A selection byThe Waxonia Desk
Dubstep
Five records from the January 2006 broadcast usually credited with taking dubstep national, and from the months either side of it. A few hundred people in a Brixton basement were given two hours of national radio.
- Picks
- 5
- Genre
- Dubstep
- Years
- 2004–2008
- Curator
- The Waxonia Desk
- Updated
- 2026-08-29
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The picks — selected, not ranked
Digital Mystikz / Anti-War Dub
2006 · DMZ
Mala's case for space over impact, made on national radio. The restraint was the hardest part of the argument to get across at the time, and it is the part of it that lasted.
Also on Dubstep
Skream / Midnight Request Line
2005 · Tempa
The tune that converted people who had no idea what they were listening to. A scene needs one record everybody can hum before anything else it does is allowed to travel.
Also on Dubstep, Bass Weight, The Waxonia Desk — The Hundred
Kode9 & The Spaceape / Sine of the Dub
2004 · Hyperdub
A Prince cover reduced to a sine wave and a recitation, broadcast to a national audience. Nothing about that was a safe choice, and it is why the show is remembered as an argument rather than a playlist.
Also on Dubstep
Burial / Archangel
2007 · Hyperdub
From just after the broadcast, and the record that took the sound to people who would never go to DMZ. What a scene gains in reach it loses in the room, and this is the trade being made.
Also on Dubstep, The Waxonia Desk — Ghosts, The Waxonia Desk — The Hundred
Benga & Coki / Night
2008 · Tempa
The other direction entirely — a bassline built to break a room. Everything people came to love and to hate about the next five years of dubstep is already audible in it.
Also on Dubstep
About the curator
The people who write the rankings on this site. We keep the lists honest, we argue about the order, and we get asked the same question more than any other: where should someone actually start. These are our answers.