In 2011, the dust from the dubstep explosion was still up in the air. The initial UK wave had split between a formulaic festival sound and those trying to push the sub-bass phenomenon into newer, underground territories. From Hessle Audio’s experimental mutations to Joy Orbison’s warping electro on Loefah’s Swamp 81 label, Julio Bashmore dropping weighty house on Martyn’s 3024 label and Addison Groove’s footwork-inspired 808 workouts, the lines between styles were blurring with ever-increasing speed.
A decade on, genre lines are so dissolved that, arguably, you hardly notice that some of the UK’s most vital dance music scenes don’t have proper names. That’s certainly true for Peverelist. When he launched his Livity Sound label in 2011, with a 12-inch from himself and fellow Bristol resident Kowton, he simply wanted to carry on the open-ended energy of the early days of dubstep.
“I wasn’t going to mention the ‘D’ word,” says Pev with a smile. It’s a sunny morning in Bristol, and we’re sitting in a garden discussing the 10 year anniversary of Livity Sound. “In the very beginning of dubstep, it was very much an ‘anything goes’ attitude: all kinds of influences getting thrown in, intertwined with grime; and then, it quickly got canonised into a very specific sound. I wanted to bring that original spirit of a mixture of influences. From the start of the label, we’d play garage and UK funky, techno and house, dubstep and grime all in one night — and that’s something that’s carried on.”
As Livity Sound toasts a decade inside the dance with an extensive new compilation, ‘Molten Mirrors’, now feels like a fitting time to reflect on what Peverelist’s label represents, the music culture it operates in and the influence it’s had on club music.
There’s no definable term for the musical approach that Livity Sound has helped cultivate, but across an international cast of artists, terms like ‘bass music’, ‘Bristol bass techno’, ‘UK techno’ and ‘broken techno’ are thrown about. Long-time Livity affiliate and Bristol scene lynchpin Hodge sums it up best.
“I love the fact people struggle to come up with the appropriate tag for the music,” he tells DJ Mag. “That’s one of the things I find the most exciting — that weird place where nothing fits perfectly in a pre-existing mould.”