Audio virology is not a metaphor. It is to be taken literally. It maps real processes of mutation, transmission, contagion and memory within music culture.

Most music culture these days runs on systems and networks devised to deal with the aftermath of thermonuclear war. Music culture has a habit of using these moods and machines in creative, unintended ways.

The sound needed a hub to grow, and that hub was Big Apple.

I wrote a short article called "Yardcore" for that issue, too, as an attempt to talk about the Jamaican influence on garage, grime and dubstep; as a splicing of soundsystem culture and hardcore.

Dubstep didn't invent bass, it just zoned in on it. Bass, to varying depths, is the foundation to most dance musics.

There is an uninformed myth circulating just now that makes dubstep way too important in the musical universe - don't believe the hype.

Because we live in a condition of ubiquitous music and media, and near infinite technological memory, it is much easier for local cultures to find an audience that resonates with their music, whether local or globally.