New Burial album. More info?

"I should say I know nothing of music mention on this here, except I have 'the Roots of Dubstep' and both 'Box of Dub' albums; yet I have learn much from reading this thread. I was wondering what is the music on the Soul Jazz Compilation 'Rumble in the Jungle' showcasing? How does it fit into Jungle/D&B/2step/grime etc.. Also where would one start if I were to explore 2step, I think I would be more inclined to like it.

-- JacobSanders"

"rumble in the jungle" is what is generally referred to as "ragga jungle". the stuff on that comp is from 90-95 and shows the progression of reggae influence from hardcore into jungle. some good stuff on there, not necessarily the best stuff in the genre, but they put on some of my favorites ("under mi sensi" jungle mix!). there are probably some other slskable ragga jungle comps for more specific periods of time in there, 95 was kind of the heyday really.

i think this is a good intro to 2-step:

http://www.discogs.com/release/73083

lots of variety in producers and sounds, lots and lots of anthems. there were alot of good 2-step comps though, and lots of good songs!

"But maybe its true--what if Burial, who is coded white and well educated, is afraid of something in the ugly & promiscuous & vibrantly pulsating street? If he is, then isn't his sin inauthenticity? Distance from where its really at? Is it possible to make it sound rudeboy when you are just posing? Do his sounds fail on these terms always, necessarily, cuz of--cultural disconnect?

-- walter benjamin"

i dont doubt that there is some of this going on, definitely a lot of it happened in the move from jungle to drum and bass. but i dont think burial is doing that kind of thing either. if anything, the cultural disconnect is because the music he is making probably appeals more to an older crowd who remembers the music he likes than whatever the younger crowd is doing, that is just a symptom of the hyper-accelerated dubplate culture mentality inherent in these kinds of music.

d'n'b guys never really got into garage so when they moved across to making dubstep their beat 'roots' weren't in the stuttery, staggered type of 2 step style so it was much easier to just slow their tunes down and clone the halfstep to suit...

"d'n'b guys never really got into garage"

!! What on earth are you basing this one on.

"But maybe its true--what if Burial, who is coded white and well educated, is afraid of something in the ugly & promiscuous & vibrantly pulsating street? If he is, then isn't his sin inauthenticity? Distance from where its really at? Is it possible to make it sound rudeboy when you are just posing? Do his sounds fail on these terms always, necessarily, cuz of--cultural disconnect"

An absence of flavour isn't a necessary outcome of some sort of metaphysical relationship to the streets, it's a contingent musical outcome based on the choices a producer makes. I'd have no idea whether Burial is more or less street than other dubstep producers, other 2-step producers. Why should that form some potential barrier to the possibility of his music being good? The above quote implies that there is some sort of customs that the music has to pass through on the way from the record towards your ears where the artist has to prove their credentials before anything you hear in their music can be taken seriously.

Why on earth is every single discussion about dubstep so obsessed by such things? Why must even ILM discussions of dubstep end up mimicking tiresomely the same issues that are obsessed over in Dissensus discussions?

i'm going to go out on a limb here and say maybe its because of problems at the heart of the idea of "hardcore continuum"?

Hmm maybe, except that the notion of continuum is so obviously clearly about the audience, whereas under the weird dissensian nu-rockist twist it suddenly becomes about the creator.

Possibly the cult of personality that grew up around grime is partially to blame.

One of the great things about 2-step is that no-one knew or cared who chancers like Dubaholics, the Wideboys, United Grooves Collective or Club Asylum actually were. They just made amazing tunes.

well see that's the problem. if you're going to build a music theory around "THIS is the sound of the council estate" then you're going to have new zealanders and new englanders (and californians and australians and middle-class brits and whoever else is at enough of a remove) eliding their idea of the audience and the creator and whatever they perceive is the population of the council estate

i'm not really sure what makes this elision possible except the lazy faux-ethnography of dissensian music criticism?

Yeah that makes sense actually.

Hey Vahid I'm not sure if you saw my comment in the french house thread but i've been crushing on your jess & Crabbe CDs again. So good!

