Official ILM thread of mad TENSNAKE love for 2010 and beyond

love the vocal sample pitch changes

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JEom5tDqzEw

this is coool

This music is equally difficult to hate or love. I can't completely dis it because the guy is trying to be somewhat ambitious in his arrangements and programming. The main problem is that he doesn't have strong hooks, good breakdowns or much harmonic development.

That seems like the problem with so much of the nu-disco stuff. It feels really middlebrow.

Again, I don't hate it and it is better than a lot of stuff out there, but there is better stuff you could be listening to. If I had to choose between this or an old boogie/new wave/Moroder record, I would take the older record. Same tempos and sonic territory, but better songs, rhythms, and performances.

(that being said mixing this stuff seems a hell of a lot easier than mixing boogie. The chords don't move around as much)

well yeah obv -- doesnt the main nu disco thread start w/ jess harvell calling it the new trip hop or some shit

its funny i think the reason tensnake stands out tho is hes way more into hooks & memorable atmosphere than 99% of these dudes

Tensnake is extremely hooky. Everytime I hear somebody mention M-Cat I get the Coma Cat vocal replaying in my head

kind of amazing how many times i've heard "coma cat" played out this year, and i really don't even go out that much. is this just random coincidence or are sf disco nights actually indicative of this song sorta blowing up ???

really love this dude unsurprisingly. middlebrow soft techno dilettantes unite

i'll unite but he's not techno is he?

tech house?

Think calling Balearic stuff middlebrow is missing the point a bit, seeing as nu-Balearic is all about reclaiming stuff that's previously considered a bit middlebrow or hippy or just plain bad taste.

Exhibit A being SYNTH PANPIPES.

Is there an album scheduled? Maybe I should hope my favourite producers keep knocking out stellar individual singles, rather than play against their strengths.

*xp to myself, make singles rather than saving themselves for albums, that is.

http://soundcloud.com/tensnake/azari-iii-reckless-with-your-love-tensnake-remix-snippet

JOCK JAMZ!

This music is equally difficult to hate or love. I can't completely dis it because the guy is trying to be somewhat ambitious in his arrangements and programming. The main problem is that he doesn't have strong hooks, good breakdowns or much harmonic development.

LOL Coma Cat doesn't have a strong hook or a good breakdown?
In The End I Want You To Cry? Cmon dude.

i don't really get trying to compare the harmonic complexity of boogie or moroder versus nu-disco. tbh it's kinda a misnomer, nu-disco is more like deep house meets french house, it's pretty far removed from the orchestrations of past synth-based disco.

tensnake used to be a french house guy, which kinda makes his production make more sense to me. but it's definitely more house than disco, listen to his RA mix, it's all house.

continued LOVE for tensnake. I need your lovin' (dub) has been on repeat for months for me.

former tensnake alias:

http://www.thefader.com/2009/08/28/marc-moureau-a1-mp3/

previews of material due out on SUMMER EP

PAN FLUTE JAM? YES PLS
http://soundcloud.com/tensnake/liefde-out-soon-in-summer

sample of jean-luc ponty (a little over-used imo)
http://soundcloud.com/tensnake/dance-trough-the-night-summerama-part-ii

LOL Coma Cat doesn't have a strong hook or a good breakdown?
In The End I Want You To Cry? Cmon dude.

i don't really get trying to compare the harmonic complexity of boogie or moroder versus nu-disco. tbh it's kinda a misnomer, nu-disco is more like deep house meets french house, it's pretty far removed from the orchestrations of past synth-based disco.

I was referring specifically to that Embassy remix deej posted above.

As far as Coma Cat EP goes, it is totally competent. I understand why it has commercial appeal. The problem is that I have a fairly decent collection of the stuff he is cribbing from and the old records just seem to have a lot more life in them. I would rather listen to old RCA, DJ International and Supertronics records.

His dance stuff is loud, cleanly mixed and everything is in the right place. It's really well done, which makes it hard to say what is missing. When I listen to it I feel like I am listening to the auditory equivalent of someone trying to recreate film grain and scratches using filters in Final Cut Pro. It is like taking the vocabulary of old records, mix in modern commercial dance tropes and then shoehorn the mixture into a slick in-the-box production.

Its really easy to respect and really hard to love.

I find it really easy to be love, he's a dilettante really, and a very good one at that. Also totally unashamed to be completely corny, I'd love to hear how that rip from The Power goes down on a dancefloor.

damn tensnake just doesnt have soul

no release date set for Reckless (With Your Love) yet? by far the best thing i've heard this year!

I just heard that Mano LeTough remix of Tensnake and I love it. Total daybreak raving, borderline cheese with the sax, but irresistible.

isn't reckless w. your love azari and iii?

tensnake rmx a few posts up

lol its cos i think the names are similar but then i think margaret and evelyn are similar names so

so, does this only exist in "snippet" form?

I just heard that Mano LeTough remix of Tensnake and I love it. Total daybreak raving, borderline cheese with the sax, but irresistible.

everyone buy mano's records...he is a really good dude!

it's bewildering that he decided to sample that jean-luc ponty song. maybe he hadn't heard "balearic incarnation"

remix of reckless w. your love azari and iii is getting released at the end of August.

ja!

amazed by how much stuff he's actually done. love 'coma cat' obv but 'need your loving' is probably my favourite so far. does anyone know of a good bio of him?

In The End I Want To Cry is probably his peak, Coma Cat excepted. It's emo and joyful at the same time in all the best possible ways. Also it reminds me of Waterfall by Atlantic Ocean.

