This is about as close as I get to listening to Dubstep

 Mount Kimbie – Maybes by cohenburg

This is Mount Kimbie. They’re two nice chaps from London who play chilled out electronica (and did that amazing Foals cover for Spanish Sahara). They started out wanting to make dubstep and soon realised that they were awful at it: “It was a total disaster…we made four or five tracks and they were terrible, we had no idea how to make bass”.

So yeah, this isn’t really dubstep. It’s kind of like its dreamy little offspring, released from the shackles of the free-wheelin’, dropping and wobbling bass of conventional dubstep (for the most part anyway). At times, Mount Kimbie produce almost happy music. But not quite. The track you can listen to above is called Maybes, the title track from their debut EP, and the song that got them signed in the first place.

Some people have been calling this kind of music merely “step”. Worst. Name. Ever. Well maybe that whole “chillwave” phenomena is worse, but it’s definitely up there. If anything, it’s post-dubstep, but there’s no real need to enter into silly semantics. The simple fact remains: it’s good.

Mount Kimbie release their debut album, Crooks & Lovers, this week on the UK label Hotflush Recording. Buy it.