For a moment in the early 2010s, dubstep was the delirious new sound of the electronic world. The laser-bright synths and vomity wubs of sub-scenes like brostep and riddim took over from the stark, murky UK style of the aughts and set the festival circuit ablaze. We all know how that ended, but the style never really died, and now the kids who grew up mainlining music from Monstercat and Trap Nation are throwing up their own futuristic insanity and calling it dubstep. Perhaps the most thrilling new-gen producer is Syzy—a virtuosic sound designer whose new album, The weight of the world, is the genre’s most intoxicating debut in years.
The California producer has worked in the shadows for a while now, dropping a couple of ear-lacerating dubstep EPs and experimenting with madcap side quests in the SoundCloud underworld. They made dariacore mashup weirdness and internet-fried Jersey club as a member of the anarchic collective TwerkNation28; cult streamer iShowSpeed hijacked one of their beats for an infectious viral hit. The weight of the world combines these zany impulses with pristine technical know-how. It’s an artful take on a genre often reviled as mindless carnage.
These songs feel like gazing at pixelated constellations where synth shards glisten between dark clouds of bass fog. Syzy stacks the songs’ sumptuous intros and outros with vocal slivers, infernal burbles, and ASMR-soft twinkles. Ornate drops feel less suited for raving than paying close attention. “HEART123” sparkles madly, as if a glacier could be stretched like an accordion. The ecstatic climax of “Caught up (in circles)” is like seeing color after a life of monochrome. “Get a grip!” deftly ratchets up the tension, then pops two drops in quick succession: The first is gnarly but it’s a pump fake compared to the fantastically feculent second, which resembles a robot-monster puking a torrent of neon-green bile.
The weight of the world feels so immersive partly because Syzy didn’t intend it to be purely functional. Rather than macho bass or daredevil drops, the artist cites hyperpop and homespun alt-rock (like twikipedia’s “seams”) as primary influences on this record’s emotionally vertiginous sound palette. The eruption of chattering noise on the intro smacks of Jane Remover’s “kodak moment.” The kitschy “Eureka!” sample motif is redolent of something off an Underscores tape. “In your face!” shivers with Rustie-shiny synths, as if bass wizard G Jones took a course in PC Musicology. The five-minute outro to “Experience (HIGHER)” is so packed with blurred bleeps and pixelated mist it’s like shoegaze for cyborgs.
Daniel D`Amico for SANREMO.FM
