teengirl fantasy, miracles club, mi ami, 100% silk and the rise of HIPSTER HOUSE: S/D

yeah, for sure, guess I just wanted to note the distinction since I'm see a lot of merit in some of the stuff, and 'hipster' does have its connotations... but yeah I see where you're coming from. xxxxpost

I don't mind being a hipster! I just like to break down how the term works in particular cases b/c it's got a million different meanings.

Especially considering it's broadest meaning is basically people younger than the speaker who aren't bogans.

said elsewhere on ilx, but I kind of know one of these dudes

you know a hipster?

'this stuff was covered already on the chillwave thread' - some annoyed msgbrdr

chillwave i love you but i've chosen hipster house

I like this...does that make me bad and dirty?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EghSZ232Fgc

chillwave i love you but i've chosen hipster house

honestly i love this stuff too, time passes, the world keepsss spinning

if the latest dominant legs 7" counts then i want to mention it itt

^ the dominant legs track i found sounds like fairly standard indie-dance fare but maybe it's not the one you're referring to?

i like the idea of a more diy/release-heavy approach to dance music. plus, this stuff is dfa-level cheap on vinyl in the us

it's outrageously expensive by the time it gets to the UK (like £11 for a 12") but this might have something to do with Phonica and fucking Volcanic Tongue being two of the main folks carrying it

I like the Mi Ami 'Dolphins' EP a whole bunch, ditto the Ital mix for FACT, but this ish is largely out of my price range right now for the most part

A lot of the Teengirl Fantasy album sounded really hamfistedly produced to me, even when the tunes were there, you got the sense that the producers weren't really comfortable or natural enough in their approach to the music to really take off.

Love the Talabot remix of Cheaters though. Not heard any of the rest of these guys, don't really want to.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0UiUHmH4Ctc

Agree that the Teengirl Fantasy album was weak overall, especially compared with the epic Cheaters original and the John Talabot remix.

Actually, Talabot holds an interesting place in this, he links up a set of coordinates mentioned already. Especially on his XLR8R mix, which connects Tri Angle (Altered Zones fave) to 100% Silk to Permanent Vacation, for instance.

i wish some of these artists would take mastering and pressing quality a little more seriously as they often sound dreadful on a club system.

I sort of agree somehow, although this is obviously the most ridiculous complaint for something like a sublabel of NNF! I actually played out a track from the Maria Minerva and it was a mess on a big system, unsurprisingly. This means that the stuff probably is geared toward live performance, rather than DJing at the moment, which is a sort of rock-ist frame, but also emerges around the cultural politics of distribution that these labels are involved with. Lo-fi as a critical stance to the free content of network culture. Now that I think of it this way, probably doesn't belong at all in the bobbins thread.

Besides all that, I have to say, what I'm constantly drawn to is how tracky a lot of this stuff is (I think that was also mentioned up thread). Maybe this is something other than Tim's hipster house definition based on the distancing effects and retro-stylistics.

i'm patently too dance-ist.

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-aALlMKcIB40/Toy6YjmhglI/AAAAAAAAADw/aVI1RWY7-jk/s1600/novembersilk.jpg

ha i'm glad this stuff has been delineated here, i had no idea it was a...thing. certainly didn't know miracles club were in it - they're (she's?) the only act mentioned with a song i really love ("light of love"), i'd just assumed it was some faceless balearic re-edity dude. i like the talabot remix of teengirl fantasy too but it's not a scene that appeals in any way.

Errr... is it a scene though? I feel like it might just be a thing at this point ;)

(Also, this is great):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X-ZZhXYmmdA

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EnRKb_KS3as

truth is i never listen to this stuff after i see the artist names

DOMINANT LEGS?

i mean, how can a single live up to a name like that?

great thread! aside from the usual debate on nomenclature I’m into it

would bookmark

it's hilarious that on a website dedicated to talking about music people seem to be getting more and more allergic to actually talking about music

i mean, what's wrong with a debate on nomenclature? in chemistry, there are professors whose only job is to worry about nomenclature, and whether a new compound should be classified as being in this group or that group.

I think it's the specific nomenclature that people are trying to stave off here rather than nomenclature in general

ok. why this specific nomenclature?

Yeah it’s just LOL hipster _____ that gets everyone all shook

It’s nbd really

the lack of interest many artists itt have in mastering this stuff so that it sounds good in dance clubs is interesting to me

on one hand it does limit the potential for exposure through traditional dance channels but on the other hand doesn't it also kind of foster the kind of air of exclusivity these people are used to using to market themselves

100% silk's use of the 12" format i think is an appeal directly from collectors to collectors, the fascination with house or disco probably being sparked by collecting old music rather than by going out and hearing it in clubs, the archival activities of the internet, used record shops, and reissue campaigns usurping the role of the dj in exposing people to the music. the idea of tailoring records to the needs of DJs and club culture probably seems bizarre to them, allowing outsiders to share in the revenue streams coming from music that from the point of view of the people making it exists completely outside contemporary club culture

the name hipster house is maybe not the greatest name but i get the impression that taking this stuff out of the bobbins thread would be entirely in line with the interests of the people making it

good analysis ... i think my favorite stuff is def the stuff that fits the needs of club culture, "ital's theme" and "church song" in particular

the rest of it seems sort of ... labored

btw in the church song video is that adam forkner in the white varsity jacket behind hottie owens?

