Techno/House Bobbins of the past

Oh for fuck's sake, Can a moderator move this to ILM.

Excellent idea. Both ideas are excellent.

i've recently picked up some 12"s on the old forcetracks label. this one in particular is pretty good. any recommendations for other forcetracks stuff (besides luomo)?

I'm quite enjoying John Beltran lately, that very mid-90's Detroity ambient techno sound.

Also, Agaric - Virke (liebe Detail 10 from 2006) is killing me right now.

which John Beltran are you listening too? Placid Angles is awesome.

love 'Decembers Tragedy' by Beltran, mehlt's description being the reason

I think Decembers Tragedy was used in the HBO series Six Feet Under.. It was cool hearing as a soundtrack.

Dub Taylor had a couple good/great LP's + 12"s on Force Tracks.

also check the label Raum...Musik for other pre-bobbins sounds.

Beltran's Ten Days of Blue LP on Peacefrog is classic from the first sound to the last.

In terms of Force Tracks MRI's All That Glitters is one I come back to cos it's pure pop. "Tied to the 80's" is from a an 80's TV theme and the dub Aaliyah cover is soo cool.

Heh, I was playing All That Glitters a moment ago - first Vinyl I ever owned.

I've been listening to the Beltran Stuff of Stryax Leaves, which is a really great label by the way, which are rereleases from older stuff. 'Anticipation' is wonderful, and "vienna" is beautiful little piece of classical string sampling.

Heh, I was playing All That Glitters a moment ago - first Vinyl I ever owned.

jesus.

In my defense, I'm only 19.

All That Glitters, I still come back to that one too. Esp. side 1 and YEA the aaliyah tribute!

Speaking of Force, I want to rep for the Star You Star Me album (esp. "Perfect Day" and "Sweet Things", which are mighty swoonful).

Akufen tunes on force tracks are belters.

Akufen! That guy disappeared off the grid for the last couple years as far as releases have gone, right?

He's apparently putting out an album this year!

I don't know why, but I found the MRI album to be really irritating with a few exceptions. I still need to hear the Mathias Schaffhäuser and Crank AK stuff on FT.

In my defense, I'm only 19.

heh i wasn't zinging , you just made me feel old and useless. i have and love the 'all that glitters' double vinyl btw, esp the title track.

Tied To The 80s is a gorgeous track - I heard it via gareth via spencer chow but I'm not sure I heard any other MRI.

Crane A.K.'s Pink Eyed Pony seems fairly typical of the Force Tracks roster to me. Deep, dubby, bouncy, clicky. More minimal than Dub Taylor, a bit too polite?

a couple of v old classics i recently encountered:

Jesse Saunders - On And On
good electro-boogie/house crossover but you could make a good case for this as first house track ever maybe (released in 84 but maybe first recorded in 83)

Farley Jackmaster Funk - Jackin The Trax
to hear it you'd believe hercules & love affair have been basing much of their sound on this one track. great house with that macabre synth hook seemingly taking its cue from italo and electro from a few years earlier.

second one is m4a btw

i also put this on the prescription thread: http://www.sendspace.com/file/85v4yg

romanthony - the wanderer (journeyman thump)

I saw the Ladomat 100 compilation in a charity shop today, listening to it now the pre-Kompakt quirkyness seems so great. I think I should hunt down more of this stuff.

the only thing on Ladomat 2000 i've heard is this, which i like. what else is worth checking for?

this is all-time top 10 luv 4eva material: http://www.discogs.com/release/49178

This Ladomat 2000 is all-time top 10 too - http://www.discogs.com/release/17353

Bobbins galore: http://www.youtube.com/user/HouseMasterz

hardwax appears to have copies of moodymann's ultra-classic 'dem young sconies' 12". a repress, perhaps?? in any case, can't rate this one highly enough.

I would be real surprised if Dem Young Sconies was an OP. That record makes you wonder what would have happened if KDJ had decided to concentrate on techno. That record hasn't left my crate in years.

Model 500 'Starlight' is still a favorite of mine. Play doubles of that late at night. The recent Echospace/Deepchord remixes are alright, but the original holds up just fine. Others I still love, Ken Iishi 'Overlap (Mark Broom mix)', Joey Beltram 'Energy Flash', Burger/Ink 'Las Vegas', Axis' lp on Guidance, Moodyman 'Forevermore', Jay Dee 'Plastic Dreams' must still be making them money, i see new remixes of that every year. Then, play Irresistable Force's 'Flying High' over some djax to kick out the jams.

Yeah that's weird about "Dem Young Sconies" appearing at Hardwax. Do they sell bootleg stuff? I mean there is always the chance that Planet E re-pressed it I suppose, but I would think they would've used one of the Planet E Classics labels or something rather than the original label like they're showing on the Hardwax site.

hardwax sold the sharevari repress, which was rumored to be a bootleg, so who knows?

i'm all for bootlegs of shit that never gets repressed, though (like sharevari).

True and the "Sharevari" boot just feels very different from a bootleg of an active label that has even been re-pressing some of it's "Classics." No judgement in these statements (I got both the "Sharevari" and "U Can Dance If U Want 2" bootlegs) just wondering.

i didn't know there was a bootleg of "u can dance"

totally awesome

but i'm still waiting for the "moody trax" boot

"Yeah that's weird about "Dem Young Sconies" appearing at Hardwax. Do they sell bootleg stuff? I mean there is always the chance that Planet E re-pressed it I suppose, but I would think they would've used one of the Planet E Classics labels or something rather than the original label like they're showing on the Hardwax site.

-- matt2"

a bunch of DYS 12" appeared at the Planet E booth at DEMF 06 (i think it was) along with the original Designer Music 4 track EP. DYS was $5, DM was $15. i got em both as each was amongst my most wanted Planet E's.....

All the more proof that it's really unacceptable that I've never made it to DEMF. I keep trying to convince my wife that it would be a great vacation.

is this the right place to ask about forever sweet-- namely, is anything else they did as perfect as "bleed"? does other ladomat stuff sound similar?

"All the more proof that it's really unacceptable that I've never made it to DEMF. I keep trying to convince my wife that it would be a great vacation.

-- matt2"

it is a great vacation. i bring my wife and my younger sister with me every year. at least 20 of my friends go up every year from pittsburgh as well, not even counting all the people i know from around the world who show up. its as good of a time as you can have if you like dance music.

That'd be the problem. Wifey loves dancing but doesn't like "dance music." It only takes about 30 seconds of any synthetic beat of the thump-thump-thump-thump-this-is-going-to-be-a-dance-song variety and my wife gets extreme anxiety. She loves Depeche Mode and plenty of early 90's poppier house stuff but can't stomach a moment of "true" techno, even something as gorgeous as "R-Theme" or "Dominas." I know, it doesn't make sense to me either.

My bf and I went for the first time last year and hope to make it a tradition. He is not into dance music/music in general as much as I am, but he's willing to indulge me and has family in Michigan so it works out. It is our one chance each year to hear this music in its "proper" setting (i.e. not between a pair of headphones or blasting from my car).

Yeah, I'm pretty much asked to keep the beats in my headphones.

I really, really want to go to DEMF again this year but it overlaps with a 2 week Germany trip. I guess that balances out.

Just got this one yesterday: http://www.discogs.com/release/4982

The locked groove on the A side is perfect. I let it play for 10 or 15 minutes yesterday.

"That'd be the problem. Wifey loves dancing but doesn't like "dance music." It only takes about 30 seconds of any synthetic beat of the thump-thump-thump-thump-this-is-going-to-be-a-dance-song variety and my wife gets extreme anxiety. She loves Depeche Mode and plenty of early 90's poppier house stuff but can't stomach a moment of "true" techno, even something as gorgeous as "R-Theme" or "Dominas." I know, it doesn't make sense to me either.

-- matt2"

man, that sucks. get her some good drugs and take her there, maybe she'll have a religious experience and you can all live happily ever after ;)

on the other hand, you could just go by yourself! there are lots of friendly techno nerds there.....

got a few things today. soul center III which is pretty cool, very unique sounding.

also got this psi performer remixes and am just listening to it now. has anyone heard the album?

and should i go back to the shop and pick up Sten - Leaving The Frantic for $6?

also got this psi performer remixes and am just listening to it now. has anyone heard the album?

-- one time

nice one. i used to love the john tejada mix on that comp. unfortunately the cd is back in my home country :(

uh, that psi performer is ... sort of boring ...

the really excellent rother ambient albums are elixir of life and magic diner

excellent driving on freeway during foggy nights music

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=296320337796677090

this is surely the greatest house track of all time

it's wonderful woozy stuff certainly tho i always think the "i could have saved myself so much money..." line undermines it by bringing the lols.

Picked this up the other day.
http://www.discogs.com/release/2374

the mix of '151' on that is so raw. is the rest of it as good!

That looks oh so nice Display Name.

got this today, awesome techno released 13 years ago(!) by colin newman's label.

would like to hear that, i liked the Varley tracks i heard on the 'Avanti' LP

I did a nice playlist some of you may like here:

http://www.viva-radio.com/pyjamarama

the one called Synthetic Emotions

G-Man/Gez Varley ftw.

Oooh, is that the one with the red vinyl with the black streams through it.

Quo-Vadis is top-5 of all time material.

the mix of '151' on that is so raw. is the rest of it as good!

No, 151 is the best cut on the record. I got real lucky because the guy that owned it only played Fantasy Girl(marked three stars on the cover) and never touched the rest of the LP.

The Fingers tracks are interesting because they sound like demo's of Washing Machine. I don't know, but I would guess that they were alternate takes from around the same time. The rest of the album varies in quality. The Phortune track on the b-side is the only other thing that stands out.

One other unrelated thing, the Dem Young Sconies records are legit. There must have been a few boxes of planet E records that got lost because my local store got a grip of old common factor 12"s. They were in the PE sleeves with the custom sticker and had the PE91-98 xerox catalog included. They are either new old stock, or they were bootlegged by incredibly detail oriented pirates hell bent on losing money.

fantasy girl... you mean 'dream girl' by pfantsay club? i think that larry heard had this song heavy on the brain when he wrote 'the sun can't compare'.

i recently got that version of fingers 'can you feel it?' with robert owens singing on top - didn't know this version existed before but it's on that Legends Of House comp doing the rounds (same thing I got the Saunders and FJF tracka above from).

it's pretty bad actually - worst Owens vocals ever.

i've never heard that... i always figured that vocal mix was referring to the rhythm controll 'my house' vocal sample. can we hear robert owens' worst vocal ever?

m4a: http://www.zshare.net/download/97543081609e9b/

can we talk about how awesome SEAMUS HAJI is?

ok not really, i mean i could care less about how awesome seamus haji is but i think ILX sort of unjustly ignored the big room sound of 2006

see also: axwell

fantasy girl... you mean 'dream girl' by pfantsay club?

The same basic track appeared in a few different versions. This is the tough acid version without the female vocals:

http://www.discogs.com/release/132582

I listened to them both in the same sitting the night before, sorry for any confusion.

that haji mix is definitely bangin

very much enjoying dj laflèche's two discs of banging uptempo progressive house for the turbo label (circa 1999?)

highlights include an amazing sequence on "montreal mix sessions vol 2" that start's w/ the incredible MFON's "ron hardy's revenge" and ends w/ twilight (aka roger "s-man" sanchez's) "i want your love", which of course samples the chic song of the same name. taking in, along the way, gene farris, cevin's mix of arthur baker, robbie rivera's fab 68 beats project, and some obscure but banging tribal dudes i've never heard of

highly recommended for fans of trevor rockcliffe, blake baxter, danny tenaglia, etc etc

all those turbo mix cds were dope as hell. The Tiga one was great (both discs! one proto-electroclash and one really banging techno one!!!!) as was the Adam Beyer Stockholm mix session #3. I really wish there was more stuff like this around these days.

Oh yeah that Tiga mix CD also has one of my most wanted 12"s ever that I've still had no luck tracking down on it: Copy 'Vinz' http://www.discogs.com/release/69856

i knew game was changed when i heard disc 2 of that tiga set

hearing "lies" was a definite "oh shit what is this?!?" moment

"Just got this one yesterday: http://www.discogs.com/release/4982

The locked groove on the A side is perfect. I let it play for 10 or 15 minutes yesterday.

-- matt2, Wednesday, March 19, 2008 8:09 PM (1 week ago) Bookmark Link"

Laughing at myself on this one. That night I was listening while preparing dinner, and I honestly thought the A side had a really incredible locked groove. Upon listening with headphones last night, it was actually a very impressively placed skip right near the end of track 2 on the A side. It really did make quite an impressive loop.

just got: http://www.discogs.com/release/2153

review?

no record player here at work! interested to finally hear the A side though, i've only ever heard the dub (which is classic of course).

the "techno" playlist I mentioned above, I wrote about here:

http://acuterecords.com/blog/?p=36

i'm currently listening to an old john aquaviva mix from 1994 which really is excellent - superior than the hawtin selection on the same disc. this was back in the day when progressive house could face off against the techno of the day and still come out of it with its held high (in the same mix i might add). i guess these days you can argue that proggier elements have crept into minimal but give me this aquaviva mix any day of the week.

Nobody else on here likes this kind of thing, right?

http://www.discogs.com/release/1325109

14 Secret Cinema Timeless Altitude (Extra Altitude Mix)
Remix - Speedy J
Written-By - Jervem Verheij*
15 Hardfloor Alternative

both great

j@cob i own "mind control of candy jones" and "art lukm suite", both tremendous

that aquaviva mix is ok but i am much more into garnier and especially dave angel!

dave angel rather underrated around here ... funny coincidence, too, i've been listening to his mix of ken ishii's "extra" quite a bit lately.

although to be fair dave angel got pretty shitty around '99, when the big tribal techno boom happened ...

HEY WAIT ... is it time for a tribal techno revival yet?!?

s/d: drumcode, intec, primate, tronic, monoid, killa bite, theory, pure plastic, hardgroove, phont, teknotika etc etc etc!!!

listening to this ancient dj harvey deep house mix right now ... some amazing stuff, especially the d*note remix (by jono podmore, who i remember seeing on all sorts of dorado-related trip hop and acid jazz comps) and the mondo gross / saint germain tracks

that aquaviva mix is ok but i am much more into garnier and especially dave angel!

-- moonship journey to baja

yeah those two are great. i like the quirkiness of the angel selection. and then garnier pulls out the big detroit guns for his mix. such a great phase for techno in general (weep).

HEY WAIT ... is it time for a tribal techno revival yet?!?

NO! I hated that shit.

i remember first seeing the name "ben sims" when i bought this mark broom comp the week it came out. i'd gotten heavily into mark broom via ford, stasis and plaid connections and was also still willing to spend money on anything w/ claude young or surgeon on it (it was also the first time i saw the name "losoul", but that's another story ...)

anyway, i remember two years later seeing entire BINS w/ nothing but ben sims, adam beyer and oliver ho records! seriously, no joke, "techno" had a bin, "hard style" had a bin, and "beyer / sims / etc" had a bin. who did i forget? samuel l sessions?

still, there's a beauty to the purity of something like this ben-sims-only dj mix, not so different from listening to an hour of purposemaker or user tracks. and there's the odd genius producer, like cari lekebusch.

the "small difference" aspect of that music was always so hard for me to deal with ... like, i knew that, say, gaetano parisio or umek were much better than, say, chris liebing or hardcell. but how to explain the difference?

the ben sims looks utterly fearsome. the claude young dj kicks is about my limit i think.

that dj harvey ministry mix is one of my favourite sets of all time. i seem to remember starting a thread on the sandbox about that d*note track and got zero replies. really dig "new jersey deep" also. anyone wanna recommend some similar mixes? i have a current jonesing for deep house with extended jazz solos

i recently picked up a bootleg of this mad mike produced deep house track, so good!