I want to start a DJ night where I play:
- full on Crydamoure french house sliding into Jess & Crabbe --> Basement Jaxx hardcore b-sides
- New Horizons style speed garage
- Only the best in early Wild Pitch/Foremost Poets style dark Nu Groove/Strictly Rhythm stuff
- Aaron Carl and similar

"ruffhouse"

:D

Srsly though I think that New Horizons' miniscule output is probably the centre of my aesthetic universe.

"Hmm maybe, except that the notion of continuum is so obviously clearly about the audience, whereas under the weird dissensian nu-rockist twist it suddenly becomes about the creator.

One of the great things about 2-step is that no-one knew or cared who chancers like Dubaholics, the Wideboys, United Grooves Collective or Club Asylum actually were. They just made amazing tunes.

-- Tim F"

music is always about the creator. otherwise every record would have an equal chance of being good, and that isn't the case at all. caring about who specifically an individual is is irrelevent, it only matters that there is an individual making that music and that they are good at doing it.

amazing that "scrap iron dubs" never made it onto CD anywhere.

music is always about the creator

what does "about" mean

otherwise every record would have an equal chance of being good

i'm not an actuary

and that isn't the case at all

so some music has a better "chance" of being good? are you a music actuary, or a music listener?

caring about who specifically an individual is is irrelevent

why? how else should we care about individuals, if not in specific? should we think about individuals abstractly? why is it irrelevant to know who a musician is? if individuals are irrelevant, why do you harp on about "theo and omar" (first names only, thanks) so much? why bother to interview omar s at all?

it only matters that there is an individual making that music and that they are good at doing it

why does this matter? why not just say that it matters that the music is good? or that omar s made a good song by accident, does that matter too? what if a song is bad, does that matter?

"amazing that "scrap iron dubs" never made it onto CD anywhere.

-- moonship journey to baja"

it made it onto mix CDs in my car mixed by me ;)

big FUCKING WHOOP you FUCKING MICROBE

your problem, pipecock, is that you seem entirely too obsessed with figuring out which music is GOOD and which music is BAD.

i've noticed that very rarely do you talk about your reaction to music. have you forgotten how to say "I ENJOYED this music", instead it's always like "THIS MUSIC is GOOD because THE MUSIC makes THOSE PEOPLE freak out out on the dancefloor".

if music is BAD (trance) then it's BAD because THOSE PEOPLE (white suburban trance fans?) like THAT BAD MUSIC (trance?) and because THAT BAD MUSIC is not related to THAT GOOD MUSIC (soul + r+b + reggae + tribal drums)

even when you do have reactions to music, it's always couched in the song as an object (that song is DEEP, that song is OBVIOUS, that song is FODDER, those beats are WICKED, the energy is IN THERE) or the creator as an object ("i knew that he had been listening to the same things i had" or "i thought he was almost there but not quite" or "they could no longer be successful doing that kind of stuff. that was a huge problem for me")

and you NEVER EVER EVER talk about the creator or listener as a subject with desires, the only time you even talk about desires is when you say "i always wanted to mix it up, play old shit, new shit of different styles, etc", but why is never clear, you just parrot the tired-ass disco/house mythology of "people have been dancing to that shit for over 30 years. and in many cases, THE SAME people have been dancing to it for that long, the old the new and everything in between."

which is true of lawrence welk, and true at the renaissance faire (dancing to the same beat for 500 years!), and you never EVER interrogate why, you just repeat the same tired-ass line ...

and god forbid you NEVER EVER talk about "this was OBVIOUS to ME because I am like THIS" or "this was OBNOXIOUS to ME because I am like this", you never even bother to consider the point of view of view or the subjectivity of the other, the person to whom 2-step garage might not be obvious, or obnoxious, or fodder, or even why they might want to make that, or why an obvious experience might be a deep one (see rob themco's awe-inspiring breakdown of JME's "tropical" mixtape)

i mean it makes me SPITTING MAD that you people waste blog-length typing sessions making nonsensical declarative sentences, that you've talked for what seems like 300 posts (time doesn't fly when you're not having fun) and i still don't know a damn thing about you our what makes your taste the way it is, hell, i don't even understand your taste because all i know about your taste is the nonsensical dogmas that it's wrapped in ("this record is DEEP and that record is FODDER")

"music is always about the creator

what does "about" mean"

i mean that a scene is a scene, but the artist is always the most important part. 100000 people can like a bad record, and 10 people can like a good record, the records are still the same.

