Techno/House Bobbins of the past

"driving to work today i decided to listen to "the deepest shade of techno". 3 minutes into "jupiter jazz" i started to weep. no joke! crying like a baby!

this illustrates

a) need medication
b) the power and majesty of underground resistance

-- moonship journey to baja"

i just finally picked up the World 2 World 12" with Jupiter Jazz on it this weekend, i love that song so much but i hadn't even realised i only had it on CD. what a stunning record. UR tunes (especially when performed live!) have brought me to tears on numerous occasions, i dont think any medication aside from more UR in your life is necessary ;)

the flipside of that record is vasty underrated.

It is a shame that Hi-Tech Jazz doesn't have the profile of Jupiter Jazz because it is so much better. Jupiter Jazz seems very concise whereas Hi-Tech Jazz seems a lot more sprawling and ambitious. It is one of those records that is so advanced that it is intimidating. How do you get to a place mentally where you can conceive and execute musical ideas like that.

It is raw and expressive, but there is more sophistication in any 16 bars of that track then there are in any random 50 tracks that get gushing praise on the 2008 bobbins thread. Mike Banks is easily one of the 10 top musical minds of all genres that came out of Detroit. He is second only to Juan Atkins as far as Detroit electronic music is concerned.

"hi-tech jazz" is great! but it always makes me happy, whereas "jupiter jazz" makes me sad. i think it's the human voice samples in "jupiter jazz" that get me. the other one that makes me cry is "amazon". but maybe that's just the tree hugger in me, i remember one time that atrocious coldcut song that sampled amazonian logging operations ("timber"?) made me cry.

also: "the theory (melanic mix)", "return of the dragons", "nation 2 nation", "303 sunset", "inspiration", "transition" ...

soft feminine detroit techno UR >> ruff rugged raw detroit electro UR

which is interesting because there's plenty of other stuff on submerge is much better when it's explicitly dancier ... i'm thinking drexciya, for one ...

more sophistication in any 16 bars of that track then there are in any random 50 tracks that get gushing praise on the 2008 bobbins thread

yeah but the other thing is that the whole "nation 2 nation" / "world 2 world" / "galaxy 2 galaxy" set just lords over everything else in the UR catalog like it ain't even funny.

and i understand where you're coming from re: 2008 bobbins but i think its more to do w/ getting old? i consider myself pretty sympathetic to the "new techno" cause and i can't get too worked up about very much of that stuff myself (hello, i'd rather listen to ken ishii and planetary assault systems!)

well, excepting "knights of the jaguar", i guess

hey, here's an interesting one i was mulling over on the way to work:

t/s: octave one vs mad mike

or maybe

t/s: 430 west vs UR (label)

oh, duh, KotJ *was* on 430 west

hmm i always felt hi tech jazz and amazon were way bigger 'hits' than jupiter jazz

I spent last weekend rediscovering uk 'wonky' techno as i cant stand the current mnnl artists, surgeon, si begg, neil landstrumm, funk d void etc awesome stuff, i just cant get the appeal of richard vandawhatever & crew

Re: Planetary Assault Systems (like the track on the cio d'or process mix btw) - big fan of Clementine - Head Nodder (L.Slater on DJAX-UP-BEATS)

I always meant to get some Planetary Assault Systems - any good starting points?

i bought this one recently and it's great!

the best wonky techno thing ever

13 Mover, The Frontal Sickness

Is this is the (fierce) A side or the (amazing) B side?

multiple x-post

knights of the jaguar was on UR. the derrick may remix was on 430 west.

oh you're right, that's what i thought at first but i got confused by discogs

not sure about the mover track. it's slow and dubby, if that helps. almost dub-techno ... drone techno?

so how about the great R&S 2008 reissue movement?

they all say *REMASTERED* on the front.

i picked up ken ishii's "jelly tones" last night and in a head-to-head listening w/ the original all i can say for sure is that the new one is definitely louder (on CD) ... but is it really worth going whole hog and picking up another copy of model 500's "classics", "deep space", derrick may's "innovator", dave angel "classics" etc etc

more sophistication in any 16 bars of that track then there are in any random 50 tracks that get gushing praise on the 2008 bobbins thread

yeah but the other thing is that the whole "nation 2 nation" / "world 2 world" / "galaxy 2 galaxy" set just lords over everything else in the UR catalog like it ain't even funny.

I don't know about that, both sides of Final Frontier are some of the best electro ever to come out of Detroit. Then there is stuff like the Aaron Carl remix of Hard life, Timeline, the Drexciya records, Crime Report, Nocturbulous Behavior... There is some filler in the UR catalog but there is also some of the best music of the last 30 years.

and i understand where you're coming from re: 2008 bobbins but i think its more to do w/ getting old? i consider myself pretty sympathetic to the "new techno" cause and i can't get too worked up about very much of that stuff myself (hello, i'd rather listen to ken ishii and planetary assault systems!)

I know what you are saying, but in this case I really don't think it is an age issue so much as a lot of people writing blogs don't have a discerning ear. The thing about those _ 2 _ records is that they have a level of musicianship and rhythmic sophistication that objectively isn't present in the shit that is getting pushed these days.

I remember one particular record mentioned on the 2008 thread that was a great "Detroit" record and everybody gushed about how good it was. Yeah it had good sound design but the drums were about as playschool as you can get and there wasn't a whole lot of writing.

People are not bringing that kind of sophistication to the music these days. They do a shitload of quick edits and have a million vst patches, and $40,000 in tube compressors at their disposal, but none of these cats could get work as a gospel pianist on Sunday morning. Most of them can barely play. Most of them can't program drums to save their lives either. What is sad is that I am not referring to the hobby level people, I am referring to the people with profiles. It sounded like a bunch of plunking around in Ableton until it sort of works and then it goes out into the world. It might be cool for a few months but then it goes into the black hole of the dollar bin forever. The bar is set so low for the industry it is ridiculous.

