PI Members Cure and Hexadecibel feat. in Discorder Magazine

DJ Cure and Hexadecibel, two of our committee members, were recently featured in Discorder Magazine.  We’re slightly bias, but we happen to think a lot of these two guys!

Check out the article here – or read the article below (emphasis ours):

Arti­cle text:

Cure & Hexadecibel

Big Bass Booming

By Dashiell Brasen

Cure & Hexa­deci­bel — Art by Aisha Davidson

Local res­i­dents DJ Cure and Hexa­deci­bel are help­ing take Cana­dian bass music to new heights. Together the two DJs have served up hys­te­ria induc­ing dub tracks for the last year at Goldie’s Lounge, turn­ing the base­ment of a Pen­der pizza joint into one of Vancouver’s (lit­er­ally) hottest night spots.

Cure and Hexa­deci­bel are not alone in pop­u­lar­iz­ing the dub­step move­ment. With dub­step artists like Rusko remix­ing Katy Perry and Kanye West on big time indie elec­tron­ica imprint Mad Decent and Chase & Sta­tus lend­ing their “East­ern Jam” out to Snoop Dogg for “Snoop Dogg Mil­lion­aire” (which was copro­duced by R&B and hip-hop main­stays Kurupt, Murs and John Leg­end, and fea­tures Slum­dog Mil­lion­aire star Tanvi Shah), yesterday’s under­ground sub­gen­res are cross­ing over into the main stream.

“I like to try and cre­ate music that can be felt, whether some­one is on the dance floor or lis­ten­ing in head­phones. I like to fuse tra­di­tional musi­cal ele­ments and instru­ments with futur­is­tic sounds and palettes. I want to keep the lis­tener inter­ested. For this rea­son, I often try new tech­niques on dif­fer­ent projects, just to keep things dif­fer­ent,” he said, explain­ing his own style.

“When I DJ out, I go hard or go home. I like to play big tunes with lots of energy. I tend to touch down on all ends of the spec­trum on my radio show on SUB FM. I’ll play any­thing from bangers to deep, techno influ­enced [music], to hip-hop-fused weird­ness,” said Cure. Mir­ror­ing Cure’s exper­i­men­tal ear, his label Aufect’s releases are dark, techy, glitchy and unafraid of the 4/4. [ed. Iron­i­cally in dub­step the 4/4 time sig­na­ture is con­sid­ered experimental.]

While Aufect Record­ings (www.aufect.com, www.myspace.com/aufectdigital) is show­cas­ing the best the Cana­dian beat scene has to offer, Hexadecibel’s sets for Rob Booth’s Elec­tronic Explo­rations pod­cast has attracted unprece­dented atten­tion for Cana­dian dub­step. Hexa­deci­bel first recorded a col­lab­o­ra­tive set with Vancouver’s most promi­nent bass crew, Lighta Sound. Booth then selected him to mix one of his own. Both sets have been down­loaded over 10,000 times.

“This pod­cast was very sig­nif­i­cant to me,” said Hexa­deci­bel. “It gave me the oppor­tu­nity to show­case some of my newest songs, demon­strate my mix­ing skills, and, most impor­tantly, pro­mote my cur­rent and future releases … [EDIT FOR POSTERITY] Once my release [Prism EP] on Mind­set hits shelves, the snow­ball really gets rolling, as I have four more vinyl releases lined up over the next 12 months.” Prism is avail­able on web­sites like Boomkat, Juno, Chem­i­cal and Redeye.

Back at home, ener­gized by bass music’s con­stantly merg­ing and shift­ing array of new styles, Cure envi­sions his label “mutat­ing into an out of con­trol beast,” hous­ing a “sub-sub-genre not even invented yet.” With Aufect’s dig­i­tal releases reach­ing the top 10 on elec­tronic music web­site Juno’s online music down­loads, it’s a good indi­ca­tor that Cure’s muta­tions will be heard soon enough.

