On April 4, 2006, the UK DJ Mary Anne Hobbs, then the host for BBC One’s radio program Breezeblock, played a mix of dark and gorgeous dubs produced by a mysterious character named Burial. That 21-minute mix marked for many the birth of a new sound, a new beat, a new opening. That 21-minute mix is that decade’s highest peak in music. Hobbs’s show also launched the dubstep movement, which is still going strong and has adherents from here to Johannesburg. Last year, the queen of dubstep transformed a difficult situation (a volcanic explosion in Iceland stranded her in LA) into a musical extravaganza that involved LA’s crème de la crème—Take, Tokimonsta, and Flying Lotus. I only wish the smoke of some volcano in Iceland would rise again and this time strand her in Seattle. (Baltic Room, 1207 Pine St, 625-4444, 9 pm, $12 adv/$15 DOS, 21+)

Charles Mudede—who writes about film, books, music, and his life in Rhodesia, Zimbabwe, the USA, and the UK for The Stranger—was born near a steel plant in Kwe Kwe, Zimbabwe. He has no memory...

2 replies on “Mary Anne Hobbs”

  1. Well, our volcanoes don’t tend to go off the same way.

    Would you settle for a 200 foot rise of the Puget Sound seabed, a resulting tsunami trapping anyone in a deep tunnel for weeks as it triggers Mount Rainier hot mud flows and boiling scurf that burns out the ventilation shaft motors?

    That we’re due for – soon.

Comments are closed.