- Mon, 2010-09-27 11:14
Opening track title Flying Into Tokyo pretty much sums it all up. From the underground club sets and street corners of Croydon, Benga, Skream and Artwork have spearheaded a new sound and movement which has over-taken the charts, pushed their underground scene into the forefront of new music and marked the biggest new development in UK dance since drum and bass; dubstep.
Following Skream's summer 2009, chart smashing remix of La Roux's In For The Kill, dubstep has been on everyone's lips. Electro and breaks producers began dragging out their basslines, commercial remix work required a dubstep mix as a part of the package and global headline slots saw Skream and Benga well on their way toward superstardom.
With such a harsh spotlight upon the dubstep scene and so many budding young producers taking up 140 bpm as their reason de etre, everyone wondered where Benga and Skream would go. And the one way to stand out and up against all the rest? Form a dubstep super-group, aka Magnetic Man.
Artwork, Benga and Skream have been making tunes seperately and together for over ten years. Though Artwork has had limited commercial success as a solo act, it was his Croydon record shop Big Apple that drew in young Oliver Jones (Skream) and Benga Adejumo, and led them to call him their mentor. In 2003, while creating garage and techno in a room above his shop, Artwork penned the dubstep anthem Red so far in advance of the scene, the term dubstep hadn't even been coined.
Speaking of Magnetic Man, Skream had the following to say;
Dubstep is the biggest progression in music in the last five years. But too many people think it's that noisy, mid-range stuff. Magnetic Man is about a lot more than that, Magnetic Man is about proper songs, not just tracks or tunes. These songs have a vibe, a heaviness - and until we started recording them we didn't even know we could write a song! Skream
When we chatted to Benga in 2009, just before he started his festival run, we asked him what he thought was next for dubstep. This is what he said;
Riiiiiiiight. I think vocals, but don't get me wrong, the right vocals, that will definitely push it. I've gone about working with a lot of artists from everywhere. I want to do a few songs with these guys called the Teriyaki Boyz. They're like a Japanese group. I just want to do different things. Things that'll make people go 'Wow. That's well different.' And it sounds really different. You know, involving different cultures and sounds and vocals. Benga
Leading up to the release of their self titled debut, we've seen Magnetic Man introduce vocals in a big way. Young London vocalist Katy B appears twice on the album, while first single I Need Air featuring Angela Hunte caused a stir as basslines rumbled across huge hands-in-the-air dance floors. Magnetic Man started to prove that commercial, big room dance can emerge from the underground. That we don't need the formulaic construction of the same old beats, in the same old studios with the same old, tired 80's vocal sample.
The arrival of their self titled debut is a big one. Press play, and there's no bass heavy opener. Instead rich musicality and their translation of cultural experiences and inspiration soar through opening track Flying Into Tokyo, a beautiful, oriental inspired instrumental that would sit comfortably as the opening of an animated fairy tale. Without the tracklist by your side, you'd be forgiven for thinking you'd picked up the wrong CD. Though as the instrumentation gently ebs and flows around you, so expectation builds as track two glares up from the sleeve notes - 02. Fire ft Ms Dynamite. Solidifying the impact these three have made, who else but the Queen of the UK underground could kick bassline proceedings off? Instrumental over, and Ms. Dynamite arrives to steal the show with a tight anthemic, vocal focused serving.
The album is a rich tapestry of sounds and experiments woven expertly together from the stark contrast of tracks one and two, through to familar movements between traditional dubstep territory. Vocalists play a heavy role. Seven out of fourteen tracks feature vocals of some kind. The sweet rnb tones of young London vocalist Katy B appear twice, while atmospheric layers of Sam Frank are dusted over Boiling Water. US soul superstar John Legend closes proceedings on final track, Getting Nowhere, which encapsulates everything Magnetic Man have acheived so far. The addition of John Legend opens their output far beyond the Croydon dubsteppers, while maintaining a slick energy, ear for melody and tight production work that at no point succumbs to commercial expectations.
This album marks a defining moment in the story of dubstep so far. Who else could question the rules of dubstep, other than those who created it?
