beardstep

Electronic music genres are clearly a bit of a mess. Over the years, the names keep changing and the genres seem to multiply and get more narrowly defined. When the definitions are so specific that changing the timing of your snare catapults your song into a different genre, things have gone a bit wrong. Its great that styles of music evolve and change, but the compulsion to give every style it's own name seems a bit pointless.

I can see the point of genres to distinguish between very different types of music. For example, if someone bought a CD thinking it was Classical, and when they played it at home it turned out to be Rock, they would be justifiably disappointed. But if someone buys a CD thinking it is Dubstep, and then is disappointed when they get home and find out it is 2-Step, then they are probably being a bit too specific in their tastes. Infact, even being able to tell the difference between those two genres is probably a bad sign (or am I just getting old?).

The imaginary genre Beardstep has apparently arisen as a reaction to this. Well, to be honest, unraveling the exact etymology of the word is beyond me - it seems to have been in use for some years, but to me, its emergence seems like a despairing reaction to genre nonsense. But the name does have a nice ring to it, so over at the watmm-ekt forums, the same discussions that spawned the 'Deep Sea Creatures' compilation (see previous post) also spawned a 'This Is Beardstep' compilation.

The idea was to submit tracks that to define the Beardstep sound. What was the sound? No-one could say. But I sat down and thought about beards and then tried to make a 'warm' and 'fuzzy' track. Here is the result:

hirsute harmony by koanotic - 3:53 (7.1 Mb)

(I was also going to try and make it sound 'scratchy', but that bit didn't work out)

Other people also submitted their idea of what Beardstep should be, and the complete compilation is now available as a free Net Release from Analogue Wings Records:

This Is Beardstep by Various Artists

01. Zephyr Nova - F**k tha Razor (Stroke tha Beard)
02. Adjective - Fulvous Wren
03. Johnny Moss - Beard Dub
04. Mike - Dark Locust
05. Lights Set North - Channel
06. Koanotic - Hirsute Harmony
07. Nizu - Demoxinil Shaves the Day
08. Johnny Moss - I'm Never Gonna Get Caught Shaving Whilst You're In my Life, Girl
09. Braintree - Beardstep
10. Mike - Juliet Must Die
11. Beneboi - Smooth
12. Thisket - Odyssey
13. Chris Moss Acid - Beard On

Download ZIP of all tracks (78 Meg)

Considering none of us knew what Beardstep was supposed to sound like, the resulting compilation is surprisingly cohesive, with lots of warm analogue sounds. The tracks by Zephyr Nova and Braintree stand out to me, with Lights Set North's and Beneboi's contributions also getting a lot of praise over on the forums.

I'm hoping we can do volume 2 compilation at some point, perhaps called 'Now Thats What I Call Beardstep', but don't hold your breath.