by Maxwell Cavaseno
The world of Skrillex is supposed to be the dark side of the American party, I guess or something. At least that’s what that crooked-nosed hipster Harmony Korine might’ve implied with his big money-maker flick Spring Breakers in between demonizing black people and having James Franco rip-off Riff Raff who ripped off obscure Texan Rappers and so on and so on until you’ve stopped caring alongside me. From what I comprehended, Korine determined that Skrillex’s explosions of strange dimensonal-rift skronks of mid-range bass and synth peals that might supposed to be the sounds of ketamine fairies, are in fact the soundtrack of what lies at the depressing core of the shallow existence of adolescents in the 21st Century USA. Maybe I’m right, maybe I’m wrong, but one thing actually has me worried; if Skrillex is America’s dark side, what foul corner of hell were Vex’d composing for?
A bit of background is in order. Vex’d were a duo, Jamie Teasdale and Roly Porter, hailing from London in the dawn of the new millennium. They lived in a then underground, unregarded and unlikeable version of dubstep. Back then Skrillex was still Sonny of metalcore pretty boys From First To Last, and most of America was in thrall to emo or rap, as EDM was barely a ‘thing’. Maybe if you were lucky, you’d have heard of grime in relation to Dizzee Rascal or The Streets, or the UK garage scene that bore dubstep only to kick her to the curb like a red-headed stepchild, preferring over-achievers like Daniel Beddingfield or Craig David. But dubstep was a tiny scene populated by club music pioneers with a bit of meanness to their swinging post-house grooves, like El-B, Horsepower Productions or former drum & bass legend Steve Gurley. Back then, dubstep wasn’t a global industry, or an arms race of shrill metallic snarls.
Unless you were Vex’d. Going back to their early records, you can see the future in Vex’d, because these kids were cruel bastards. Whereas the earliest producers of dubstep relied on marrying house and reggae to gloomy ‘dread’ bass, Vex’d drew from a colder well; the sounds of the more metallic and nasty edges of drum & bass to be precise. Sure, a song like KMA’s “Cape Fear” sounded moody, but early Vex’d tracks like “Lion”, with its patois-sample twisted into an inhuman howl, or the industrial drilling mid-range cut through competition like a chainsaw. And it with about as much subtlety. So no wonder that the breakcore-heavy Planet Mu Records would adopt Vex’d.
Degenerate now stands in a curious position. In 2005, Vex’d would become one of the earliest ambassadors of a scene that wasn’t quite the right home for them, not when compared to the smoked-out half-step sound that grabbed the attention of early dance hipsters. But their album contains little of the ‘skank’ that their peers would play with, but more of a mechanical stumble. “Crusher Dub” stands as the only overtly reggae-tinged track, which gets torn to shreds by glitches and creepy screens of silken drones. Everything else sounds like whatever goes on in the head of the creature from Alien. If you’re lucky you make out the briefest flashes of human voices, samples… Most of it however, is a punishing mess of hard drums and basslines that resemble water tunnels more than any sort of ‘music’. Whether its the arcade gone explosive terror of “Venus”, “Angels” with really brings out the ‘Punk’ in ‘cyberpunk’, or the appropriately named “Thunder” with a drop that could flatten a car, these songs don’t just hit, they PUMMEL. Years later, when Vex’d and fellow dubstep pioneer.
Of course, times change, and with them, people and places. After a few years, Vex’d would grow bored of dubstep and drift apart, leaving only a second album mostly composed of loose ends and remixes. Jamie would drift into experimental hip-hop before returning to music as the dreamlike and pristine electronic act Kuedo while Roly would leave dance music behind altogether, opting instead to produce a series of strange electronic avant-garde music under his government name. Meanwhile, dubstep would spend those years after Degenerate going from obscure dance music niche to arena filling money-maker. It is doubtful that your average Skrillex or Borgore fan would find much to enjoy in such a bleak and unforgiving record. But deep down, at the heart of every bass drop that sounds like some lawnmower terrorizing a city, Vex’d is lingering in the shadows like some horrifying but proud monster mother. At least I’d imagine so.