"otherwise every record would have an equal chance of being good

i'm not an actuary

and that isn't the case at all

so some music has a better "chance" of being good? are you a music actuary, or a music listener?"

yes, music made by good artists has a much better chance of being good than music made by some joker who is trying to make tracks to get pussy or to look cool or whatever. not that these are mutually exclusive, but surely you get the point. good tracks are not made randomly (though some people get lucky once!), so what that has to do with an audience is beyond me.

"caring about who specifically an individual is is irrelevent

why? how else should we care about individuals, if not in specific? should we think about individuals abstractly? why is it irrelevant to know who a musician is? if individuals are irrelevant, why do you harp on about "theo and omar" (first names only, thanks) so much? why bother to interview omar s at all?"

the point is that their name is meaningless. really, knowing anything about them is nearly irrelevent, but its interesting for people who like the music to know. knowing the person's name doesnt make their music better or worse. but their individuality, that which makes them different from joe blow down the street who makes garbage music, is indeed very important in the abstract sense.

"it only matters that there is an individual making that music and that they are good at doing it

why does this matter? why not just say that it matters that the music is good? or that omar s made a good song by accident, does that matter too? what if a song is bad, does that matter?

-- moonship journey to baja"

its quite possible for one hit wonders to exist, maybe even a few two hit wonders. but if someone gets it right a large percentage of the time, it is no longer luck. music doesnt make itself, it comes from someone. the great artists are what made jungle and 2-step great. though there were plenty of decent one hit wonder type records, great labels and great artists led the way every time. just look at how many innovations in the music came from Metalheadz, Good Looking, Movin Shadow, Locked On, Public Demand, Social Circles, etc.

see you can't even talk about the listener!! you start to in the first thread but then it turns into drivel about the "great artists".

i mean the first sentence

good tracks are not made randomly (though some people get lucky once!), so what that has to do with an audience is beyond me

^^ where is the SUBJECT you MORANS

tbh though, i can understand how the sort of thing pipecock's on about forms as a kneejerk assumption, however lightly or tightly it ends up being held. tim's lament a coupla posts up seems all idealistically nourishing only until you have to think about glossing over, christ i dunno, shadetek in nyc uselessly sticking their oar into grime, or grime kids doing likewise for nyc mixtape rappers, or years of crap american junglists, or what the fuck ever. (spoiled house dudes be panglossian!!)

having said that, it's only really an issue when these producers expect their stuff to slot right in to the context concerned with no consideration of how their own context's informed/malformed the tune. this isn't something i can charge burial with, in this partic case; i can however judge him on those terms, like tim did a million posts above, if they're the ones that float my boat. although tim didn't do that either did he, he judged them on burial's reception from people who weren't operating on those terms, and this is also what jealous partisan peoples afraid of their scene's misrepresentation are doing, albeit with way too much angry angry angst for any sane person to stomach.

xp sigh this thread goes way too fast

"big FUCKING WHOOP you FUCKING MICROBE

your problem, pipecock, is that you seem entirely too obsessed with figuring out which music is GOOD and which music is BAD."

i guess i could spend more time looking for mediocre crap like most people seem to!

i like and listen to all kinds of music. i know that is trite to say in 2007, but that doesnt make it any less true. i am interested in those techno records that are effective techno records based on what techno music does. i am not interested in what a rock-centered person thinks about techno because he is listening to different things. what i am all about is twisting my perception of things to fit the different music and the styles of listening necessary to appreciate those different musics. once you understand the genre, you can judge pretty easily whether something is effective or not, whether it is good or bad. i am not flawless at this, only more time listening to more music will make me better able to make these judgements.

