Rinse: 09

Audio Mixer: N-Type.
It may seem like a criticism to characterize a dance music compilation as "workmanlike," but it shouldn't: like its cousins house and techno, dubstep is a genre whose practitioners impress by their ability to hold your attention while working within a fairly constrained set of rules, and to do so requires not just creativity but also journeyman skill. Like a plumber who not only fixes leaks but also figures out elegant solutions to piping problems you didn't know you had, a great dubstep DJ keeps you nodding and skanking slowly to that familiar all-enveloping, juddering bassline while at the same time exposing you to sounds and variations you never quite expect. N-Type is a great dubstep DJ, as he ably demonstrates on his contribution to the Rinse label's genre compilation series. He does so in a couple of ways: first, by building a program that gradually grows and deepens in intensity, from the dark but relatively dreamy ambience of Kryptic Minds' "Badman" and Kromestar & Jay 5ive's "Bass 96," toward the beginning, to the sense of restrained chaos that animates Trolley Snatcher's "The Future" and Benny Page's self-explanatory "Jungle Tribute" at the very end. In between, he complicates the beat nicely with Benga's "Intensions," and samples reggae singers all over the place, reminding us constantly of the music's deepest roots even while pushing its sonic envelope in gentle but irresistible ways. This disc constitutes an ideal introduction to the state of the art in dubstep. ~ Rick Anderson