Recently rediscovered the mix he did of Junior Boys from a few years ago which is great.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v10CG_GYU3k

ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

classixx played this tonite & it was O_OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO on a loud system

is this 320in it anywhere yet?

cant get this out of my head. jacques renault played it on friday and it really does sound great at a club (even if the club has a sorta shitty sound system, as was unfortunately the case)

original is still my fav

yeah this feels pale compared to the orig which is unstoppable

tho that youtube rip cant be helping, maybe its a different story on a floor but i havent heard

That Azari & III remix is only notable for the 'OMG! The Power!' factor, otherwise I prefer the original.

Think we should stop overhyping Tensnake now in case we end up anticipating his album for 18 months and it turns out to be terrible. Still feeling Aeroplane burn.

more interested in anticipating an azari and iii album

Dunno, everything I've heard apart from Reckless hasn't been all that...

not even hungry for the power?

but yeah their remixes are not too interesting to me

Hungry for the Power EP has She's An Illusion and Manhooker which are both great!

US tour in November!

radical!!

surprised mainline and coma cat weren't on it, surprised but pleased. the nile and fiora tracks are superb but im prob loving 58bpm the most

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SV4BFdjjk3g&feature=kp

best album as a whole i've heard in years, baffled by the 'forced fun' sneer but hey whatever floats yer boat

i feel like that forced fun thing actually works on some of his tracks ("something about you" comes to mind), but here there is nothing to balance it out... it's just straight-up glossy discopop the whole way through.

i would prob be way more inclined to like this or be objective about it if i didn't have preconceived ideas about a tensnake album, viewed in the context of his career this just really feels like major mainstream edm moves. which, yknow, maybe it really works on those terms and i'm just not interested

58 bpm was one of my favorite tracks last year, but I was mostly lukewarm on his earlier stuff. He's definitely triangulating on a different audience now.

well he's made a pop album yeah, if you're expecting some beardy headnod widdling you're prob gonna be disappointed xpost

58bpm was out last year? only ever dipped into the odd bit of his stuff in the past so not hugely invested in his career arc or whatever, to me this is exactly what i wanted - straight up catchy disco-influenced 2014 dance music

58bpm was paired with See Right Through as a single last summer/fall.

lol at the idea that tensnake was ever "beardy headnod widdling"

He's definitely triangulating on a different audience now

for a while there it seemed like he could do this without completely abandoning what made those earlier singles great. but nope.

straight up catchy disco-influenced 2014 dance music

makes the classixx album look high-concept in comparison

So much of Glow sounds like—well, not like, but at least influenced by—Prince ca. 1980-85 that I don't give a shit about Tensnake's history. This is great stuff.

meh, i don't see much prince influence here - especially compared to the glut of other acts that worship him. i have nothing against pop-disco but this is pretty damn corny pop-disco imo

So much Some of Glow

"surprised mainline and coma cat weren't on it"

"straight up catchy disco-influenced 2014 dance music"

You know Coma Cat is 4 years old, right?
http://www.discogs.com/Tensnake-Coma-Cat/release/2110738

you know it's his biggest hit single, right? and it's his debut album, right?

lol at the idea that tensnake was ever "beardy headnod widdling"

natural conclusion of matt dc's outrage at 'forced fun', apologies bro

I was just pointing out it's not 2014 dance music

mess of an album, it's oddly charmless despite its shininess. it doesn't even really succeed as pop.

I've listened to this a few times and it's not getting any better. The last three tracks are probably the strongest and there's nothing else as bad as the fuckawful Thabo and Jamie Liddell collaborations but it all feels so ROTE and by-numbers.

He's lost the kind of effortless melodic knack that he had at his peak (which I suppose is 07-10 or so). Like, listen to the bounciness and joyousness of the hook he laid under that Sally Shapiro remix and compare it to this.

It's nowhere near as bad as the Aeroplane album but it shares the same problem, which is this in-at-the-deep-end shift from great remixes and instrumental or sample-based tracks to "proper songwriting". And he can't write songs. Like, at all.

So much of Glow sounds like—well, not like, but at least influenced by—Prince ca. 1980-85 that I don't give a shit about Tensnake's history.

There are approximately 8 million records in this vein and really if I could wipe one musical thing off the planet it would be European disco dudes doing Prince homages. They can never pull it off. FWIW I don't find this that Princified either.

It's also really obvious that Nile Rodgers has been tacked onto some of these tracks as an afterthought, when he should be the motor of any groove.

it doesn't even really succeed as pop

i think this is all that really matters here. i could bitch about how this sounds like tensnake got swallowed whole by mainstream edm / bottle-service club culture blah blah but that's not really the problem, the problem is that tensnake has never proven that he's adept at this type of sugary vocal pop.

plenty of other disco-house producers have tried and failed at this type of thing - obv aeroplane but everytime i see juno's disco charts or browse soundcloud or w/e there's always some otherwise decent producer who just brought in a vocalist and clearly has no idea what he/she is doing writing "songs". the kathy diamond album was amazing (same with "whispers") but the past few years have made me loathe the words "featuring kathy diamond"

otm psych...

Jamie Liddell collaboration

oh no

can't say I'm a big fan of his recent work, but I saw him spin last night at a warehouse party and his set was one of the greatest things I've ever been lucky enough to hear live. just epic euphoria from start to finish; he closed out by playing "Blue Monday" and it was maybe the fifth-most-enervating thing he played. if you ever have the opportunity to see him live, DO IT.

jelly

was curious about the type of stuff he played out these days. good to hear he hasn't fully committed to the style on the album

I quite like this album without really loving any particular track on it. Although "Kill the Time" is quickly growing on me.

couldnt even make it thru the snippets

I don't hate this

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uYxGNp099q0