mail, and then just played them for each other.”  

Jawbone launched the Dubslingers Wednesdays at reggae venue Thymeless (355 College) three years ago.

Gray laughs. “Back then, we didn’t even have a full crate of dubstep.”

Now Toronto’s longest-running bass music weekly, the night has paved the way for a series of Dubslingers’ special events and is one of the main places to hear dubstep produced by locals. This is a key step in the formation of a local dubstep identity — a topic that Gray is preoccupied with.

After earning his degree in Arts and Contemporary Studies at Ryerson, Gray spent much of 2007 and 2008 living in Paris and “doing dubstep tours” of various European cities.

“At the time, dubstep was spreading throughout Europe like wildfire,” Gray recalls. “Every city that I went to had its own baby of a dubstep scene, and in each case it was evolving out of something different. In Germany, it comes out of minimal techno; in France it comes out of a free techno mentality; in London it comes out of two-step and drum ’n’ bass — everywhere there’s a distinct sound.”

Upon his return, Gray was disappointed by the lack of growth he found here.

“I don’t think Toronto has found a clear voice for what or how it wants to be yet,” he says. “The two producers who I would say have a really unique sound are XI and Bombaman, both of whom have almost given up on the idea of there being a Toronto sound. When XI plays in Toronto, he opts for more of a club sound and leaves out the music he produces, playing it in other cities where it’s more appreciated.”

Gray, who, along with DJ/VJ Quim, also produces the innovative Sensoria series of multimedia and bass-music events, thinks it’s vital that T.O. should step it up, especially as dubstep “blows up and grows up” internationally. He points to Coi’s launching of Dubplate.fm as one key building block, and hopes that the community here will work together and evolve.

“It’s about keeping the sound progressive, trying to expand and working to include ourselves in the dubstep movement that’s going on globally, without trying to tap into it as a fad,” he offers. “I know dubstep is blowing up right now, but it’s all about making a unique sound and pushing things forward — not just getting appropriated by Queen West and spat out.”