Dubstar: A WORLD WITHOUT ME
Steve Hillier
Friday 16th December 2022
A World Without Me was a song that sounded great at the time but was forgotten in all the Dubstar drama of 2008. This ‘dropping a song’ can easily happen when you’re writing and reforming an act where no one lives in the same city.
AWWM was well-liked by the three of us but didn’t get the same attention as the potential singles Window Pain, In The End and Hit. Inevitably a songwriter’s focus turns to the songs you like most, even more so to the songs others like most. And in an existential crisis, well… you stick to what you know will go down best.
AWWM was recorded at my place at Adelaide Crescent, Hove in the first sessions for United States of Being, and then dumped. It probably wouldn't have been included on any Dubstar album.
Until the mixing session with Daren Baxen aka Tim Mason.
His approach to the band’s sound was to beef everything up. Drums that had been samples I’d been using since the early 90s were now updated to include kicks and snares from the fantastic Vengeance library. If there was a defining sound for the 00s it came from Vengeance and their amazing drum collection.
But AWWM wasn’t included in that mixing session. I had another look after returning from Malta. I hadn’t thought about it as a song in years, it was never mentioned in our sporadic band meetings. Still, it’s a good song, why not give it another go? So I spent a couple of afternoons with my strict machines…
And this is the result. File this song with the other ‘bangers’ from the two unreleased albums, such as Sister, You/Me, Front To Back and Don’t Ask.
Every synth sound you hear on a USOB song is from an analogue source (apart from the occasional Yamaha DX sound). I love that, it gave the songs a really strident sheen. Consequently, all the bass sounds in this song come from my Korg MS20. The embellishments were from my Korg Mono/Poly. Thanks boys!
My Korg MS20, vintage 1979. The bass monster!
This analogue approach was very different to the previous Dubstar albums, which were built around samples. Call me a synthesizer anorak, but there is something you get from these instruments that’s simply not available from plugins. Don’t get me wrong, I love software synths, use them every day. But they’re not the same as a hardware synthesizers. Something nice happens when you twist a dial and turn a switch. Something visceral when you know you’re adjusting a living breathing circuit. Yum.
And A World Without Me is full of analogue sounds. It’s pretty clear there’s a Goldfrapp influence going on here, or is it Suzi Quatro? Of course we were fans of Goldfrapp, how could you not be in 2007? I particularly loved the Felt Mountain album, which had been my soundtrack to a couple of superb writing trips in Stockholm. And it was great to see an electronic act doing well in a decade that was dominated by Electroclash (in the early years) and singer-songwriters (in the latter).
Listening back nearly a dozen years later, the mix is a little over-cooked, but then I suppose it was just one song among many that featured in the mammoth task of finishing USOB in late 2011. Still, A World Without Me sounds great loud. and so I bet it would have been a superb song to play live.
This article includes excerpts from DUBSTAR.COM. Want more? You can find the story behind every Dubstar song ever recorded including dozens of unreleased songs right here at Dubstar.com
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