Bass music with its teeth bared
Drum & bass turned mean: that is skullstep. Harsh, aggressive, built to punish the stack. It is one of the many sub-styles the music has split into, listed in 2017 alongside neuro, liquid, deep, pop, ambient, intelligent, soulful, drumstep and techstep. The name most directly tied to it is Limewax.
On this site skullstep is assigned independently of Darkstep, and the two can overlap. Not all Darkstep is Skullstep, so don't go filing every dark one under the same tag.
What it sounds like
Picture distorted, harsh bass lines, heavy drums and off-beat rhythms, all wrapped in a dark, aggressive mood. The percussion is part of the identity: noisy, distorted and clangy, like pots and pans. Sample packs built for the style run at 173-175 BPM, with sinister, eerie effects and atmospheres meant to build tension and unease before the drop lands.
Two more packs show how producers frame the sound. Skullstep - The Panacea & Limewax Vol. 2 is pitched at 175 BPM and sells an ominous onslaught of twisted drones, with acid tone loops, stabs, pads and hybrid beats in the mix. The debut pack from Gancher & Ruin, also at 175 BPM, talks about a crossbreed sound that twists together DnB, hardcore, drumstep and industrial, and lists skullstep among the styles it suits, alongside hard techno and industrial. That is a lot of pressure for one sub.
Limewax and the dark end of the late 2000s
Limewax is the alias of Ukrainian producer, DJ and musician Maxim Anokhin. His first EP, Changing Crisis, came out on Tech Itch Recordings in 2005, when he was seventeen. He has been counted among the front runners of the new heavy drum and bass sound, touring the globe with it.
His records sat inside a wider dark scene. By autumn 2008 he had gradually built a reputation for helping reinvigorate a somewhat ailing DnB scene, bringing intensity by fusing hard beats with unusually noisy elements. The same stretch of releases includes his Scars on the Horizon on TechFreak, a Limewax and Current Value record (LB 02), and a Romance Explosion EP on Freak. Around then the dark side of drum n bass was on top form, with artists like Limewax and SPL in the mix, and a Counterstrike EP landing in the same conversation.
Counterstrike also joined forces with Limewax and SPL on "Killing Machine", on the From Beyond the Grave EP (Algorythm Recordings, Algo 003). Current Value comes with years of cracking beats apart and infecting them with a harsh sci-fi edge.
The Skullstep packs
Limewax teamed up with German producer The Panacea (Mathis Mootz) to make Skullstep Vol. 1 and 2. The Panacea's career stretches back to "Low Profile Darkness" in 1996, and he continues to headline the Therapy Sessions events. Limewax runs LB Recordings.
Who to check for
Limewax and The Panacea are the first two names to know. Around them sit the other acts connected to the site's skullstep tag, so go digging.
- Current Value, known for complicated beats that can still devastate dancefloors.
- Donny, with a cut that moved from a slow half-speed rhythm while gradually drawing in snatches of breaks.
- Counterstrike, a production entity hard to pin down at the heavy end of drum & bass, active since the late 1990s, with over 100 releases on labels including Ram, PRSPCT, Let It Roll and Position Chrome.
- Gancher & Ruin, with releases on Position Chrome, PRSPCT, Tainted Audio, Yellowstripe and Monstersound.
- Cooh, who appears on the Position Chrome roster.
- Katharsys, who turns up among the artists on Yellow Stripe Recordings releases.
The labels carrying the weight
Position Chrome is a Berlin label, one of Germany's longest running drum 'n bass labels, with more than 90 releases since 1996. Its artists include The Panacea, Limewax, Counterstrike, Cooh and Current Value.
PRSPCT Recordings is the label arm of PRSPCT, a label and event series launched in 2002.
Barcode Recordings was being reinvigorated by Donny by 2008-9. Yellow Stripe Recordings is the label project of a Portugal-based promoter and crew of the same name.
On the night
The Panacea continues to headline the Therapy Sessions events world-wide alongside Limewax. That is the live end of the story: the name on the flyer, the rig turned all the way up.
Still standing
By 2017 skullstep was still being counted among drum & bass's sub-styles. In 2021 Limewax's next project was set for John Frusciante's Evar Records, drawing on the harder genres he is known to play, such as hard techno, drum & bass and jungle.
Related styles
Neighbouring styles on the site include Darkstep, Techstep, Neurofunk, Hardstep, Crossbreed, Drumstep and Halftime.