I gotta say that I picked up the first two Ital 12"s because I liked the idea of where the continuation of Black Eyes --> Mi Ami --> House-ish stuff would lead. Unfortunately, I've felt a bit nonplussed. With each new release it feels like just pulling from some point in dance music's past, making the recording sound muddy/cloudy, and not really doing much else with it. So much of it feels very generic once the fuzziness is removed.

a good deal of it is probably totally functional when it comes to being played loud at a party while people dance, especially in basements or DIY spaces or dive bars and places like that where the american audience for this stuff prefers to do those things

the mastering/production just makes it very incompatible with proper dance records that have been mastered to sound good in clubs on good sound systems, iirc a lot of the johnny jewel stuff had this issue too, it's very difficult to play in proper house/club sets because it just sounds v. messy and thin compared to the professional stuff

what's kind of cool to me i guess is that there's getting to be enough of the stuff that these guys could start booking themselves around as DJs and playing nothing but h****** house, never running into the problem of the music's incompatibility with proper dance culture because they operate in a completely separate niche version of it

xpost but you could say the same thing about GERJHARD RICHTER DO U SEE

I'm quite enjoying this mix but I do wish the quality was higher in general (I have a few of the Ital 12"s as I was curious early on and I find them pleasant, nothing more). I think there would be a real demand for high quality releases of this stuff - I would love to see someone who could mix some of this in with more straight ahead techno a la the discussions in the Bobbins thread. I think the NNF aesthetic applied to dance is very specific but there is crossover, with the Talabot remix of "Cheaters" arguably being the nexus. I find it irresistible as a straight dance/techno track and in a non-club context. Not sure if this was discussed among the Bobbins or Dilettantes but the If This Is House I Want My Money Back comp (a ref. to this thread title) is surely an instructive part o this discussion, no?

http://open.spotify.com/album/378kzkUeYOiMFBaQtuyNdp

Disclaimer: I don't know anything about techno.

Permanent Vacation - as a production act, not a record label - belong in the same liminal zone as Talabot too, their own "Zucker Hut" and their remix of Woolfy vs Projections' "Neeve" seem to me to be too bleary-eyed and dizzy to be proper bobbins.

xpost After a quick Google, yes you could say the same about Gerhard Richter.

dunno how interesting it is to try to reconcile the stuff mentioned in the OP with permanent vacation/dfa/if this is house i want my money back type stuff, feel like it would be useful to delineate clearly between arty types trying to do house and house types trying to be arty

runs the risk of repeating the mistakes of that one simon reynolds piece that threw the the james ferraro/mark mcguire/not not fun axis into a conversation about chillwave despite that music having essentially nothing in common with washed out/neon indian beyond a couple of critic-friendly talking points about eighties nostalgia and cassette tape artifacts

or maybe i'm just being too "keep portland weird" about it i dunno

been talking to a friend bout this 'scene' a lot lately. he is involved in it: dj'd w/beautiful swimmers at ps1, has a 12" coming out w/remix by steve summers. we've been jokingly calling it 'post-net house'. w/youtube and blogs where you can download or listen to pretty much everything ever made at the click of a mouse, everyone can know everything now. everyone can know everyone. there's not as much a need of global closeness to make a scene w/email and soundcloud.

but ya, it does seem to be a bit centered in sf and portland. the club i used to dj at has featured a lot of local acts performing this sound live. magic touch, jason kendig (working w/dude from hercules & love affair), robot hustle (last 2 part of honey sound system), bobby browser (of wav dwgs), roche

http://soundcloud.com/bobbybrowser707
http://soundcloud.com/wav-dwgs
robot hustle: http://soundcloud.com/robertyang
http://soundcloud.com/rochesolos

imo the majority of this stuff is underwhelming and some of it is pretty terrible. but this one i like this one a lot, best track on 100% silk: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aDJDW3RBN_k

and yeah, the mix/mastering made it sound pretty poor in the mix when i've played it.

also curious what peoples' opinions are regarding hercules & love affair and where they might fit into this discussion?

x-post all the ppl jaxon just mentioned are well worth a listen, some great stuff there.

also, omar-s seems to be a big influence on most of these folks.

i think there are several things contributing to how this scene fits with dance music and its lo-fi mastering quality. i think it all relates to various perspectives on performance and background within the scene. with 100% silk, part of the story is that 100% silk is a sublabel of not not fun. so the inspiration comes more from the fetishistic lo-fi quality of noise music. i've played ital's records for my noise friends and they all say it's "dance music they can get behind". this also could be seen as a way to circumvent the gag reflex most hipsters (in SF at least) have when you start talking about going to clubs and more refined house music.

