still, I'm not so slow as to realize that "rnb concrete" is fucking lame
― missingNO, Wednesday, 29 December 2010 07:23 (2 years ago) Permalink
yeah its kinda a lame thread title trinket to get the spesh addled vagrants like yrself thru the door, all counts towards the admission stats tho
― Rockcrit from the Tuoms (nakhchivan), Wednesday, 29 December 2010 07:26 (2 years ago) Permalink
my sympathies, nakhchivan, for post-launch events itt
― contenderizer, Wednesday, 29 December 2010 07:28 (2 years ago) Permalink
ikr
― Rockcrit from the Tuoms (nakhchivan), Wednesday, 29 December 2010 07:30 (2 years ago) Permalink
missing no just needs to chill a lil, i don't wanna scare off ppl who know more about techno than me
yeah apols for missing your pun. keep the ad homs coming though, you'll be reposted in zing thread in no time
― missingNO, Wednesday, 29 December 2010 07:31 (2 years ago) Permalink
Apparently Actress samples Youtube in his beats, tons of tightly edited low bitrate samples stacked layer upon layer.
It definitely seems like a reasonable comparison to the original Musique Concrete guys.
And I'm a big Hieroglyphic Being fan and don't feel that Actress is at all a bad comparison.
With Jamal its huge amounts material to dig through, with Actress: 2 minute long tracks.
Maybe the argument should be between brevity and long-windedness?
― sistern, Wednesday, 29 December 2010 08:01 (2 years ago) Permalink
hmmm i don't really dig jamal moss very much and i don't think it's a great comparison unless you fixate on certain aspects of actress and the much better end of jamal moss.
the r&b-ish parts ("purple splazsh", "wrong potion") are the bits i like least. love love love the pleasantly spacy/funky IDM parts ("hubble", "bubble butts", "the kettle men"). i loathe the todd edwards influenced parts.
it didn't make my top 10, but it would've made #11 and if i made a list just on amount of time spent listening this would've been in the top 10.
i have hazyville but haven't really given it a listen ... what about his nonplus release? that was sick.
― moonship journey to baja, Wednesday, 29 December 2010 08:03 (2 years ago) Permalink
^^ sounds more like urban tribe to me than burial or todd e
― moonship journey to baja, Wednesday, 29 December 2010 08:04 (2 years ago) Permalink
srsly off topic but jamal moss is 75% wack
― moonship journey to baja, Wednesday, 29 December 2010 08:08 (2 years ago) Permalink
as is being detroit/chicago nerd, as anyone who witnessed moonship: the early years will certainly attest to
― moonship journey to baja, Wednesday, 29 December 2010 08:09 (2 years ago) Permalink
:)
if i did, i would
― Rockcrit from the Tuoms (nakhchivan), Wednesday, 29 December 2010 08:12 (2 years ago) Permalink
is this so? have heard this said of other producers, but not of cunningham. which may be to say, "i haven't done the research," but what's (not) done is done. and yeah, if true, that working process does make sense of the phrase/thread title. plus helps explain the pleasant fuzziness of the sound.
― contenderizer, Wednesday, 29 December 2010 08:13 (2 years ago) Permalink
sounds pleasant but it's a little too clever isn't it, calling albums "hazyville" and stuff to bait the hauntology crew?
― moonship journey to baja, Wednesday, 29 December 2010 08:17 (2 years ago) Permalink
i just think he's best when he keeps it light, straightforward and beat oriented
― moonship journey to baja, Wednesday, 29 December 2010 08:19 (2 years ago) Permalink
I need to dig the album out again and give it another listen, shifted so much stuff around in my room I've got no idea where it is.
This is one of the few albums this year I felt compelled to own on vinyl.
― sistern, Wednesday, 29 December 2010 08:30 (2 years ago) Permalink
And yeah, Jamal does have that Sun Ra quality control thing going on. When he's on he's definitely on.
Whereas all the Actress stuff I've heard was at least worth listening to more than once.
Hazyville included, some great shit on there.