Those Happy records are the shit. Submerge really needs to repress those.

Afro Art label, Black Science Orchestra + Ballistic Brothers for r1o natsume.

House:
Marty Thomas- "Resurrect Me (Lift Me Up) (A Tom Moulton Mix)"
La Factoria Posse- "Smart!"
any old Kerri Chandler
DJ Meme's disco edits
7ev3's remixes of Cassius and Dead or Alive

Techno:
Hardfloor- TB Resuscitation
old Joris Voorn tracks

i can never get enough hardfloor. something so weirdly organic in their sound, methinks.

brotherlovesdub OTM - keeping w/ the beedle-centrism, how about the sequel to harvey's late night sessions, mixed by the xpress ii gang themselves: http://www.discogs.com/release/44316

I'd like to revive the question regarding Forcetracks. I've developed a bit of an appetite for that sort of stuff over the last few days.

I heard on a Troy Pierce chart this one track by one of the Dahlback's from '97 on Svek, as The Persuader or something that really peaked my Interest. Any other stuff on Svek, for someone that's never really heard any of it really, that's really essential?

Is that Centralbron? Magda used it on a mix CD I think. It's a great track and probably the most forward thinking from the 2xLP and CD Stockholm on Svek in 99.

I heard Stephan G and The Persuader's Kaos on Svek from '97 recently too. Played it again and it kinda fits in the Olso / Johnny D stuff.

It is: The Persuader - What's The Time, Mr. Templar?

I'll check out Centralbron though

As for old stuff I picked up a copy of Schatrax's 3x12" comp for a DJ friend.. Restless Nights!

Oh yeah, that's on Svek 2 CD.. cool track.

gosh - second mention of the Ballistic Bros in one day on ILM (JBO thread),a mere few hours after i spotted their album lurking in the archive having been left unloved for a long long time.
i am sure i tried the album back in the day and was left unmoved, though i can feel the urge rising to give it another spin.

The two Ballistic Brothers LP's I have are great (I don't have the first one). London Hooligan Soul was my go-to disc for backyard bbq's way back when + Rude System stayed on my turntable (primarily because the gatefold vinyl was so perfect for rolling spliffs). Lots of great songs on those 2 albums. A fair amount of dodgy tracks too but the good far outway the bad.

Urban Farmers - Swinging It on Afro Art was my secret weapon for an extended period sometime in 96/97.

Svek is a fantastic label and the 2 from The Persuader that have been mentioned are essential. The Stockholm album is still one of my favorite electronic albums of all time. Its not house or techno but some amorphous combination of many different styles. His 12"s preceding that album are 100% essential.

Bjorn Torske's Trobbel probably won't get mentioned anywhere but here so take this as a desperate plea for you to track it down. Erot & Bjorn Torske are the 2 most under-appreciated Scandinavian producers who i will always promote.

Bjorn Torske's Expresso on Ferox
Persuader's Stockholm By Night on Svek

That Expresso record on Ferox is really great. The flip 'rail track' is the one I play all the time.

Ben Simms has always been a way more diverse dj than given credit for and you all should check out some of his recent archived split shows for proof. He is great.

http://www.splitmusic.net/

Is anyone interested in Leonardo-ing that Laurent Garnier X-Mix vahid mentioned up there? It looks lovely.

no

Bjorn Torske's Expresso on Ferox

this inspired me to drag out the whole stack of ferox stuff ... and something i hadn't listened to in a while, russ gabriel's "out of the unknown".

ok, not sure if it's a combination of the 100 degree heatwave (w/ humidity) we're having plus the thick smell of trees in the air or if this really IS the best broken beat album ever?

My flatmate at college had the unmixed vinyl of x-mix 2. I used to listen to it all the time. That, http://www.discogs.com/release/17823 and http://www.discogs.com/release/107222 were basically my introduction to dance music.

What awful artwork!

Bloody hell that Loco Dice BBC Essential Mix from 2005 is an absolute stormer. I didn't realise that boy could play so hard. Banging techno (in the best possible sense) with little minimal in sight.

Hour 2: Locodice

Teknotika 'Samedi (DJ 3000 Mix)' (Futago Technologies)
Zombie Nation 'Pang Pang' (White Label)
Sacha Funkye Boy 'Attempt' (Bpitch Control)
Solieb 'Circus Maximus' (Maschine)
Frank Martinque 'Boost' (Boxer Spirit)
Richie Hawtin 'Minus Orange' (Minus Canada)
Steve Barnes 'Cosmic Sandwich (Dominic Eulberg Remix) (MBF Germany)
Marc O Tool 'XLR8R EP' (Electribe)
Oliver Koluteki 'Der Muckenschwarm' (White Label)
J Hunsberger 'Watch Her Move' (Movement)
Steve Stoll pres Spinback Vol 1 'Discrete' (Proper NYC)
Pan/Tone 'Tomorrow Never Knew' (Sub Static)
Revolver Jesus 'Love Is Not A Ritual' (Playmate)

<3 arctic records ... "cream of trip hop" (esp vols 3 and 4) and "cream of ambient visions" were *huge* for me

those "cream of underground house" comps are an amazing mix of time-capsule type early 90s tribal and ibiza house nuttiness and all-time tracks like "de niro", "positive education", "babyloop", etc ... vols 2,3 and 7 particularly killer

the flux trax comp definitely aided my electronic education:

http://www.discogs.com/release/42195

xpost, nkay love you vahid.

Just dug out this Svek one - http://www.discogs.com/release/119 - a good 'tool' or something...

Big Bang Theory is great for mixing. Svek's Donna Summer moment.

Loco Dice is quite a live DJ. love it every time.

i could never really get into Bjorn Torske, but perhaps that is because his new album kind of blows.

newer album, sorry

Trobbel is nothing like the new stuff and also nothing like the LP on Ferox.

matt2 i've been sort of busy but check LEO LEO after 9 pm PST

matt2: better late than never?

HOLY FUCKING GOD IN HEAVEN d*note's "garden of earthly delights" has been reissued b/w the x-press 2 remix but not the amazing "kumo mix" as heard in harvey's late night sessions gotdamn!

is d*note's first album 'babel' any good?

i would say it's on the low-end of dorado releases. the high-end being a.p.e.'s "striplight", sunship, maybe cool breeze. the middle-end being "criminal justice". the low-end being jhelisa, BFE, etc. i think i have a pretty high tolerances for this sort of stuff and i'm not too enthused on it.

i did like 'D*votion' altho it is very 'incidental music for holiday tv show'

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nd58C6APDeo

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2WMCJFbQBHk
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MeCuVNThUPc
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QWR09VsSW4w

Damn, can someone provide a tracklist for the cooley high (middle link) clip?

New Dance Show video clips are just in a league of their own aren't they?

Whoops, it's the first link, actually.

I've been trying to get that nu-groove record with 'searchin' on it for years, whether in mp3 or on wax but no luck

http://www.discogs.com/release/2091

it might be easier to find this bootleg, that's what i have.

re Ballistics, I used to play the shit out of this one back in the day:

<img src="http://www.discogs.com/image/R-138611-1195301805.jpeg";>

Fuck, this:

http://www.discogs.com/image/R-138611-1195301805.jpeg

Grrr.

Anyway the question I wanted to ask was can anyone recommend some more dark dubbed out sleazy sounding 90s new jersey garage along the lines of Angel Moraes "Sounds so good" (http://www.discogs.com/release/45648), Jay Naz "all bridges lead to brooklyn" (http://www.discogs.com/release/45648) or (more leftfield) Evelyn Jean - "Town near you" (http://www.discogs.com/release/125073)???

Also: would love to know more about this guy (http://www.discogs.com/artist/Big+Moses) as I used to listen to "Brighter Days" pretty much daily and always wanted to dig deeper into that whole Xtian garage thing but never really knew how...

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2258/2511897416_1de9a0122d_o.png

i want that t-shirt!

yeah, me too

too bad it costs like $70

that's like €2! might get it for a friend's birthday - where's it available?

not telling until i get mine

(limited to 500)

haha, fair enough

Ivan?

Oh, oops ... it's "Juan" but looks like "Ivan"

no, wait it's ivan!

http://www.novadance.com/assets/32/3BA2F8AC-0CAD-8B9C-F41AA35CFB5441AB_mainImage/ivan_.jpg

is one of those crossed-out names 'Glaude'?

oh duhhhh it's 'Claude' phew.

PLANETARY ASSAULT SYSTEMS

The other day I got this:

http://www.discogs.com/release/62975

at a record store. Netto (or Netto Houz): "Fan Of The Underground" on Ladomat from 1996. A beautiful record. Completely overlooked by my when it originally came out. Like a very german kid of Nu Groove and Non-Jazz-Prescription. Really great. Especially track A1 and B1. Anybody heard this?

you guys could make your own shirt that looked like that for the cost of a tshirt and a sharpie

i know im borderline "my kid could paint that!" here but fuck, its a $70 tshirt

fuck the shirt

PLANETARY ASSAULT SYSTEMS

wait, can you fuck with this?

NO, NO YOU CAN'T

Gated

BOOSTER

actually all of volumes 1, 2, 3 and 4 are insane!

but fuck planetary assault systems

NEUROPOLITIQUE

more like neuTOOPOLITEique

sorry, that was labored

seriously though ... recommend some tracks.

sorry to say i only know "tv people", "artemis" and "switchback".

sort of derrick may lite, no?

haven't listened to it for ages but the album luke slater recorded under his 7th Plain alias ('the 4 cornered room') is ace. like the guy on discogs says - it's more IDM orientated than his PAS moniker.

The 4 Cornered Room

matt cogger (neuropolitique) worked for transmat for a while in the 1980s, so he does sound like derrick may. i wouldn't call it lite or polite, however. check 'faze' and 'idiotic lantern'. all of the shit he did for irdial records is available at the internet archive: http://www.archive.org/search.php?query=collection%3Airdial&sort=-publicdate

i'm down w/ the irdial archive - i think i started a thread about it at some point - but i'll check those tracks!

driving to work today i decided to listen to "the deepest shade of techno". 3 minutes into "jupiter jazz" i started to weep. no joke! crying like a baby!

this illustrates

a) need medication
b) the power and majesty of underground resistance

"driving to work today i decided to listen to "the deepest shade of techno". 3 minutes into "jupiter jazz" i started to weep. no joke! crying like a baby!

this illustrates

a) need medication
b) the power and majesty of underground resistance

-- moonship journey to baja"

i just finally picked up the World 2 World 12" with Jupiter Jazz on it this weekend, i love that song so much but i hadn't even realised i only had it on CD. what a stunning record. UR tunes (especially when performed live!) have brought me to tears on numerous occasions, i dont think any medication aside from more UR in your life is necessary ;)

the flipside of that record is vasty underrated.

It is a shame that Hi-Tech Jazz doesn't have the profile of Jupiter Jazz because it is so much better. Jupiter Jazz seems very concise whereas Hi-Tech Jazz seems a lot more sprawling and ambitious. It is one of those records that is so advanced that it is intimidating. How do you get to a place mentally where you can conceive and execute musical ideas like that.

It is raw and expressive, but there is more sophistication in any 16 bars of that track then there are in any random 50 tracks that get gushing praise on the 2008 bobbins thread. Mike Banks is easily one of the 10 top musical minds of all genres that came out of Detroit. He is second only to Juan Atkins as far as Detroit electronic music is concerned.

"hi-tech jazz" is great! but it always makes me happy, whereas "jupiter jazz" makes me sad. i think it's the human voice samples in "jupiter jazz" that get me. the other one that makes me cry is "amazon". but maybe that's just the tree hugger in me, i remember one time that atrocious coldcut song that sampled amazonian logging operations ("timber"?) made me cry.

also: "the theory (melanic mix)", "return of the dragons", "nation 2 nation", "303 sunset", "inspiration", "transition" ...

soft feminine detroit techno UR >> ruff rugged raw detroit electro UR

which is interesting because there's plenty of other stuff on submerge is much better when it's explicitly dancier ... i'm thinking drexciya, for one ...

more sophistication in any 16 bars of that track then there are in any random 50 tracks that get gushing praise on the 2008 bobbins thread

yeah but the other thing is that the whole "nation 2 nation" / "world 2 world" / "galaxy 2 galaxy" set just lords over everything else in the UR catalog like it ain't even funny.

and i understand where you're coming from re: 2008 bobbins but i think its more to do w/ getting old? i consider myself pretty sympathetic to the "new techno" cause and i can't get too worked up about very much of that stuff myself (hello, i'd rather listen to ken ishii and planetary assault systems!)

well, excepting "knights of the jaguar", i guess

hey, here's an interesting one i was mulling over on the way to work:

t/s: octave one vs mad mike

or maybe

t/s: 430 west vs UR (label)

oh, duh, KotJ *was* on 430 west

hmm i always felt hi tech jazz and amazon were way bigger 'hits' than jupiter jazz

I spent last weekend rediscovering uk 'wonky' techno as i cant stand the current mnnl artists, surgeon, si begg, neil landstrumm, funk d void etc awesome stuff, i just cant get the appeal of richard vandawhatever & crew

Re: Planetary Assault Systems (like the track on the cio d'or process mix btw) - big fan of Clementine - Head Nodder (L.Slater on DJAX-UP-BEATS)

I always meant to get some Planetary Assault Systems - any good starting points?

i bought this one recently and it's great!

the best wonky techno thing ever

13 Mover, The Frontal Sickness

Is this is the (fierce) A side or the (amazing) B side?

multiple x-post

knights of the jaguar was on UR. the derrick may remix was on 430 west.

oh you're right, that's what i thought at first but i got confused by discogs

not sure about the mover track. it's slow and dubby, if that helps. almost dub-techno ... drone techno?

so how about the great R&S 2008 reissue movement?

they all say *REMASTERED* on the front.

i picked up ken ishii's "jelly tones" last night and in a head-to-head listening w/ the original all i can say for sure is that the new one is definitely louder (on CD) ... but is it really worth going whole hog and picking up another copy of model 500's "classics", "deep space", derrick may's "innovator", dave angel "classics" etc etc

more sophistication in any 16 bars of that track then there are in any random 50 tracks that get gushing praise on the 2008 bobbins thread

yeah but the other thing is that the whole "nation 2 nation" / "world 2 world" / "galaxy 2 galaxy" set just lords over everything else in the UR catalog like it ain't even funny.

I don't know about that, both sides of Final Frontier are some of the best electro ever to come out of Detroit. Then there is stuff like the Aaron Carl remix of Hard life, Timeline, the Drexciya records, Crime Report, Nocturbulous Behavior... There is some filler in the UR catalog but there is also some of the best music of the last 30 years.

and i understand where you're coming from re: 2008 bobbins but i think its more to do w/ getting old? i consider myself pretty sympathetic to the "new techno" cause and i can't get too worked up about very much of that stuff myself (hello, i'd rather listen to ken ishii and planetary assault systems!)

I know what you are saying, but in this case I really don't think it is an age issue so much as a lot of people writing blogs don't have a discerning ear. The thing about those _ 2 _ records is that they have a level of musicianship and rhythmic sophistication that objectively isn't present in the shit that is getting pushed these days.

