In Fine Style

This was the first record ever to have the term “dubstep” used about it in print — for a 2003 XLR8R cover feature by Martin Clark — and it’s fascinating to compare it to what that name came to signify two decades later. Certainly the average fan of 150bpm stadium wobblers would have great difficulty seeing this as the same genre they enjoy. It broadly, in structure and rhythms, sounds a lot more like UK garage or breaks than the half-tempo heavyweight sounds that would follow, and the simple synthesis of its warping bass tones are worlds away from the hyper-sculpted wobble of latter versions of dubstep. However, it does still sound remarkably fresh in its own right: Benny Ill and his studio colleagues were and are sonic connoisseurs, and ever frequency is lovingly crafted. There are movie and soul samples manipulated with the deftness of RZA, razor-edged Detroit techno sonorities to the synths, no-nonsense London rave energy and more besides all tied up into a perfectly wrapped package designed for moving bodies. This album deserves attention less for what it was a precursor of and more as an achievement in its own right.