A Breakfast of Bass: Shit-shakes and eggs with the boys of Dig.iT.aL and the guy who opened for Glass Tiger

Sam and Geoffrey, aka Guestlist and Living~stone of the Dig.iT.aL crew (see what they did there?) were kind enough to give me an hour of their time to talk about their current status as local dubstep heroes.

Evidently, the hour stretched into three, and I was treated to a no holds barred discussion on the local scene, cross-Canadian tales of musical enlightenment and shit-shakes, with at least 3 strands of ideas running at any one time.  The coffee was superfluous as the energy and inspiration bouncing around the room became almost palpable- stronger than Columbia's finest- and may have incited a diagnosis of Ritalin had the year been 2002 when the drug was being handed out to children willy nilly.

The duo have been enjoying recent sucess through their monthly residency at Blizzarts run by APOCALYPTICA and in their mutual ambition to help bring the 'music they love' to Montreal.  The crew is becoming well recognised locally, managing to draw crowds on the quietest days of the week.  Thursdays have beeen dominated, Wednesday appearances have drawn unprecedented crowds, Sundays: insane.

United through the huge wobbly bass, glitchy electronic character and dubby charm found within the genre of dubstep, categorizing their sound solely under the heading 'dubstep' would be easy.  However, as with so many of the genre bending, limit pushing, innovative artists and DJs currently residing in and around Montreal, labeling is futile.  Dig it all indeed.

For those of you yet to witness a Dig.iT.aL performances, I urge you to check one out. The two provide a good contrast, creating a solid platform for DJ's appearing alongside the duo to take flight.  Sam builds solid dubstep sets with big bass bricks and ambient polyfilller, while Livingstone creates a veritable tower of sound, building hip hop grime ontop of glitch breaks and dub mines.  Chic chic-Boom.  There's your party.

Previous appearances alongside the Freedembass family have included Jack (the Dubstep Experiment Mtl); Taal Mala (BC producer) MCprhyme (The Rootsellers); Adam L (Satellite Maps); Wally (Forward Underground); Kiffah (Ez Bake Mondays at Bluedog circa 2006); and Rubbermuffin (Shit-shake Connoisseur and opening act for Glass Tiger- although you'll struggle to find that out from the man himself, he's extremely modest)

Three years after their first meeting, the boys are impressed with the strength and momentum of the Montreal dubstep scene.  'It's definitely growing' and despite concerns that it's a passing fad, there seems to be a core of fanatics keeping the dream alive and new faces dropping in at every show.

Watch this space for news on future performances and productions from Dig.iT.aL.  With plenty of upcoming shows schedules and plans to start looking for labels to sign some original tracks, there is so much more to come.

Upcoming Shows:

Dig.iT'aL will be playing on Saturday May the 9th at the Eastern Block, alongside Speakerbruiser of Megasoid, Omie'1 (BC) and Teeneetus (Toronto) among others for the Montreal showing of the International Interdimensional Art Show.  The event will be featuring submissions from over 30 artists from around the world.

The next Freedebass will take place on Sunday the 10th of May, 2009, at Blizzarts.

Catch Living~stone womping solo on May 6th at Koi, alongside old school ragga jungle authority Recoil.

Eggs.

Words by Kate