Last night’s episode was a reluctant return to the clubstep hybrid of 113. In terms of the oil/water emulsification of club sprightliness and halfstep langour, I feel this one was lacking whatever binder made the first iteration work. The tonal whiplash seems a bit much. YMMV, of course, and there are some great tunes represented, some…
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As much performative gnashing of teeth as I indulged in two weeks ago at the archiving of episode one-hundred and thirteen, it seems my contrition was insufficient, my shame was performative, my regret was a sham… I failed to learn from my mistake and, perhaps, did not regard it as a mistake at all. I…
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Last Wednesday’s episode of Step to the Music was another Grey Area experiment. This time, rather than focus on the usefulness of triplet polyrhythms in switching between 170 BPM Drum’n’Bass and 127 BPM Techno, I limited the pallet to Grey Area and D’n’B, keeping the beats per minute at 170. The first third of the…
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I feel that I cannot apologize enough for the name. I was putting together a playlist that alternated between 140 BPM club tunes and oldschool Dubstep jams, and the portmanteau just presented itself to my horrified mind. It was as unavoidable as it was douchey. I tried to think of something else, but it would…
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Last night’s SttM is in the archives for your listening pleasure, featuring club syncopations and techno bangers from around the world: from Lebanon to Montreal; from Brasil to San Francisco; from DC to Durban, South Africa; from Finland to Bristol, England; and beyond! Janne Hatula – Lo-Fi Life [Polku EP] Eon – Inner Mind [Void…
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Tune in to RadioNOPE tonight at 11/10C for a new SttM, featuring a wild mix of funky syncopation and 4-on-the-floor functionality: club sounds drawing on world beats from Latin America to Lebanon crash headlong into acid techno from Chicago, indie disco-rock from DC, and Canadian avant-pop weirdness… and that doesn’t even cover the Finnish downtempo…
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Last night’s episode showcases Benga’s “Diary of an Afro Warrior” ten years after it came out. Yes, this was what D****** sounded like before Skillrex came along and ruined everything. ~141 BPM, bass and space. At some point over the past few years I got sick of trying to explain to people who were convinced…
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This month marks the tenth anniversary of the release of Benga’s classic LP “Diary of an Afro Warrior.” So I gave it a listen and it mostly holds up (“Go Tell Them” was a too-cute misfire back in 2008 and still is), which inspired me to dedicate an episode to it, along with (mostly) other…
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Last night’s episode begins with a great techno track from Rob Clouth, then gets brighter and more candy colored until it takes a turn… into the Grey Area. Then things get Autonomic for a bit. It gets Junglistic for a bit, then ends on a mellow ambient-ish mood If that makes no sense to you,…
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Through the haze of flu and flu medicine and general early Smarch doldrums comes a new episode of Step to the Music, another frolic through the polyrhythmic possibilities of Grey Area techno. Experiment #01 began with a block of techno, switched to a block of DnB, and then to a concluding block of techno. This…
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