"i've noticed that very rarely do you talk about your reaction to music. have you forgotten how to say "I ENJOYED this music", instead it's always like "THIS MUSIC is GOOD because THE MUSIC makes THOSE PEOPLE freak out out on the dancefloor"."

nah, its not all about dancefloor reaction for me. it certainly helps when youre making dance music in particular though!

"if music is BAD (trance) then it's BAD because THOSE PEOPLE (white suburban trance fans?) like THAT BAD MUSIC (trance?) and because THAT BAD MUSIC is not related to THAT GOOD MUSIC (soul + r+b + reggae + tribal drums)"

the only reason people listen to bad music is because alot of good music is difficult. most people can recognize what makes a good pop song, even if it is not to their taste. way way fewer know what makes a jazz song good or bad, since relatively few even understand HOW to listen to jazz to make that value judgement. trance is easy for non-dance music people to understand because it maps out all the emotion for you. it builds up with a drum roll, people are supposed to get excited. whoop-dee-fucking-doo.

"even when you do have reactions to music, it's always couched in the song as an object or the creator as an object"

i cannot read minds, can you? i cannot speak for exactly what drives any creative person. in fact, im not sure i would really want to know. its like the concept of being shown something vs being told it. i dont want to be told anything, be it in writing, film, or music. effective art can do that and people can arrive at the same place without knowing exactly what got them there. THAT IS WHAT INTERESTS ME!

"and you NEVER EVER EVER talk about the creator or listener as a subject with desires, the only time you even talk about desires is when you say "i always wanted to mix it up, play old shit, new shit of different styles, etc", but why is never clear, you just parrot the tired-ass disco/house mythology of "people have been dancing to that shit for over 30 years. and in many cases, THE SAME people have been dancing to it for that long, the old the new and everything in between.""

i believe i have said (numerous times in this thread alone, in fact) that i am interested in what makes music timeless, what makes certain pieces able to speak to people over long periods of time and across many cultures. this is the true power of any art! i can only speak for what i have deduced from my experiences, and how i manage to apply what i have learned to what i do and what the experiences i expect from it and receive from it are like.

"which is true of lawrence welk, and true at the renaissance faire (dancing to the same beat for 500 years!), and you never EVER interrogate why, you just repeat the same tired-ass line ..."

i dont think that music crosses the cultural lines quite so obviously. folk musics in general are pretty interesting because they are the result of one specific culture evolving over a long period of time. i am way more interested though in the huge appeal that african american music has and has had since the music has been exported over the last 100 years or so. something in there speaks to people, it has been called "soul". the ideas, techniques, and whatever else leads to that power in expression is my primary interest. i like all kinds of music, but that is what i focus on.

"and god forbid you NEVER EVER talk about "this was OBVIOUS to ME because I am like THIS" or "this was OBNOXIOUS to ME because I am like this", you never even bother to consider the point of view of view or the subjectivity of the other, the person to whom 2-step garage might not be obvious, or obnoxious, or fodder, or even why they might want to make that, or why an obvious experience might be a deep one (see rob themco's awe-inspiring breakdown of JME's "tropical" mixtape)

-- moonship journey to baja"

a 2-step record can be heard by 10,000,000 people, but only those who know how to understand the music can really say anything definitive about it. what interested me about this Burial record is the fact that for one album, THIS IS NOT TRUE. that is truly astounding! that is something that should be of great interest to anyone interested in this music! music that is uncompromising, yet appeals to people who should not be able to understand it under the limited conditions of its genre that they know nothing about.

this doesnt happen all that frequently, but when it does, i love it and i like to see exactly what it is that causes nonsense perceptions that people have to no longer matter. house music especially was very interesting to me because it was so wild and avant-garde and diverse, yet populist at the same time! that level of effectiveness is what i strive for in music. i want to be able to do all sorts of craziness, and have people understand it without having to do anything. is it possible? maybe not, but that is what i am pursuing.

