Sadly, most dubstep hasn't held up to the rhetoric of danger that was used to prop it up.
― pshrbrn, Thursday, 20 December 2007 20:34 (sixteen years ago) link
(Which I suppose makes sense, following in a long tradition of UK breakbeat genres that were supposed to be really scaaaaary -- hello, tech-step -- but quickly calcified into a pretty conventional set of tropes.)
― pshrbrn, Thursday, 20 December 2007 20:35 (sixteen years ago) link
I think a far more genuine take on dubstep's "darkness" is supplied by Skull Disco, who appropriate a Pushead-style cartoon gore aesthetic; you can't quite take the gloom seriously. (For my money, they're also just about the most interesting dubstep out there, and getting moreso, though they're also moving away from the genre.)
― pshrbrn, Thursday, 20 December 2007 20:39 (sixteen years ago) link
appleblim - vansam for the win!
― good dog, Thursday, 20 December 2007 20:42 (sixteen years ago) link
Chuck what phil is implying is correct: don't bother with persevering with dubstep for frights.
The tying in of dubstep with hardness, darkness etc. is very much a latterday thing - dubstep itself was pretty much bass-heavy mood music for a long time. It's only since parts of it have gotten very shrill and cliche-dystopian in the last two years or so that these ideas have started floating around, more as some sort of ideological compensation for the sonic paucity. At least techstep actually was dark and scary and good all at once for about 18 months or so.
The link that Burial has to Simon's overall argument has more, I think, to do with the overacted seriousness of its pleasure - it's the staged refusal of any moments of lightheartedness or even any bouncy intensity that can give Burial that "schlocky" feel. This is why he reminds me so much of the DJ Shadow's The Private Press, an album that I very much like because of its schlockiness, so I'm not trying to criticise Burial in saying this. Perhaps for me Burial only works insofar as it is a schlocky exercise, and I think there's a sense to which his own commentary on his music implies this. This is why there can be such a disconnect between Burial's music and Burial-crit, most of which tries to tie his overt melodrama into some overarching aesthetic of authentic emotions... Burial as the streets' own traumatised memory bank etc. etc. ad nauseum.
― Tim F, Thursday, 20 December 2007 20:55 (sixteen years ago) link
Private Press is pretty playful (at times)!
― Jordan, Thursday, 20 December 2007 20:58 (sixteen years ago) link
Yeah hence the "much of" - ignore the uptempo tracks and focus on "You Can Never Go Home Again" etc. and the comparison survives.
― Tim F, Thursday, 20 December 2007 21:00 (sixteen years ago) link
Just to clarify, Tim, you're saying that the 'streets' trope is a critical one vs. whatever it is Burial thinks about his own music, etc.? At least that's how I'm seeing it.
― Ned Raggett, Thursday, 20 December 2007 21:00 (sixteen years ago) link
No Burial himself uses this kind of language as well, but I think he's a bit more self-aware and erm proportionate in how he explains what he's doing vis a vis the music he draws on.
― Tim F, Thursday, 20 December 2007 21:01 (sixteen years ago) link
I made a compilation for a friend about a year ago "explaining" Burial - I put on some 2-step and "We Need A Resolution" and then stuff which i thought kind of captured what he then does to this source material - the key stuff being Shadow, Tricky's "Broken Homes" (he even has a track called "Broken Home") and Donnacha Costello's "Dry Retch", which is the closest thing i've found to his cumulus cloud synth work. Oh and the Vladislav Delay remix of Rhythm & Sound.
― Tim F, Thursday, 20 December 2007 21:04 (sixteen years ago) link
I always wonder about the use of 'the streets' in these contexts, but to me it's interesting because dubstep in general specifically always suggests a wet-from-rain London street corner waiting-for-the-late-bus feeling. Melancholic but not threatening, and definitely not a sign of its being real as such except by implication, ie, "Damn, it's cold and I'd rather be home."
― Ned Raggett, Thursday, 20 December 2007 21:05 (sixteen years ago) link
Hmm that take is quite similar to Tom's piece linked above (which is excellent - check it out if you haven't already) - at least as applied to Burial.
