Brazilian music is famous worldwide — from bossa nova, to choro, to samba.
Bossa is cool, choro is amazing, but my favorite things about samba is that despite being “pop music” it still has complex rhythms and harmonies.
My top favorite thing is the prevalence of the 7 stringed guitar and their use of counterpoints (i.e., parallel melodies).
I love how what (I think) started as guitarists just playing harmonies, turned into them improvising bass lines and counterpoints every once in a while, which eventually became them doing MOSTLY counterpoints and bass lines and barely playing the harmony lmao.
These bass lines and counterpoints, from what I understand, are often times arpeggiations of the chords and so forth, but they add such an amazing effect to the music.
Examples:
- This guy solo playing over a recording.
- This solo guitar + singer.
- Most music by Cartola which features the absolute timeless 7 stringed legend Dino. This one is a classic.
Hey!
Sorry somehow I missed this response in my inbox!
Whilst I did listen to some of the old stuff around the time of its inception it wasn’t my primary music focus so I’m not too knowledgeable about things I can recommend for older stuff.
I would suggest having a dig through some of the labels that have been around for a long time. People like System Music, Deep Medi, Sentry Records or Nice Up Records to name a few.
The skream track you linked is more dubwise style having a heavier dub reggae influence which isnt really my jam either but Nice Up Records seem to concentrate more on that kind of sound so may be a good place to start.
If you liked the Mystic State album linked I would highly recommend checking out the label D-BLK, they have been releasing a lot of really good music that is just a bit different to everything else. This is one of my favourites from recently by Shu.
Sorry I can’t be more specific with any recommendations as I love to spread the dubstep love but I’m not so knowledgeable about the older stuff as I really started immersing myself properly in this scene more around 2016-ish.
I hope you can at least find something you like amongst what I have linked!
You could also check out Swamp 81 which is Loefahs label but that isn’t really dubstep, they put out a lot more 130bpm, left field bass sort of stuff, still some great stuff in there but again not my wheelhouse as much so I’m not as knowledgeable even though I do like a little trip into 130 every now and then :D
Hey awesome thanks! This helps a lot, I’ll check all that out!
No worries. If you want some more label suggestions or find something you particularly like and would like more similar please feel free to PM me and I’ll happily help however I can to point you in the direction of more!