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| Popmatters |
 Music has been tracing in dark directions recently. Think witch house, Ben Frost, minimal wave, Miasmah Records, Ancient Methods, Ekoplekz, LA Vampires & Zola Jesus, Type Records, the sadly shortened Throbbing Gristle reunion, Demdike Stare, John Carpenter and Alan Howarth obsessions, et al. Perhaps this gravitation towards more sinister realms has come about because it’s easy to imagine austerity 2010 as dystopia now, a journey from the light, the dreaded cyberpunk end-product of corporate colonization where government and media are functionary arms of business ontology and the slow subtraction of quality of life standards is accelerated to repay the gambling debts of the permanent aristocracy. It seems appropriate that the music of the shadows would match the mood on the streets. Any modern day eschatology of this kind can find roots in the Rastafarian apocalypticism of dub, with it’s becoming-third-world backdrop. Thus, a re-examination of the dystopian origins of dubstep (first made in a far more dubby form than exists now) seems appropriate, as the genre seems to have imagined our current predicament before the fact. The compilation Dark Matter: Multiverse 2004-2009 is acutely titled. The “dark matter” of the title refers to both the shaded hue of much of the content (Joker’s neon Rayleight scattering being the major exception) and the astronomical concept of “dark matter”, which is a hypothetical gravitational force that is undetectable, but inferable from the surrounding observable matter. Dark matter in the latter sense is an argument for the influence of the space between, those negative dub apertures which imbue those notes and interspersed riddims with so much more intensity. The paranoia of dubstep then is theoretically proper. Whereas psychedelia seeks to unite all notes until one is indistinguishable from the other, dub estranges and alienates them, examining how one note can never really know another. The “Multiverse” is also a scientific concept, though it’s more popularly used in science fiction to discuss the possibility of universes beyond our surveillance capabilities, including parallel universes or universes accessible only by ruptures in standard perception or cognition. It’s also the name of an umbrella of labels owned by Ginz that includes Tectonic, Kapsize, Caravan, and Vertical Sound. ...full text |
| Residentadvisor |
| Multiverse is basically an umbrella company rub by James Ginzburg, AKA Ginz. It's the locus of the labels Tectonic, Caravan, Vertical Sound and Kapsize, as well as the name of a studio that's generally used by Ginz, either alone or with his duos the Body Snatchers or Emptyset. Dark Matter: Multiverse 2004-2009, a brimming two-CD compilation (not mix), features 24 tracks by 17 artists in total, including stuff from labels beyond the four just mentioned, and there is a fair amount of inter-act collaboration, the most obviously successful of which is Joker and Ginz's instant classic "Purple City." But much of this collection is given over to individual visions that happen to mesh, as much as a hive-mind mentality. Granted, the advantage of a hive is multiple entry points, and one reason Dark Matter is so sharp is how porous its ideas are. Even if the artists aren't always getting together in the same room, they're bouncing ideas off one another, and that kind of interaction is central to this collection. The tracks favor hard, no-fucking-around bass lines without a blink—the dub pressure of Pinch's 2006 crusher "Qawwali" remains a high bar for new jacks to match—but there's room for all kinds of perspectives. We get laddish wobble on Body Snatchers' "Big Ass Miniskirt" (also nodding to Detroit bass, among other "ghetto" styles) and woozy atmospherics on Joker's "Psychedelic Runway." October's "Euro Dance Hit" is lazy and glitchy, art-techno technique transferred to bass-scaping; 2562's "Techno Dread" captures its own feel perfectly with its title, liquid on the bottom and on top. The low end of Pinch & P Dutty's slow-mo bomb "War Dub" utilizes every square on the board, in its own sweet time and way, while Emptyset's "Gate 4" goes so low it sounds like it's kicking up dirt....full text |
| Hangout |
| It seems the vast technological advances made in the last fifteen years have rendered the margin for error for electronic music vanishingly small. It’s a shorter fall from great to bland/forgettable in electronic music than in any other genre. A stray synth squiggle here, an errant, purposeless scratch effect somewhere else, and you’re dead before you can click to refresh page. Dark Matter, a collection of work done at Bristol’s Multiverse studios illustrates the point. Arresting tracks like Vex’d’s “Lion” manage to be hypnotic, others end up not so hypnotic. There’s almost no point in dwelling on the bad when there are so many interesting tracks here. “Purple City” by Joker and Ginz has a woozy, synth whine that sounds weirdly like Prince’s voice—yes, I am writing this sober—rolling over rambunctious beats (one is tempted to suggest there may be a jokey reference to the Paisley One somewhere in the title as well). It’s already been a hit but it’s worth hearing if you missed it the first time....full text |
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