― sistern, Wednesday, 29 December 2010 08:32 (2 years ago) Permalink
i read the Youtube thing as well and it definitely goes to explain the graininess and warmth of the album -- kinda like an extreme update of the vintage sampler aliasing you hear on classic NY boom bap stuff
the Hieroglyphic Being/Muzique comparisons I only make with reference to Splazsh. it's that slightly unhinged, unpredictable approach to drum programming, wildly unquantized percussion patterns on top of straight 4x4 kicks, crunchy bass drums and hi hats that sizzle, and insanely unfathomable synth lines. he def has a more refined sense of melody and song structure that is his own, overall the album strikes me as an IDM dude's take on the abstract US house sound that's been popular over the past couple of years or so, that just so happens to fit in with the current chillwave/hypnagogic zeitgeist. despite not being crazy on the album, it's at least an interesting direction
basically though, I wanna hear more things like "Hubble" or "Paint, Straw and Bubbles", and less like "Senorita" or "Purple Splazsh"
― missingNO, Wednesday, 29 December 2010 11:57 (2 years ago) Permalink
his edit of this on Thriller is cool
― missingNO, Wednesday, 29 December 2010 12:01 (2 years ago) Permalink
the r&b-ish parts ("purple splazsh", "wrong potion") are the bits i like least.
OTM ... if there was $$$ to be made from making techno tributes to Prince then everyone would have been doing it years ago.
― NoTimeBeforeTime, Wednesday, 29 December 2010 16:08 (2 years ago) Permalink
re: hazyville, i like the hardcore references in "again the addiction"
― moonship journey to baja, Thursday, 30 December 2010 02:16 (2 years ago) Permalink
and on "crushed", too!
― moonship journey to baja, Thursday, 30 December 2010 03:17 (2 years ago) Permalink
this album is so good & not really r&b at all and i don't think people who don't really like r&b would ever mistake this with r&b. feel like the sounds on it are very tube-ey, i visualize a lot of the lines as orange neon lights, something really linear (yet obviously very contorted) about it. way better than james blake although i didn't get the bfd w/ that thread but i also don't know anything about dance music. i've listened to this album on drugs a lot
― flopson, Thursday, 30 December 2010 03:40 (2 years ago) Permalink
moonship what's your top 10
― flopson, Thursday, 30 December 2010 03:44 (2 years ago) Permalink
my top 10 favorite albums this year
― moonship journey to baja, Thursday, 30 December 2010 03:53 (2 years ago) Permalink
moonship what are your top 10 favourite albums this year
― flopson, Thursday, 30 December 2010 03:57 (2 years ago) Permalink
top 10 albums
demdike stare - liberation through hearingmartyn - fabric 50ben klock - berghain 04emeralds - does it look like I'm here?dBridge & instra:mental - fabriclive 50flying lotus - cosmogrammashackleton - fabric 55shed - the travellermadlib - medicine show volume 3anthony shakir - frictionalism
top 10 singles
martyn - is this insanity (remixes)mmm - nous sommes mmmwax - 30003eqd - 04locussolus - gunship
and other than that it was all from 2009: 2562, martyn, peverelist, zomby, the rest of that crew, wax and eqd sides by shed, scion versions, levon vincent, t++, dettmann and klock, function stuff on sandwell, milton bradley, frozen border, etc etc it all sounded as relevant or more this year as it did last year, and generally much more than what i read about in a lot of other dance music year-end lists :-(
― moonship journey to baja, Thursday, 30 December 2010 04:08 (2 years ago) Permalink
your top 10 is lookin more like a top 5
― flopson, Thursday, 30 December 2010 04:11 (2 years ago) Permalink
& thanks
actually i forgot some off of my top 10 list
2562 - demons2562 - rear windowrustie - sunburstjoker - tron
― moonship journey to baja, Thursday, 30 December 2010 04:12 (2 years ago) Permalink
what's your top 10, flopson?
― moonship journey to baja, Thursday, 30 December 2010 04:26 (2 years ago) Permalink
no dance stuff or anything, and i have difficulty with albums so ten is kind of a stretch but i pretty much love all these
waka flocka flame - flockavellie-40 - revenue retrievinearl sweatshirt - earlgucci mane - mr zone 6/jewelry selectionnht boyz - power triangle
purling hiss - hissteriapc worship - s/t lp and 7" on shdwplypig - magneticsex church - 6 songs by sex churchdrunkdriver - s/t
― flopson, Thursday, 30 December 2010 04:48 (2 years ago) Permalink
this demdike stare is awesome
― flopson, Thursday, 30 December 2010 04:56 (2 years ago) Permalink
this didn't leave any impression on me the first couple of times i listened to it. i've been assured that it's a grower, tho not sure i care enough to find this out for myself. it's assuredly better than james blake tho.
