Kelley Polar - Love Songs of The Hanging Gardens (Environ CD05)

re: the comments on the review about the "laziness" of the artwork. They found a cool picture they liked and used it. They didn't know it had been used by the Shalabi Effect, and shockingly didn't know it was used on the insert to a Pearl Jam CD. I don't see why the hard time.

mike powell, 2005

Aphex Twin has continually re-imagined and reinvigorated the minor genre known as intelligent dance music, or I.D.M.—essentially a type of electronica fit for bedroom listening

random slate writer, 2003

The legend was this: Aphex Twin was a mad inventor from Cornwall who built his own synthesisers. Surfing on sine waves, he would lead a pack of young boffins out of the computer screen glow of their bedrooms, into the public domain of clubs, shops, and charts, then back in and out of more bedrooms in a feedback loop of infinite dimensions

david toop, 1994

the interview up at http://www.kelleypolar.com/press/press1.html is k-grebt! he pretty much wishes he was AQUAMAN!
also, this album is still fantastic.

Uniting (or negotiating the space between) the bedroom and the dancefloor is a cliche, but it's a building block cliche for pretty much any dance music which is not marketed directly as "club fare", and I think you're actually making the same point (negatively) when you say that this record is not dance music or pop music, but IDM (which implies all sorts of things about how this music might or might not be useful and useable).

I tend to bristle at the suggestion that "club" music isn't really suitable for private use in a home setting, but I can't deny that when I listen to it at home my enjoyment comes from imagining responding to it in a club setting (and, if no-one can see, perhaps acting that out a bit). Whereas there is other music whose relative gentleness/spaciness/quietude etc. seems not only more suitable for bedtime use, but also more suitable for imagining "the inner space of the dream or the terrestrial space of the country yard" - it's almost as if I'm in my bedroom listening to this music and imagining being in my bedroom and listening to this music, only in a way more romantic than any fly-on-the-wall camera in my room would actually pick up.

The issue with this cliche is how sensitively it's used: is it applied unthinkingly, uncritically, prejudicially to one side (usually the dancefloor), sloppily, boringly, or in a way that seems to bear no relationship to the record being discussed?

I can't tell any of that from the quote from Mike's piece. It's a little bit purple prosish yes, but less so than I would probably be if trying were I to try to make the same point...

I still haven't heard this record BTW, but from what everyone has said I can imagine enjoying it more than the Metro Area CD simply because it sounds like it has fuller, lusher melodies. With Metro Area I find myself returning to the "big hits" - "Miura", "Caught Up", "Strut", "Pina" - and often skipping over that long spell of disco minimalism that characterises the middle part of the record.

IDM is back bitches!

because i disagree

this is what i am getting at...claro intelecto has released stuff this year. i could name others from the "housey idm" group with current releases as well: andreas tilliander, the narita label, more artists from the AI label, matthew herbert (when he actually made music before he entered the conceptual zone of no return), donnacha costello's colour series....

And yes, I also think Kelley Polar has more in common with Larry Heard then Aphex Twin.

no, but at the same time IDM is not only autechre. it can have pop or retro elements.

with turntables behind our backs.

and no headphones.

anyway, biz, you say try mixing Hammer/Anvil with Can You Feel It? as if by default, as though you are taking it for granted it would sound right. i think maybe "hammer/anvil" would sound better mixed w/ "windowlicker" than w/ "can you feel it" (and sure enough, kelley polar shows up in way more "eclectic"/"downtempo" (read: IDM for people who don't aren't aggro/pimply) sets than house sets.

"can you feel it" would prob sound better mixed w/ LFO or something or monolake or juan atkins than it would w/ a morgan geist production.

about your parenthetical statement "((and sure enough, kelley polar shows up in way more "eclectic"/"downtempo" (read: IDM for people who don't aren't aggro/pimply) sets than house sets.)

did you do a search for this info? it's the "sure enough" part that makes me think you did a comparative analysis of dj set lists and discovered KP in more downtempo/eclectic/IDM sets...cuz i only know of KP appearing on Bents' Fabric (where it's mixed into Chicken Lips, another classic IDM act), Chicken Lips NRK mix (another IDM staple). Yes Bent make Downtempo (or IDM in your world) but their mix includes House Music! Even if "Intelligent" people "Dance" to this "Music", it's still House.

let's have a mini competition. I'll mix Can You Feel It with Kelley Polar or Morgan Geist and you mix it with LFO/Monolake/Juan Atkins/AFX/IDM of your choice, post a YSI to this thread in 3 days time and let the citizens decide what sounds better.

You do mix right? Cuz you know alot about what sounds good with what...so is it a deal?