Planet Mu is an English electronic music record label created and run by Mike Paradinas. The label started out as a subsidiary of Virgin Records then Paradinas set up the label independent of Virgin. After releasing intelligent dance music, the label moved to jungle and breakcore, and then grime and dubstep and later footwork. The label also releases the music of Paradinas under various aliases such as μ-Ziq, Kid Spatula and Tusken Raiders. It celebrated its 25th anniversary in 2020.
Dubstep is a genre of electronic dance music that originated in South London in the early 2000s. The style emerged as a UK garage offshoot that blended 2-step rhythms and sparse dub production, as well as incorporating elements of broken beat, grime, and drum and bass. In the United Kingdom, the origins of the genre can be traced back to the growth of the Jamaican sound system party scene in the early 1980s.
Daniel Edward Stein, known professionally as DJ Fresh, is an English DJ and record producer. He is one of the principal members of the drum and bass group Bad Company, alongside Darren White (dBridge), Jason Maldini and Michael Wojcicki (Vegas). He also owns and runs the drum and bass label Breakbeat Kaos with Adam F.
Hyperdub is a British, London-based electronic music record label and former webzine, founded by Steve Goodman, a.k.a. Kode9. The label was formed in 2004, and grew out of the UK's early dubstep scene. Artists signed to the label have included Burial, Cooly G, Dean Blunt, DJ Rashad, DVA, Fatima Al Qadiri, Ikonika, Jessy Lanza, Klein, Laurel Halo and Zomby.
William Emmanuel Bevan, known by his recording alias Burial, is a British electronic musician from South London. Initially remaining anonymous, Burial became the first artist signed to Kode9's electronic label Hyperdub in 2005. He won acclaim the following year for his self-titled debut album, an influential release in the UK's dubstep scene which showcased a dark, emotive take on UK rave music styles such as UK garage and 2-step; it was named the album of the year by The Wire. Burial's second album, Untrue, was released to further critical acclaim in 2007.
Oliver Dene Jones, known as Skream, is an English electronic music producer based in Croydon. Skream has released records on several British record labels, such as Tempa, Tectonic, and Big Apple Records, and has performed throughout Europe, the US, Canada, Australia, and Japan, as well as the UK. Skream is known as an early and influential architect of the dubstep genre.
Skream! is the self-titled, debut album by dubstep producer Skream. It was released in 2006 on the Tempa label. The album is considered to be an important stepping stone for dubstep. BBC Music described it as having "accelerated dubstep’s transformation from hyped underground scene to [a] sort of influential [genre]", as it fuzes more "old-school rave" sounds with more accessible "pop" sounds. The album predates the highly popular and influential dubstep works by producers such as Skrillex, sometimes disparagingly referred to as "brostep". It essentially serves as an accessible entry into "classic dubstep".
Steve Goodman, known as Kode9 is a Scottish electronic music artist, DJ, and founder of the Hyperdub record label. He was one of the founding members of the early dubstep scene with his late collaborator The Spaceape. He has released four full-length albums: 2006's Memories of the Future and 2011's Black Sun, Nothing (2015), Escapology and Astro-Darien (2022).
Adegbenga Adejumo, known as Benga, is a British musician from Croydon, known for being a pioneer of dubstep record production. He has been featured on a variety of compilations including Mary Anne Hobbs's Warrior Dubz, Tempa's The Roots of Dubstep and the BBC Radio 1Xtra anniversary mix.
Dave Huismans, better known by his stage name 2562, is a Dutch musician from The Hague, Netherlands.
Rob Ellis, better known as Pinch, is a British dubstep artist from Bristol, England, noted for his fusion of styles such as reggae, World music, and dancehall with dubstep. He released his first album, Underwater Dancehall in 2007, on Tectonic, which he founded. One of Pinch's most well-known tracks is "Qawwali", released on Planet Mu records, which references the devotional singing of the same name, and featured samples of harmonium and singer Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan. His songs appear on compilations such as Box of Dub: Dubstep and Future Dub 2, Science Faction: Dubstep, 10 Tons Heavy and 200. More recently, he has moved away from dubstep towards the UK bass scene, working with producers such as Mumdance and Adrian Sherwood.
Geiom a.k.a. Hem, is a Nottingham based producer, live electronic musician and DJ. He is also the owner of the Berkane Sol label. He was known for being part of a group of producers along with 2562 and Shackleton who blended techno, garage and dubstep.
Noisia was a Dutch electronic music trio consisting of members Nik Roos, Martijn van Sonderen, and Thijs de Vlieger from Groningen, Netherlands. They produced a wide variety of music including drum and bass, dubstep, breakbeat and house. They released music under labels including Skrillex's Owsla, deadmau5's mau5trap and Jay-Z's Roc Nation. Noisia previously combined with the group Foreign Beggars to form the supergroup side project, I Am Legion. They released their collaborative self-titled album on 2 September 2013. Noisia also has production credits under the pseudonym Nightwatch, such as when they worked with Alexis Jordan, Hadouken!, Wiley and Wretch 32. They produced Hadouken!'s album, For the Masses, that charted at number 19 on the UK Albums Chart.
Multiverse Music is a British music publisher directed by James Ginzburg that was founded in 2004 to showcase the work of contemporary electronic artists involved with and operating from their Bristol based studio.
Post-dubstep is an umbrella term applied to a range of musical styles that have been influenced by the sparse, syncopated rhythms and heavy sub-bass of the UK dubstep scene. The breadth of styles associated with the term post-dubstep precluded it from being a specific musical genre in the early 2010s. Such music often references earlier dubstep productions as well as UK garage, 2-step and other forms of underground electronic dance music. Artists producing music that has been described as post-dubstep have also incorporated elements of ambient music and early 2000s R&B. The latter in particular is heavily sampled by two artists described as post-dubstep, Mount Kimbie and James Blake. The tempo of music typically characterised as post-dubstep is approximately 130 beats per minute.
Camo & Krooked are an electronic music duo from Vienna, Austria with their musical roots embedded in drum and bass, consisting of Reinhard "Camo" Rietsch and Markus "Krooked" Wagner.
Martijn Deijkers, known professionally as Martyn, is a Dutch producer and DJ from Eindhoven, currently based in Washington D.C. in the United States. He is the son of Dutch former footballer Gerrie Deijkers. He started his career by DJing drum and bass in 1996, but began to include more of a dubstep influence after first hearing Kode9's "Sine of the Dub". He released his first 12" singles in 2005, incorporating elements of both techno and jungle. Deijkers' first album, Great Lengths, was released in 2009. In 2010 he released Fabric 50, the 50th installment of the Fabric Mix DJ series. Martyn's second studio album, Ghost People, was released in 2011 on the American label Brainfeeder.
Ema Jolly, better known by her stage name Emika, is an English electronic musician of Czech origin currently residing in Berlin. Her self-titled debut album was released in October 2011 via Ninja Tune and received generally positive reviews.
Tony Williams, better known as Addison Groove, is an electronic music artist from Bristol, United Kingdom. Noted for his fusion of styles such as Techno, Jungle, Soul, Juke and Dubstep, he released his first album 'Nomad' on Tempa in 2008.
Lex Johnson is a British designer, director and creative executive. He is the founder of creative agency DAZZLE SHIP, a former lecturer at Swedish design institute Hyper Island, and the founding online director of RWD magazine and RWD Forum.
