Starkey
Ear Drums and Black Holes
It's all but impossible to document a subculture until the fossilization point is reached, especially if one has any interest in anything beyond that subculture. Generally speaking, that's why the usage of some kind of shorthand reference comes into play, either maliciously (so that entire scenes can be dismissed unexamined) or capitalistically (so that new products can be more easily sold). The primary reasoning behind coming up with terminology isn't always a negative, it's highly possible that we do it as shortcut, a way to contend with genres that are so expansive that they take on monolithic proportions. (That a good portion of the naming stems from those who are home-based and less likely to experience the subculture in the flesh is another factor entirely.) There's so much out new stuff out there that the task of "keeping up" eventually becomes, especially for the amateur, a near oppressive task. Being able to codify things makes it easier: this is another dubstep album, and I don't like dubstep, except for Burial. Is the new Raekwon out?
And yet: Ear Drums and Black Holes isn't just a dubstep album anymore than Boxcutter's 2009 work was. That isn't to say that the genre doesn't exist--it certainly does--nor is it to imply that there's something heroic in claiming oneself as a responsible listener for refusing to label it as such. The core pieces of sound on Ear Drums aren't far removed from what we know dubstep to be, and it takes a certain kind of ear (which this writer embarrassingly admits not to have) to be able to name a Starkey instrumental track on blind listen. We do know he's American, that he refers to his sound as "Street Bass", and while Ear Drums isn't his only 2010 output, it's the most lyric centric release in his burgeoning career. Those are the facts--but what's American about his sound? Is there something that's intrinsically Philly when he adds that squeeking old rave-up sound in "Fourth Dimension"? Did he push for a Jodeci mention on "Club Games"?
Nobody asks these kinds of questions except people who are banging around, trying to write about music. It's unnecessary, even more so when an album is tied into an overall category that's still directly connected to the utilitarian concerns of making a certain kind of club bounce, the equivalent of trying to interview someone about a dance move while they're in the process of moving onto the next. So we pare it down: zeroing in on the "official" album, the one that has graphic design, guest star vocalists, an actual release date. We section off the work, treating it less like what it is--a document of a young artist's development--and more like a statement on a field, ever-hoping that the authorities won't muddy the waters of emotional entanglements with their myth-destroying facts. It's anti-intellectualism at its worst, sure, and the destruction wrought under that name has done this decade little favor--but there's no use pretending that Starkey is interested in instigating philosophy. It's the rest of the nervous system--with a dark focus on what makes us move--that obsesses him most. Let Patrin explain the jokes. My dumb ass wants to grind.
-Tucker Stone, 2010
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