He could surpass Sublime. Dub FX deserves to take the world by storm.

Posted by J.R.

August 17, 2009

So the first time I see Australian Ben Stanford, aka Dub FX, perform I’m sitting in a darkened basement and StumbleUpon is dragging its internet-hoe in sad memetic trenches along the seafloor of Youtube and he has appeared amidst several extreme America’s Funniest Home Videos rejects. He is nearly stumbled away from, but his talent is too evident.

Stanford walks up to a mic and a couple pedals, and sequences his voice into amazingly textured, layered music. It’s barely more than his voice. His grooves reek of Bradley Nowell, Sublime’s tragically deceased frontman. But Dub FX is too fast and too smooth to be compared to Brad Nowell. His style is unique.

His album? Diverse. “Everythinks A Ripple” is available from http://dubfx.net and traverses so many genres that categorizing it as pop, hip-hop, dub, a capella, or electronic music would seem narrow… even ignorant. An opinion on this artist cannot be rendered from any single song.

What excites me the most about Dub FX is not necessarily his present offering: it’s his potential. Brad Nowell never had a chance to musically escape his origins and evolve severely as an artist due to his drug problem. Dub FX… he could be an interesting sidenote in musical history, or he could explode across the world like aural pyrotechnics. Only time will tell. Of course, on his track “Future” he says… “We could equal Sublime.”

If he applies himself, I think Mr. Stanford could easily surpass Sublime.

Recommended tracks: Time Will Tell, Made, Flow, Wandering Love, Free My Soul (live in Italy)

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