Track of the Moment: Predator by Chrispy

Remember that article I wrote about dubstep? And how I said that I would talk about good “modern” dubsteppers at some point? Well, today is that point.

Thanks to Facebook, I discovered Chrispy via a friend who was testing his car’s subwoofers with a song. I had heard of dubstep and seen this kid post a few other songs like it before, and this groggy Sunday afternoon (I sleep extra late on the weekends, like 12 is kinda early for me) I decided to check it out. With my super-fancy Sennheiser headphones (They were around 80% off, so don’t think I’m some rich dude) pumping ridiculous bass at me, I was sold.

Chrispy is a 19 year old DJ (who looks like a 14 year old girl) from England who’s been making hard-hitting beats for a few years. He started just posting stuff on Youtube and Soundcloud, but has now moved up to a record deal with 2 Much Bass Records. And it’s easy to see why – in a genre where everyone is racing to become the Skrillex or doing stupid stuff like Borgore, he’s doing something fairly unique. A simple, open 2-step beat, very original samples, and dark mind all come together to create some fairly dirty tracks.

See, rather than building a song around cramming as much wobble into a song as possible, he structures his tracks around a sample. And not in the way most dubstep DJs do; he doesn’t just use the sample in the beginning to set the set the tone. Rather, he overlays that sample throughout the song, using it as an anchor for the massive lows he throws at people. I shouldn’t say throw though; he carefully lays each wub in the song to compliment the sample and make the track interesting. Most DJs will just either drop the samples in favor of wobble, or keep the sample prominent and the dubstep in the background. Chrispy effortless mixes the two into just the right combination to keep dubsteppers and people who appreciate music happy. He also gets big ups for keeping the tone and feel of the Requiem for a Dream Theme in his remix (which keeps a film geek like me happy).

While dubstep is easy to do, good dubstep is hard. Bad DJs will just allow their wobble to loop a few times as they set up the next tone, or they pile on a bunch of wobble all over the place to disorientate audiences. However, Chrispy varies his wubs often enough to keep listeners enthralled without making it all a confusing mess. A great example would be his remix of the Inspector Gadget theme song (it’s Elliott’s favorite dubstep song. It doesn’t matter if it’s the only one he likes). However, I decided to share my personal favorite, “Predator”. It’s just a fantastic all around mix that anyone could like, even the stupidest dubheads.