To explain bassline is to explain the endless tension of gender in British dance music.

Have some short-hand.

First, in the late '80s, there was acid house. Then jungle. And then 2-step, grime, and dubstep. A single, all-connecting, 20-year breed, in other words, of U.K. underground electronic genres that continues to grow, mutate, experiment, fray, and explode, keeping the culture locked onto the future.

Throughout the evolution, the focus of British black dance music has essentially swung back & forth from a male and female approach to sound, with the jungle, grime, and dubstep scenes finding a more boys-dominated audience while the acid house and 2-step ones welcomed a more universal, girls-friendly group of followers and producers. Of course, it's a reductive umbrella-idea in the face of so many other influences, but this dynamic, this struggle, between U.K.'s genres has been so tangible and prevalent for so long that it'd be a mistake to ignore.

K-Punk, for FACT Magazine, writes, "It wasn't only the dominance of grime that meant that the pendulum of the 'hardcore continuum' was stuck at the ultra-masculine pole. Dubstep, too, suffers from the same oestrogen-depletion, and both genres to some extent have their origins in a reaction — an over-reaction — to the 'feminine pressure' of late-'90s 2-step."

Rinse FM's Geenus, talking to Stranger contributer Brandon Ivers for XLR8R last month, says about U.K. funky, bassline's cousin, "The funky thing came about because girls had stopped dancing in clubs — [grime] was more of a show thing. So people could just dance again, you know? It was 70% females. And now it's gone the completely opposite way again."

Unlike U.K. funky, the bassline genre hasn't yet bubbled up to wide acceptance, despite it being more ecstatic and free-wheeling of the two. With a more intent emphasis on female vocals and 2-step's strange, hyper-galloping rubber-ropes of bass that slash out in all sorts of directions — think of precursors like 2001's "Kinda Funky" by Jammin or "Booo!" by Sticky — the sound is restless and welcoming and sometimes glad to be ridiculous, refreshingly re-injecting the warmth and exhilaration of ecstasy's bliss into grime and dubstep's ferocious paranoia.

It brings us to London's Dexplicit, who is bassline's best.

A known name thanks both to remixes of Akala, Wideboys, and M.I.A. and his production for the likes of Nana and Lethal Bizzle's enormous "Pow," he's been on a tear this year, with four volumes so far of his Dexplicit Content collection of grime and bassline instrumentals as well as, finally, Digital Kinesis his full-length debut.

There are other big names in the sound, such as T2, Platnum, Delinquent, or A1 Bassline.

But it's Dexplicit who's done this.

And this, chopping up Orbital's "Chime" for some grime newsroom action.

And this, suggesting a parallel-world Beyoncé who's got music as charismatic as herself.

Dexplicit's the one that's pushed the sound the furthest, balanced it just right between pleasure and aggression, the feminine and the masculine, displaying the sound's rave roots without just repeating them.

While it's unfortunate he and Britain's tastemakers appear to be shrinking away from the bassline tag, it's been a year-long treat to hear him assimilate the underground's latest possibilities into a flood for the clubs.

Now, with a little luck, the sound might get more than a chance.

How drunk is Mark E. Smith in this video?

1/2 of the duo (John Flansburgh, foreground in the photo) just left Oddfellows accompanied by the Long Winters' John Roderick. They can't have made it much further than Rancho Bravo yet.

Quick, go ask them something quirky about science!

They Might Be Giants perform tonight at Showbox SoDo.

A gigantic galactic graveyard lurks in the distant universe, and the death toll is growing.

New observations establish a supercluster centered on the cluster CL0016+16 as the largest galactic congregation ever found, astronomers report in Astronomy & Astrophysics. The supercluster extends even farther than previously thought, and it’s drawing in more and more galaxies.

...was made for this tune by Burial:

The largest known galactic congregation is bigger than astronomers thought—and its inhabitants are all dead or dying...

noddy.indiedino.com

He says that the new work's theme is "bad porn." As if there could be such a thing.

Listen!

Understatement is King Midas Sound's watchword, but this low-key approach somehow magnifies the songs' impact. Musically, this is the mellowest Martin—notorious for his extreme frequency fucking with the Bug, Ice, Curse of the Golden Vampire, and many other endeavors—has gotten since the ambient disc on the 1995 classic Re-Entry. But the cumulative power of Waiting for You...'s simmering, sensual sizzle and its aura of post-coital/post-breakup desolation keeps swirling through my head and gripping my heart with muted desperation.

Album of the year, unless somebody surprises the hell out of me in the next two months.