Dubstep doesn't really have much to do with "the streets" as far as I can tell (though as I'm over here in Australia I probably shouldn't presume to judge) - a lot of the crit around it is somewhat caught up in that methodology though. I think this will probably change though as the dubstep audience progressively morphs into a pollywog-style post-breakbeat audience who really don't give two shits about grime (whence all the street-talk came). It's a kind of a bemusing process for me to watch though, if only because my position is even more antiquarian (basically that OG 2-step was not only some kind of aesthetic pinnacle, but also a kind of standard against which critics should hurl their clunky crit concepts as a kind of testing ground).
― Tim F, Thursday, 20 December 2007 21:13 (sixteen years ago) link
We can't have you be old, Tim, it's just not on. And yes, been meaning to check out that FT piece...
― Ned Raggett, Thursday, 20 December 2007 21:14 (sixteen years ago) link
I def. think you're on the right track in terms of questioning these too-easy critical manoeuvres.
― Tim F, Thursday, 20 December 2007 21:18 (sixteen years ago) link
Well, it feels terribly exhausted on a *wide* variety of levels to talk about music's 'realness' in an era of widespread availability that, while arguably limited first and foremost to a certain economically-viable subset of folks worldwide (ie, the time and money and security to be able to randomly download and talk about whatever), is still in more of a flux state in the -- very short! -- history of recorded music than ever. If that makes any sense. The decoupling of artifact and content makes for randomness beyond anyone's imaginings because it wasn't fully understood until we were all well in it, random Wired and Mondo 2000 fever dreams aside.
― Ned Raggett, Thursday, 20 December 2007 21:22 (sixteen years ago) link
I think that's a tempting concept from the perspective of an internet music omnivore, but it feels a little, I don't know, co-optive? It may not take long before the world knows about any given little regional scene these days, but that doesn't mean that there aren't aspects that only make sense at ground level.
― Jordan, Thursday, 20 December 2007 21:30 (sixteen years ago) link
Entirely true, which is where I think the matter of projection as to what that ground level 'really' is from the omnivorous standpoint (and my quote abuse is noted but I'm trying to foreground the point) comes in even more strongly than ever.
― Ned Raggett, Thursday, 20 December 2007 21:36 (sixteen years ago) link
"I think that's a tempting concept from the perspective of an internet music omnivore, but it feels a little, I don't know, co-optive? It may not take long before the world knows about any given little regional scene these days, but that doesn't mean that there aren't aspects that only make sense at ground level."
This is correct, but does it really apply to Burial? Burial's music strikes me as stuff that probably makes more sense to internet music omnivores than anyone else!
― Tim F, Thursday, 20 December 2007 21:38 (sixteen years ago) link
Yeah, totally, I wasn't talking about Burial specifically.
― Jordan, Thursday, 20 December 2007 21:41 (sixteen years ago) link
The last of The Wire's lists
Compilations
Achilifunk: Gipsy Soul 1969-1979 (Lovemonk) After Dark (Italians Do It Better/Troubleman) DJ Dixon: Body Language Vol 4 (Get Physical) Box Of Dub: Dubstep And Future Dub (Soul Jazz) Brazil 70: After Tropicalia: New Directions In Brazilian Music In The 1970s (Soul Jazz) Broken Flag: A Retrospective 1982-1985 (Vinyl On Demand) Cries From The Midnight Circus: Ladbroke Grove 1967-1978 (Castle) Doom & Gloom: Early Songs Of Angst And Disaster 1927-1945 (Trikont) LARM: From Mouth Cavity To Laptop (Kning Disk) Mute Audio Documents 1978-1984 (Mute) Psychedelic Phinland: Finnish Hippie And Underground Music 1967-1974 (Love) Remove Celebrity Centre (Junior Aspirin) Savage Pencil Presents Lion Vs Dragon In Dub (Trojan) Silver Monk Time: A Tribute To The Monks (Play Loud!) Skull Disco: Soundboy Punishments (Skull Disco)
Reissues
Neil Campbell - SOL POWR (Mundane Music) Miles Davis - The Complete On The Corner Sessions (Sony) Vladislav Delay - Multila (Huume) Fairport Convention - Liege And Lief (Island) Noah Howard - The Black Ark (Bo'weavil) Keith Hudson - Brand (Pressure Sounds) Annea Lockwood - Early Works 1967-82 (EM) Ju Suk Reet Meate - Solo 78/79 (De Stijl) Nico - The Frozen Borderline: 1968-1970 (Rhino) Daphne Oram - Oramics (Paradigm) Pentangle - The Time Has Come (Castle) Eliane Radigue - Jetsun Mila (Lovely Music) Terry Riley - Music For The Gift (Elision Fields) Terry Riley - Poppy Nogood And The Phantom Band All Night Flight (Elision Fields) Seefeel - Quique Redux Edition (Too Pure) Sly & The Family Stone - There's A Riot Goin' On (Epic) Sun Ra - Strange Strings (Atavistic Unheard Music Series) Sun Ra - The Complete Disco 3000 Concert (Art Yard) Young Marble Giants - Colossal Youth (Domino)
Phew, that was a good lot of typing practice today.