I remember one particular record mentioned on the 2008 thread that was a great "Detroit" record and everybody gushed about how good it was. Yeah it had good sound design but the drums were about as playschool as you can get and there wasn't a whole lot of writing.

People are not bringing that kind of sophistication to the music these days. They do a shitload of quick edits and have a million vst patches, and $40,000 in tube compressors at their disposal, but none of these cats could get work as a gospel pianist on Sunday morning. Most of them can barely play. Most of them can't program drums to save their lives either. What is sad is that I am not referring to the hobby level people, I am referring to the people with profiles. It sounded like a bunch of plunking around in Ableton until it sort of works and then it goes out into the world. It might be cool for a few months but then it goes into the black hole of the dollar bin forever. The bar is set so low for the industry it is ridiculous.

It might be an age thing to the extent that I have a better ear and understanding of music at 31 than I did at 21. However, I don't believe that it is impossible for this level of quality to be achieved today. It is entirely possible for somebody to drop another World 2 World level record, UR does not have the market cornered on good music.

The other problem is that this is a entertainment industry not a music industry... that is another rant.

hmm i always felt hi tech jazz and amazon were way bigger 'hits' than jupiter jazz

I went to the discogs page and checked how many times each track has hit a compilation a couple days ago. I think Jupiter Jazz has been comped a lot, Hi Tech Jazz only has been comped once or twice IIRC. If you check the comps that JJ has been on, I think it is fair to say that it has a higher profile.

People are not bringing that kind of sophistication to the music these days. They do a shitload of quick edits and have a million vst patches, and $40,000 in tube compressors at their disposal, but none of these cats could get work as a gospel pianist on Sunday morning. Most of them can barely play. Most of them can't program drums to save their lives either. What is sad is that I am not referring to the hobby level people, I am referring to the people with profiles. It sounded like a bunch of plunking around in Ableton until it sort of works and then it goes out into the world. It might be cool for a few months but then it goes into the black hole of the dollar bin forever. The bar is set so low for the industry it is ridiculous.

sorry but that is basically "i don't like this" masked as some kind of theoretical science.

I do love a lot of what i hear in 2008!

Nocturbulous Behavior

This record Never gets old. I like it very much!

sorry but that is basically "i don't like this" masked as some kind of theoretical science.

If you and James Jamerson were to play bass together there would be no objective difference between what he can play and what you can play? Do you play as well as McCoy Tyner?

Music is a language. Is it too much to say that some people are expressing more interesting thoughts with it than others?

Do you honestly think that the guys that you blog about who can barely string a track together on a computer are going to be able to out do guys who can actually play music on real instruments? I listened to the first half of your chart and you realize that there is zero tonal movement in the entire thing. It is all based on either one chord stab or in the case of that loco dice track it is based on one single 2 bar piano loop(it is really a one bar loop but on the second pass he plays the last chord twice. I am not even going to get into the drums...

This is the musical equivalent of reading writing geared towards an audience with a 4th grade reading comprehension. If that is how you get your kicks that is fantastic. I don't like it, but I also don't like the writing in tabloids.

lol gospel pianist.

"none of these rock guitarists can sew a scout badge on".

Mike...none of that means liking or disliking the music is worth more/less.

If the best musician was the most talented then techno has nothing on classical music does it? Or at least, that's what a classical fan would tell you.

I can't believe I'm even having this argument. It's not a competition, it's music. Nobody "outdoes" anybody and the important reason music is "remembered" for me is if I remember it, not if some sweaty dudes on messageboards all agree it was the greatest technical feat of its era.

"This is the musical equivalent of reading writing geared towards an audience with a 4th grade reading comprehension. If that is how you get your kicks that is fantastic. I don't like it, but I also don't like the writing in tabloids."

not cos you find it right wing I presume

"Do you honestly think that the guys that you blog about who can barely string a track together on a computer are going to be able to out do guys who can actually play music on real instruments?"

What does this even mean? Do I seriously think the music I like is actually good rather than the music you like?

31 going on 15 Mike.

"Do you honestly think that the guys that you blog about who can barely string a track together on a computer are going to be able to out do guys who can actually play music on real instruments?"

YES!

What about ywngie?

Fucking Yngwie's techno tracks rule!

they are undre the name of Villalobos i Thinkj?"?/1/?!??!/!/1!

i am sort of sympathetic to mike's argument - you sort of wonder about guys like robag wruhme. could they make a "black water" or a "knights of the jaguar" if they wanted to? obviously the detroit guys know their scales and stuff, and so do *some* europeans. thinking like, alter ego and gang? they are quite musical when you get down to it.

but then the hole in mike's argument is that there's guys who *are* musically trained who end up making earhole-bursting noise, and guys with very little training (thinking justice here) who make stuff that's quite melodic. so how can we be so sure that like, marco carola or whoever doesn't play a mean flamenco guitar?

Make 'em sit a test.

Can they play "The Last Days of May" by Blue Oyster Cult or not?

maybe we're so busy punching easy holes in mike's argument that we're missing the tougher one: could the music stand to have a little more, uh, music in it?

yes. and more sweaty dudes on messageboards.

it could stand to have a little more music like a cardiac patient could stand just one more chest compression.

hmm i don't follow

i'm sure it's clever, but assume i'm sort of dumb and spell it out for me

To me, older tracks often just seem to have more life to them (even the kinda shitty ones actually). They breathe. There's less compression and less focus on the mid-range. I dunno ... maybe I'm just too much of a sucker for certain old school sounds ... 808 kicks, 909 claps, some 303s and shit ... whatever. It all just sounds right to my ears. Sometimes new stuff does too, but not nearly as often.

It's not necessarily a matter of musicality, but I do like some development going on (which can be accomplished through repetition, of course).

and musicality shouldn't be conflated with yngwie-style virtuosity.

one finger synth solos all day long

BY THE WAY

this remastered "jelly tones" is quite amazing. much more dynamic sound.

"moved by air" sounds particularly amazing

I am not out on some Geirist notion that melody is the most important thing music virtue or that you have to be able to play Dvorak in order to make good music.

The point I am trying to make is that a lot of the stuff getting lauded is working on only the barest musical cloth. I am not asking for huge solos and huge technical feats. Is it too much to ask for a chord progression? Is it too much to ask for a key change when you break into a new section?

The difference between older dance music and today is that the guys making the old stuff had a background in "real music." Larry Heard was a drummer, Juan Atkins was a bass player, Jeff Mills played drums in his high school jazz band, Mike Banks was a session keyboard guy... That is the thing that nobody wants to bring up about all the old school legends, those guys were musicians.

That was the beautiful thing from R&B-->disco-->Chi house/Detroit techno-->minimalism. Right around the turn on the 90's is where things started to get to stripped down and abstracted. I love BC and Dan Bell as much as anybody, but when their legacy is the default approach is when things go too far. The history of house and techno was to take disco and electro and italo and make those forms more streamlined and functional.
When you have that kind of musical background you can do stuff like that and make it work.

The problem these days is that people don't know anything about music and they get one chord stab or loop and they just layer some facile drums over it and a couple keyboard vamps and call it "deep house" or whatever.

I love ear candy as much as the next guy, but there has to be some music underneath it. The new return to deep it only a surface return, the underlying musicality which makes the old records relevant is missing.

If you want to know what is missing from today's music you just need to listen to those old disco records. There isn't a lick of Yngwie in an old Salsoul, P&P or Prelude record. At their best they were good tunes fleshed out with good performances and solid production. The nu-disco stuff is at least trying to bring this idea back into dance. I would like to see somebody try to reclaim techno in the same way.

And what is sad is that I am not even asking for Yngwie. I am asking for the musicality that your average teenager has after he has played in a few cover bands. I am not even asking for polyrhythm, weird chord progressions, inversions, and weird ass extended chords. Fuck, I would be happy if I could even get some I-IV-V.

you get the sense that people were somehow trying harder back then.

my biggest fear is that minimal is going to put house & techno on the same road to nowhere that drum'n'bass went when it reacted against "excessive musicianship".

The problem these days is that people don't know anything about music and they get one chord stab or loop and they just layer some facile drums over it and a couple keyboard vamps and call it "deep house" or whatever.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAMEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEN

"you get the sense that people were somehow trying harder back then."

perhaps if you look back at the seminal records that now stand out you do, but surely plenty of "knocked out" records back then too, even amongst the classics.

I'm not claiming dance music isn't different or it never changes. I think now you have a lot more artists doing a lot "smaller" work, if that makes sense. I quite like this, because I like the sense of dance music as this sum of all those parts, a sum you make yourself, or each DJ/fan makes themselves.

Also I really hate the cult that rises up around the really auteuristic producers and the same rhetoric that seems to grow on them like mould, like on this thread.

Obviously the fact you can make the music with a laptop rather than expensive hardware has a big effect on this. But then I think if more people are able to try and make some music than before, that's a good thing, if others are willing to buy/listen to their music then I don't see any harm.

I think where I differ majorly from you, Mike and others, is that I don't hear something and think "the musicianship in this is amazing", as a first impression. Though of course I fail to see how sound design is not musicianship, or how there's "real music" etc etc. Some of this stuff is pretty conservative.

Also I don't believe that there's a firm or permanent connection between great musicians and great music. As Vahid said, sometimes guys with great musical skills make very boring records. Making music is surely about composition and ideas, which is not the same skill as being able to physically play an instrument.

eg any half decent guitarist can play most Beatles songs, but it was the idea not necessarily musical talent/skill that led to the success.

Also it is utterly, completely ridiculous to just assume nobody working in minimal stuff or whatever you want to call it has musical training or is a musician, or fling out stuff like "they know nothing about music". Just unfounded and silly.

Tons of these producers are musicians and have musical backgrounds. I know because you see it mentioned or discussed endlessly in interviews.

And how is all of UR's back catalogue utterly "musical"? They have released plenty of stuff that is very tracky and disposable, that nobody is going to pick up and listen to as an independent work. There are plenty of those records that don't seem particularly musical, unless I'm missing something.

Also above all, I don't really understand disliking one approach to music by default. I love UR records and Chicago house, but I also have been enjoying minimal and now the housier stuff (which isn't just neo "deep house", nobody is satisfied with calling it that anyway) as much as I've ever enjoyed music.

And I still think a lot of this is just making a big complex theory out of a really strong dislike for a type of music. It's not the end of house and techno just cos you don't enjoy it.

And if anything is a threat to house/techno at the moment it's that the currently popular stuff is too backward thinking, that purism is so casually back in fashion, not with you guys of course, but a lot of people don't seem too interested in doing something majorly new.

also I really hate the cult that rises up around the really auteuristic producers

i think this is a good point, that's sort of what we're doing here. picking out dudes from 10 years ago who didn't really have a *scene* around them. like dan curtin. nobody else makes music like dan curtin.

but where/who are the auteur house/techno dudes nowadays?

i didn't really finish my thought ... not fair to compare auteurs like carl craig and ken ishii to a scene based around scene-y sameyness.

do you mean that today is scene-y sameyness? just cos I obviously disagree.

today's auteurs: ricardo certainly, not sure who else. there are plenty of producers who do individual work but aren't necessarily in that culty auteuristic place.

what I think adds a twist to this debate is that Detroit stuff and German stuff is becoming quite mixed. For instance take a listen to Dan Bell's latest podcast, full of Federico Molinari, Johnny D etc. His first release on the reformed Elevate Recordings is by Baaz from Chaton's label in Switzerland.

Similarly my friend saw Patrice Scott recently and said he was playing Radioslave and plenty of Euro stuff.

I don't know what Mike thinks of Keith Worthy/Patrice Scott etc though.

Seems like minimal and etc. is guilty of any crime you can care to name:

1) Too melodic
2) Not melodic enough
3) Unnecessarily complex
4) Boringly simple
5) Fussy and overproduced
6) Facile and underproduced
7) Obsessed with remanufacturing the past
8) Ignorant of dance music history

I'm not sure how these things can all be true at once - but I guess it would make perfect sense if I was (or even knew IRL) a "cat".

i dont understand how you can hear a techno track today (or ever) and know whether or not the artist has any musical training just by listening to it.

that sounds like some mysticism about the process of 'musical training' from someone whose understanding of theory is pretty cursory in the first place

but how can i know? i cant. maybe you are very highly trained

"Seems like minimal and etc. is guilty of any crime you can care to name:

1) Too melodic
2) Not melodic enough
3) Unnecessarily complex
4) Boringly simple
5) Fussy and overproduced
6) Facile and underproduced
7) Obsessed with remanufacturing the past
8) Ignorant of dance music history

I'm not sure how these things can all be true at once - but I guess it would make perfect sense if I was (or even knew IRL) a "cat".

-- Tim F"

i dont know anyone who comments on the amount of melody in mnml shit being "too much" or the music being "underproduced", so i dont know where those came from. but some of the other apparent dichotomies you mention are very easily explained:

"3) Unnecessarily complex
4) Boringly simple"

this one is the drum and bass problem. the act of producing the sounds has become unnecessarily complex, while the results are boringly simple. before, a beat track could be made with an 808, it didnt take much time or effort but you got a functional track out of it. these days, people spend many hours on their DSP-athons trying to make some subtley different sound and then put it out in a simple track that is in no way interesting. this is the same thing that has plagued drum and bass, those guys spend crazy time on their bass sounds and then whack them over a boring as hell beat with a predictable buildup. it is mainly interesting to other producers (which is seemingly everyone in DnB these days) and people who dont remember when jungle tunes could actually have interesting stucture, rhythm, etc. the same is happening with techno and house music now. harder styles of techno were guilty of this as well, but they were never as mainstream as mnml and "deep house" are now which is why it is a bigger problem at this point in time.

"7) Obsessed with remanufacturing the past
8) Ignorant of dance music history"

this one is great because it is a non-argument. in fact, the only person i have seen really argue that mnml/"deep house" things are obsessed with "remanufacturing the past" is Ronan, who seems to just make this shit up out of nothing. the real criticism of this music is right along the line of what Display Name said: "The new return to deep it only a surface return, the underlying musicality which makes the old records relevant is missing."

i don't think anyone wants Yngwie type musician wankery nonsense in techno music (well, except for Squarepusher fans i guess) but trying to make a track that is melodically rewarding is not equivalent to that. however, i do feel like most of the DSP wankery IS the equivalent of Yngwie, straight up technical garbage with no soul in it. i do think that the Beatles comparison is apt: they made good MUSIC, it may not have been particularly technical but that wasn't the point. the problem is that so few producers even ATTEMPT to approach their music like that.

i have no problem with some beat tracks, but that is not the sum of techno. Ronan said "I think now you have a lot more artists doing a lot "smaller" work, if that makes sense. I quite like this, because I like the sense of dance music as this sum of all those parts, a sum you make yourself, or each DJ/fan makes themselves." and that is pretty much the Richie Hawtin point of view on dance music: everything is subservient to the will of the person stitching the music together. this to me is extremely uninteresting, the idea of "song" is thrown out the window, the "producers" are reduced to sound designers. of course Ronan also said "Though of course I fail to see how sound design is not musicianship" which is pretty much ridiculous. and his claims of "purism" and "conservatism" because we dont see the emperor's new clothes only show how ludicrous most of his arguments are anyway. i still cant figure out how that guy gets any gigs writing about dance music, his inability to grasp anything outside of what is "cool" right now is ridiculously limiting.

