Steve Goodman, known as Kode9 (born 1973) is a Scottish

electronic music Electronic music broadly is a group of music genres that employ electronic musical instruments, circuitry-based music technology and software, or general-purpose electronics (such as personal computers) in its creation. It includes both music ...

artist, DJ, and founder of the

Hyperdub __NOTOC__ Hyperdub is a British electronic music record label and former webzine based in London, founded by Kode9, Steve Goodman, a.k.a. Kode9. The label was formed in 2004, and grew out of the UK's early dubstep scene. Artists signed to the l ...

record label. He was one of the founding members of the early

dubstep Dubstep is a genre of electronic dance music that originated in South London in the early 2000s. The style emerged as a UK garage offshoot that blended 2-step rhythms and sparse dub production, as well as incorporating elements of broken ...

scene with his late collaborator The Spaceape. He has released four full-length albums: 2006's '' Memories of the Future'' and 2011's '' Black Sun'' (both with The Spaceape), ''Nothing'' (2015), ''Escapology'' and ''Astro-Darien'' (2022). As owner of Hyperdub, Goodman has signed artists such as

Burial Burial, also known as interment or inhumation, is a method of final disposition whereby a dead body is placed into the ground, sometimes with objects. This is usually accomplished by excavating a pit or trench, placing the deceased and objec ...

, DJ Rashad,

Zomby Zomby is a British electronic musician who began releasing music in 2007. He has released music on several labels, including Hyperdub, Werk Discs, and 4AD. Zomby's influences include oldschool jungle music and Wiley's eskibeat sound. Car ...

, and

Fatima Al Qadiri Fatima Al Qadiri (; born July 1981) is a Senegalese-born Kuwaiti musician and conceptual artist. Biography Fatima Al Qadiri is the daughter of Mohammed Al Qadiri, a former Kuwaiti diplomat and writer, and Thuraya Al-Baqsami, an artist and writ ...

. Goodman has a PhD in

philosophy Philosophy ('love of wisdom' in Ancient Greek) is a systematic study of general and fundamental questions concerning topics like existence, reason, knowledge, Value (ethics and social sciences), value, mind, and language. It is a rational an ...

from the

University of Warwick The University of Warwick ( ; abbreviated as ''Warw.'' in post-nominal letters) is a public research university on the outskirts of Coventry between the West Midlands and Warwickshire, England. The university was founded in 1965 as part of ...

and has published a book, ''Sonic Warfare: Sound, Affect, and the Ecology of Fear'', in 2009.

Biography

Foundations

Kode9 studied philosophy at university in Edinburgh in the early 1990s. During this time he started DJing, playing music genres including psychedelic jazz, rare groove and funk. However, around this time he started becoming interested in jungle. He has mentioned his first encounter with jungle as being "the most important musical event of my life".''Invisible Jukebox'',

The Wire ''The Wire'' is an American Crime fiction, crime Drama (film and television), drama television series created and primarily written by the American author and former police reporter David Simon for the cable network HBO. The series premiered o ...

no. 269, July 2006 Kode9 moved to

Warwick Warwick ( ) is a market town, civil parish and the county town of Warwickshire in the Warwick District in England, adjacent to the River Avon, Warwickshire, River Avon. It is south of Coventry, and south-east of Birmingham. It is adjoined wit ...

to study rave culture,

cybernetics Cybernetics is the transdisciplinary study of circular causal processes such as feedback and recursion, where the effects of a system's actions (its outputs) return as inputs to that system, influencing subsequent action. It is concerned with ...

postmodernism Postmodernism encompasses a variety of artistic, Culture, cultural, and philosophical movements that claim to mark a break from modernism. They have in common the conviction that it is no longer possible to rely upon previous ways of depicting ...

and

afrofuturism Afrofuturism is a cultural aesthetic, philosophy of science, and history that explores the intersection of the African diaspora culture with science and technology. It addresses themes and concerns of the African diaspora through technoculture ...

at the

. This later led to a

memetic Memetics is a theory of the evolution of culture based on Darwinian principles with the meme as the unit of culture. The term "meme" was coined by biologist Richard Dawkins in his 1976 book ''The Selfish Gene'', to illustrate the principle that he ...

philosophy regarding music, which he has spoken about in interviews. He gained a PhD in philosophy from the university. Here he also collaborated with the

Cybernetic Culture Research Unit The Cybernetic Culture Research Unit (CCRU, sometimes typeset Ccru) was an experimental cultural theorist collective formed in late 1995 at Warwick University, England and gradually separated from academia until it dissolved in the early 2000s. I ...

and was involved in running jungle nights. In 1999, Kode9 moved to

London London is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of both England and the United Kingdom, with a population of in . London metropolitan area, Its wider metropolitan area is the largest in Wester ...