the great artists are what made jungle and 2-step great

^^ NO PIPECOCK NO

its like what happens with deep house, where at some point a 110 BPM dirty disco loop repeated ad nauseum that would be a boring listen at best and isnt even considered "house" music by some people will cause a near riot, the energy is in there but it is just "deep", its not simplistic dancefloor fodder like jungle or 2-step can often be

^^

see you contradict yourself here, here the music is great because it makes an imaginary third person dance, not the music is great because of the creator

but you are WRONG, the ENERGY is not in the record, the ENERGY is in the AUDIENCE, the ENERGY is in YOU, pipecock, and your childlike belief in them, and your childlike belief in your own powers as an arbiter of taste.

and you know what's fucked up is that i sort of respect this, even though you haven't even got that freshman-in-college level of courage to closely examine what makes this possible, what you think gives you the power to tell apart the quality of music that makes 100000 people dance (say, the macarena or a haddaway song) versus the "dirty disco loops" that "will cause a near riot" for theo parrish fans

and i would even give you a pass, and let you continue that claim that what is subjective is actually objective, like everyone else does on ILX, except that *unlike* many other people on ILX (and like some other very tiresome people on this and many other dance threads and boards) you're not even willing to give us the *tiniest* glimpse of any sort of process or any sort of active engagement with this music, it's just endless declarative sentences about the perceived qualities of music without any sense of the perceiver's role in all of this

listening to you talk about music is like watching a fucking robot sorting out defective peanuts at the factory (this one passes ... this one passes ... this one FAILS BZZZZT ... this one passes ...) crossed with watching a homeless person theorize about the world trade center, it's that same endless confusion of CAUSES with EFFECTS (oh right, it's the "great artists" and their internal greatness that makes them great, not the fans, nothing behind this curtain) and vice-versae

makes ME want to PUKE, SIR

me: your problem, pipecock, is that you seem entirely too obsessed with figuring out which music is GOOD and which music is BAD."

you: i am not flawless at this only more time listening to more music will make me better able to make these judgements

QED!

the only reason people listen to bad music is because alot of good music is difficult

QED again AND you're a prick!

i cannot read minds, can you?

you should be able to read, and speak for, your own, rather than speaking for tens of thousands of listeners, as you did upthread?

its like the concept of being shown something vs being told it. i dont want to be told anything, be it in writing, film, or music

ah, but you have no problem telling me what is good music and what is bad music, and when you try to show me how or why, you show me imaginary dancefloors and imaginary "deep" listeners that have the secret knowledge to unlock the music that teenagers and grandmas and dubstep fans don't, but you can't even SHOW me how it affects YOU, you can just refer to your credentials ("i dj'ed with scrap iron dubs back in 2001!") and endless strawmen and endless fake musicology

i guess i understand now why geir winds people up so bad??

I blame myself partially for this, but why is the IDM list inside this thread? :(

"the great artists are what made jungle and 2-step great

^^ NO PIPECOCK NO"

so what was? the crappy quality white label bootlegs? some of those were amusing, but i mean the level of nonsense crap (both legal and illegal releases) was no different from any other genre. it all works out the same in any kind of music, some people are good at making it, most are trash.

"see you contradict yourself here, here the music is great because it makes an imaginary third person dance, not the music is great because of the creator"

exactly wrong. im not sure how you could get that out of that statement. the meaning of that statement is that PEOPLE MAY HAVE NO IDEA HOW TO EVEN JUDGE WHETHER MUSIC IS GOOD OR BAD UNTIL THEY EXPERIENCE IT THE WAY IT IS MEANT TO BE EXPERIENCED. its like listening to gabber when youre trying to go to sleep, will any of it be particularly useful? nah.

"but you are WRONG, the ENERGY is not in the record, the ENERGY is in the AUDIENCE, the ENERGY is in YOU, pipecock, and your childlike belief in them, and your childlike belief in your own powers as an arbiter of taste."

then why is every deejay night/music show of any sort not a rip roaring party? if the energy is in the people, why doesnt it just come out?