I've been enjoying the discussion so far but this - i still cant figure out how that guy gets any gigs writing about dance music, his inability to grasp anything outside of what is "cool" right now is ridiculously limiting. - seems meanspirited. Not to mention the fact that the majority of published music criticism tends to revolve around a parochial view of the 'contemporary', so as an attempt at a personal attach, it fails. It's a bit like saying 'I can't believe this guy who is a music journalist is a journalist writing about music'.

anyway, can people go back to talking about cool old records I can check out?

but even amongst people who are tied up in strictly the modern, Ronan is the only one who pushes these ridiculous lines of argument. it confounds me. i rather enjoy debating with other people like philip sherburne, the mnmlssgs guys, etc. but talking with Ronan is just ridiculous.

you enjoy "debating" with people who doff their cap

what ridiculous lines of argument? what arguments are you referring to?

I think plenty people on this thread would agree with what I'm saying, which is simply that whether people like/enjoy music is one of the most important things about any record, and in my opinion outweighs how difficult it was to make classically speaking.

as a result I reject all of these divisions between hardware/software, old/new etc.

I'm not even partisan about this, I don't rabidly insist new music is better than old. I just insist that there shouldn't be a hierarchy.

It actually annoys me sometimes that other people can't be bothered to argue on threads like this because I can remember ILM when somebody questioning the idea of subjectivity or somehow acting like it can be overruled would be shot down in a matter of minutes.

I can remember ILM when somebody questioning the idea of subjectivity or somehow acting like it can be overruled would be shot down in a matter of minutes

yes, me too. i know exactly where you are coming from, but i think the argument makes sense to me when i think about the issue of "musicianship" as sort of a red herring, or a mt / pipecock language way of wondering whether the balance hasn't swung a bit toward excessively tracky in the last few years.

i mean, this line of thinking should be OK, right? and for once, i don't really follow tim here. it seems to me that pipecock and mt's arguments seem pretty focused here.

I definitely agree that there's a good discussion to be had about what the point between that Beatles example and the Ywngie thing is. Or about how traditional musicianship fits into techno.

But we won't have it if this becomes just a vehicle to say "this music is crap and worthless" or even "this person is crap and worthless" as some seem fond of doing.

I really love the deep house mix of The Way Love Goes by 10 City. They give you a 16 bar intro to mix into, then you get a stripped down version of a real song, then you get a 16 bar tracky break to mix out of, and then more song and then finally the outro.

I don't have a problem with tracky, what I have a problem with is DJ's and producers who have become so lost in an incestuous scene that they have completely lost sight of the rest of the musical spectrum. We had the same issue 10 years ago during the hard techno era. Tools are a great way to add variety and to get from one song to another. However, they shouldn't be the entire set.

This kind of imbreeding leads to feeble music and the same exact thing happened to IDM about 8 years ago. Once you remove the sonic window dressing and the scene aspect of it, there is nothing there. It can't go anywhere because it can't express anything beyond a 2 bar loop. It is like trying to tell a story with a fraction of a haiku.

don't know about that
is it impossible or
just a bit awkward

That is a whole Haiku, I am asking you to do it with only one of those lines.

5 or 7 syllables, take your pick.

LOL picky pedant

that's 5 AND 7

so lost in an incestuous scene that they have completely lost sight of the rest of the musical spectrum

warning, extreme subjectivity at work

Vahid I would accept the "excessively tracky" translation of the Mt Pipecock argument if I believed for one second they didn't also hate european dance music circa 2004 when it was totally based around songs.

enjoying the excessively tracky MFF mix "bad acid" from 2005 tonight. sorta musical, i guess.

hey does anybody else like the tu rong stuff? got that 'true story of house music' 12" and the dj buck cover of 'nervous acid' lately, both good. i haven't been that wild about some of the recent stuff on rong music proper, but tu rong is consistently entertaining.

ray mang mix on this = dopest

this one is great because it is a non-argument. in fact, the only person i have seen really argue that mnml/"deep house" things are obsessed with "remanufacturing the past" is Ronan, who seems to just make this shit up out of nothing. the real criticism of this music is right along the line of what Display Name said: "The new return to deep it only a surface return, the underlying musicality which makes the old records relevant is missing."

Umm... right. If you actually bothered monitoring the music that you dismiss out of hand you'd see how ridiculous this comment is.

Lets think for a minute about a few screamingly obvious recent musical events:

1) Larry Heard suddenly more famous, more quoted and more played than he has been since, ooh, 1987?

2) Prosumer and Murat Tepeli - "Serenity"

3) Sebbo - "Watamu beach"

4) Johnny D

Now, I'd wholeheartedly agree that much of this stuff (Oslo sound in particular) is missing the viriditas that animated the older music it imitates. But to somehow claim that the difference between the producers that you like is that they "honor the past" whereas the (inimical, despicable) Europeans do not is laughable.

The other thing that's laughable is that a bunch of old farts like most of us on this thread are (although I must admit I thought mt was way older than 31), still attempt to generalise from the particular when talking about music.

"Umm... right. If you actually bothered monitoring the music that you dismiss out of hand you'd see how ridiculous this comment is.

Lets think for a minute about a few screamingly obvious recent musical events:

1) Larry Heard suddenly more famous, more quoted and more played than he has been since, ooh, 1987?"

i guess that depends on who you are around, the deejays i know have been playing his records constantly both new and old since i knew what house and techno music were. a few jokers finally waking up to the fact that the guy didnt disappear 20 years ago due to ONE track he released (at the end of a series of extremely hot and underplayed Loosefingers records) is not really giving me good feelings about popular house and techno. this guy is one of the most consistant dance producers ever, you can't count him as part of this "new deep house" thing when he never stopped doing it.

"2) Prosumer and Murat Tepeli - "Serenity""

80's Chicago copycats. what can i say? if this is the kind of thing Ronan doesnt like happening, then i can go on the record agreeing with him.

"3) Sebbo - "Watamu beach""

the guy sampled a Basic Channel record. you've got to be joking, right? that is just a jack, its like claiming hiphop is alive and well because Puff Daddy is still around. who is playing the original anyway, its all about moritz's mix. and the same thing that applied to larry applies to him, he never stopped doing it so it doesnt count as an example of new dance music that is good and deep.

"4) Johnny D

Now, I'd wholeheartedly agree that much of this stuff (Oslo sound in particular) is missing the viriditas that animated the older music it imitates. But to somehow claim that the difference between the producers that you like is that they "honor the past" whereas the (inimical, despicable) Europeans do not is laughable.""

the Oslo shit is exactly the faux-deephouse music that i am thinking of when i hear the criticism that Display Name leveled. i don't know what it is you look for in music, but if Johnny D records fill that for you, then i guess i can see why you think so highly of modern music.

"The other thing that's laughable is that a bunch of old farts like most of us on this thread are (although I must admit I thought mt was way older than 31), still attempt to generalise from the particular when talking about music.

-- J@cob"

do you really need to be all that particular when the great majority of records are so dull that listening to a 30 second sound sample is physically painful?

the guy sampled a Basic Channel record. you've got to be joking, right? that is just a jack, its like claiming hiphop is alive and well because Puff Daddy is still around. who is playing the original anyway, its all about moritz's mix. and the same thing that applied to larry applies to him, he never stopped doing it so it doesnt count as an example of new dance music that is good and deep.

I try really hard not to be aggravated by this kind of thing.

Did I at any point in that post say that I thought this was "good" or "deep"? No. I was calling you out for your ridiculous claim that nobody in Europe cares about the history of dance music. All of the above are just examples which show that there is a major current trend in European house/techno of referencing the past.

For the record I loathe fucking Johnny D.

And I agree with many of the points people make about what was good about golden age Detroit I just can't agree with these ridiculous systematic assumptions. Fine to say you don't like European minimal. Not fine to say it will never be good because it's from Europe/uses ableton/can't play the harpsichord.

You do understand the difference, right?

hey does anybody else like the tu rong stuff? got that 'true story of house music' 12" and the dj buck cover of 'nervous acid' lately, both good. i haven't been that wild about some of the recent stuff on rong music proper, but tu rong is consistently entertaining.

That NY Housin Authority reissue is brilliant. I really need to bite the bullet and track down those other two records they did on Nu Groove. The only other thing I have heard on Tu Rong was that Dynamic Duo record and I wasn't too hot on that. That DJ Buck record does sound interesting from the discogs review.

It's too late to argue about other stuff...

x-post Jacob, he doesn't, it's really not worth it.

Anyway minimal stuff has been toolsy, for, what, 12 months tops?

Whereas clearly what defined the era 2003-2006 (in that murky house/techno/minimal area) was a distinctly anti-tools approach. Even instrumental tracks were defined by their hyper-melodic refrains (hence all the trance comparisons) and tendency towards multi-sectioned structures. See Luciano, Trentemoller, James Holden, Villalobos, Booka Shade, Dominik Eulberg, Wighnomy Bros, Tiefschwarz, Ame, Gabriel Ananda, Ewan Pearson... Hence so many of the biggest club tracks being remixes of songs. The only major exception I can think of is the M-nus sound.

Plus it's not just tools today anyway. There are a core of artists doing that sound but there are still more melodic records, plenty of them. Even Johnny D I'd argue is not simply tools, not always.

In any case to act like Richie Hawtin or minimal invented this idea of DJ tools is insane. What about Jeff Mills?

As far as I can see there's been a toolish element to dance music for years and years, forever practically. I don't know why it's being singled out right now.

And Tim is right to point out that both mt and tom would have been lambasting dance music in 2004/2005 when it was full of songs, and would never in a million years have even said "well at least there is a song structure to this stuff, but I don't like X, Y, Z".

so dull that listening to a 30 second sound sample is physically painful

dull or painful? the two don't go together.

I think the more integration that happens between Detroit and Europe musically, the more untenable your position becomes Tom.

I mean, what do you actually think of the fact that Dan Bell blatantly loves Oslo? Or Patrice Scott and co playing plenty of Euro stuff at Fabric?

Are they morons too?

not saying they can't be wrong, just testing the canonical artist infallibility

If you and James Jamerson were to play bass together there would be no objective difference between what he can play and what you can play? Do you play as well as McCoy Tyner?

Music is a language. Is it too much to say that some people are expressing more interesting thoughts with it than others?

Do you honestly think that the guys that you blog about who can barely string a track together on a computer are going to be able to out do guys who can actually play music on real instruments? I listened to the first half of your chart and you realize that there is zero tonal movement in the entire thing. It is all based on either one chord stab or in the case of that loco dice track it is based on one single 2 bar piano loop(it is really a one bar loop but on the second pass he plays the last chord twice. I am not even going to get into the drums...

This is the musical equivalent of reading writing geared towards an audience with a 4th grade reading comprehension. If that is how you get your kicks that is fantastic. I don't like it, but I also don't like the writing in tabloids.

it seems to me that you are criticising the music for its formal simplicity, and looking for more virtuosity and complexity and 'musicianship' in music. if this is true then why do you listen to techno music at all?

this is what I was thinking...where does that argument stop? or why should you get off the hook by saying "I'm not looking for polyrhythms" etc...isn't that where it stops being about actual classicism and starts being "I prefer this music to that".

Do you honestly think that the guys that you blog about who can barely string a track together on a computer are going to be able to out do guys who can actually play music on real instruments?

The computer is an instrument like any other. Being about to pluck a guitar with your fingers doesn't mean you can automatically program a computer or a synth well - and that's where the complexity & nuance comes from: not from live dexterity or chops, but from being able to master the electronic machines so that you can get the absolute most out of them. Learning Reaktor is exactly the same process as learning the violin.

If you criticize electronic music for its thudding obviousness, or over-determinedness, or because bar 64 sounds exactly the same as bar 2 (which do I agree is a huge problem), the producer is bad at programming interesting music on machines not neccessarily bad at playing live music. Apples and oranges.

why is repetition a 'huge problem'?

because it's unimaginative and unsurprising. Compare a track like 2000 and One's remix of Aardvarck's Cult Copy, which modulates a stab throughout the entire track and retains your interest (which still being a tool), to Orbitalife, which does not.

All my favourite house producers this year (Seany B, Crazi Cousinz, Roska, Fuzzy Logick, Marcus Nasty etc.) would be guaranteed to inspire loathing from the ILM Carthusians. And thank Christ for that, really.

The difference between older dance music and today is that the guys making the old stuff had a background in "real music." Larry Heard was a drummer, Juan Atkins was a bass player, Jeff Mills played drums in his high school jazz band, Mike Banks was a session keyboard guy... That is the thing that nobody wants to bring up about all the old school legends, those guys were musicians.

Mike Banks plays a mean guitar too.

there are no "huge problems" only huge opinions.

No, it's definitely not all my mind ;) all music is not created equal: some records are more well-crafted, more effective, more ambitious, etc than other records. Some people are more talented at making music than others, with better ideas, and a keener ability to execute those ideas. This is just obvious stuff, surely, in any artform. Does your comment really mean "Nothing is wrong with any record and it's all just down to taste" - surely not - i know you, Ronan, and you've got a whole theory of what's right/wrong with just about every record you hear! And every one of those reasons that one record is better than another is objective reason - the only subjective thing is whether those elements please you or not

nobody hears the same things in the same records...there can't be objectivity, or hears records without prejudice/taste/years of their own listening/their mood that day etc etc...

sure some people may be better at certain parts of making music but it's very complex to say how that relates to how their work is consumed/received...I mean what does "better" even mean in this context?

The only worthwhile definition of better is somebody liking something more. How could there ever be another definition?

The point of reviews etc is that perhaps some people share the same sentiments about why something is good/bad.

Well yeah, that's talking sense. The purpose of reviews/criticism/chats like these is to convince people to your point of view. "it's all just opinion anyway" is just noise, not an argument.

if you think that Ableton-straightjacketed loops are interesting music, I'd like to hear a defense. I can see the appeal of 'Enfants' (although only for a few minutes) but making a whole genre out of this stuff, and filling up a whole club night (which is what Mara Trax do) i mean i can see why people are exasperated and resort to things like "they don't know how to make records which develop" etc

Although: that night I saw Mara Trax this guy had great records (which did develop). So I do think talent is down to individual DJ/producers, not neccessarily the genre (or heaven forbid, country).

if you think that Ableton-straightjacketed loops are interesting music, I'd like to hear a defense. I can see the appeal of 'Enfants' (although only for a few minutes) but making a whole genre out of this stuff, and filling up a whole club night (which is what Mara Trax do) i mean i can see why people are exasperated and resort to things like "they don't know how to make records which develop" etc

don't think they're Ableton straightjacketed loops

I mean come on...how is "ableton straightjacketed loops" supposed to be some kind of neutral agreeable definition for anything.

You might as well say "if you think crap music is good music I'd like to hear a defence".

what's interesting is that you aren't providing any kind of defense or explanation as why these records are great. Please explain why this stuff is wonderful.

on another note...

I came across this today, it is worth looking into. I was surprised to hear something this good come from my own backyard. Texas is bubbling...

http://www.myspace.com/submersiblemachines

Which records are we referring to anyway apart from "Orbitalife"?

xpost

I think it's very difficult and dangerous to start and talk about "real music" (with real drums and stuff) and not so real music (produced with Ableton). That's as if you say: that's a real text, the guy wrote it with a pencil. And this text isn't: he wrote it on a computer.

But when it comes to thinking about why a lot of electronic dance music that comes out these days is quite boring, I'd say it has something to do with Ableton. This program is a brilliant piece of software. It makes it very, very easy to produce a track that sounds like all the other tracks.