It might be an age thing to the extent that I have a better ear and understanding of music at 31 than I did at 21. However, I don't believe that it is impossible for this level of quality to be achieved today. It is entirely possible for somebody to drop another World 2 World level record, UR does not have the market cornered on good music.

The other problem is that this is a entertainment industry not a music industry... that is another rant.

hmm i always felt hi tech jazz and amazon were way bigger 'hits' than jupiter jazz

I went to the discogs page and checked how many times each track has hit a compilation a couple days ago. I think Jupiter Jazz has been comped a lot, Hi Tech Jazz only has been comped once or twice IIRC. If you check the comps that JJ has been on, I think it is fair to say that it has a higher profile.

People are not bringing that kind of sophistication to the music these days. They do a shitload of quick edits and have a million vst patches, and $40,000 in tube compressors at their disposal, but none of these cats could get work as a gospel pianist on Sunday morning. Most of them can barely play. Most of them can't program drums to save their lives either. What is sad is that I am not referring to the hobby level people, I am referring to the people with profiles. It sounded like a bunch of plunking around in Ableton until it sort of works and then it goes out into the world. It might be cool for a few months but then it goes into the black hole of the dollar bin forever. The bar is set so low for the industry it is ridiculous.

sorry but that is basically "i don't like this" masked as some kind of theoretical science.

I do love a lot of what i hear in 2008!

Nocturbulous Behavior

This record Never gets old. I like it very much!

sorry but that is basically "i don't like this" masked as some kind of theoretical science.

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.

lol gospel pianist.

"none of these rock guitarists can sew a scout badge on".

Mike...none of that means liking or disliking the music is worth more/less.

If the best musician was the most talented then techno has nothing on classical music does it? Or at least, that's what a classical fan would tell you.

I can't believe I'm even having this argument. It's not a competition, it's music. Nobody "outdoes" anybody and the important reason music is "remembered" for me is if I remember it, not if some sweaty dudes on messageboards all agree it was the greatest technical feat of its era.

"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."

not cos you find it right wing I presume

"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?"

What does this even mean? Do I seriously think the music I like is actually good rather than the music you like?

31 going on 15 Mike.

"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?"

YES!

What about ywngie?

Fucking Yngwie's techno tracks rule!

they are undre the name of Villalobos i Thinkj?"?/1/?!??!/!/1!

i am sort of sympathetic to mike's argument - you sort of wonder about guys like robag wruhme. could they make a "black water" or a "knights of the jaguar" if they wanted to? obviously the detroit guys know their scales and stuff, and so do *some* europeans. thinking like, alter ego and gang? they are quite musical when you get down to it.

but then the hole in mike's argument is that there's guys who *are* musically trained who end up making earhole-bursting noise, and guys with very little training (thinking justice here) who make stuff that's quite melodic. so how can we be so sure that like, marco carola or whoever doesn't play a mean flamenco guitar?

Make 'em sit a test.

Can they play "The Last Days of May" by Blue Oyster Cult or not?

maybe we're so busy punching easy holes in mike's argument that we're missing the tougher one: could the music stand to have a little more, uh, music in it?

yes. and more sweaty dudes on messageboards.

it could stand to have a little more music like a cardiac patient could stand just one more chest compression.

hmm i don't follow

i'm sure it's clever, but assume i'm sort of dumb and spell it out for me

To me, older tracks often just seem to have more life to them (even the kinda shitty ones actually). They breathe. There's less compression and less focus on the mid-range. I dunno ... maybe I'm just too much of a sucker for certain old school sounds ... 808 kicks, 909 claps, some 303s and shit ... whatever. It all just sounds right to my ears. Sometimes new stuff does too, but not nearly as often.

It's not necessarily a matter of musicality, but I do like some development going on (which can be accomplished through repetition, of course).

and musicality shouldn't be conflated with yngwie-style virtuosity.

one finger synth solos all day long

BY THE WAY

this remastered "jelly tones" is quite amazing. much more dynamic sound.

"moved by air" sounds particularly amazing

I am not out on some Geirist notion that melody is the most important thing music virtue or that you have to be able to play Dvorak in order to make good music.

The point I am trying to make is that a lot of the stuff getting lauded is working on only the barest musical cloth. I am not asking for huge solos and huge technical feats. Is it too much to ask for a chord progression? Is it too much to ask for a key change when you break into a new section?

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.

That was the beautiful thing from R&B-->disco-->Chi house/Detroit techno-->minimalism. Right around the turn on the 90's is where things started to get to stripped down and abstracted. I love BC and Dan Bell as much as anybody, but when their legacy is the default approach is when things go too far. The history of house and techno was to take disco and electro and italo and make those forms more streamlined and functional.
When you have that kind of musical background you can do stuff like that and make it work.

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.

I love ear candy as much as the next guy, but there has to be some music underneath it. The new return to deep it only a surface return, the underlying musicality which makes the old records relevant is missing.

If you want to know what is missing from today's music you just need to listen to those old disco records. There isn't a lick of Yngwie in an old Salsoul, P&P or Prelude record. At their best they were good tunes fleshed out with good performances and solid production. The nu-disco stuff is at least trying to bring this idea back into dance. I would like to see somebody try to reclaim techno in the same way.

And what is sad is that I am not even asking for Yngwie. I am asking for the musicality that your average teenager has after he has played in a few cover bands. I am not even asking for polyrhythm, weird chord progressions, inversions, and weird ass extended chords. Fuck, I would be happy if I could even get some I-IV-V.

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.