Techno/House Bobbins of the past

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