Released: 2007
Dubstep’s rise from a handful of teenagers swapping white labels at the club night FWD>> to the fringes of a mainstream it never sought was vertiginous: having emerged in South London as the bastard offspring of 2-Step and UK Garage, a scene without a leader used pirate radio, MySpace and word of mouth to spread rapidly across the county.
It’s anti-image wasn’t contrived, but instead the reflection of the young producers, mostly working from bootlegged software, who made it and their lack of a desire to be famous. The first artist to put out music on Kode 9’s zeitgeisty new label Hyperdub in 2005, dubstep’s anonymous first superstar was Burial, a pseudonym which at the start at least, offered little to clue to their real identity.
Released the following year, Burial’s eponymous debut album was a revelatory; in tone mirroring the shattered ghosts of long forgotten raves, machines had rarely conveyed such bled out emotions. It’s follow up Untrue went further, the voices on it incanting jungle, hardcore and sleep/wake pre-dawn ambience. Dog Shelter was a filmic nightdream, old times, old obsessions and ancient serotonin blasts filtered through a mask of now bulldozed and concrete filled in ecstasy. Burial’s name is Will Bevan, but it makes no difference.
The Voice Of Unreason 