Chocolate eggs and gurgling basslines, The Deen gave UK broken beat the Easter celebration it deserved last Sunday, with one of UK dubsteps founding fathers, Caspa headlining the show.

Upon entering the club, it was the familiar jungle heads in immediate view, and Logistics was banging out some absolutely massive DnB tunes. It had been a while since I’d been in touch with the latest tracks, so the set was a nice update for me, with a lot of new stuff to my ears, and a lot more hi-hats then I’ve been used to lately.

But the real reason I was there, was to forsake the higher frequencies (except for the occasional piercing snare drum) and fully embrace the power of bass.
I made my way to the back of the club, and the tone was changing, the tempo was half time, and people were no longer jumping around in the familiar X step, but instead were bouncing back and forth, like a sea of springy pendulums, to the epic sound of wobbling synths and unrelenting sub basses, which could be likened to the sound of two robots having an arguement. I had entered the realm of dubstep, and DJ Seven was ripping the crowd to pieces.

He was truly reading the crowd, building the energy in all the right places. Although, towards the end of his set, a malfunction with one of the decks forced a TRIPLE play of Eastern Jam, while although a massive tune and no doubt an anthem for the new found popularity of dubstep, 3 times in a row was pushing the crowds patience…but he managed to soldier on and finish his set with the crowd going nuts.

It was then *Caspa’*s turn to hit the decks. The tiny cockney thug stepped to the plate, announcing he hasn’t had any sleep, and to be honest, it showed a little during the beginning of his set. The choice of tunes were a mixed bag, showcasing not only the hard wobbling head banging form of dub, but also the warmer, more epic style, with pretty female vocals and less harsh wobbles. Although Caspa was doing well to diversify, it is already apparent that dubstep is starting to take on a formula, with distinctive powerful snares cutting through in half time, which are great at giving definite tempo to songs, but I just hope dubstep doesn’t fall into the trap of losing its experimental nature like drum and bass seems to be doing.

Another thing I find myself noticing is the DJ’s affinity with big rewinds, especially during their own tracks. This also happened many times during *Rusko*’s set a few months back. Don’t get me wrong, rewinds are good… when used sparingly.

All in all, it’s apparent that dubstep is here to stay, for a while at least, for which I am happy. The style is pulling a lot of the good parts of existing genres together, and its halftime feel is making it easier for everyone to bop along. But a word of warning to people heading off to the next dubstep event, invest in some earplugs, those basslines are dangerous!