― lex diamonds (lex pretend), Thursday, 30 December 2010 09:00 (2 years ago) Permalink
missingNO: your mentioning of the "slightly unhinged, unpredictable approach to drum programming [&] wildly unquantized percussion patterns on top of straight 4x4 kicks" brings to mind how psyched I was to have learned about Terrence Dixon back in late '08 through Cunningham himself referring to him (along w/ a bunch of other better-known Detroiters, whose approaches I don't hear quite as strongly in Actress' work) as an influence on the 1-sheet blurb for "Hazyville".
Most of the T. Dixon/Population One stuff released on Metroplex and elsewhere that I've heard (from the mid-'90s to recent) has rhythmically really reminded me of Actress, in terms of the funky misalignments, etc.
(Anybody here into Downliners Sekt? A similar-enough aesthetic to warrant asking...)http://boomkat.com/downloads/317164-downliners-sekt-hello-lonely-hold-the-nationhttp://boomkat.com/downloads/367254-downliners-sekt-we-make-hits-not-the-public
― Don't Make Me A Burrito (Craig D.), Thursday, 30 December 2010 14:50 (2 years ago) Permalink
Good to see Moonship's list there.
― puff pastry hangman (admrl), Friday, 31 December 2010 19:48 (2 years ago) Permalink
what's better
this - FWIW also **BUBBLING** just just outside the top 10, possibly nudging out dbridge or shackleton, FWIW also r&b concréte
or this - is this r&b concréte
― moonship journey to baja, Friday, 31 December 2010 23:40 (2 years ago) Permalink
downliners sekt have the right sound but the beats are chopped up a little OTT for my taste.
― moonship journey to baja, Friday, 31 December 2010 23:56 (2 years ago) Permalink
actress' 2010 top ten features steve poindexter @ #1http://www.boomkat.com/charts.cfm?id=576&gID=11
― sisilafami, Sunday, 2 January 2011 23:42 (2 years ago) Permalink
Listening to this now. Not sure I get it - any of it. Tracks have been popping up on random for a while now and they've just sounded like awkward repeating patterns with little structure or development. So I've decided to listen to it as a whole. Don't hear any r'n'b whatsoever. I guess I will have to give it a couple of goes.
― chandelier falling through a bar in a batman costume (dog latin), Thursday, 17 February 2011 00:41 (2 years ago) Permalink
what's there to get? it's house music, man. we're hardly talking fucking xenakis here
― missingNO, Thursday, 17 February 2011 02:59 (2 years ago) Permalink
I would call Actress neither house music nor easy to get to be honest.
― EDB, Thursday, 17 February 2011 03:20 (2 years ago) Permalink
yeah i dont really get it either, i thought it would be a grower...
― just sayin, Thursday, 17 February 2011 09:52 (2 years ago) Permalink
It doesn't really become house music until at least the fourth track, and even then it's pretty abstract. Some tracks, that Bubble Butts one in particular, is just plain annoying. Again, I'll def give it another shot, because I've a feeling it's the kind of thing that clicks once heard in context and from then on you can't do without.
― chandelier falling through a bar in a batman costume (dog latin), Thursday, 17 February 2011 10:07 (2 years ago) Permalink
i particularly enjoy the stretch from "maze" through "let's fly," songs that fans of this type of thing never seem to mention.
― contenderizer, Wednesday, 29 December 2010 05:42 (1 month ago)
THIS, massively. Had forgotten how good 'Maze' is until putting it on again at the weekend.
I see he's on a bill with Demdike Stare and others in Bristol soon, that's hella tempting if I had any money at all.
― the worst dong of the last ten years (Craigo Boingo), Thursday, 17 February 2011 10:47 (2 years ago) Permalink
I've been slowly getting into the Splazsh album. Works well on headphones.
― sam500, Thursday, 17 February 2011 11:32 (2 years ago) Permalink
Hazyville is good too, if a lot less evolved.
― seminal fuiud (NickB), Thursday, 17 February 2011 11:33 (2 years ago) Permalink
Yeah, I heard and liked 'Hazyville' - relatively passively - when it came out, 'Splazsh' was a big evolution though. And it does keep rewarding. Both a grower and with some moments of great immediacy.
