Reading over the Round Black Ghosts review below, a phrase that I wrote that seems to stick out is "Dubstep, a scene with an increasingly surprising shelf-life, particularly in the age of the diverted gaze". It strikes me that, though dubstep continues to pull surprises (mostly by splintering out into subgenres like ambient and wonky- which despite extensive and brilliant overviews like Rogue Foam's I still don't buy as anything but a dubstep off-shoot with a new name attached to avoid being trapped in the genre forever- its alterations seem more superficial like those between jungle and drum n' bass than pronounced the vast empirical space between UKG and grime), perhaps the most surprising thing about dubstep continues to be how long it has stuck around as the preeminent dance genre. Far from proving its superiority to scenes without its longevity (like acid or hardcore, for instance), its staying power seems to derive entirely from the enervation of dance music as a whole. Re-reading Simon Reynold's Energy Flash again recently (the 'nuum bible), it seems that much of the flux from early dance music was caused by a kind of reactionary augurism- the will to shape and predict the future before others would. A competition merging on those found among free markets, except existing wholely in a subterreanean and DIY sphere of heterotopian creative entrepenurialism- not post or avant late capitalism, but completely ignorant and indifferent to it. Things moved at such an accelerated pace because the various scenes fed off each other and gained nothing from a regressive mainstream/indie/ "alternative" scene (as an avid Spin reader at the time (early high school), the thought of Odelay being ahead of any curve now seems laughable). Now, with the implosion of the entire music industry and instant access to every new idea, what seems once seemed to be a contradiction of potentiality (an era of stagnancy in a culture of constant novelty) now seems inevitable for a music culture trying desperately to hold itself together amidst rampant and accelerated democratization. Whereas the means of production are now even more available to all and the sense of being included spread to include those who don't even go to the clubs or pay for the records, it has spawned an almost impenetrable flood of music consisting of so many imitations that the innovations get even more buried amidst the dross (I guess this is kind of always the way things are, but the volume is greater now- to recall a Gerald Fordism: "Things are more like they are today than they ever have been before".)
K-Punk once called dubstep on its propensity to "linger without any palpable intent". That was at the scene's inception. It continues to linger...