"and you know what's fucked up is that i sort of respect this, even though you haven't even got that freshman-in-college level of courage to closely examine what makes this possible, what you think gives you the power to tell apart the quality of music that makes 100000 people dance (say, the macarena or a haddaway song) versus the "dirty disco loops" that "will cause a near riot" for theo parrish fans"

what gives anyone any greater knowledge about anything that someone else? years of study, obsessive desire to learn all i can, years of hard work, etc etc.

one of the best things about theo parrish records, and the reason i am so interested in his music in particular, is the fact that when placed properly in a set by a deejay who knows what they are doing, those records tear up people who have no fucking clue about dance music. i've seen it happen many times with different deejays, ive even used them like that myself more than a few times. the problem is that outside of that moment they are made for, im not sure how easy it is for most people to understand WHY that repetition and dirtiness is such a good thing.

"and i would even give you a pass, and let you continue that claim that what is subjective is actually objective, like everyone else does on ILX, except that *unlike* many other people on ILX (and like some other very tiresome people on this and many other dance threads and boards) you're not even willing to give us the *tiniest* glimpse of any sort of process or any sort of active engagement with this music, it's just endless declarative sentences about the perceived qualities of music without any sense of the perceiver's role in all of this"

i just made a whole post about this. happy?

"listening to you talk about music is like watching a fucking robot sorting out defective peanuts at the factory (this one passes ... this one passes ... this one FAILS BZZZZT ... this one passes ...) crossed with watching a homeless person theorize about the world trade center, it's that same endless confusion of CAUSES with EFFECTS (oh right, it's the "great artists" and their internal greatness that makes them great, not the fans, nothing behind this curtain) and vice-versae

makes ME want to PUKE, SIR

-- moonship journey to baja"

puke, then!

BITCH, PLEASE

then why is every deejay night/music show of any sort not a rip roaring party? if the energy is in the people, why doesnt it just come out?

it does fool, it does, it doesn't need years of study, it doesn't need obsessive desire to learn, it doesn't need years of hard work, it doesn't need theo parrish or a schooled DJ with theo parrish records

all you need is a wedding + a grandma

"yes, music made by good artists has a much better chance of being good than music made by some joker who is trying to make tracks to get pussy or to look cool or whatever. not that these are mutually exclusive, but surely you get the point. good tracks are not made randomly (though some people get lucky once!), so what that has to do with an audience is beyond me."

Apart from all the objections Vahid raised (which I cosign), what always confuses me about this it implies that the easiest way to get a sense of whether a record is good is to track down its maker and ask if he or she was only doing it for pussy, or perhaps arranging a poll amongst a selection of good citizens to determine whether its maker is in fact one the "great artists and great labels".

How about listening to the record, and describing what you hear and how it makes you feel? Surely this is the first and most important component in responding to (and judging) a record? Surely we can only say that Locked On was a "great label" because we listened to and thought about what tunes like "Destiny" and "Straight From The Heart" and "All I Know" and "Neighbourhood" and "U&I" and "Here Come The Lick" and "Down Down Down Biznizz" were actually doing??

""tbh though, i can understand how the sort of thing pipecock's on about forms as a kneejerk assumption, however lightly or tightly it ends up being held. tim's lament a coupla posts up seems all idealistically nourishing only until you have to think about glossing over, christ i dunno, shadetek in nyc uselessly sticking their oar into grime, or grime kids doing likewise for nyc mixtape rappers, or years of crap american junglists, or what the fuck ever. (spoiled house dudes be panglossian!!)"

I tend to think, though, that the realisation that you don't need to keep up with American jungle or American grime (or bad UK versions of US rap) can be gleaned directly from the music itself. I mean, how else do these realisations get formed? If Shadetek's meddling in grime resulted in good music from your perspective i imagine you'd be less inclined to hold his Americanness against him.

