Ministry of Sound: Sound Of Dubstep

This post is sponsored in part by New York City's "Friday before a long weekend" rush hour.  

I had the pleasure of going to Riverhead, Long Island, NY this past weekend for Jerry & Deanna Ryan's wedding.  Deanna, Christine, Tim, Kenny, Laura, and I all went to music school together.  Kenny & I drove to NOVA and stayed with Tini & Mikey - the next morning we left for NY.  We were stuck in traffic from northern New Jersey to Exit 62 on the Long Island Expressway... and spent almost exactly an hour and a half trying to get through Queens.  I have a residual fear of heights, and there are a LOT of suspension bridges / tall overpasses during that particular leg of our journey.  Going 12 mph across these bridges, from which you can see directly down into the industrial / abandoned  neighborhoods or the river, is not my idea of fun.  To distract myself, I switched my iPod to the Ministry of Sound's "Sound of Dubstep" album.

Side note: If you aren't familiar with the Ministry of Sound, there's a lot you're missing.  Originally just a nightclub in London, the MoS expanded into a multinational corporation which includes a (literally) global record label, a separate MoS in Egypt, clothing lines, and some of the best club / underground electronic compilations I've ever heard.

"Sound of Dubstep" is a grimy, genre stretching, intense, yet slightly uneven album.  Tracks like "Bass Head" by Bassnectar and Doorly's "Raindrops" mix are now club standards.  There are others that are totally spin worthy, like the DJ Fresh / Nero mix of "Hypercaine", but don't get a lot of play.  Another example is Chasing Shadows' "Amirah".  I personally love "Hypercaine" because it's more of a house mix that displays evident influence of the  dubstep and bassline genres.  A real standout is the Bassline Smith & Drumsound dubstep mix "R U Ready?" - this track led Kenny to yell graphic statements describing how the music made him feel.  There are a few weaker tracks, which is to be expected in the company of such breakout and chronic standard artists.  The only thing I'll say about these tracks is that a duple followed by triple bass line does not a dubstep track make.  It's not just the rhythm; it's the overall mix and track blend which creates that unique sound.

Any album that can get you through New York City on a long weekend travel day at rush hour is clearly an instant classic and should be purchased immediately.  "Sound of Dubstep" is well worth retail for the  40+ underground and label artists' bass-heavy remixes.  In the words of Kenny... "This album is just, it is so highly, I cannot handle it right now!"