Dubstep is practically mainstream these days, but, if what’s left of my memory serves me correctly, the first time I remember hearing nearly an entire set of it was when a Colorado festival called Sonic Bloom went down in Winter Park circa 2008. Bassnectar was at the helm, and I was used to the “omnitempo maximalism” he’d so proudly practiced for what seemed like eons. Listening to him spend an hour or two at the same basic tempo–in the neighborhood of 142 beats per minute–was unusual at the time. Fast forward a smidgen. Deadmau5 dropped dubstep on MTV last year. Britney Spears squeezed a breakdown or two into her dumbfounding comeback. Bassnectar is headlining Red Rocks in June. The point? Sonic Bloom has been consistently ahead of the curve since its inception half a decade back.
The Unified Field, a two night Sonic Bloom pre-party, gets underway Friday, April 29, at Cervantes. Bay Area-based Eskmo is probably the pre-festival lineup’s most noteworthy up-and-comer. His dance tent set at Vail’s Snowball in March was fire. An-ten-nae, Janover, Octopus Nebula, Heyoka, DJ Vadim, Miraja and more fill out the musical bill. In the live art department, visionary media fans will be tickled pink about the presence of both Alex Grey (see above image) and his better half Allyson.
Just don’t take the brown acid.
So is Alex Grey going to be here in Denver? A sit down with that man is long over due!
Grey will be live painting both nights:)
Sorry to break it to ya kiddo, but if your first exposure to “dubstep” was at Sonic Bloom in 2008, you shouldn’t be writing about the music at all. The West Coast Bass and Glitch Hop sound that this festival supports only contributes to the sloppy amalgamation of shite music that E’d-out teenagers and twenty-somethings drug dealers call dubstep. Not to mention that this is all just marketed crap that Colorado (in particular) loves to gobble up. … and really? Your first tag in this post is “Albert Hofmann?” WTF is this party about?
P–If you’d done anything but skim the blog, you’d know that I think 2008 was the first time I heard an entire set of dubstep, but I’d certainly experienced the sound before that (was 2nd person to bring Bassnectar to CO in 2003). And if you’d bothered to read the caption under the image, you’d know that the Alex Grey painting is a portrait of Albert Hofmann.