I'm not going to say that it's as likely for good 2-step or grime to come out of the US or Australia as it is from the UK. It's just not. But the failure of such records doesn't need their dubious heritage to be known in order to be evident - you can hear it in the music. Conversely I think there are examples of people breaking the rules and actually making good records against these odds all the time - hence house dudes being spoiled! Who knew the French would be so good at house? Should we have legislated to stop them trying at some point in the early 90s, just on principle?

In retrospect you can look at these records whether success or failures and make a call about the contribution of the artist's identity to that success/failure, but there's no necessary outcome, even if sometimes the stats (e.g. the number of great US jungle records) make it look that way.

Also, the moment people start thinking too much about "realness" (or any similar concept), they actually drag their ears away from this truth - the concept just becomes all-conquering and progressively stamps out subtlety and nuance. One of the things I always loved about the use of "real" on Spizzazzz was this sense that (at least to me) it expressed some totally contradictory and layered notion about an artist being in the right place at the right time and in the right frame of mind to make a record that other people weren't game to (e.g. the "realness" of a major label R&B singer making a fabulous ballad). But the realness flows from the quality of the record rather than the other way round.

"me: your problem, pipecock, is that you seem entirely too obsessed with figuring out which music is GOOD and which music is BAD."

you: i am not flawless at this only more time listening to more music will make me better able to make these judgements

QED!

the only reason people listen to bad music is because alot of good music is difficult

QED again AND you're a prick!"

did i ever say i wasn't a prick? ask me if i give a shit what you or anyone else thinks of me. i just do my thing.

"you should be able to read, and speak for, your own, rather than speaking for tens of thousands of listeners, as you did upthread?"

and when did i do that?

"ah, but you have no problem telling me what is good music and what is bad music, and when you try to show me how or why, you show me imaginary dancefloors and imaginary "deep" listeners that have the secret knowledge to unlock the music that teenagers and grandmas and dubstep fans don't, but you can't even SHOW me how it affects YOU, you can just refer to your credentials ("i dj'ed with scrap iron dubs back in 2001!") and endless strawmen and endless fake musicology

-- moonship journey to baja"

this relates almost directly to a comment i made in the "Your Last Paradigm Shift" thread: i can't force you to be able to understand music you don't understand. and as i said upthread (also numerous times!), what is great about what music does is that it communicates things that cannot be put into words. maybe you like the stream of consciousness crapola that comes out when people try to explain that (i dont!), or maybe youre interested in people criticising music on technical merits or something (irrelevent). i cant say. all i know is that when something moves me, it moves me. i dont prefer to analyse it any more than trying to understand WHY.

i cite my credentials because that is what is important. i am not analysing 2-step through rose colored glasses from a time that is way beyond it happening. i was as much in it as i could be from the US, i was one of the 3 people in my city trying to make people think outside their boxes and understand something that was a little different.

"it does fool, it does, it doesn't need years of study, it doesn't need obsessive desire to learn, it doesn't need years of hard work, it doesn't need theo parrish or a schooled DJ with theo parrish records

all you need is a wedding + a grandma

-- moonship journey to baja"

so why go to clubs at all? why care what music you listen to or what the venue is like or anything else? why not just turn on FM radio in your room and go nuts???? why can't you make a value judgement even on the quality of nights out that OBVIOUSLY are not equal? my guess is youve never had a music experience that truly blew your mind.

LOL

still waiting for those thomas pipecock CDRs, yes

j/k, i have, it was called "crazy frog"

"Apart from all the objections Vahid raised (which I cosign), what always confuses me about this it implies that the easiest way to get a sense of whether a record is good is to track down its maker and ask if he or she was only doing it for pussy, or perhaps arranging a poll amongst a selection of good citizens to determine whether its maker is in fact one the "great artists and great labels"."

nah, i think it is almost always going to be obvious from the final product. if you concentrate solely on making great music, it seems that will come out. if you are worried about other things, thats when things go wrong. its obvious when you look at bands whose first album is awesome, when they had something they were really trying to say. and then once they were comfortable and had less to say, their music declines. art without expression ends up being bad art, almost always.

