Uncloaked - Talking Balls With Cloaks (possible back-up Glasgow feature - doublecheck)
SF: Anyone with even a passing interest in electronic music will have found it hard to miss the ever growing popularity of Jamaican dub vibes as an influence to the Scottish scene, working its way into everything from techno to hip-hop. In the second part of our dubstep exploration, The Skinny talks to Cloaks. <br/><br/>PQ: ""We love dubstep, but it's too clean. Everything is just so digitised and rounded and nice.""
| 07 Nov 2007
Nowhere is this influence more abundant than the emergence of dubstep, a music that is to dub what metal is to rock: less of an influenced sub-genre than it is a newly spawned parallel - a lustful, savvier, younger sibling. Loading their tunes with fat sustained bass rumbles, and mastering their vinyl cuts at the Abbey Road of the scene, London's Transition Studios, Cloaks (Steve and Carl) are quick to recognise their Caribbean influence: "In terms of vibe, Jamaican music has it totally locked. The thing about dub is that although it's super minimal, super dark and almost depressing, if you go to a dubstep night everyone's really chilled out and there's no attitude. With something like drum and bass you've got balls but you've also got attitude associated with it. Dubstep is balls without the attitude."
Being ballsy is something that the duo fosters as the main element of their music, but it's something they attribute to more than just their dubstep parallels: "The influence is there but I wouldn't say we make 'dub'." This newest of musical forms has gained a reputation for fostering the darkest of sounds, with the likes of Vex'd and Milanese deservedly carrying a reputation for being among the most abrasive and demented producers in any electronic music, not just dubstep. With an artistic admiration and stylistic affinity with both (each featuring regularly in their DJ sets), Cloaks acknowledge that they are the latest of those with a dub influence to push the edges of the sound: "People like Vex'd and Milanese have obviously got elements of distortion there, but in our tunes every single thing is weathered or degraded to some degree. But that's the point of it really."
Despite their clear associations with the scene, there is much to their sounds that shifts grounds of comparison from Jamaican dub to Japanese noise. So much so that Mixmag's experimental section has awarded both their releases so far 'record of the month' status. The distortion and eroded textures of their music is something laboured over, something meditated upon, that doesn't sit comfortably with the majority of dubstep productions. The end result is a sound that, although recognisably dubstep orientated, just doesn't have the gleaned, mineralised polish that is a common signature of the genre.
"At the time of the Hi Tek EP, we weren't even aware of Wolfeyes and Ben Frost and all these other noise type people," says Steve. "We were listening to Skream and Loefah, and we love dubstep, but it's too clean. Everything is just so digitised and rounded and nice."
No such accusations could be made of Cloaks. Their recordings approach intense levels of detail and precision, teaming with sonic squalls of white noises intricately orchestrated with dubstep time signatures. They achieve this by working almost exclusively from Carl's hardware based studio to create "eerie analogue distortion vibes that you just couldn't do on software that the majority of producers, especially dubstep producers, are using these days."
Currently creating a full LP release on Werk records to take on the road with the promise of full live shows on an array of hardware and tracks reworked for the live environment, Cloaks are set to continue experimenting. It looks like a bright future for bleak sounds.
Being ballsy is something that the duo fosters as the main element of their music, but it's something they attribute to more than just their dubstep parallels: "The influence is there but I wouldn't say we make 'dub'." This newest of musical forms has gained a reputation for fostering the darkest of sounds, with the likes of Vex'd and Milanese deservedly carrying a reputation for being among the most abrasive and demented producers in any electronic music, not just dubstep. With an artistic admiration and stylistic affinity with both (each featuring regularly in their DJ sets), Cloaks acknowledge that they are the latest of those with a dub influence to push the edges of the sound: "People like Vex'd and Milanese have obviously got elements of distortion there, but in our tunes every single thing is weathered or degraded to some degree. But that's the point of it really."
Despite their clear associations with the scene, there is much to their sounds that shifts grounds of comparison from Jamaican dub to Japanese noise. So much so that Mixmag's experimental section has awarded both their releases so far 'record of the month' status. The distortion and eroded textures of their music is something laboured over, something meditated upon, that doesn't sit comfortably with the majority of dubstep productions. The end result is a sound that, although recognisably dubstep orientated, just doesn't have the gleaned, mineralised polish that is a common signature of the genre.
"At the time of the Hi Tek EP, we weren't even aware of Wolfeyes and Ben Frost and all these other noise type people," says Steve. "We were listening to Skream and Loefah, and we love dubstep, but it's too clean. Everything is just so digitised and rounded and nice."
No such accusations could be made of Cloaks. Their recordings approach intense levels of detail and precision, teaming with sonic squalls of white noises intricately orchestrated with dubstep time signatures. They achieve this by working almost exclusively from Carl's hardware based studio to create "eerie analogue distortion vibes that you just couldn't do on software that the majority of producers, especially dubstep producers, are using these days."
Currently creating a full LP release on Werk records to take on the road with the promise of full live shows on an array of hardware and tracks reworked for the live environment, Cloaks are set to continue experimenting. It looks like a bright future for bleak sounds.