Sinter and Siberian Dubstep: Not Just for Oil Workers

This week the Siberian net-label Heavy Mental has published some solid dubstep/breakcore from Sinter: six tracks under the collective name of “Crust.” They can – happily – be downloaded for free.

Sinter is the stagename for Novosibirsk’s Aleksandr Bubin (below) who has been involved in music since 2003, when his geeky programming skills took him in a more creative decoration.

In fact it was after he heard a set by Artem Stepanov, known himself as “Math Geek,” that things started to take shape in consequential ways, with Sinter developing or deconstructing the local jungle and D&B traditions.  Over this transitional period, Poland’s Bogdan Raczynski, now based in Canada, nudged Bubin towards harder beats, specifically in the direction of drill ‘n’ bass.  The result was unlikely to be quiet.

Bubin himself says: “My tastes slowly changed and widened. As a result my creative work became more eclectic and experimental, too. Over time a few essential elements took shape: they were an increase in speed, tougher beats, and chopped-up samples… the kind of things that are best described as breakcore.”

Three years ago, Bubin started collaborating with the ongoing Siberian net-project, Hopneck, which – together with Heavy Mental – gave him a stable venue for developing those same breakcore and digital hardcore mixes. Within a year, though, he’d also developed a passion for warmer dubstep sounds: many of these steps and stages can be followed via Hopneck’s archives either as individual tracks, or as lengthier mixes.

They act as fine evidence of shifting fashions in Siberian dance music over the last few years. Friends and colleagues at Hopneck gave Sinter a better sense of musical rasion d’etre: “That’s how I branched into newer things, into dubstep and breakcore, with their bassier, darker, and noise-based sounds.”

His wandering enthusiasm for different styles over the last few years is, in his mind, one reason why his current output sounds so busy: “You’ll hear a synth-bass side by side with all kinds of samples, taken both from live instruments and percussion, too.  There’s distorted keyboards, different soundscapes that I’ve taped, and  - sometimes! – vocals.”  These and other dabblings make it hard to say what’ll come next: “I’d rather not try and predict anything. The way that musicians’ chop and change is something that defies all kinds of guesswork…!”

The folks at Hopneck continue to synthesize (or slow!) these flip-flops as something resembling a shared purpose or manifesto:  ”Hopneck is our way of living in Russia, where most people are narrow-minded and dull. Unable to grasp new or original ideas, they behave aggressively towards anything that strikes them as peculiar.” Hm… not the most diplomatic opening.

The text continues in ways that show how the label is gradually cohering as one venue with one name. “For the time being it’s operating more as online music storage. In our minds, our basic work involves vinyl releases – the kind of things that are practically impossible to produce in Russia, due to the way our domestic music scene operates.” The crude problems of material production (of making and moving physical discs across a huge country) has prompted Hopneck’s founders to keep one foot in the ether and pay 50% of their attention to web-based work, which is one of the reasons that Novosibirsk has such a strong reputation for good, easily available tunes.

“Out here – at the edge of the world! – we try to make interesting music, and we’d really like to share our ideas with you. On the Hopneck website we’ll publish the works which that we think are worthy of your attention… no matter if it is sick-sounding breakcore or really dark dubstep, abstract idm, or versatile drum’n’bass! Please find some time for our Lost-in-Siberia beats. We hope you’ll enjoy them.”

The goal of Sinter and Hopneck, in that case, is to fight both material and cultural problems with a policy of inclusion: dumb public taste and physical isolation can be combated by inviting the largest possible audience and distributing broadly across the web. Whatever the actual sound of Sinter’s new release, the fact that he and his net-chums are turning to talk of dubstep says a lot. As a scene that grew up in South London, it was perceived very much as a softer alternative to D&B or breakcore. To boot, those latter styles had an enduring reputation for being too laddish: the assumption was – based on ticket sales! – that girls did not want to hear the angry growl on D&B hour after hour. When dubstep came along, girls and young women were noticeably more present on the dancefloor, and the number of female DJs also rose.

Increasing your possible demographic by 50% is a very good idea for lonely young men, living “at the edge of the world.” It could even lead to population growth.

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