- Dubstep is clearly Vancouver's genre du jour (or decade). Alarge part of the genre's dominance in the city is due to the perennially overlooked Kuma, the producer, promoter and DJ better known as James Graham. One of the city's earliest adopters of the style, his Konspiracy Group label has been an outlet for an exotic style intertwined with 2-step and dark garage.
"What It's Not" is laid down with such swing it's amazing that it doesn't just topple over; over anxious strings and dolorous chimes needlepoint snares land in quick succession. It's disorienting, because when "What It's Not" isn't swaying dangerously in one direction or the other, it's threatening to knock itself off orbit with that punchy percussion. Trinidadian-American MC Juakali does his best to find a way into the elliptical turbulence, delivering a nuanced vocal, underlining both the druggy half-awake haze and the paranoid Orientalism of its instrumentation. The track is reborn as "Fall" with a new vocal from Stockholm/Vancouver vocalist Amalia Townsend, but her jazzy, noodly vocal performance doesn't carry the same power.
Sheffield's Grievious Angel is wisely tapped for a remix of "What It's Not," and he delivers a starved and rabid 2-step remix. Trading in the sedative stupor of the original for upper-fueled manufactured energy, deafening aluminum percussion suddenly becomes the grounding focus. Angel's 2-step framework is not the kind of joyful slink one might expect but instead feels almost sinisterly automated, the sound of a possessed body pushed beyond its limits until it's running on empty.
TracklistA1 What It's Not feat. Juakali
A2 Fall feat. Amalia
A3 What It's Not feat. Juakali (Grievous Angel Remix)