And yes: ten years ago you could try to get a 303 and make some kind of generic neo-acid track. But you still had to figure out how to plug things together. And you had to find a 303.

This is not supposed to be a defence of boring "ableton straightjacketed loops". They exist, everybody knows it, everybody complains about them.

But it's ot about "real music" and playing an instrument.

I think that one of the driving force in electronic dance music always was to work with and against the limits of technology. And that gets increasingly difficult.

Why should I defend records against prefabricated criticisms? I'd take your approach and just say "Johnny D is great because he's not UR" but I actually like UR and don't define my taste by what I dislike or what it isn't.

In any case...it's completely irrelevant what records we're talking about. Criticisms like "he is a better musician" or "straitjacketed ableton loops" really are just "I don't like this" posing as some kind of theoretical knowledge.

x-post nobody can agree what the "straitjacketed ableton loops" are. is this the new "boring minimal" or something?

people just say "yeah we all hate those, we all know they exist" then spread their purchases out over an entire scene anyway.

it's so suspicious when "boring" is the criticism of anything.

Anyway, for a discussion of which modern stuff people like, there is a thread you know...

Sure.

This whole Ableton thing just keeps me thinking at the moment.

I just spent an afternoon with a friend who knows how to work with it and I was surprised that we came up with a track that sounded --- well, not exactly like an "ableton straightjacketed loop" but kinda good. And that's tempting.

Anyway, for a discussion of which modern stuff people like, there is a thread you know...

exactly...plus why should anyone have to defend their tastes based on someone else's tiny view of them? eg should I say why every record this year I liked is good? or every minimal record ever? or every one mt and tom have heard?

all of these discussions are also taking for granted the number of artists who play instruments anyway, but that's another day's work.

I've fiddled about with Ableton and perhaps a loop is easy to create, but modulating it is very hard. I don't think the tracks that come out are "easy" to make, I mean...again this is what people said about Chicago House and Detroit Techno at the time.

But 20 years pass and suddenly some people think "it's not me that's getting old, that argument was stupid back in 88 but techno really is easy to make now".

I still want to know which specific records are supposed to be boring straightjacket ableton loops.

If I was a techno artist I would def. release an album called Straightjacket Ableton Loops.

Don't be silly Tim, we can't NAME the records. We don't actually listen to music we hate! That'd be as insane as lambasting it needlessly at every opportunity.

Try the collected works of Marco Carola...

I like to think I'm okay at talking about this sort of music but it's become almost a point of pride for me that I don't really know the mechanics of how the music is made. I don't really go for reviews that read like an inventory of the producer's computer set-up or home studio.

It'd never occur to me to say "boring ableton straightjacket loops" because I have no idea which programs make which tracks etc (easier to distinguish ableton mixing from vinyl/CD-J mixing obv).

Perhaps I'm making a virtue of necessity, but ultimately I'm glad that I have to use other ways to think and talk about why/how particular tracks are good or bad.

Ironically a lot of writers who champion "soul" in dance music spend a lot of time talking about gear, even if only negatively.

heh

personally i'm just concerned by what i perceive to be a slight excess of hawtin-esque trackiness. which is maybe a trick of perspective. then again, there's tons of new disco and balearic, right? but that stuff's not terribly clubby, or at least not clubby enough. and as you point out, a just a couple of years ago everything was super songful. like martin buttrich (who mike hates, i think) and matt jonson and shit robot and tricksi, very melodic, like the sweetest norwegian power-pop.

but i guess maybe the shift toward toolsiness and tracksiness - lots of which is perpetrated by detroit-y dudes! i have a hard time squaring some of the comments upthread with the hype for omar s, who must be one of the most ultra-tracky detroit producers since, well, forever? - is just a weird perception i have, based on the fact that my only outlet for hearing european dance music is the resident advisor tracklisting?

i mean the podcast, not the tracklisting.

and yeah there's all this neo deep house stuff and i am glad we are all agreed that it is sort of irritatingly prefab

too bad this thread got so nasty and contentious

if anybody still wants to talk about the r&s reissue program i'm still here!

well i could do wither a new copy of model 500's deep space, my copy has a few bits\scratches on it which where they were when i bought it :(

also http://www.discogs.com/release/16030 moonwalk = best comeback in house ever ?

"personally i'm just concerned by what i perceive to be a slight excess of hawtin-esque trackiness. which is maybe a trick of perspective. then again, there's tons of new disco and balearic, right? but that stuff's not terribly clubby, or at least not clubby enough. and as you point out, a just a couple of years ago everything was super songful."

This makes more sense to me as a way to approach this issue: how does the music work at the moment (the missing step between soul and gear).

But yeah, it's important to note that this is not about one scene but a whole bunch of scenes interacting with each other. And whereas 3 years ago a tune like "I Feel Space" could cross all those scenes it's harder to see that happening now (italo's influence becoming concentrated in balearic/nu-disco but purged elsewhere. Vahid do you like Aeroplane though? Marvellous clubby balearic nu-disco). Lest we forget that 5 years ago a lot of these artists (or their equivalents) were making Metro Area tributes.

The biggest concern I have is not precisely that this music is becoming too tracky - rather that it is becoming very anti-populist and rather respectful. It is difficult to imagine a Freeform Five equivalent emerging from this scene now, let alone a Jacques Lu Cont (I guess that's what nu French stuff is for, but it seems a shame to have an absolute split between excellent sound design on one hand and personality on the other).

(meanwhile one wonders if mt and pipecock could bring themselves even to acknowledge the existence of haircut house / fedde de grand / axwell / david guetta etc.)

Not that I'm only into poppy stuff, but as recently as two years ago it felt like European club music existed on a continuum from abstract to popcentric where the two poles talked with one another a lot more than they do now.

minimal man's make a move got a repress :)

It seems to me like people are blaming ableton instead of blaming the people who are using it. Yeah, it provides for the exploits of samey music, but (and I've never used it, so I'm not 100% sure) is it not possible to make something that doesn't sound like straightjacket ableton techno on it? Seems like an issue of people struggling with too much freedom in making music, but there are plenty of producers that simply move past this with ableton, no?

and manyXposts: that T-Shirt!

Got this for £1 earlier today...

http://www.discogs.com/release/3539

AWESOME

can i just say that i have NO IDEA what that sounds like? hard tech house w/ chicago touches?

been listening to the LIKEMIND discography on iPod today. SO DOPE. who still makes shit like this?!?!?

other than i:cube!!!

drop me an email when r&s repress model 500's sonic sunset! my fave record.

Right on, Sonic Sunset and Deep Space were such great records.

I was watching a youtube video and mistook 'coloured city' by Laurent Garnier for a new tiga track... i was a blushing sad face. That track is incredible though, and somehow I'd never known it. I really thought Tiga was living up to his acid promise (Matt Walsh being a recent Turbo signee).

Never knew this was on R&S!!! great record

http://www.discogs.com/release/87774

no idea

I know what I am doing this weekend...

http://youtube.com/user/RealFreshBlog
http://youtube.com/user/Chicagowax
http://youtube.com/user/ressla

Ok, lets talk Dan Curtin. I was into the Purveyors of Fine Funk housier stuff back in the day but never really followed his techier stuff much. However i'm really enjoying the new Planetary release, and the Leena one wasn't bad either so lay out some knowledge...

Whoah! That MK - "Strider" track from the realfreshblog!

Fuck this is an incredible selection. The Jackmaster Curt is amazing too.

I can kiss goodbye to finishing GTA this weekend now...

i am perhaps the only person on ilm who cannot stand anything i've ever heard from Tiga?

I certainly can't.

OK, I totally adored his essential mix when it came out, and indeed it is a very fine, tightly mixed 2 hours of electro tinged techno, but it sounds kind of dated now, and I've moved past that sound myself. Everything he's ever produced himself I've found to be embarrassingly bad.

YES!. i was actually talking about this with some friends the other day, and they couldn't understand my loathing. then again, they're more noobs to the dance scene than i am, and are still enamored of electro, so it makes sense.

more noob than you?!?!

http://youtube.com/watch?v=vPnRkkbt2Do

^^^awesome

Man, I love/hate youtube channels like those.
They make me want to buy too many damn records! Either I spend way too much $$ on ebay and discogs and whatnot or I just get pissy because I don't have all of these records that I desperately need in my life.

This just got repressed:

http://www.discogs.com/release/44984

if they reissue the biorhythm comps my head will explode

for real tho...

i bumped a juan atkins thread 4 u

who wants to sell me a vinyl copy of <a href="http://www.discogs.com/release/144385";>crustation's "flame"</a> (with the mood ii swing "insanity dub") -- or, barring that, hook me up with a 320 rip?

heard vince lemieux play this at a quebec countryside afterparty last week, and it was one of the most perfect pieces of deep house i'd ever heard...

oops, sorry for the bad formatting...

Funny, I've been looking for a vinyl copy of Law of Grace by Soul Capsule, or a 320 rip (and haven't got one yet), which was brought on by hearing Vincent Lemieux play it to finish off a Piknik Electronik (playing the whole track, unmixed, in it's entirety, as an encore of sorts), and it was one of the most perfect pieces of deep house I'd ever heard. . .

I did see a copy on ebay, for like $150 or something way beyond the usual $7-8 I'm used to. If elan is reading this, I'd like to take up the offer mentioned on the melchior prod. thread from from like 9 months ago about the 320 mp3, (this 174 one isn't cutting it for me).

Moral of the story is Vincent Lemieux's DJ sets will change your life!

i have only a 205 mp3 (sorry dude!). here it is for whoever wants it: http://www.sendspace.com/file/q7n6ub

philip, yes that crustation remix is one hell of a record. terry francis opened his 1998 bbc ess. mix with it and it really sets the tone very nicely. can't help you out with a copy however :(

Terry_Francis__Part_1_.mp3

Xpost: Rats, but thanks a lot though!

sometimes, you just have to save up your money like a kid for a bike.

you can find "law of grace" on the aspect records comp that came with the first melchior album

r1o otm. That's where I got it. I could hook up a 320/wav copy if you wanted to DJ with it.

Xpost, yeah, I know.

Where I find that, though (other than online, as this is more a question of wanting to actually own it, being a favourite track of mine) is the issue. Although I'd still appreciate a 320 version to listen to (it wouldn't even be used for DJ'ing, but just to get the most of it).

I ordered the first Melchior Productions album from Amazon, actually. http://www.amazon.com/Meaning-Melchior-Productions/dp/B00029CXN6/ref=pd_bbs_sr_2?ie=UTF8&s=music&qid=1213216508&sr=8-2

Even though it's mastered kind of quietly, it's a great two CD set that is a must own in my book.

And I'll hook you up with the full quality track when I get home. Feel free to remind me, though, if I forget.

that album is very good. unfortunately, the cd does not include the song 'never give up', which is lovely.

Hmmmmn. I should get a credit card maybe?

i would get a job.

i don't think african vocals will ever be played out

- the table is the table

Can you s/d, c or d, rfi and generally recommend me some house/techno with african vocals or instrumentation? Thanks.

http://www.discogs.com/release/468144

i wanna be, i wanna be, i wanna be there --
when you return

haaaa my dad listens to mory kante

Yeke Yeke ("Afro Acid" Mix)is amazing ... and would definitely freak my parents out.

Anyone posted this up yet? It's on BBC Radio 2.

The Definitive History of UK Dance Music

Zoe Ball presents the story of UK dance music and its development, as told by some of the biggest names on the scene.

Programme 1: From casinos to warehouses - 1970-1987

We start with the seventies and US Billboard magazine naming the Wigan Casino Best Disco in the World, ahead of New York's infamous Studio 54. Then the story moves on to the eighties and its emerging soul scene.

The programme explores and contextualises Jazz Funk, Hip Hop and early house, and highlights how these forms were the pre-cursor to 1988's dance music explosion.

Programme 2: Explosion - 1988-1993

This was dance music's finest hour and a milestone in the history of UK youth culture.

The impact of the first seminal clubs - Shoom, Future, The Trip, Land of Oz and The Hacienda - created a media furore not seen since the emergence of punk.

Although there were subtle but important regional differences in sound, the same spirit was found in the clubs of Glasgow, Stoke, Cardiff, London and Bristol.

Raves moved to bigger outdoor venues, culminating with a three day event for over 30,000 people at Castlemorton in Worcestershire.

Programme 3: Underground, overground - 1994 to the present day

In 1993, dance music reached a critical mass. The Criminal Justice and Public Order Act of 1994 effectively outlawed raves and so the ravers became clubbers - and moved back indoors.

Dance music became big business; Ministry of Sound began to expand its empire - from clubs through to a record label, radio and TV stations. Radio 1, which had ignored it, now had a variety of dance shows on offer.

Featuring contributions from Sasha, Russ Winstanley, Pete Tong, Ian Levine, Fabio, Jazzie B, Norman Jay and Paul Oakenfold, as well as songs from the early days of dance right through to the tracks of the last ten years.

This documentary is part of BBC Radio 2's Dance Season.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio2/musicclub/doc_definitivehistory.shtml

Maybe it should get it's own thread.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vbt9OEoac5w

Loopzone - Natural High

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q2TLtIe2ve0

Nico - Darkstar (Positive Outlook)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mzeTzyBPvuk

Ramirez & Pizarro - Hablando!

"Can you s/d, c or d, rfi and generally recommend me some house/techno with african vocals or instrumentation? Thanks.

-- Jamie T Smith"

one of the best from the past couple of years is this:

http://www.discogs.com/release/141369

In fact the Cesaria Evora remix album is almost all top-class.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GsnxTl2SPok

Capricorn 20hz

""Can you s/d, c or d, rfi and generally recommend me some house/techno with african vocals or instrumentation? Thanks."

This is a huge favorite of mine:
Frederic Galliano And The African Divas - Woualaï Re-Works
http://www.discogs.com/release/138722

I just dug out this Villalobos-set: Sunrise_Event_Mamaia_18_08_2006 and the two songs that follow "Join in the chant" in part 3 are both out of this world mindblowingly good, the first one might be called Freaky/phreeky D/ beat or something similar, then the second one that starts around 6 mins which is possibly the single best thing ever I have no idea. Anyone have any clue what they are?

On another note, the Dionne - Images track that's on the recent Shed mnml ssg podcast is also the single best thing ever.

looks like monolake's hongkong finally got remastered.

minus one of its best tracks...

omg, did you know that 'time reveals' got a reissue last month? no shit!

saw this at record store, did not cop. anybody?

most of those artists only appeared on that cd, according to discogs. the others are all adam douglas. you dig adam douglas? seems like that atom heart "compilation / retrospective" to me.

i like this deeper than space album

i was ogling that cover... my desktop pic is an earthrise from the moon so i always check twice when i see that sort of stuff. what's it sound like?

mmmm ... early 90s ambient?

sort of in the rising high / ntone vein

omg, did you know that 'time reveals' got a reissue last month? no shit!

can anyone explain the appeal of this outside of rarity? i mean, it's ok, nothing more...

So I'm listening to Bytes by Black Dog Productions, and the pads sound distorted on a lot of the tracks. Also, during "The Clan (Mongol Hordes)" theres a whispy, very high pitched sound throughout.

What the hell is up with this? Is my CD fucked up (it's not my computer or speakers), is this on others copies/the re-released version?

Lately I can't get enough of the album Seven by Dark Comedy (Kenny Larkin). I haven't heard anything else by DC but I understand he want much jazzier after this release.