― krakow, Thursday, 20 December 2007 21:55 (sixteen years ago) link
"But these phrases are all so cliched, and I think you could easily apply them to ANY music you felt wasn't taking the chances YOU wanted it to. By your suggestion that Burial is "wallpaper" music I suspect you want it to be more aggressive, perhaps. But I don't think that making melancholic, even "pretty" music necessarily has to be safe."
Yes, of course it could apply to any music that wasn't taking the chances I wanted it to. Just like saying something is boring means that I found it boring. Isn't this "subjective crit" 101?
Two things: First, I don't think that melancholic, pretty music has to be safe, which is why Burial disappointed me—it is melancholic and pretty music that IS safe. Second, by saying "wallpaper music," I meant that it seems best suited to atmospherics, and not to active listening.
There's nothing in it that surprises me, that makes me take more notice, that draws me further in—it seems remarkably flat, sonically, despite the obvious care in layers. Sure, it feels like waiting for a bus in the rain, but waiting for a bus in the rain is boring enough that I don't need a record to take me back to that.
I think I'd be happier with it if it removed all of what sounds, to my ear, like cliched dubstep rhythm tracks, and just left the washes of sound—at least then, I wouldn't have to wade through a tacked-on vestigial pseudo-techno to get to what's pretty (and even then, I'd have a hard time recommending it for repeat listens).
And regarding Burial and omnivores, I kind of feel like that's part of the disappointment for me—there are so many other options that are more in line with what I want out of music (novelty and depth?) that I just don't get why this one has been singled out since it doesn't seem to have any of that.
The age of internet omnivores means that I'm too used to having my mind blown to listen to stuff that doesn't connect.
As an aside, for me, reading the criticism around it feels like when Is This It came out and everyone got a hardon for the Strokes, but at least with the Strokes I could understand that there were decent songs there (just nothing that ever whipped me up into the same frenzy).
― I eat cannibals, Thursday, 20 December 2007 22:02 (sixteen years ago) link
"how'd he get those hi-hats to do that?"
this is really all i want to know about burial.
― Jordan, Thursday, 20 December 2007 22:04 (sixteen years ago) link
Oh, and thanks for that link to Skull Disco—I'm really enjoying the free mix they had up on their front page. It's pretty much what I hoped Burial would sound like (even though I probably wouldn't put something like this at my #1 slot or anything).
― I eat cannibals, Thursday, 20 December 2007 22:27 (sixteen years ago) link
see that makes more sense! i like yr comment about waiting for the bus. didn't mean to come off wrong, i just thought "safe," as shorthand, wasn't saying much.
did you get that skull disco mix to download? i haven't managed to. weird.
― pshrbrn, Thursday, 20 December 2007 22:33 (sixteen years ago) link
"didn't mean to come off wrong, i just thought "safe," as shorthand, wasn't saying much."
Oh, yeah, that's totally fair—it wasn't saying very much. And apologies for getting snippy, sometimes everything on ILX feels like sniping, and it gets my back up.
The Skull Disco was working at 1:30 PST, with nary a hiccup. Saved it, imported it, enjoyed it.
