“It was all a dream. I used to read Word Up magazine.”

Well for the young Mudge it was actually URB, and XLR8R. So, I was pretty happy when XLR8R sat down with Kevin Martin, aka The Bug, and Annette Henry, aka Warrior Queen. This producer/MC dubstep duo were responsible for the hard-hitting single “Poison Dart” from The Bug’s London Zoo album. Read my review here.

This interview provides a valuable primer to an interesting scene emerging from that island across the Atlantic known for pushing electronic music forward , with a little help from another island nation in the Caribbean also know for musical innovation.  Cultural cross-pollination is cool!

Enjoy this vinyl-rip off AFX’s Smojphace EP, a remix of the Bug & Daddy Freddy’s “Run the place red.”

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MP3: The Bug & Daddy Freddy – Run the place red (AFX mix)

At a recent party, when the DJ dropped a bass-heavy Baltimore Club track, a man turned to me and proclaimed, “I want my epitaph to read: Boom-Boom-Boom-Boom!”

Well said.

Bass is powerful, you feel it hit in the sternum, feel that air being pushed. Bass, the word itself, is such a great example of onomatopoeia; it reads like it sounds. I think of a recent King Lear production were Edmund delivers his bastard monologue accompanied by a bass player–apt given the heavy alliteration on the “B” sound and the pun on base/bass. “Why brand they us/ With bass!” would read the play if it had been written by another, more current, Londoner, Kevin Martin aka The Bug. His new album features a multitude of ragga-tinged guest vocalists, and of course centers around bowl shaking bass.
Read the rest…