It's one of those albums whose sounds, movements and concepts echo through a lot of contemporary techno. Whether they know they're tracing some of the same lines is really is mostly unimportant.

"Paranoid (Prelude To Paranoia)," "In a Room," "Solace," "Darkness," and "Without a Sound" would all sit comfortably in techno sets today.

As an aside, I watched one of the comedy videos Larkin has on his Myspace. I guess he's been out in Hollywood for a while now, possibly acting and certainly doing stand up comedy. I'll say this: I wish his comedy was as good as his music.

Also, have been noticing a swell in recognition for Liaison Dangereuses, who were truly excellent.

So I'm listening to Bytes by Black Dog Productions, and the pads sound distorted on a lot of the tracks. Also, during "The Clan (Mongol Hordes)" theres a whispy, very high pitched sound throughout.

What the hell is up with this? Is my CD fucked up (it's not my computer or speakers), is this on others copies/the re-released version?

-- mehlt

no, they all sound like that. IIRC a lot of it was done on fucked-up hand-me-down equipment, dubbed to cassette tape, mastered from vinyl and on top of that mastered to be murky on purpose.

can anyone explain the appeal of this outside of rarity? i mean, it's ok, nothing more...

-- resolved, Saturday, 21 June 2008 13:52 (7 hours ago) Link

maybe try it louder? the club mix is just really cool spacey techno with a house vocal and the original mix is piano house that ups the energy and gives the same vocal a very different feel. obviously it's not the best record ever, or it would have been repressed earlier, but it's very good.

it's like a more sublime housefactors with vocals. the best of all larry heard worlds.

XXpost. Ahh that sucks, don't know why I didn't notice it 'till now. Reminds me of reading that original tapes for Selected Ambient Works were mangled by a cat.

And is it me or does ILM not talk about KC Flightt enough?

anyone care to talk about 16B? i dug out my copy of 'sounds from another room' the other day and at least half of it still sounds really fresh. on the cover there is label proclaiming him to be britain's answer to MAW. i think this album is a bit to techy to justify that claim but there's some really emotive house music on here. it's a shame he had to turn to the dark side.

http://www.discogs.com/release/11954

You mean go prog? Wasn't he always quite prog though? He didn't switch as much as Deep Dish - in fact 16B's stuff is a lot like their two Yoshitoshi mixes. I quite like that middleground between deep house and prog, or at least the stuff from the end of the 90s anyway. Also: Hooj Choons!

16B's remix of Gus Gus's "Believe" is double classic to the max.

yes, that remix of gus gus is very nice. i have it on an old northern exposure mix i think. i guess i've got my timelines confused. i always assumed that he started off (deep) house and went out and out prog from about 2000.

listening to 'sounds from another room' i never would have guessed that he had a penchant for progressive house (except for 'water ride' perhaps). the fact that it was released on Eye Q should have been a give away though... i wish he'd pursued that sound a little more because he had a real knack for producing soulful house music with a bit of bite.

no, i think sam500's right here. he was firmly in the glasgow underground camp when i first heard about him - although i guess you could argue there was always a strong prog element to glasgow underground?

Hmm I guess everything i know of by him was from between 1997 and 2002 (love "Behind The Face" from that year) - so perhaps his full career reveals more of a transition than he made in that period alone.

Does anyone here have an opinion on the Micronauts? I've been listening to this album a fair bit recently, it's good IMO.

Remember that Micronauts as being good.

I think I have an electro comp mixed by them, or am I imagining things?

This: http://www.discogs.com/release/58745

yeah that mix is good. They did a Mo' Wax Jive Bunny style mega-mix which I remember as being fun too...

xpost to mehlt: funny you should mention cuz i just picked up kc flightt "planet e" 12" friday at a flea market. good stuff.

This is worth looking into:

http://www.discogs.com/release/37903

try the vocal version of pop, dip, and spin: http://www.discogs.com/release/40969

but you know, it probably works better without the vocal because then you can focus on the bassline. which is perfect.

from RA:

Jeff Mills and “Mad” Mike Banks are re-releasing their classic 1992 album X-102 Discovers the Rings of Saturn with four extra tracks.

The original album is hailed for its spacey concept and softer approach to Detroit techno, but it has been out of print since the nineties. Now comes a refitted version with four extra tracks, and a vinyl EP of selections from the album.

Jeff Mills and Mike Banks will be performing Discovers the Rings of Saturn in its entirely at this year’s Sonar Festival. No word yet on additional dates.

is this any good? will no doubt have the detroitophiles salivating at the mouth...

hmmm ... compared to other stuff of the time it's fairly dated, i'd say

i mean, it shows its age worse than some other stuff they did

Vahid otm.

as usual

yes to quote the great blunt in the ron trent thread "Dance Floor Boogie Delites" on Prescription, despite the low pressing, is a deep house tearjerker.

listening to gene farris on soma tonight ... "origins" is so deeeeeeeeeep ...

what was better, gene on soma or roy on peacefrog?

did i already do a "t/s: soma vs peacefrog" thread?

Like Peacefrog more than Soma easily (but I am more familiar with Peacefrog giving it an advantage)

but at same time Gene's This is my Religion is great!

the best farris is on soma yeah, esp. "get on the floor" on the mainline disco ep -but, roy davis easy win.

Carl Cox Vs. Kevin Saunderson
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uWAgKaZDwE8

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9TB_VDYPtjM
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ja9A8TZhw3o
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FEIA36Y0pzk
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QAQ-OuWliZ4

there are a few others, all worth checking out.

wow. articulate!

i realize this isn't "of the past" but can anybody speak about his "contact special" and "one man spaceship" album?

I remember getting slammed for telling people that you wouldn't get it unless you had been to Detroit. I was specifically referring to being a room with him discussing techno. There would be a couple less blog posts on mnmlssgs if those guys did their homework. It all kind of clicks when you hear him discuss it.

One Man Spaceship has it's moments. It's a Jeff Mill's album that sounds like Jeff Mills doing a minimal techno album. It is what it is.

I shouldn't dog it too much. I think the real problem is that I want to hear him mix purpose maker loops with the best parts of Every Dog Has It's Day. I can't really blame him for making a bleepy 909 album but I would love to hear some of the old samba magic from the older axis records.

He is in a tough spot. How do you keep working and progressing after 15 years worth of genre defining records?

Mike i thought you had disowned your "you have to have gone to Detroit" rants:

"goddamn, what the hell was I thinking on March 27th 2003???"

I don't think that was much of a rant.

I think that mnmlssgg blog was a bit absurd. All of the influences existed prior to techno, but they didn't become "techno" until a whole lot of different things got thrown into a blender that was Detroit DJ culture. Techno as it is recognized as a genre came from the people in that scene cooked up.

The point I was trying to make, and perhaps I didn't make as clearly as I should have, I don't think those guy would deny Detroit's place in techno if they actually had to spend anytime in Submerge, or have a dinner discussing it's history with someone like Mills or even go record shopping with some old school heads for an afternoon.

If you wanted to learn about dub reggae you should go to Jamaica in the 70's or 80's. I don't think it is impossible for you to enjoy or be knowledgeable about the music with out visiting or living there, but you would view things in a different light if you had access to the actual location or at least direct access to the people involved. It was a local culture and witnessing it through marketing or media objects does not give a complete picture.

One of Detroit's problems is that it doesn't have the same kind of centralized documentation or commercial infrastructure to really spell out what was accomplished and why it is important. The majors don't own most of the masters and they have no reason to market it. I have been listening to Mill's since 1995 and last night was one of the first times I have seen proper interview footage of him discussing this music as a big picture. Detroit is a myth and it is a shame in some respects because there are a lot of accomplishments that don't get acknowledged today.

Bottom line is Jeff Mills spinning his own electronic rhythm track versions of popular street songs like a hip hop battle DJ with the sensibility of a jazz drummer is techno. It wasn't a tabla rasa, 12" culture started around 1975 and they slotted right into something that was already happening. The important thing is that they put their particular twist on the same records that everybody else had. The Chicago guys did their thing, the NYC guys did their thing, Miami had it's scene...

The other thing about Detroit is how much brilliant music came out of a relatively small city in the US. You could fill a book talking about the first rate dance talent that came out in the 80's and 90's.

Juan, Kevin, Derrick, Mike Banks, Ade Mainor, Marc Kitchen, Chez Damier, Carl Craig, Stacy Pullen, Rolando, Octave One, Terrance Parker, KDJ, Theo Parrish, Mike Huckaby, Deepchord, The Martian, Aux 88, Le Car, Adult, Perspects, DJ Godfather, Hawtin, Kenny Larkin, James Pennington, Scan 7, Rick Wilheit, Anthony Shakir, Dan Bell, John Beltran, Claude Young... for every one of these guys there were 5 other lesser known dudes. How do you name all these people with their own individual style and say that Detroit is just a myth.

there's also this which seems to be pretty crucial if you want to get jeff mills. (it was to me anyway). all of those choice comps are pretty choice.

i have contact special and it is high-quality, but definitely for the fans. it seems like the original 7" format would have served the songs better and it is a bit of a hybrid b/w aggro-mills and soundtrack-mills. i really need to go back and listen again though.

one man spaceship feels vintage and my thoughts after the first listens were almost exactly, "It's a Jeff Mills album that sounds like Jeff Mills doing a minimal techno album".

i am curious about what is meant by "the sensibility of a jazz drummer". been thinking about that one a lot lately as i think it is deeply misunderstood (especially the first time around...i know i didn't get it)

Mills literally is a jazz drummer.

see also: What's with that constant cymbal tapping in jazz drumming?
What's with that constant cymbal tapping in jazz drumming?

More specifically I meant that they guy plays drums so he is going to think about rhythm a bit differently than a guy who played cello.

PS that comp looks nice, thx for pointing it out.

never knew that!! no wonder i didn't get it. so that is completely separate from "jazz is the teacher" then? and completely separate from jazz "stylings" vs. actual jazz.

in my warped world i think he spins like he's improvising i.e. freedom with rigor

just who is the ornette coleman of techno

"in my warped world i think he spins like he's improvising i.e. freedom with rigor"

and there is this technique of utilizing phrases which i just adore. ok i will go read that other thread now.

Mike, I don't think anyone is trying to deny the massive importance and causal centrality of Detroit to techno. But you and pipecock tend to push further arguments which I just can't accept:

1) That there is a direct and unavoidable link between the influence of Detroit as a geographic location and the quality/nature of the music that is produced there. I have a problem with this only because it's so determinist and because its reductive - I can totally accept that Detroit as a city has had a massive effect on many of its producers and that this can be change how they make their music. But it seems fantastic to suggest that this happens with all techno that comes out of Detroit and that it's something privileged listeners can easily pick up and identify consistently by virtue of having walked the same streets. No music works like that anywhere ever.

2) That techno from Detroit has "soul" and techno from Europe just doesn't - and again this is something that the privileged listener can just hear in the music. This strikes me as a massive, quasi-religious oversimplification of how music works - "soul" becomes a meaningless stand-in for all sorts of things that might actually be going on, much in the same way that "God" does for many people.

3) That Detroit techno is closer to jazz than it is to so-called-techno from Europe. This is mentalist even if Mills approaches techno with the sensibility of a jazz drummer. Pipecock has said this line repeatedly. I can only assume that he dismisses all the jazz influenced house and techno from Europe on the grounds that since they don't have "soul" they can't be part of the great jazz-to-techno lineage even if superficially they are deploying jazz signifiers. Note how all the arguments ultimately rest on this mystic invocation of the undefinable, noumenal soul component at some point.

If we're sticking to the much more limited following claims then I don't think there's an issue - I know Pete Chambers who writes for mnml ssgs and I know he would agree with the following points:

1) That techno as a genre is deeply rooted in Detroit, and that without Detroit techno, electronic dance music would not have developed in the same way that it has (this is different and more measured than saying "no electronic dance music without Detroit").

2) That certain stylistic elements in Detroit techno may have evolved partly through the influence of the experience of living in Detroit.

3) That a lot of Detroit techno feels quite distinct to other music that bears the name of "techno".

4) That certain Detroit techno artists have certain stylistic elements that are modeled on jazz.

I need to work on my grammar.

If you wanted to learn about dub reggae you should go to Jamaica in the 70's or 80's.

This is something that I should clarify. If you want to know about dub you should go there with 10-15 years of the scene's peak because eventually the scene gets buried in time. There are still a ton of people who remember, but time passes. Motown is gone, 70's loft party Detroit is gone, and the techno era is passing on as well as we all get older and more separated by adult life.

I left that sentence in by accident. It was a tangent I didn't mean to go off into.

"If you want to know about dub you should go there with 10-15 years of the scene's peak because eventually the scene gets buried in time. There are still a ton of people who remember, but time passes. Motown is gone, 70's loft party Detroit is gone, and the techno era is passing on as well as we all get older and more separated by adult life."

This is fair enough, but while I've seen you express some humility w/r/t your capacity to understand scenes other than Detroit techno, this is something that, say, pipecock never does. He has supreme confidence in his capacity to understand and explain jazz/soul/2-step garage/whatever. Thus the gatekeeper role adopted vis a vis detroit techno begins to seem both inconsistent and arrogant, merely an excuse to boast about which producers have slept on one's floor and which epochal DJ sets one was lucky enough to witness. It's that kind of stuff which makes detroit techno pietism difficult to bear sometimes.

"Note how all the arguments ultimately rest on this mystic invocation of the undefinable, noumenal soul component at some point."

what happens when "soul" is replaced with "virtuouso"?

if i had to pick something representative of soul and jazz, it would be alice coltrane's journey io satchidananda. it is interesting to try and come up with techno equivalents from either side of the atlantic.

I don't really feel like addressing your last post. The problem I have with it is that your first three points are only valid if you stretch my opinions to their absolute breaking point. Your points don't line up to my actual opinion.

Your last four points are reasonable statements.

xp tim

I feel my first three points are accurate representations of at least Pipecock's arguments, and partly what I'm trying to do Mike is pressure you into distinguishing yourself from them, which I don't believe you've done openly to date (although as I note in my immediately previous post you express yourself more carefully and consistently than Pipecock does).

If the last four points are more in line with your own attitudes then I don't see where the issue is with mnml ssgs etc. Very few people would balk at conceding all four of them. The criticisms of detroit techno pietism that, say, Pete Chambers is making, is really a criticism of the kinds of arguments expressed in my first three points.

"Virtuoso" is slightly more measurable and, as a consequence, makes it difficult to maintain the claim that all detroit techno is closer to jazz than it is to current house/techno from Europe. "Virtuoso" is still a word that can have a vague meaning - e.g. to what extent does it mean sophistication, to what extent does it mean subtle nods to past achievements, to what extent does it mean "feel" etc. - but it's much more grounded in what the music is actually doing. Whereas "soul" is supposed to be some trans-stylistic quality that transcends any concrete material quality of the music.

So if you abandon "soul" as the operating principle I think it becomes harder to argue that, say, Omar-S is closer to jazz than he is to Ame.

In terms of Journey In Satchidananda equivs, that seems like Vahid's territory. I love that album to bits but stuff that might remind me of it in house/techno is often harder for me to love - something like USG Presents African Blues springs to mind.

Of stuff I do like a lot...Theo Parrish at his most expansive obv (e.g. "Summertime Is Here")... Ian O'Brien? Jacob's Optical Stairway? Pepe Bradock circa 2000? Henrik Schwarz at his deepest (e.g. his remix of Kraak & Smaak)? I've never really had that kind of influence leap out at me when listening to "classic" Detroit techno but I'm willing to provisionally accept that this might be something to do with my ears, maybe I'm not listening for the right thing in that music (just don't tell me that this "thing" is "soul"!!).

