RAINMAN is quenching Ottawa’s thirst for dubstep music by spinning “filthy, wobbly, bass-driven” music across the city.

It has been over a year since Sebastian Lowes, a third-year business student at Carleton, started DJing professionally and adopted the name RAINMAN from the movie starring Dustin Hoffman.

Now, he is venturing into music production and is working on original tracks for a free EP he is set to release online at the end of the month.

“The first track’s gonna be really filthy. . . . That end-of-the night headline – big, big sound,” Lowes says before stepping into the studio he has in his room.

The walls are papered with old posters from his DJ sets at Barrymore’s, Babylon and Buddha Bar, but most are from Ritual where he has opened for the likes of Skrillex and Bar9, and headlined some of the nightclub’s monthly DubSMACK events.

Lowes slips his headphones over his fitted hat, steps up to his mixer and slides his hands across the board.

The bass booms from the speaker and distorted riffs build up and then drop with the flick of his wrist.

Dubstep, for those of you who have not caught on to what Lowes describes as an explosive music scene, is characterized by having a strong bass and sub-bass and a lower number of beats per minute than many other electronic dance musics.

The heavy, synth-driven dubstep of today has its roots in underground music culture in London in the late ‘90s.

Dubstep evolved from funkier U.K. grime and garage music and has become more popular in recent years. Lowes even notes  Britney Spears’ new song, “Hold It Against Me,” has dubstep in it.

“Vancouver’s not so into dubstep like Ottawa is, whereas they’re more upbeat and electro and not so grungy and electro underground stuff,” says Lowes, whose hometown is on Vancouver Island.

Lowes says he only started listening to dubstep over the past year and a half.

Lowes says he first looked at DJing in grade 12 with track mixing software on his computer, and bought a controller in October of 2009.

During his first year at Carleton he was spinning in his room when his friend, Carlyle Williams, heard him and asked him if he would like to open for DJ Frame.

“He doesn’t talk much, but his music talks for him,” Williams says.

Williams, a communications student at the time, is now working full-time as the CEO and founder of KNWLDG NTRTNMNT.

He booked Lowes his first show and has been managing him ever since.

“He knew a lot about music. I knew a lot about business. It was a good relationship,” Williams says.

Lowes says things really started taking off when he and Carlyle started working with the owners of Ritual Nightclub and threw the first DubSMACK last April.

Despite having opened for international talent and played across Ottawa, Montreal and his hometown, Lowes said the most praise he ever got was after the first DubSMACK.

“When they heard the sounds of dubstep, it was just crazy,” says Lowes, who played for four and a half hours straight that night.

Williams says the event showed how underground the Ottawa dubstep scene was.

Now he considers it the most up-and-coming music scene in Ottawa, with DubSMACK selling out on a monthly basis because of its ability to cross over between genres.

Lowes says this allows DJs to do a lot of things production-wise.

“There are not many genres where you can incorporate sub-bass and huge kicks and all these crazy songs in different amalagamations,” he says.

Lowes is producing original tracks for sale through the Toronto label Jexonex, in addition to his free EP release through KNWLDG NTRTNMNT.

Lowes says he manages to balance being a DJ with school, but it is difficult. On a typical night he will set up, play and then get home between three or five in the morning, but he still fits in production time, CUTV courses, assignments and sleep throughout the week.

Williams says it is a tough industry to crack into, so ideally he would like Lowes to be touring, meeting people and producing full-time, but it’s difficult because he is in school.

“I’d like to [tour]. It would be a lot of fun but I just want to get my degree and do some school, but [with the releases], 2011’s gonna be pretty big for us,” Lowes says.

And as for the dubstep scene, Lowes says, “It’s only getting bigger.”