Various Artists – Scientist Launches Dubstep into Outer Space

Strip the ‘step’ out of dubstep, and what are you left with? A reminder that the futurist genre often draws more from the gloomy chambers of proper Jamaican dub than it does from grimy inner-city streets. This theory is encapsulated in Scientist Launches…, a double LP that lets the titular legendary dub engineer loose on the back catalogue of Bristol-based label Tectonic.

Unusually for this sort of remix compilation, all the originals are provided. Scientist manages the near-impossible trick of making Shackleton’s ghostly Hackney Marshes sound even more scary than its creator did, and amps up the emotion in Guido’s Korg Back, turning it into the highlight of the compilation. To be fair, the source material, with its sparse instrumentation and forbidding bass, was already a good place from where to start dubbing things up, but Scientist and Tectonic combined make a very fine combination of past and future. [Euan Ferguson]