There's also a logical inconsistency to the notion that one must have spent time discussing techno over dinner with Mills or gone crate digging with a Detroit DJ in order to understand "Detroit's place in techno".

Surely the whole reason that Detroit is central to techno is that so many Detroit techno records had a massive impact and influence on people worldwide, the vast majority of whom would never end up going to Detroit, would never have dinner with Mills, would never have go crate-digging in Detroit's record stores. If all those elements had been necessary for Detroit techno to become a causal flashpoint in the development of electronic dance music, Detroit techno would never have taken off as a global phenomenon.

I can easily see that such experiences might be immensely useful in understanding Detroit's place in Detroit Techno, or Detroit techno's place in Detroit. I can also see that they would be massively illuminating in terms of understanding how this music came to be, providing clues as to why it was so powerful as music.

But ultimately the quality of the music, as with the quality of any music, has to stand and fall with the music itself. And I'd hope that you'd agree Mike that while such extra-musical experiences might be v. important in terms of understanding the socio-historical backstory, they can't be the litmus test for "getting" the music qua music. If they are, then Detroit techno really should have no place in the story of global electronic dance music outside of Detroit itself. That's obviously not the case, so it suggests that there must be something important about these records as records that exists in addition to their evocation of the experience of living in Detroit.

I felt similarly when people used to claim that you couldn't really tell if a dubstep record was good or not unless you had heard it over loudspeakers at DMZ. If that is the case, then the music had failed as music on every level except as music-to-be-played-over-the-loudspeakers-at-DMZ. Funnily enough, this argument faded away once dubstep became relatively popular globally...

"1) That there is a direct and unavoidable link between the influence of Detroit as a geographic location and the quality/nature of the music that is produced there."

it has nothing to do with location. who ever said that? it has to do with culture. that culture is only located in a very specific location, so if that is what you mean then i guess it is true. if you live in suburban detroit, your culture is almost 180 degrees opposite from someone who lives inside the city.

"But it seems fantastic to suggest that this happens with all techno that comes out of Detroit and that it's something privileged listeners can easily pick up and identify consistently by virtue of having walked the same streets. No music works like that anywhere ever."

it isn't "all" techno that comes from Detroit, only a ridiculously high percentage of it. and honestly, why is it so hard to believe that cultural differences lead to differences in sound? i think with something like hiphop where vocals are so dominant that it is easier to pick out music made from outside of the typical American hiphop culture based solely on lyrics, accent, etc. but the same thing can exist in instrumental music, especially with something like techno that comes from Detroit and has such a distinct feeling that even the most technically gifted producers from outside of it can't copy it exactly. trying to define what creates that feeling is difficult, i am not sure that it is exactly possible to pinpoint it. really though, if you go to Detroit it all starts to make more sense, and the more time you spend there the more it makes sense. you can get the feeling of the city in the records.

"2) That techno from Detroit has "soul" and techno from Europe just doesn't - and again this is something that the privileged listener can just hear in the music. This strikes me as a massive, quasi-religious oversimplification of how music works - "soul" becomes a meaningless stand-in for all sorts of things that might actually be going on, much in the same way that "God" does for many people."

i do not agree that everything about music can be analyzed scientifically. it has nothing to do with your brain, it has to do with how it FEELS. and if you can suddenly explain feeling and how it works, i am sure there are a bunch of scientists who would like to know exactly how to do that.

"3) That Detroit techno is closer to jazz than it is to so-called-techno from Europe. This is mentalist even if Mills approaches techno with the sensibility of a jazz drummer. Pipecock has said this line repeatedly. I can only assume that he dismisses all the jazz influenced house and techno from Europe on the grounds that since they don't have "soul" they can't be part of the great jazz-to-techno lineage even if superficially they are deploying jazz signifiers. Note how all the arguments ultimately rest on this mystic invocation of the undefinable, noumenal soul component at some point."

using a jazz sample has nothing to do with jazz music. using a jazzy beat has nothing to do with jazz music. the reasons techno are so similar to jazz has more to do with the improvisation (in jazz it was done live, in techno it was done by a person or two on studio hardware) and the nearly limitless ability to make a song in the genre despite the actual sound. you know that Sun Ra's music is jazz even though people who don't understand jazz might call it "noise". in the same way, techno is easily identifiable. it doesnt have to do with the beat pattern, the instruments used, or really anything else. Tony Drake is techno despite never using a 4 on the floor kick, much in the way of synthetic sounding textures, etc. shake is the same way, he probably shares more in methodology with a hiphop producer, but his sound is 100% techno.

"I know Pete Chambers who writes for mnml ssgs"

ahhhh, now things are starting to make sense to me.

"1) That techno as a genre is deeply rooted in Detroit, and that without Detroit techno, electronic dance music would not have developed in the same way that it has (this is different and more measured than saying "no electronic dance music without Detroit")."

since electronic dance music existed before Detroit techno, i do not understand how anyone would ever make that claim. i have never heard anyone make it. name me one person who has.

"2) That certain stylistic elements in Detroit techno may have evolved partly through the influence of the experience of living in Detroit."

wrong. most stylistic elements in TECHNO evolved through the experience of living Detroit culture. almost every aesthetic in any of techno's spawned subgenres was done originally in Detroit, and usually much better than in the later music too.

"This is fair enough, but while I've seen you express some humility w/r/t your capacity to understand scenes other than Detroit techno, this is something that, say, pipecock never does. He has supreme confidence in his capacity to understand and explain jazz/soul/2-step garage/whatever."

jazz and soul are mostly american urban music, why would i not be able to understand them? that is the environment in which i grew up and continue to live. 2-step and jungle were so interesting to me because of their heavy leanings on american music, specifically jazz, hiphop, funk, and soul. i grew frustrated with the bits that didn't make sense to me such as the consistant movement of UK dance music into simplified dark grinding music, and i gave up on them.

i love jamaican music. i know most of the people involved locally in the music who are of Jamaican descent. i know it is not the same as living the culture in Jamaica. there is nothing wrong with continuing to like the music, but i do not feel it would be appropriate to try to make reggae and take credit for it as if it was my own thing. it is not my culture to do that with.

"Thus the gatekeeper role adopted vis a vis detroit techno begins to seem both inconsistent and arrogant, merely an excuse to boast about which producers have slept on one's floor and which epochal DJ sets one was lucky enough to witness. It's that kind of stuff which makes detroit techno pietism difficult to bear sometimes."

so basically you just feel left out? i feel so sorry for you. don't be angry about it, be proactive. go visit detroit.

"I feel my first three points are accurate representations of at least Pipecock's arguments"

especially since you made arguments that not only I have never made, but ones that i have never seen anyone make. so good job on that one.

"'Virtuoso"' is slightly more measurable"

so 500 years ago, before we could measure them, radio waves didn't exist? nor did sound waves? the idea that you can measure everything that is real is pretty ridiculous.

"Whereas 'soul' is supposed to be some trans-stylistic quality that transcends any concrete material quality of the music.

except of course that any fan of soul music would disagree with that.

"So if you abandon 'soul' as the operating principle I think it becomes harder to argue that, say, Omar-S is closer to jazz than he is to Ame."

all you can go by are your ears. i truly do feel sorry for you.

"In terms of Journey In Satchidananda equivs, that seems like Vahid's territory.

Of stuff I do like a lot...Theo Parrish at his most expansive obv (e.g. "Summertime Is Here")... Ian O'Brien? Jacob's Optical Stairway? Pepe Bradock circa 2000? Henrik Schwarz at his deepest (e.g. his remix of Kraak & Smaak)? I've never really had that kind of influence leap out at me when listening to "classic" Detroit techno but I'm willing to provisionally accept that this might be something to do with my ears, maybe I'm not listening for the right thing in that music (just don't tell me that this "thing" is "soul"!!)."

you dont think that Derrick May's work had that kind of influence in it? or Carl Craig's, even from the beginning? seriously man, i don't know what to say. i agree with your other choices here though, they make the influence a little more obvious in sound, but that was something that was there from the beginning. Shake was a huge jazz head, way before he did anything related to techno and he was there from day 1 working with Juan, Derrick, Octave One, etc.

"There's also a logical inconsistency to the notion that one must have spent time discussing techno over dinner with Mills or gone crate digging with a Detroit DJ in order to understand "Detroit's place in techno"."

no one MUST do those things to understand it. but i agree that if people did, there would be far less nonsense being spouted about Detroit dance music.

"Surely the whole reason that Detroit is central to techno is that so many Detroit techno records had a massive impact and influence on people worldwide, the vast majority of whom would never end up going to Detroit, would never have dinner with Mills, would never have go crate-digging in Detroit's record stores. If all those elements had been necessary for Detroit techno to become a causal flashpoint in the development of electronic dance music, Detroit techno would never have taken off as a global phenomenon."

this is pretty obvious. but the problem lies in the fact that cats from the UK and Europe started making records. and in the beginning, they made a lot of good ones. but in time, the newer producers and deejays became less and less influenced by the original music and the sound started to shift into something much less funky and to me, much less interesting. it does not register with me culturally.

in fact, this is something i have been thinking about a little bit more since the discussion on mnmlssgs. i think the problem is that in the US, house and techno culture existed before rave culture. they were their own stand alone cultures with roots and customs. in the UK and Europe, their music was imported and used in a completely foreign culture. you can see the classic Detroit and Chicago deejays discuss this in many of their old interviews. in the UK and Europe, it seems like the rave scene recontextualized techno into something it never was before. there was undoubtedly some reaction to that as rave hit the US, even from within the existing techno and house cultures. but that never really resonated with mostly black urban audiences here and quickly fell out in most cases, and to this day the perception of dance music as "rave" music persists in the US despite that not being its roots at all.

"But ultimately the quality of the music, as with the quality of any music, has to stand and fall with the music itself. And I'd hope that you'd agree Mike that while such extra-musical experiences might be v. important in terms of understanding the socio-historical backstory, they can't be the litmus test for "getting" the music qua music. If they are, then Detroit techno really should have no place in the story of global electronic dance music outside of Detroit itself. That's obviously not the case, so it suggests that there must be something important about these records as records that exists in addition to their evocation of the experience of living in Detroit."

good music is good music, but understanding that music beyond what you hear with your ears is pretty damn important. your ears can mishear things, but when you are culturally conditioned to understand one thing and you are exposed to something else that SOUNDS the same but doesn't FEEL the same, that is going to be painfully obvious.

"I felt similarly when people used to claim that you couldn't really tell if a dubstep record was good or not unless you had heard it over loudspeakers at DMZ. If that is the case, then the music had failed as music on every level except as music-to-be-played-over-the-loudspeakers-at-DMZ. Funnily enough, this argument faded away once dubstep became relatively popular globally..."

despite my reservations about the entire genre of dubstep due to my previous experiences with UK dance music, i don't disbelieve that understanding dubstep is aided greatly by being in its place of origin. you can read a whole bunch about a culture, listen to the records in your house or at your local club, etc etc and still not totally understand it. some things need to be experienced, not analyzed.

"it has nothing to do with location. who ever said that? it has to do with culture. that culture is only located in a very specific location, so if that is what you mean then i guess it is true."

Same thing isn't though. You acknowledge as much when you say "you can get the feeling of the city in the records." Which as far as it goes is fine. Note that I wasn't saying that Detroit techno isn't distinct from other forms of techno, just that the notion it's automatically better than other stuff because of its, er, let's say geo-cultural roots, needs better back-up, and much better back-up than you're providing here. Really the sorts of techno and house that are related to Detroit (from Derrick May to Jeff Mills to ghetto tech to Theo Parrish) are massively diverse, and the notion that all of these nonetheless express some singular central truth about life in Detroit that is massively distinct from similar truths about life in other cities strikes me as really difficult to maintain. For example, Detroit techno strikes me as incredibly aspirational in mood; ghetto tech is the exact opposite - sure both musics can say things about the experience of being working class in Detroit, but the things they're saying are quite different.

I'm happy to accept that Detroit has been an incredibly fertile creative breeding ground for all sorts of producers of house and techno. And yes, the concentration of talent is deeply impressive. But talent calls to talent, and surely the very fact of moving in the same circles as other Detroit techno and house producers is as important if not more important than this whole spirit of the streets thing.

"jazz and soul are mostly american urban music, why would i not be able to understand them? that is the environment in which i grew up and continue to live. 2-step and jungle were so interesting to me because of their heavy leanings on american music, specifically jazz, hiphop, funk, and soul. i grew frustrated with the bits that didn't make sense to me such as the consistant movement of UK dance music into simplified dark grinding music, and i gave up on them."

So you'd accept me saying you fundamentally don't "get" jungle or 2-step and telling you to STFU about them? Would it be similarly legitimate for someone to say Detroit techno interested them insofar as it took cues from Kraftwerk, but went bad when it moved away from that?

"trying to define what creates that feeling is difficult, i am not sure that it is exactly possible to pinpoint it. really though, if you go to Detroit it all starts to make more sense, and the more time you spend there the more it makes sense. "

How convenient.

"i do not agree that everything about music can be analyzed scientifically. it has nothing to do with your brain, it has to do with how it FEELS. and if you can suddenly explain feeling and how it works, i am sure there are a bunch of scientists who would like to know exactly how to do that."

Ha ha you don't think there isn't a lot of scientific work in this area? Lots of people devote their entire careers to this sort of thing. And no, I don't pretend to analyse it scientifically, but it's not just a choice between science and religion you know.

"I know Pete Chambers who writes for mnml ssgs"

"ahhhh, now things are starting to make sense to me."

Well the last time I spoke to Pete he was stoked that you were writing something for the blog. I told him he was barking up the wrong tree and he defended you pretty massively.

"you dont think that Derrick May's work had that kind of influence in it? or Carl Craig's, even from the beginning? seriously man, i don't know what to say. i agree with your other choices here though, they make the influence a little more obvious in sound, but that was something that was there from the beginning."

So impliedly the link with jazz is not "obvious in sound" in most Detroit techno? Then why stress it so much, apart from the cultural cache such an analogy might provide? Why should people need to be told that Anthony Shakir is a huge jazzhead (although actually with the Shake stuff I know I can here it). Anyway I can hear some nods to jazz in a lot of first gen Detroit techno, just not enough that it's the first thing that springs to mind when I'm listening to Derrick May or whatever.

"since electronic dance music existed before Detroit techno, i do not understand how anyone would ever make that claim. i have never heard anyone make it. name me one person who has."

I wasn't attributing that opinion to you, although fair enough I guess it almost reads that way. i've heard and read many people claim this at least in relation to dance music that could be defined as "post-techno" (e.g. jungle, IDM, "hardcore" in the broad sense etc.), which is what i meant, though I expressed it sloppily I'll agree. You may agree with that more carefully worded version perhaps.

"so basically you just feel left out? i feel so sorry for you. don't be angry about it, be proactive. go visit detroit."

I don't feel left out, pipecock, I just think you make the whole experience of being connected to Detroit and the Detroit techno scene sound like a hideously empty thing, with no purpose other than to shore up your own ego. But I'm positive that that says more about you than it does about Detroit. To his credit, Mike hardly namedrops at all.

"so 500 years ago, before we could measure them, radio waves didn't exist? nor did sound waves? the idea that you can measure everything that is real is pretty ridiculous."

