A quick write up on Bassvictim

Only two releases in, Bassvictim is making some of the most significant, under-appreciated, and cutting-edge music of the 2020s.

There are definitely influences in their music ranging from all the current trendy genres like electro house, witch house, electroclash, and bloghouse. If these were Bassvictim’s only influences though, I don’t think I’d feel the need to write about them. Where Bassvictim deviate from their contemporaries (and this is crucial) is in their references to and reverence for dubstep. Bar maybe a few Snow Strippers songs (So What If I’m a Freak, I’m looking at you), Bassvictim feel like the only working artists who understand the insane potential of dubstep production in the context of pop music.

Seriously, if you can think of anything even remotely similar to what Bassvictim are doing let me know. The closest analogs I can think of are things like Katy B's On a Mission and Emika's self-titled album (which are both also really slept on and amazing). I’ve been spending the last year or so listening to countless dubstep releases from throughout the genre’s history to try to scratch that Bassvictim itch. A lot of what I’ve found has been great, but still nothing lands quite as hard as that first EP. Even Basspunk’s sequel album Basspunk 2 abandons much of its predecessor’s dubby roots and is much easier to slot into current music trends, at least to my ears.

I really hope we see more of dubstep’s influence on music in the coming years. It kind of feels like we might be turning a corner with the release of a new Skrillex album and the coinciding critical re-evaluation of his music and brostep at large that I’ve been seeing online. Either way, if you wrote off dubstep in the 2010s like a lot of people seemed to do, I think it’s an amazing time to return to it with fresh ears and an open mind. Who knows, it might just end up being your new favorite genre.