"How about listening to the record, and describing what you hear and how it makes you feel? Surely this is the first and most important component in responding to (and judging) a record? Surely we can only say that Locked On was a "great label" because we listened to and thought about what tunes like "Destiny" and "Straight From The Heart" and "All I Know" and "Neighbourhood" and "U&I" and "Here Come The Lick" and "Down Down Down Biznizz" were actually doing??"

but they were not doing the same things! the funny thing about it, is that there is no blanket statement for what makes a record great. it can be some arrangement, some melodic/harmonic composition, some mood, some atmosphere, some texture, etc etc etc. each one does it in its own combination of those elements. but what doesnt change is the fact that the people making them were somehow inspired to make something that was great and will remain so. unless you think it is all luck and randomness in a large group of peoples' perceptions?

"I'm not going to say that it's as likely for good 2-step or grime to come out of the US or Australia as it is from the UK. It's just not. But the failure of such records doesn't need their dubious heritage to be known in order to be evident - you can hear it in the music."

!!!!!!!!!!!

that is my point EXACTLY! and the point ive been trying to drive home here! you might not even be able to specify in words what is "wrong" with that kind of music, but you can hear that something ain't right. and the same is true for the good music!

"Conversely I think there are examples of people breaking the rules and actually making good records against these odds all the time - hence house dudes being spoiled! Who knew the French would be so good at house? Should we have legislated to stop them trying at some point in the early 90s, just on principle?"

i will say that a listen to daft punk's "teachers" shows why they were so good. they understood the music from being taught by the records that mattered. and i think you can say the same thing about pepe braddock (who plays all kinds of detroit, NYC, and chicago techno and house when he deejays!) as well as some others. but how many copycat french filter house tracks were there where those people DIDN'T have that knowledge and understanding that have gone by the wayside? way more than there were good ones!

"In retrospect you can look at these records whether success or failures and make a call about the contribution of the artist's identity to that success/failure, but there's no necessary outcome, even if sometimes the stats (e.g. the number of great US jungle records) make it look that way."

there is no NECESSARY outcome, but it is almost too easy to predict. the number of people who can make good music without a good background in the music is very very small.

"But the realness flows from the quality of the record rather than the other way round.

-- Tim F"

but the quality of the record relies on the songwriter's skill, the performer's skill, and the performer's performance! the record does not become good in a vacuum!

"still waiting for those thomas pipecock CDRs, yes

-- moonship journey to baja"

if you want some mixes, they are available on my blog.

So I got a certain something in the mail today. And I have my doubts.

Ned, you will never hear the sound of recorded crackling vinyl the same ever again. The humanity.

I...I see a darkness.

tim i absolutely agree obv! i am just saying that i can see how the statistics can come to fog up people's glasses over in prolonged and wearying practice, is all. and yeah, plenty of great tunes have been made when outsiders have brought their own perspectives to the table. and usually the failures of foreign producers are down to an overthunk realness, too. uuuuunless of course they attain the prized rarity of the SUPER REAL that an indigenous type is too close to see - uh oh this is what p-cock is saying haha

i promise i've thought this position out over a long period of time, i'm not just making it up as i go along!

geir has been around forever also

so many dudes on soulstrut think like this, its v. frustrating

Having any kind of critical thought about the music is very refreshing after an hour or two of reading people in financial relationships with each other big each other up on the Dubstep forum.

Whoops, stepped back into the clusterfuck.

I'm surprised that more of those guys on Soulstrut aren't into deep house, you'd think the leap from J Dilla to Moodymann wouldn't be that huge.

Of course some of these guys still use the expression "new jack" as a diss, so the antipathy for house is only what 20 odd years old now?

there have been like 8 threads on moodymann there in the past couple months

Alright I either need to stop half heartedly lurking, or show up when the good conversations are happening.

I thought I saw one maybe.

Apologies.

10 years ago somewhere:

"Having any kind of critical thought about the music is very refreshing after an hour or two of reading people in financial relationships with each other big each other up on the IDM forum.

Whoops, stepped back into the clusterfuck."