i think there is a live component to all of this as well. many of these groups perform all of these songs live on PA systems in the way a band would. sometimes the performances are a clubs or larger venues with powerful soundsystems, but when the projects are born it is a couple of people with an MPC, a few synthesizers and a couple drum machines. miracles club remixes most tracks before they play, so does magic touch and mi ami. teengirl fantasy has a freeform aesthetic to their playing where tight drum sequencing gives way to loose drumming on MIDI drum pads. some groups even believe this process informs their music as there is an improvisational quality to it, see this Blondes interview:

http://www.dummymag.com/features/2011/01/07/blondes-interview-meredith-monk-touch-is-what-we-re-in-danger-of-losing-/

all of these people are aware of the dance music that their music draws on, but the venues in which the music is conveyed and the idea of capturing something that can be recreated live (without Ableton) pushes mastering concerns to a lesser priority.

but there are also DJs in the camp too though and associations with venerable members of the dance music community (john talabot mentioned above and legowelt as well). beautiful swimmers are amazing DJs with deep collections (see their PS1 warmup mix) and their compositions are part original, part edit and seem slightly more informed by the traditional production techniques of dance music. this could be why they are more widely accepted and receive nods from Resident Adviser and more European circles.

my picks from the genre though are everything from the new L.I.E.S. (long island electrical systems) label (with contributions from Steve Summers, Marcos Cabral, Legowelt and other undiscovered talent). Future Times - with Slava, Protect-U, Beautiful Swimmers and most recently deep house act Juju & Jordash. Plus of course Miracles Club and Blondes (where RVNG seem to be cutting out a piece of the scene as well)

as far as the local SF scene goes there is a pretty vibrant DIY gearhead driven scene of house and electronic music conveyors, see bobby browser and WAV DWGS, roche, group rhoda and lots more. there is a monthly party called O.K. Hole where a lot of us get together and come out to support local talent.

this stuff is right in the zone of what I'm interested in but I need to catch up on a lot of it. I love Soft Metals. Future Times label is great.

i have seen miracles club, blondes and mi ami live this year and all sounded great live, both musically and sonically. i'm no fan of refined house music but i do think it's a shame that i'll skip playing the 100% silk records i have in my box in a set due to the poor fidelity of the mastering. i can't believe they are deliberately mastered and pressed badly to appeal to fans of noise music. oh well, at least i can still enjoy some of them in the comfort of my own home.

i love soft metals too but wouldn't put them in here.

I don't if they are deliberately mastered and pressed badly or just that the audience they are targeting won't be playing these on club systems so they don't spend the time/money to make them sound good in that context. If that makes sense?

feel like it would be useful to delineate clearly between arty types trying to do house and house types trying to be arty

Absolutely and also:

but there are also DJs in the camp too though and associations with venerable members of the dance music community (john talabot mentioned above and legowelt as well). beautiful swimmers are amazing DJs with deep collections (see their PS1 warmup mix) and their compositions are part original, part edit and seem slightly more informed by the traditional production techniques of dance music. this could be why they are more widely accepted and receive nods from Resident Adviser and more European circles.

I think DJs and people in this thread (god forgive me) are making the connections a little bit.

V. curious to see some of this acts live.

maybe deliberately mastered and pressed badly to appeal to fans of noise music, but maybe also deliberately mastered and pressed badly to offend the sensibilities of DJs and club systems

like i said earlier, if DJs can't play the shit, it cuts off many traditional avenues for the music to get exposure, but it also lets the label and artists exercise a lot more control over how people perceive and experience the material

someone asked about H&LA upthread and they're kind of interesting because to me they represent the early/mid-00's crossover era grinding to a halt, their debut represented a sincere attempt to drag the entirety of house music's wild, wooly, queer-centric underground kicking and screaming into a major label crossover release, and the market rejected it. they got dropped from EMI pretty much immediately despite peerless, near-universal critical acclaim and a growing buzz as a fantastic live act

i'm sure that has nothing to do with why 100% silk records sound like they do but i like the idea that the larger romantic ideal of a crossover record has been been so violently despoiled that we are now faced with the reality of house labels that do not want DJs playing their records

I'm not really feeling most of the stuff posted itt, except for the Octo Octa EP, which I love. I think a lot of this stuff I hear and I like the synths/whatever, but the drums sound so weak.

great thread

C.L.A.W.S. http://soundcloud.com/claws (part of OK hole san frandisco mentioned)

someone asked about H&LA upthread and they're kind of interesting because to me they represent the early/mid-00's crossover era grinding to a halt, their debut represented a sincere attempt to drag the entirety of house music's wild, wooly, queer-centric underground kicking and screaming into a major label crossover release, and the market rejected it. they got dropped from EMI pretty much immediately despite peerless, near-universal critical acclaim and a growing buzz as a fantastic live act

I think the comparison with H&LA just throws into relief how hetero-caucasian the whole vibe of this stuff is. :/

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