The Chestplate sound took over the SMOG Sunday Night
Sessions at Los Globos in Los Angeles on November 18th, filling the
dimly lit and crowded club with the dark and twisted basslines that Chestplate
has become notorious for. The cold, dark November evening set the tone and mood
for the whole night, reflecting the cold, dark vibes of the Chestplate sound.
District started off the evening with the darkness and only
made it darker through his whole set. District set the crowd off when he
dropped the 2008 Coki & Benga banger (pun intended) “Night.” He also
dropped many dubplates and originals that can be heard on our most recent Dank
Radio program, Bassgiving.
Tunnidge came on after District and started dropping some of
the heavier midrange tunes. The awesome thing about the Chestplate sound is
that while they do use a lot of midrange in their tunes, they manage to do so
to the point where it’s not overly aggressive and doesn’t seem to cause as much
of the testosterone-fueled mosh pits that I’ve seen at many other dubstep
events in LA recently.
Tunnidge dropped a variety of tunes, from some of the older
tunes like Toasty’s “The Knowledge” (on Hotflush, which was one of the first
dubstep tunes I purchased when I first got into it) to selections from, of
course, the Chestplate catalog (i.e. Sleeper’s “Zombies” and Tunnidge’s own “7
Breaths”). He ended his set with one of his most recent releases on Chestplate,
“Brixton Bass” off his Brixton Bass EP.
Chestplate head honcho Distance got on the decks right after
Tunnidge and dove right into the signature heavy, twisted basslines of
Distance’s more recent sounds.
Distance’s set was filled with tons of wheel ups and drops
that got the crowd screaming for more. He threw down many of his originals and
remixes, like his remix of “Blind Spot” by Submotion Orchestra and “Troubles”
from his most recent GetDarker release. He also dropped many tunes that I’m
pretty sure were for the ladies, especially the more vocal dubstep tunes (i.e.
Breakage’s remix of Clare Maguire’s “Ain’t Nobody”).
The highlight of the night came within the last 1 (or 1 ½)
hour of Distance’s set. Tunnidge and District came up on stage with him and
announced that they were going to do a 3-way back-to-back DJ.
Each DJ’s individual style showed in each of the 2-song
blocks that they did as they were going back to back. Distance played more of
the darker tracks of the three. Tunnidge’s blocks sounded like stuff that the
Digital Mystikz would drop if they did another SMOG set in LA (those who went
to SMOG Sunday Night Sessions when DMZ played should remember when Mala dropped
Loefah’s remix of “Jah War”). District’s set was more of a banger set – he
dropped Benga’s “26 Basslines,” which most of the crowd went nuts for.
The fact that SMOG has brought many less-than-mainstream (at
least in LA), yet proper dubstep artists to Los Angeles has definitely built up
some respect (pun intended) in the
Southern California bass music scene and for me at least, it’s been giving me
more of a reason to work my already busy schedule around attending these
events.
And on the topic of SMOG bringing proper dubstep artists to Los Angeles – this Sunday, December 9, Hatcha will be doing a proper "history of dubstep"set – busting out the old tunes (hopefully the really early-00s garage-influenced tunes!).
More information and tickets can be found at http://smogrecords.com/smog-sunday-dec-9/.
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