I’m not really sure what it is about most straight-up dance music that pisses me off so much. A lot of what I thought was cool in high school was only so because most of my friends said it was. But even after sober parties became a thing of the past, techno and house never did it for me. I’ve recently begun trying to dissect the genre’s derivations a little more closely, hoping to find some transcendently uniting characteristic that would teach me what I need to know.
While I’ve basically been striking out, a friend turned me on last week to something that warranted more then just a half-focused listen. 30Hz, the project of James Grinzburg, has at least in some minor way changed the way I think about techno, particularly breakbeat music.
Grinzburg’s music has quickly become among the most respected in the realm of progressive DJs and producers. His debut album, “Electric Sheep,” has received widespread critical acclaim. Grinzburg has had a role in many dubstep, breakbeat and house labels, and is certainly no stranger to the scene. “I Killed The Darkness,” a well-stocked blog full of new albums to download, offered a brief deconstruction of 30Hz’s new release. The anonymous writer explains that “Grinzburg indulges a variety of influences and directions including Dubstep, Techno and Hip Hop, all focused around his typically robust production technique…production standards are high with 30Hz’s signature of crisp snares and funk driven breaks all underpinned by a heavy electro influence.”
If you’ve paid any attention at all to dubstep in the last year, you’ve probably been barraged by your friends’ talking about Burial’s latest record, “Untrue.” The record intensely and artfully summarized the relatively infantile genre’s style, featuring deep bass and spaced-out breaks.
In a way, 30Hz’s debut album is so well done for the opposite reasons. Although tracks like “Mutate” could be a Burial b-side, the album’s overall transitions between house, breakbeat, funk and hip-hop couldn’t seem more natural. The different genres are linked by a common bond: shimmering production that is truly state-of-the-art. Not since Bjork’s “Homogenic” have I heard such masterfully altered electronic percussion. Subtle distortion rounds out every sample, creating a grimy film that, at least to my ears, validates the genre’s repetition.
Of course, Grinzburg, as a breakbeat producer, still takes the most pride in his breaks. Last year’s “Space Age” EP was an adequate precursor to his work, heralding in what his Lot49 label called a “new age of tech-house breaks.” Despite the opening track’s trite title, Danzemuzik.com called it “filled with roaring bass that builds into full-on 4/4 frenzy…its tripped out vocal [is] going to appeal to the more hard core clubbers out there.” Fans ran out to buy new subwoofers, and then lauded the album’s bass-heavy breaks.
While this is no place to adequately discuss the history of “breaks” in music from jazz to hip-hop, it doesn’t take an expert to realize that 30Hz has pushed the limits of the continuum. By borrowing from all of the aforementioned genres, Grinzburg manages to synthesize an oddly unsettling combination of varied breaks. Take a track like “Concentrate,” a seemingly well-mannered dance beat with off-kilter drum sounds and deep bass. While the listener would expect some climactic break before the track unhinges into a full swing, Grinzburg instead uses varied breaks every 16 beats or so, adding a different set of percussion samples slowly and discreetly. The process is like watching a glass blower make a vase; slowly and majestically, the end product is constructed.
On tracks like “Subliminal Criminals,” Grinzburg uses previous hip-hop collaborations to make stream-of-consciousness rap dance floor-worthy. The equal attention to several disparate genres is not only seen in the lovingly—and—liberally—applied production, but in the overall contour of the album. Unlike some of his more narrow-minded contemporaries, Grinzburg has realized that his dance floor scene is a lot broader than it used to be. Rather than differentiate here and there, Grinzburg throws anything with a beat in his grimy blender, creating a unity that gleams.
Leave a Reply