, becoming a teaching assistant and later a lecturer. At this time Kode9 began finding a lot of drum'n'bass formulaic and he was looking to expand his musical horizons. He became interested in 2 step garage, DJing the style at clubnights such as ''FWD>>''. He also played on pirate radio stations including

Rinse FM Rinse FM is a London-based community radio station, licensed for "young people living and/or working within the central, east and south London areas". It plays garage, grime, dubstep, house, jungle, UK funky and other dance music genres po ...

Musical artist and Hyperdub

In 1999, Kode9 had his first release as a musical artist, 'Katak' on the short-lived label, Katasonix which he ran with the late theorist, Mark Fisher. In 2002, he released an EP including ''Fat Larry’s Skank;'' and ''Tales from the Basside'', a collaboration with Benny Ill and The Culprit. In 2004, Kode9 appeared on the second grime compilation on Rephlex records.Derek Walmsley, "Dubstep", ''The Wire Primers: A Guide to Modern Music'', ed. Rob Young, London: Verso, 2009, p. 89. That same year, Kode9 founded

records; the first release was ''Sine of the Dub'', a collaboration between Kode9 and Daddy Gee, which was a minimal, loose

cover version In popular music, a cover version, cover song, remake, revival, or simply cover is a new performance or recording by a musician other than the original performer or composer of the song. Originally, it referred to a version of a song release ...

Prince A prince is a male ruler (ranked below a king, grand prince, and grand duke) or a male member of a monarch's or former monarch's family. ''Prince'' is also a title of nobility (often highest), often hereditary, in some European states. The ...

's "

Sign "O" the Times ''Sign o' the Times'' (often stylized as ''Sign "☮︎" the Times'') is the ninth studio album by the American singer, songwriter, producer, and multi-instrumentalist Prince. It was first released on March 31, 1987, as a double album by Paisl ...

". Kode9 treated the vocals to fit his idea of their delivery by "a man on his deathbed". The label as become an important and influential label within the dubstep genre. In 2006, Hyperdub released

's self-titled debut album, which ''

'' magazine named their number one album of 2006.''Rewind 2006'', The Wire no. 275, January 2007. Kode9 continued his academic career working at the

University of East London University of East London (UEL) is a public university located in the London Borough of Newham, London, England, based at three campuses in Stratford, London, Stratford and London Docklands, Docklands, following the opening of University Squar ...

as a lecturer in media production, and course tutor for a master's program in sonic culture. He left UEL in 2014 to concentrate on music and independent research. In December 2009, his ''Sonic Warfare: Sound, Affect, and the Ecology of Fear'', a book exploring the uses of acoustic force and how it affects whole populations was published by

MIT Press The MIT Press is the university press of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), a private research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The MIT Press publishes a number of academic journals and has been a pioneer in the Open Ac ...

. The book also explores how sound can be deployed to set moods of dread and fear, how sound can be used as torture, as a weapon and as a threat.

Musical style

He has been inspired by, what he calls the " hardcore continuum" of British dance music; styles such as

jungle jungle is land covered with dense forest and tangled vegetation, usually in tropical climates. Application of the term has varied greatly during the past century. Etymology The word ''jungle'' originates from the Sanskrit word ''jaṅgala'' ...

drum and bass Drum and bass (commonly abbreviated as DnB, D&B, or D'n'B) is a genre of electronic dance music characterised by fast Break (music)#Breakbeat (element of music), breakbeats (typically 165–185 Tempo, beats per minute) with heavy Bass (music) ...

and

2-step garage 2-step garage, or simply 2-step, is a genre of electronic music and a subgenre of UK garage.''A transcription of this article is availablhere as a PDF file.'' One of the primary characteristics of the 2-step sound – the term being coined to de ...

and more recently Chicago footwork.

Discography

Studio albums

*'' Memories of the Future'' with the Spaceape (Hyperdub, 2006) *'' Black Sun'' with the Spaceape (Hyperdub, 2011) *''Nothing'' (Hyperdub, 2015) *''Astro-Darien'' (Hyperdub, 2022) *''Escapology'' (Hyperdub, 2023)

DJ mixes

*''DJ Kicks'' (Hyperdub, 2010) *''Rinse:22'' (Rinse, 2013) *''Fabriclive 100'' with

(Fabric London, 2018)

References

External links

Hyperdub recordsKode9's Official Artist FacebookKode9's DJ-Kicks microsite
* {{Authority control Alumni of the University of Warwick Academics of the University of East London Scottish electronic musicians Dubstep musicians Post-dubstep musicians British electronic dance music DJs 1973 births Living people Hyperdub artists