Cure owes Aufect’s early suc­cess to know­ing some tal­ented pro­duc­ers. DZ, who was fea­tured in ATM Magazine’s “Lead­ers of the Nu Skool” arti­cle, and Loetech, of Bom­ba­man and XI, put their faith in him and helped him get Aufect started. “Now I run the label myself … My girl does all the account­ing and paper work, and my boy Nick Laz­er­face is A&R and is rep­ping as a DJ in Mon­treal,” Cure said.

Cure brought his girl­friend from Ontario in 2007 with the express inten­tion of start­ing a dub­step label in Van­cou­ver. He describes the crowds here as “real music lovers,” who “just go off!” He feels the city can stake a claim as “one of the top three cities rep­re­sent­ing dub­step in North Amer­ica, maybe even num­ber one.”

Hexa­deci­bel agreed, “People’s accep­tance of the sound in gen­eral, and will­ing­ness to hear new music, [makes Vancouver’s dub­step scene unique and spe­cial] … The ‘heads’ in this city are well versed in elec­tronic music … the local pro­duc­ers, DJs, pro­mot­ers, etc. It seems like a very fer­tile place for cre­ative peo­ple, and what’s bet­ter is that almost every­body involved in the scene here is coop­er­a­tive and helpful.”

“I think dub­step is show­ing signs of going main­stream,” Cure added. “[But] I’ve never been hap­pier with bass music as a whole.”

Hexa­deci­bel fol­lowed up, say­ing: “It’s an excit­ing time right now, with bass music reach­ing around the globe and more and more tal­ented peo­ple join­ing the ranks daily. I am truly amazed, lit­er­ally every sin­gle day, with the level of cre­ativ­ity and tal­ent I see from younger and younger pro­duc­ers, not to men­tion the old hats who have been at it in the music biz for years who are again hit­ting their stride with a renewed inter­est in music. I think dub­step is a con­duit, a place where peo­ple from so many other dis­ci­plines are com­ing and bring­ing their expe­ri­ence to cre­ate some­thing totally new and fresh.”

In the same vein, Hexa­deci­bel has helped to revive the audi­ence dri­ven label Press­ing Issues, to keep things dif­fer­ent. Hexa­deci­bel is one of the label’s com­mit­tee heads, who are respon­si­ble for whit­tling down demos pre­sented by their online com­mu­nity and pre­sent­ing them to be voted on for poten­tial press­ing and releas­ing. The label has suc­cess­fully released two 12-inch vinyls which are dis­trib­uted by ST Hold­ings UK and is get­ting a third install­ment going.

“We will be cre­at­ing an active poll for dub­step fans to vote on in mid-November, and the vinyl will likely hit shops in late Decem­ber or early in the new year,” Hexa­deci­bel added. “We’ve pre-signed our A-side for the album, [XI’s ‘Grav­ity’]. ‘Tis a big tune.”

In the mean­time, if you want to catch Cure, he’ll be at Goldie’s on Nov. 6.

“Goldie’s Fri­days will be no longer be a crunked-out-thrust-womp-raver-bass party spot. Not to worry, though, the night will still be there. Just chilled out though with more of a house and two-step vibe,” he said. On Nov. 13 he’s open­ing up for the Dub Police label owner, Caspa. He’ll play Nov. 20 at the Suave Assas­sins One Year anniver­sary party, and on Nov. 27 at a venue that has yet to be announced, so keep your eyes peeled and ear to the ground. He also has a new res­i­dency, Whatever’s Dope Wednes­day, every Wednes­day in the back­room at Shine, hosted by Emo­tionz. Check out his radio show every Thurs­day 6 to 8 p.m. on SUB FM.

Hexa­deci­bel reg­u­larly releases tracks on his web­site at soundcloud.com/hexadecibel.

Tags: Disorder Magazine, dj cure, hxdb, myspace, soundcloud