So you're claiming that soul is something scientific now?

"this is pretty obvious. but the problem lies in the fact that cats from the UK and Europe started making records. and in the beginning, they made a lot of good ones. but in time, the newer producers and deejays became less and less influenced by the original music and the sound started to shift into something much less funky and to me, much less interesting. it does not register with me culturally."

I'd like more specificity here pipecock. Like, does French house occur before or after the flight from Eden?

"good music is good music, but understanding that music beyond what you hear with your ears is pretty damn important. your ears can mishear things"

Personally I place my trust in my ears and then look for extra-musical information that can better explain what it is that my ears are hearing. Anything else just seems like asking to be indoctrinated.

GEIRCOCK

To hear people criticizing others for their music having no soul is disheartening. All music has the soul of its creator within it, and the environment from whence it came is there through osmosis. Its not about who slept on who's floor, and who knew who. The man who's track record consists of the sleeping on someone's sofa should be reticent about the criticizing of the creator of a piece of music. The piece of music has more soul than the sleeping on a floor

Its not about who you knew. Its about what you make yourself. This music comes from Sofia Detroit Dusseldorf Lyon Accra Rangoon and Lima, it always has it always will.

It is in Petre Inspirecu the way it is in Vassilis Tsitsanis and Francis Bebey its in all streets of all cities. Listen to this music it is in their souls. Listen to the music you make yourself you can hear it there too. Lets not talk of who stayed on our sofas. Lets not talk of dinner. Lets talk only of great music and how it inspires us in the making of our own music and in other things and remember what it is we love.

To criticize the creation of something is one thing, to say it is without soul is perhaps the most heinous of insults

^^^ long overdue

there's a toxicity to dance music discussions of late, at least in the small corners of the net I read.

where's the youth/fun/joy/life? all you see is massive protracted discussions and if people really want to send a message or "fight the good fight", WHATEVER music they like or whatever music that is then please start writing with some verve and enthusiasm and smash this "a bunch of concerned dudes discussing history" thing that's built up.

I mean seriously......Omar S to Ame to fucking Tiesto, any music deserves better than this, treat it with the magic and passion it deserves if you actually have the time to spend all day talking about it online.

God knows I currently don't but everybody needs to. If you have information, share it, make it as accessible as possible, spread it, talk about it, bring it to people. It's really fucking grim reading around the net at the moment.

For me, the notions of authenticity and purity that are being alluded to and assigned to Detroit techno above are wrong-headed. Like culture more generally, all specific scenes and genres of music are influenced by a myriad of different sources, and in turn go on to influence other types of music. To say that any one type of music is "pure" and that subsequent related genres are somehow degraded or bastardised is to kind of miss the point.

These may be truisms, but worth repeating I think.

It's the Burial thread all over again

I remember getting slammed for telling people that you wouldn't get it unless you had been to Detroit.

-- Display Name

you probably got slammed for this because it doesn't logically make sense. aren't mills' big stated influences over the last 10 years commes des garcons, black and white silent movies and conceptual art? isn't his day-job running a european-style clothing boutique featuring belgian and japanese designers?

there is obviously so much more to the guy's intellectual profile than "oh hey i'm a just brother bringing the realness from detroit" that it seems nasty and reductive to boil it down to that.

also reminds me of simon reynold's great QED-bodyslam on kirk degiorgio: "don't you realize he made hard-and-fast friends w/ the detroit crew because those guys basically aspired to be white european aesthetes LOL"

"i think the problem is that in the US, house and techno culture existed before rave culture. they were their own stand alone cultures with roots and customs. in the UK and Europe, their music was imported and used in a completely foreign culture. you can see the classic Detroit and Chicago deejays discuss this in many of their old interviews."

^^^ urgent & key, but all music does this to some extent. it's a dialogue!

http://www.plong.com/MusicCatalog/V/VA%20-%20Tresor%20Compilation%20vol.2%20-%20Berlin-Detroit%20A%20Techno%20Alliance/VA%20-%20Tresor%20Compilation%20vol.2%20-%20Berlin-Detroit%20A%20Techno%20Alliance.jpg

Detroit Techno could only come from Detroit.
Chicago House could only come from Chicago.
UK Hardcore could only come from the UK.
Sheffield Bleep could only come from Sheffield.
Memphis Soul from Memphis.
New Jersey House from New Jersey.
Eurodance from Frankfurt.
Italo Disco from Italy (and some other places).
Munich Disco from Munich.

I really don't understand what there is to be won in claiming a certain music developped at a certain place and a certain time. It did. So what?

i came to say this thread sunk from being a celebration of wonderful music that has touched us into some pedantic petty bullshit, but then 24 unagi plaza came and said the same with much better words.

anyways - soul ii soul 'african dance'! dope!

it's so slow

ok so i listened to contact special again and it is excellent so i need to amend my comment upthread.

the narrative arc is abduction/levitation/lift-off (first half or so) followed by struggle, inquisitiveness and finally, a kind of acceptance or contentment (not acquiescence). the music is mostly economical mills (if you want to talk comme des garçons, rei kawakubo's mottos are "strength" and "never repeat yourself"; mills' might also be strength and a kind of refinement through repetition and deep knowledge of his reduced musical tools.) the sonic palette is is mostly 909s and trademark millsian synth leads (the phrasal stuff i gush about), but there are a few housier cuts/cut-ups. nothing feels as willfully portentous as some of the soundtrack work and the album does really flow together contrary to my "it would work better as the singles" comment. it would have been exciting to collect the singles as there's a kind of chapter aspect to the flow.

my friend was at that jeff mills talk at Sonar and apparently he genuinely believes the age of aquarius is going to arrive in 2069. and that techno is paving the way for it.

Right now I have an overwhelming urge to listen to Timewriter...

This review of Sonar over at FACT FACT amused me. Proves that the Detroit camp are capable of spouting just as much bull as Richie and his minus cohorts:

The other big deal on the first proper Sónar by Night was M—nus Records presents Contakt. I’m not sure anyone who wasn’t actively involved knew everything that was going on, but the basic premise was that Magda, Gaiser, Troy Pierce, Mark Houle and Heartthrob rotated between their laptops, a bit like when you played round the world table tennis at school, and Richie Hawtin made new tunes up from different bits of their tunes on his cube. It was total Computer World, a bit like when Hot Chip make the songs up in front of you, but a thousand times more grandiose, space age and camp, right down to the outfits in the promo shots. Compare it to Jeff Mills and Mike Banks the next night, whose X-102 return was billed as ‘a conceptual tour de force which explores all the aspects of this mysterious planet (Saturn), including its rings and moons, at the classic co-ordinates of UR’ and actually resulted in a guff performance (Mills reckons that for electronic music to develop ‘we need to stop dancing, it gets in the way’), and it’s clear which techno luminary's having more fun with his vast amounts of spare time.

Mills reckons that for electronic music to develop ‘we need to stop dancing, it gets in the way’

FFS x 10,000,000,000,000

I was about to duck in and ask where just really enjoying dancing to music comes in, and I think that just got non-answered in brave new ways

Proves that the Detroit camp are capable of spouting just as much bull as Richie and his minus cohorts

c'mon you must've read some D May quotes from '89-'90?

but i wish we could talk more about specific old tracks here and what makes them so distinctly great (inc technical/musical talk, usually fun to geek on), as opposed to this wider picture stuff which is pretty circular

Start it!

(not meant to sound snide or anything--you know I always like what you have to say).

i'm including myself in that 'we', sadly

http://www.scribd.com/doc/3242075/The-Disco-Handbook

well okay let's talk joy here: i put 'girl from botany bay' on my ipod shuffle, and it came on when i was in a shit mood, and i was elevated all over again.

also, i've been listening to Lindstrom again because of the new album. and i can't decide whether he's a totally amazing one-trick pony or has actually progressed quite a bit in the last few years.

Wow, thank God I was away last week. . .

either way the environmental mix on this kills.
Lovely house tool which may or may not sample Koyanisqatii, got it for a dollar last winter and it's great to put on top of everything.

From the Beatport sample you're damn right. Good find.

Basic Channel just released its second CD of BC stuff. Not sure if that's noteworthy or not.

not really sure where to bobbins this but in chicago a couple songs that seem huge around here from the past couple years maybe? or maybe older. im bad with years. anyway these get played on all kinds of radio stations around here, and im wondering why theres no mention of for example:

craig loftus - jimmy boom

or other tracks like the house edit of natalie cole "tell me all about it," or green velvet's "shake and pop" which are so superhuge in chicago but dont really get posted about and im kinda unsure where to post about them anyway

sorry thats spelled 'loftis' but still

and song title is technically 'jimmy go boom' but still

its a james brown edit and theres a sample here
http://mp3.juno.co.uk/MP3/SF267750-01-01-01.mp3
but u have to copy and paste the link

im digging this a lot
http://www.slide.com/r/IE4DJiKavD-DgKDazmUvsqT9ZtNcusJC?previous_view=lt_embedded_url

unfolding with an electricity that's--forbid the sacrilege--Dylanesque.

doesnt he mean 'forbid the cliche'

oops rong thread

http://www.scribd.com/doc/3242075/The-Disco-Handbook

-- Display Name, Tuesday, July 1, 2008 8:47 AM

Deej have you heard the Gant Man version of Green Velvet's "Walk"???!?!?!!

can someone help me with a track id... and this is going to be a pretty vague description... zip played it at panoramabar on friday towards closing. very emotional\detroit sounding, epic pad sweeps, then an extended coda section with a voice repeatedly saying something along the lines of "you can hit me, you can hurt me, but still... i have a dream". anybody??

nah i hadn't but that sounds great! gant-man DJs every saturday at one club til 5 AM in chicago though, ive heard him spin a couple times but i really need to go back - the place is right in my old neighborhood and aside from a rough crowd its pretty cool - not a huge club or anything and a good mix of rap and house and dancehall etc

lol @ yelp reviews for the venue though:

07/06/2008

Ugh! Is all I can say about this place.

If you are into coochie popping and reenacting the scene from SNL with the Roxy Boys then go here. Seriously it was sad to see so many men bumping and grinding one girl. Then again these women are so desperate they allow that. Such class! Imagine flies on a poop and you will have this place.

Say whatever you want. This place is nasty. One star is too much in my opinion. Nice staff though.

People thought this was:

Funny (1)

Bookmark Send to a Friend Link to This Review

Lulz that has always been my suspicion about juke/ghettotech kinda places...

they do get a fair number of women actually but its def got a piranha feeding frenzy vibe when the girls hit the floor

oh and btw tim when i said 'that sounds great!' i did mean i hunted down a sample and listened! it sounds real smooth for juke stuff

can someone help me with a track id... and this is going to be a pretty vague description... zip played it at panoramabar on friday towards closing. very emotional\detroit sounding, epic pad sweeps, then an extended coda section with a voice repeatedly saying something along the lines of "you can hit me, you can hurt me, but still... i have a dream". anybody??

Could be Mike Grant's 'The Struggle of My People' on Moods & Grooves, probably the Mr.G mix. It's got a sample of Maya Angelou reciting her poem 'I Rise' on it

http://www.juno.co.uk/products/1217685-02.htm

nice

eurgh was trying to post this in chicago house thread on noise board but im still banned because zzz so i'll post it here in response to vahid:

"i'm satisfied is getting remixed and played out all over the place here, my copy is the underdog edit version, theres also a dj emmanuels remix off that dj pharris legends of house vol. 1 mix i posted about on the bobbins thread"

is that a pretty good representation of the party scene in chicago?

(cause those people in the vid are old!)

although to be fair most people at west coast house events are about my age and older, i.e. 30+

the vid in question: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=toRig6S5JZM

its a pretty good representation of a fair portion of the scene. Young people are into rap music and juke stuff, a lot faster bpms, or R&B. That said - when they would do free shows in grant park for summerdance, you would get a good cross section, a decent number of kids (as in actual children, they were all-ages events), a lot of latino teenagers, scatterings of white 20-40somethings and then the demographic from that video, like 30-50 yr old black ppl.

when i saw frankie knuckles @ green dolphin this past weekend, it was a lot like that vid except more gay

there's a lot of respect for that scene from younger kids though ... dj pharris, who did that 'house classics' set i was talking about, is the main rap dj at power 92 here in the city. house music (like the james brown edit) gets played on power 92 on a daily basis. As do the other house tracks i mentioned, like the natalie cole remix. dj pharris just released this (pretty great) song with r kelly, fat joe, busta rhymes and fabolous:
http://www.xxlmag.com/online/?p=22605

pharris usually sticks to rap music at the radio station though, they have boolumaster spin house 'classics' like the vid you posted, and then dj nehpets does the juke stuff

one of the things that was kinda annoying about the press that juke stuff gets is that it doesnt put it in any kind of context with respect to the house music this is coming out of ... just more 'gutter beats'

what an amazing party ... can't get enough of these video clips

what the version of "is it all over my face" at the end of this vid??

now wait a minute

if you were going to yield to temptation, then why'd you fall for me?

no, you listen...

"HELL YEAH"

That's great. I wish I knew which version it was...

Interview with Geir Hongro.

Geir is on the money.

We need more Geir and less Ableton.

http://www.sendspace.com/file/iybm03

that's it, thanks sous! i have another track id now, from the mole the following night. he played it 3x in a row right at the end of the 'night' when he had completely given up on mixing. nu-school (i think?) disco, loose guitar riff, female voice repeatedly intoning "don't turn it off, don't turn it off... i kinda like it"

we need more young people and less depressed burnouts

I should know

I hope Ableton destroys techno as we know it and makes everybody who currently likes it decamp elsewhere.

Sounds like you need a hug.

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2359/2649955137_fd70d4f96b_o.jpg

weird that the random old mike grant track i wanted an id on is ronan's number one for july!

it's a great track.

btw I don't need a hug, just a good cull

"that's it, thanks sous! i have another track id now, from the mole the following night. he played it 3x in a row right at the end of the 'night' when he had completely given up on mixing. nu-school (i think?) disco, loose guitar riff, female voice repeatedly intoning "don't turn it off, don't turn it off... i kinda like it"

-- resolved"

not new school, Hot Chocolate:

http://www.discogs.com/release/607788

one of my regular joints right there, no one ever knows that one.

"I hope Ableton destroys techno as we know it and makes everybody who currently likes it decamp elsewhere.

-- Ronan"

hasn't that already happened? isn't it called mnml?

"we need more young people and less depressed burnouts

-- Ronan"

young people tend to listen to the absolute worst crap out there, except for about once every 20 years or so when they actually get it right. and even then, the music they like is usually made by people older than them. fuck young people.

sometimes i can't tell if your hyperbole is serious or not, pipecock. are you really that much of a hater? i know i've asked you that before, but for real: your bile is toxic.

also, since you're above the age of 25 (presumably), you don't really know what young people listen to. last night i spent much of the evening listening to Hieroglyphic Being, drinking Bud Light and smoking fatties under the stars with a bunch of 19 year-olds.

that said, i do love your blog and your taste. but your rhetoric is fucking stupid, and i'm pretty sure that you know it is.

that only reinforces the idea that talking about dance music on the internet would be more fun if the people doing it were still primarily motivated by their joy in the music as opposed to being motivated by the desire to win arguments on the internet.

anyway I'm now listening to Hieroglyphic Being on headphones at the office and its nice.

jacob, pipecock isn't presenting any argument in the post right above mine. he's simply spouting a bunch of vitriol.