An old bull and a young bull are standing at the top of a hill, looking down at the herd below. The young bull turns to the old bull and blurts out: "Hey! I got an idea. Let's run down this hill and fuck one of those cows!" There's a pause, and then the old bull finally says: "Listen, kid, I've got a better idea. Let's walk down this hill and fuck all of those cows." It's not the kind of joke that would make anyone except the very drunk or the exceedingly imbecilic laugh out loud. But the older I get, the more I realize that, like the cliché goes, this joke is funny because it's true. And it's impossible to understand Jay-Z without realizing first that he is the old bull in this joke.

Read the whole thing here.

Jay-Z plays tomorrow night at Key Arena.

• Andrew Zaeh
• Paul Constant says, "Like Elvis Presley, or Johnny Cash, or Neil Diamond."

Lately, the distance between these two points—one on the frontier of hiphop (Flying Lotus); the other on the frontier of dubstep—has been decreasing. Both are being pulled to a center that will make them one...

Not only is there a cosmic connection but also a ghostly one. Both artists produce sounds that are haunted by beings that are barely so, barely breathing, beating. "[Y]es: gramophone. Have a gramophone in every grave..." thinks Leopold Bloom at Paddy Dignam's funeral. The point at which the "kindred spirits" of Lotus and Burial will merge is this graveyard of gramophones imagined by the main character in Joyce's Ulysses.

the techno pioneer and Underground Resistance founder is taking a look backwards, with the forthcoming reissue of his Minimal Nation album. Originally released in 1994 as a vinyl double-pack, the album marked one of his first releases after his departure from Underground Resistance.

The new version—out June 15 on M-Plant—is the first time tracks from the album will appear in digital format. All those that appeared on the original album will be re-mastered and packaged with two previously unreleased songs, "Self-Powered" and "SH-101."

Additionally, those who prefer their music analog and purchase the vinyl or CD version will also receive an exclusive mix CD compiled by Hood, a sampling of tracks off Minimal Nation, 1994's Internal Empire, 1995's Nighttime World, and the HoodMusic series, released between 2005 and 2007.

Robert Hood, who will be at Decible this Friday, is the most intellectual techno producer from the Detroit circle. And Minimal Nation is architecture in its purest condition.

There you can check out a tiny percentage of her hyper-prolific, magnificent output, which is just scratching the surface of what she's capable of producing. You've likely heard nothing quite like it.

Mind you, De La has shared my number one group spot with NWA for all the years I've even thought about music that way- there's not really another crew that can touch the innovation and genius of their first 3-album run. It is in fact, the 20th anniversary of their debut 3 Feet High And Rising, the first hiphop record I truly geeked out over. That, plus the fact that a live band was setting up to back up Plugs One Two and Three- a fact that should make my colleague Charles Mudede absolutely aghast- worked to soften my somewhat "over it" stance. Then, over a rather striking take on the Stakes Is High sleeper "Dinninit", they melted any vestige of an ice grill i might have been wearing- then quickly proceeded to evaporate it to a hot fucking cloud of rolling steam.

What's your favorite part?

I like the one between 0:00 and 3:48.

Jen Graves: "Do you want to hear something funny about my iPod? It contains the soundtrack to Coneheads."

Everyone knows what a sloppy Sarah Rudinoff fan I am. (“Unabashed”, they calls it). The last time I heard Sarah sing live, I cried my eyes out. Like a weepy wee girl. There was just no helping it. No point trying to stop it. That woman's voice has a power over my soul I can't explain. (She destroys me—in the very best way. You shall surely be destroyed, too.) So it’s no surprise that encourage everyone on earth to see this show. And about tonight’s show, Sarah says…

I am going to open the night with a set of music played with Chris Jeffries and Nick Garrison- some ridunkulous medleys, some power duets, and a standard or two, and Gretta Harley (my band mate and partner in crime) will then do a set of her classical compositions with a bunch of wonderful players from the classical and avant garde music worlds.

A little birdy told me that Barrett Martin from the Screaming Tress will also be joining them on drums. Won’t you join them, too?

Doors open at 5:30 (get your drink on!), the show is at 7:30, $25 at the door (and so worth it), at The Tripple Door (216 Union Street), tonight!

New single "Remedy" now has a video, which is real fun in a simple and kaleidoscopic synthesizer smoke-machine mural stylee. The song starts all Shirley Bassey rave lounge-action and kicks a lush chorus at you like The Shirelles from space. We like how well it captures the art design of the whole album campaign.

Yes, "campaign".

She says, "It was directed by the very young and talented Mr. David Wilson and features me being a massive nerd with lots of keyboards, nothing new there then. I think it kind of feels like 70s porn meets 70s science documentary vibes."

Best hair in pop?

Still should've went with "Earthquake".

"Every little earthquake. Every little heartbreak."

Do-do do-doo.

Hot on the glamorous space-unicorn future overload disco synth-pop heels of Hands — the 2009 debut to beat — a couple of duets with Philip Oakey, and helicoptering back to Glastonbury just to see Blur, Little Boots is doing an Eddie Murphy and coming to America.