― I eat cannibals, Thursday, 20 December 2007 22:51 (sixteen years ago) link
Breaking news. . . NPR "All Songs Considered" listeners pick the best albums of 2007 (and yes 15 was missing from the listing I cut and pasted):
25. Artist: Rilo Kiley Album: Under the Blacklight 24.Artist: Lily Allen Album: Alright, Still
23.Artist: Tegan and Sara Album: Con 22.Artist: Beirut Album: Flying Club Cup 21Artist: Ryan Adams Album: Easy Tiger 20.Artist: Okkervil River Album: The Stage Names 19.Artist: Josh Ritter Album: Historical Conquests of Josh Ritter 18.Artist: Bright Eyes Album: Cassadaga 17.Artist: Band of Horses Album: Cease to Begin 16.Artist: Of Montreal Album: Hissing Fauna, Are You the Destroyer? 14.Artist: The New Pornographers Album: Challengers 13.Artist: LCD Soundsystem Album: Sound of Silver 12.Artist: Iron & Wine Album: Shepherd's Dog
11.Artist: Amy Winehouse Album: Back to Black 10.Artist: Andrew Bird Album: Armchair Apocrypha 09.Artist: The National Album: Boxer
08.Artist: The Shins Album: Wincing the Night Away 07.Artist: Modest Mouse Album: We Were Dead Before the Ship Even Sank 06.Artist: Spoon Album: Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga 05.Artist: The White Stripes Album: Icky Thump 04.Artist: Wilco Album: Sky Blue Sky 03.Artist: Feist Album: Reminder 02.Artist: Arcade Fire Album: Neon Bible 01.Artist: Radiohead Album: In Rainbows
― Rockist Scientist, Thursday, 20 December 2007 22:59 (sixteen years ago) link
Crunching the number of the individual lists of PFork writers/contributors, here's a baker's dozen of notable snubs (# of votes; ranking average):
Simian Mobile Disco: Attack Decay Sustain Release (7; 17.14) Band of Horses: Cease to Begin (6; 10.5) Blonde Redhead: 23 (6; 13) Nina Nastasia & Jim White: You Follow Me (6; 13.16) Matthew Dear: Asa Breed (6; 15) Grinderman: Grinderman (6; 20.66) Apparat: Walls (5; 12.4) Klaxons: Myths of the Near Future (5; 12.81) PJ Harvey: White Chalk (5; 12.97) Times New Viking: Present the Paisley Reich (5; 14.4) The Twilight Sad: Fourteen Autumns and Fifteen Winters (5; 15.4) !!!: Myth Takes (5; 16) Sir Richard Bishop: Polytheistic Fragments (4; 12)
Fwiw, Apparat, even with its average thinned over five votes, still outperformed listmakers Yeasayer (3; 20) and Beirut (3; 14). I dug into the individual lists' numbers because I figured there were albums/artist popular among the writers but their popularity didn't make the final cut (but nonetheless might be worth giving a shot).
― dblcheeksneek, Thursday, 20 December 2007 22:59 (sixteen years ago) link
the apparat album is better than both those albums, objectively speaking
― kamerad, Thursday, 20 December 2007 23:11 (sixteen years ago) link
Here's a bit more looking inside the machinations (i.e., exercised editorial discretion) of Pfork, 11 listmakers (# of votes; ranking average; poll position):
Deerhoof: Friend Opportunity (6; 12; 31) Liars: Liars (6; 12.9; 20) Bon Iver: For Emma, Forever Ago (6; 15.16; 29) Dan Deacon: Spiderman of the Rings (6; 15.3; 24) The Arcade Fire: Neon Bible (6; 17.83; 27) Black Lips: Good Bad Not Evil (6; 18.33; 35) Dizzee Rascal: Maths + English (5; 10.6; 49) Les Savy Fav: Let's Stay Friends (5; 12.81; 44) Ghostface Killah: The Big Doe Rehab (5; 14.2; 42) Marissa Nadler: Songs III: Bird on the Water (5; 15.8; 46) The White Stripes: Icky Thump (5; 15.82; 39)
― dblcheeksneek, Thursday, 20 December 2007 23:16 (sixteen years ago) link
-- dblcheeksneek, Thursday, 20 December 2007 22:59 (19 minutes ago) Link
interesting stats. here's one omission you missed with comparable numbers:
UGK: Underground Kingz (5; 13.2)
― Alex in Baltimore, Thursday, 20 December 2007 23:38 (sixteen years ago) link
i'm just guessing here, but at the top of the individual lists it says that the top 50 was culled from each writer's top 50, even though only top 25 was posted. so i guess if les savy fav was in everyone's top 50, that would propel it ahead of ugk if ugk was only in like 7 or 8 writers top 50s.
― J0rdan S., Thursday, 20 December 2007 23:42 (sixteen years ago) link
My bad, I had UGK at four votes and 14.75, just ahead of Gui Boratto: Chromophobia (4; 15).
