Taking aim at the pap peddlers.

Now is the winter of our discontent. Not only has the sun well and truly fucked off for most of the day leaving us to depressingly grope around in recession-induced darkness, but a whole host of exciting music genres are threatening to snuff out their once-bright sparks in a gloopy pool of their own hype. Yes, hype; a word that connotes energy and momentum but yet has that flip-side meaning of empty PR and broken promises.

And so Bass:files must point a finger at those artists and DJs, once at the forefront of pushing out fresh sounds and critically tut at the pap they're peddling. Of course, they aren’t the only villains in this scenario; someone has obviously put them up to it and so we can save a healthy portion of our venom for the audience.

Bass music is increasingly a territory in which the bland lead the bland. But saying all this leaves us open to accusations of music snobbery and we need also to face facts. Our beloved but ill-defined hodgepodge of musical styles has simply found a way to market itself, become popular and turn a few shekels. To sum it up exclusively in Roll Deep song titles, on the one hand we can ‘Celebrate That’, even if some of the crap out there just ‘Don’t Make Cents’.

Roll Deep have just dropped ‘Street Anthems’, a 19-track anthology of their unparalleled contributions to the grime scene. Indeed, you’d nearly be forgiven for thinking that you were listening to a scene-wide greatest hits compilation. From two cuts of ‘Eskimo’, the track that started it all, to the slick flowing ‘When I’m Ere’ and the improbable ‘Avenue’, it’s bittersweet listening, a stark contrast between the grime’s glory days and current dalliances with the popular audience.

At the same time, Wiley is preparing to release a single that shows just how far his will to innovate has fallen. The man who on several occasions completely reshaped the face of UK urban music is sadly offering us the limp ‘Take That’. There is just so much to hate about this tune. One, it shares a name with the boy/man band who frankly make for less depressing listening.

Two, it’s a carbon copy of ‘Bonkers’, which was never a good tune to begin with. Three, it’s produced by Chew Fu who is synonymous with some of blog house’s greatest offences. Four, there is nothing going on lyrically other than laurel resting. On the plus side, we're not going to ruin your pleasant internet browsing by showing the video. Instead check out his former protégé done (mostly) good.

Dizzee’s latest ‘Money Talks’ samples the 1989 classic ‘Dirty Cash (Money Talks)’ by The Adventures of Stevie V (although as is too often the case, the original tune is probably that bit better):

The bass music sin bin is not by far confined to grime, with a whole heap of grade B tunes getting play which somehow manage to delight a pretty indiscriminate student market. Throughout the UK clubs wobble with the farting of poor dubstep. Standards are rock-bottom; everything sounds like Rusko and chainsaws. It's a bad joke at music's expense and a sad state of affairs when the Skream remix of La Roux is still the hottest tune in the dance.

In these circumstances any halfway decent tune stands out a mile and it's a great relief when the DJ reaches for some L-Vis or funky. Sidney Samson’s ‘Riverside’ seems to be cropping up an awful lot and the remix courtesy of Lil Silva, while far from a classic, is definitely passable:

Silva, incidentally, has much more to work with in Drop The Lime’s ‘Set Me Free’ which he strips of a certain amount of its ravey intent and nicely balances with grooving percussion.

While no doubt likely to be popular, the imminent collaboration between Bassfiles favourites Toddla T and Jammer fails to deliver on the potential of both artists. Although the production has promising classic house, baltimore club and UK funky influences it ends up being practically handbag. This isn't helped by the anodyne female vocal. The wild energy and flow you'd expect from the Murkle Man is absent. A disappointing first outing for Jammer on the Big Dada label, another alliance that will need to show that it's got substance beyond the hype.

A further disappointment is Attaca Paesante's take on (alarm bells) David Guetta's new track 'One Love' which features Estelle on vocal duty. Fair enough, not much to begin with, a very talented vocalist singing a song that's at best inoffensive and nothing really worth salvaging on the production side (though much of it is). The percussion can't save it and you're left wondering why any producer would bother trying, until you plug in the Breakage remix.

In a world where grime artists drop any pretence of musical ambition beyond appearing at the top of the pops with mind-numbing regularity and 'dullstep' seems like a compulsory component to higher education, it's been a real treat to hear where Breakage has been taking his music.

Over the last six/seven years he has been producing some of the best drum n bass of the decade but always keeping a toe in the more down tempo business and in recent times has signalled an intention to concentrate on dubstep. His new album 'Foundation' is set to drop on Digital Soundboy next year. It includes high profile collabs with the likes of Roots Manuva and Skream, as well as forthcoming single 'Hard' featuring the fiery flows of the Newham Generals and a healthy sample from soundman extraordinaire David Rodigan:

The Caspa remix in particular is finding its way onto otherwise fairly second rate dubstep playlists.

More good news on the release front comes from Warrior One who are set to drop ‘War’ their well received collaboration with Lady Chan in February next year. The single will feature two strong B-sides and will definitely be worth picking up. The group are really making waves on the scene and are starting to appear on big billings. ‘War’ builds from a stirring string intro into a rolling funky riddim. Chan has the vocal on total lock with a catchy singjay chorus.

Indeed, it’s not all doom and gloom out there. New white EP releases from Emvee, Seany B and CR Zero provide top quality instrumental funky with enough sub and big percussion to kill in the dance. There’s even some real beauty coming out of the most unlikely sources and bringing some relief to the more pedestrian of playlists. The XX remix of Florence and the Machine’s ‘You Got the Love’ is case in point. Many people consider reworking the classics a form of blasphemy, and it’s likely that this cover will divide opinion, but from about 1 minute 30 seconds into the track the vocal chop-ups and heavy bass stabs really connect:

So as the year starts drawing to a close with new trends set, new careers made and others developing in a rather questionable manner, we can celebrate the success and influence that the bass sound has been enjoying, but perhaps hope that more and more quality will return to dominance and keep it vital.