San Francisco?

It's on.

Wait.

It's on.

Mon 09/14/09 Toronto, ON Wrongbar
Wed 09/16/09 New York, NY Bowery Ballroom
Thu 09/17/09 Chicago, IL Empty Bottle
Fri 09/18/09 West Hollywood, CA The Roxy Theatre
Sat 09/19/09 San Francisco, CA The Independent

Fatal Lucciauno from The Song Show on Vimeo.

Even if you don't comment, watch em.

David Richie, who is dazzling, and DJ L.A. Kendal, who is off the fucking hizzle in general, invented it. (They also gave birth to the beautiful beast that was HotMess...R.I.P.) And as you can see, the event is billed as, um, "a multi-poly-omni art experiment". I'm not sure what that means exactly, but there's almost naked people in the picture. And music. And The BOoze. So, heeey. (Also, I have it on bad authority that this adorable creature is in town, and will be wandering the shadows at this event, too. I'm merely sayin'.)

These is some Hard Times, chile! Brave the wind! Get your gay on! TONIGHT!

War Room (722 East Pike), 9PM, $5.

If the last week is anything to go by, Blur have come back with a bit of class.

Remember? Months ago? When the original band announced they'd be reuniting for the first time in over a decade, and putting on a summer show in London's Hyde Park?

Tip! Iceberg!

Nothing's more foul than a reunion, but all the band's moves since then have been smart and refreshingly personal. In the last few days, Blur did a show on a microscopic stage at the East Anglian Railway Museum, the spot where Blur first played, twenty years ago, for a birthday. Then, a couple of nights later, they showed up for a surprise gig at the legendary Rough Trade Records, setting in motion a whole planned series of sold-out shows that include a Glastonbury headline, a dwarfish student-union date where members of the band first met, and their now double-day-sized Hyde Park celebration.

And the songs! While singles like 1992's "Popscene," 1997's "Beetlebum," and 1994's "Girls & Boys" have been in the sets — and should be there, fucking classics — so are relatively obscure and hardly fan-favored ones like "Colin Zeal," "Trimm Trabb," "Essex Dogs," and the timeless (and wonderful!) "Badhead".

Oh, yeah. The new best-of? Crazy pants.

Unlike the one in 2000, Midlife: A Beginner's Guide To Blur — a nice self-dig and a reference to their biggest album — is all over the place. "Bugman"? Into "He Thought Of Cars"? "Blue Jeans"? Into "Song 2"? And "Death Of A Party"? Into "The Universal"? Madness. The whole thing's an odd confetti splash of big and small songs, a mass-market brew of hits and what-has-to-be personal favorites.

Boom! Sold.

Blur have also started some web-widget thing. Inside, they've been adding live and rehearsal footage here and there, which is nice.

See if it works.

We like the use of The Sex Pistols' "Pretty Vacant" before "Bank Holiday." We like hearing the criminally undervalued "Out Of Time" unspool itself into the waters again. We really like the skronked out new touches to the head-on blitzkrieg-sunshine bit of "Sunday Sunday".

About the comeback gig, bassist Alex James wrote, "The sound of music I never thought I'd hear again."

And, "Not a dry eye in the house."

Maybe they do know what they're doing.

Hear more on their Myspace page.

Not just for your help in bringing these glorious things into my life, but also for your recent Prop 8 essay on Huffington Post:

In my heart, I know that marriage equality for every human being isn't a question of if, but only a matter of when. I ask those who feel that giving freedom to others somehow binds you, to please take a good look at what you are standing behind. It is only through opening your hearts will you be able to see that by promoting freedom for all, you are unchaining yourself. I guess I'm an optimist. I have faith in people and our government ultimately to do the right thing. And to my brothers and sisters in California, I'm there with you every step of the way until that day comes...

While I'm feeling epistolary: Dear Barack Obama: Please note that Russell Simmons—who dropped out of New York City College to promote key early hiphop acts (thank fucking GOD)—is 750,000 times more eloquent on this subject than your Harvard-educated ass. Step up, you wuss.

ATHENS (AFP) — British electronic band Depeche Mode canceled a long-awaited gig in Athens on Tuesday after frontman David Gahan was rushed to hospital, Greek media reported.

Was it a heart attack? Grape-fruit-sized prostate? Goat flu? Black Celebration? What? WHAT?

Quoting organizers of the concert, City 99.5 Radio said Gahan was taken to a private clinic with suspected gastroenteritis.

Oh. Is that all? Oh, sweet Personal Jesus! Please dry up the poopy Depeche Mode singer man's "acute diarrhea" (I looked it up) by August 10th—I have !tickets!