― dblcheeksneek, Thursday, 20 December 2007 23:49 (sixteen years ago) link
I think you might just be on to something there (and figured out why I majored in English and not Math)! I just sorted the top fifty vote getters (according to the posted Top 25's) and 41 of them earned "poll" positions (whereas the other (9), from my list of "snubs" probably didn't appear much/often in the 26-50 ranks we didn't see)...ahem...as interesting as all this is...anyway...
― dblcheeksneek, Thursday, 20 December 2007 23:56 (sixteen years ago) link
"objectively speaking"
― Jordan, Friday, 21 December 2007 01:47 (sixteen years ago) link
LQTM, too.
― dblcheeksneek, Friday, 21 December 2007 01:50 (sixteen years ago) link
I won't vote as I am only now catching up on 2007 releases. :-( However if I am allowed to pick Robyn's s/t that woiuld top my list.
― stevienixed, Friday, 21 December 2007 01:53 (sixteen years ago) link
Surprising (to me) non-listeds:
Mekons Shellac The Fall Qui
― Usual Channels, Friday, 21 December 2007 02:10 (sixteen years ago) link
not surprising to me, older bands rarely seem to do well on Pitchfork year end lists, with some exceptions (often reunions/comebacks, like Dinosaur Jr. this year).
― Alex in Baltimore, Friday, 21 December 2007 02:18 (sixteen years ago) link
qui was on the rockarolla magazine list. pretty bad record though.
― scott seward, Friday, 21 December 2007 02:19 (sixteen years ago) link
yea i thought the shellac record would fare better than it has in these lists. it got quite a lot of positive attention when it came out.
― Mark Clemente, Friday, 21 December 2007 02:38 (sixteen years ago) link
no the field?? can anyone explain why?
― Durrr Durrr Durrrrrr, Friday, 21 December 2007 08:53 (sixteen years ago) link
OK, it's the one you've all been waiting for... the Nottingham Evening Post!
1 - Radiohead, 2 - Arcade Fire, 3 - White Stripes, 4 - Bruce Springsteen, 5 - Grinderman, 6 - The Good The Bad & The Queen, 7 - Kevin Ayers, 8 - LCD Soundsystem, 9 - Kings of Leon, 10 - Nick Lowe.
― mike t-diva, Friday, 21 December 2007 11:39 (sixteen years ago) link
Four of these are in my Top 50, Radiohead isn't because I'm old in my ways and I want to hear it on a Proper CD, which doesn't come out until Hogmanay, Bruce and Nick would have been in my 51-60 section if I'd done one, Stripes and Grinderman I didn't feel and Kings Of Leon I have never felt, and furthermore I now automatically think of the X-Factor.
― Dingbod Kesterson, Friday, 21 December 2007 11:43 (sixteen years ago) link
That's quite a sentence.
― dblcheeksneek, Friday, 21 December 2007 14:02 (sixteen years ago) link
karmic payback for the ridiculously high score on metacritic
― blueski, Friday, 21 December 2007 14:06 (sixteen years ago) link
not actually that popular beyond dance critics?
― Matos W.K., Friday, 21 December 2007 14:11 (sixteen years ago) link
Jordan is correct re the pitchfork albums poll.
― Tim F, Friday, 21 December 2007 14:23 (sixteen years ago) link
I just hope my crate-digging intent in crunching the available Pfork numbers isn't lost in translation: I feel like I found some interesting albums in tallying discs that repeatedly made individual Top 25's but didn't make the year-end poll.
However, the list-making album(s) I'm beyond intrigued by by now is the Studio disc(s).
― dblcheeksneek, Friday, 21 December 2007 14:30 (sixteen years ago) link
Studio's West Coast EP is fantastic, so I imagine the full-length (which has many of the same tracks) is just as fantastic.
BTW, Tim F.'s opening few posts on the Studio thread paint a vivid picture of how the disc sounds.
― Daniel, Esq., Friday, 21 December 2007 15:20 (sixteen years ago) link
man, i've been listening to the tracks from pitchfork's 100 tracks. i can't believe my ears. so many not-so-interesting tracks. groove armada? ellis-bextor? BARR? dirty projectors? bat for lashes? magic markers? no age? old time relijun? times new viking? so this is the sound of indie rock right now? correct me if i'm way off because it's been a long time since i listened to indie stuff.
― Durrr Durrr Durrrrrr, Friday, 21 December 2007 15:23 (sixteen years ago) link