#bloc 2011

A rare live recording from Dopplereffekt is always going to be gold...

A Guy Called Gerald - Bloc 2011 - Homage to the True School DJ set: 1984 – 1988 by Bloc. on Mixcloud

This set is a homage to what I call the True School. True School isn’t some trendy name I picked up from a magazine. It’s the kind of music I actually grew up dancing and listening to. Back in the early 80s electronic black dance music was a very specialist niche but it was the centre of my world which was based around my local club scene in Manchester. I was so deep into it that I never actually noticed the extra wagons attaching themselves. The journey so far has been very interesting but it seems there are so many trailers that have attached themselves to electronic black dance music that the weight seems to have moved – so the more commercial less underground styles which developed out of this very select (almost obscure now) style of music is being pulled in the opposite direction by even the neo-commercial rap industry now – who I’m sure (alot of them) are not really aware of the roots of where their music began.

When I was asked to do an old school acid house set I could have easily put another nail in the coffin of black dance music by playing some cheesy old pseudo rave shit that started to cash in on the early Chicago acid house scene. I actually watched the system of what was going on in the early house days from a safe distance in the “jungle”. I watched as certain DJs positioned themselves into places of importance as the pop trailer attached itself via the now trendy “Remix Producer” and helped the main music media to coin phrases. It seemed to me fragments of the morsels of funk they had extracted from past grooves were becoming the building blocks and templates for what you now call dance music. And then I watched as the next generations fed off these and created their own, even more refined, fragments. To me, it seems like they were blagged judging by the fact that there is so much interest in and releases of retro-analogue-backward-looking music right now.

After seeing Lucky Me's Jacques Greene smash things up at Bloc(!) last weekend, I couldn't resist putting up this vibin' promo mix he did in the run up. It's one of the few things that's helping to soothe those post Bloc blues...

This mix was put together by The Orator to capture the "struggle and zealous excitement from 2010's fervor" as the genre experienced boundary pushing growth. He notes that the growth of international bass music in 2010 has resulted in the emergence of a new paradigm, "where no established genre is safe and inspiration is abound, thus Omnistep."

Omnistep it is - and we can't wait to see how it unfolds in 2011.

Give this mix a listen once, twice or 10 times. It may be your "listen" that gives The Orator, the opportunity to play UK’s BLOC Festival.

The Orator Presents Omnistep - Bleep Competition by Mushpost on Mixcloud

"On Friday May 21st, 2010 I witnessed Headhunter perform as Addison Groove at Dub War NYC. The incorrigible DJ Haitian declared it was Headhunter's "final 'fuck you' to dubstep." The game had changed.

Last year international bass music withstood exponential growth in every direction and the growing pains were not ignored. Selecting which tunes from 2010 to use for this mix was simply vexing.

This mix stands to represent my growth, not away, for there is no where to run away to, but, from dubstep. It is my intention for this mix to be a dynamic overview of artists that have pushed bass music into a new paradigm where no established genre is safe and inspiration is abound, thus Omnistep. My hope is also that the struggle and zealous excitement from 2010's fervor is tangible in this mix. Please enjoy & share." -Nick Concklin / The Orator