― the worst dong of the last ten years (Craigo Boingo), Thursday, 17 February 2011 11:38 (2 years ago) Permalink
I'm gonna go to that Bristol show on Saturday I think
― Jari Litmandem (DJ Mencap), Thursday, 17 February 2011 12:01 (2 years ago) Permalink
i like that he uses bits of cut up youtube vids or w/e, presumably just the audio but if u play mpeg videos in winamp 2.xx u get some chill ass noise so who knows
― nulty dread (nakhchivan), Thursday, 17 February 2011 12:09 (2 years ago) Permalink
I can see where that comparison comes from, but this is so much warmer and more luscious to me than Autechre.
― Clarke B., Thursday, 7 June 2012 16:47 (11 months ago) Permalink
Think I prefer Splazsh tbh - this is okay, but very similar in vibe to Oversteps-era Ae but not as involving. Might need a few more spins though.
― Scary Move 4 (dog latin), Thursday, 7 June 2012 17:44 (11 months ago) Permalink
This is really good - his production style certainly lends itself to moody atmospheric numbers far more than it does the more beat-driven dancefloor-based material. "Tree Of Knowledge" sounds like lurching brostep recorded to a tape deck via a microphone pressed against laptop speakers to my ears.
― boxedjoy, Friday, 8 June 2012 10:06 (11 months ago) Permalink
R.I.P. is going to save the lives of so many cracked-out kids, you know at 4am when the drugs won't let you sleep and no music sounds right - this will be the only album they can listen to
very "selected ambient works" imo
vahid otm
― hot slag (lukas), Sunday, 20 January 2013 09:33 (4 months ago) Permalink
whenever I listen to this it feels like a watered down version of madlib beat tapes, I wish I could get into it because in theory this is like my favorite shit
― puff puff post (uh oh I'm having a fantasy), Sunday, 20 January 2013 18:03 (4 months ago) Permalink
which madlib beat tapes are these?
― bass, Sunday, 20 January 2013 20:24 (4 months ago) Permalink
I love this record. Keep coming back to it.
― Hutton dressed as Lahm (LocalGarda), Sunday, 20 January 2013 20:32 (4 months ago) Permalink
new 12" "silver cloud" is some beautiful sinister fuzzed out fucked-up mutant techno
― clouds, Friday, 25 January 2013 23:51 (3 months ago) Permalink
is it as good as the la dusseldorf track of the same name
― moët plaudit (Nilmar Honorato da Silva), Friday, 25 January 2013 23:56 (3 months ago) Permalink
Yeah this is great - nice to have some longer tracks from him.
― toby, Saturday, 26 January 2013 06:54 (3 months ago) Permalink
"voodoo posse chronic illusion" is so so good
― keef qua keef (Jordan), Friday, 15 February 2013 15:50 (3 months ago) Permalink
yep
a new afx album would be nice but actress is kinda supplanting the old 90s greats imo
― polski smak (clouds), Friday, 15 February 2013 16:00 (3 months ago) Permalink
still unsure how I've listened to and enjoyed this dude's music for over two years but only found out a few weeks ago that he played professionally for West Brom
― Julian-Joachim Roedelius (DJ Mencap), Friday, 15 February 2013 16:19 (3 months ago) Permalink
― keef qua keef (Jordan), Friday, February 15, 2013 3:50 PM (2 hours ago) Bookmark
absolutely addicted to this at the moment
― Number None, Friday, 15 February 2013 18:11 (3 months ago) Permalink
Even more intriguingly, it’s known that Cunningham was previously a footballer due to embark on a career with West Bromwich Albion, before injury forced him to retire from the sport at the age of 19 (a “crushing decision to make,” he says). What business, our inner snob demands to know, could a one-time professional hoofer of balls have making music as obtuse, as formally brilliant as this?
had no idea about this, rmde at the pleb who wrote that anyway
― every soulless meta poster is a ✰ (Nilmar Honorato da Silva), Saturday, 16 February 2013 03:03 (3 months ago) Permalink
http://peterkempsrecordreviews.blogspot.co.uk/2011/08/actress-harrier-attk-gershwin-roy.html
also found this charming review by some pensioner
― every soulless meta poster is a ✰ (Nilmar Honorato da Silva), Saturday, 16 February 2013 03:04 (3 months ago) Permalink
Remixes of Legowelt: https://soundcloud.com/clone-nl/legowelt-elementz-of-houz
― Chewshabadoo, Saturday, 16 February 2013 03:06 (3 months ago) Permalink
his boiler room mix is still my all time favorite dj mix
― the late great, Saturday, 16 February 2013 03:29 (3 months ago) Permalink