In the rekindled flame of ‘classic’ dubstep – whose embers once again crackle with sub-bass, beats that stretch through the halftime, sparse lighting and plenty of reverb – what is particularly striking and evident is how nostalgia and trends go round in circles. As the more classic, predominantly British dubstep sound slowly transformed into everything that was simply given the ‘post-’ prefix or spilled straight over into straightforward techno territory, it all happened very quickly and only the loudest to most brutal offshoots survived. A decade and a half later, the younger generation is rediscovering the records and producers of the 2000s and giving dubstep another chance. And people are even daring to spell out that word again.
The American Carrè is one of the leading figures among this generation of producers and, in the past three years alone, has released a series of EPs that are aware of the past but don’t dwell on it unnecessarily. Right from the opener of the Citrine EP, ‘Spend It’, she demonstrates her grasp of the rules, letting a sweaty midnight beat creep over a subtly wobbly bassline, whilst giving the track a more American feel with the vocal part by Atlanta-based rapper Mercury. The standout track, ‘Sense of Place’, then thumps its way down into the basement with a more techno-like feel, before the gut-wrenching bass of ‘Static’ serves as a final reminder of which label we’re on here.
Citrine EP
