ricardo villalobos

haha...brilliant.

(seems I'll have to try that exact combination of tracks)

kinda funny to recall Jess's initial dismissal of The Au ("a slog" on his blog) in light of how he now considers Villalobos the "first genius of the 21st century" or whatever.

anyway: i find "The Au Harem..." infinitely more interesting than "Alcachofa". It's probably got a lot to do with listening to it at home rather than in a club situation - listening to it as an LP - but it's got all these subtleties that make it sound different every time i hear it.

"Achso" is the same really, although that has an overall different sound but then i guess Villalobos meant for "Achso" to be played out a bit more, seeing as it's vinyl only and whatnot.

I was only today comparing Confield to minimal techno with some other people, although i think that "The Au Harem..." is far more Autechre than "Achso". The percussion on "Miami"!

And no, i've never taken ketamine. Although when a friend did, he requested "a creamy ball to get inside". Hmm.

"But history has done a curious thing to Spandau Ballet. It's made them more interesting. I think that's a valid way to listen to music, by the way. I think lots of things get more interesting when you add some time to them. To hate something now and like it three years from now isn't so much hypocritical as it is critical."

Also I think the song order doesn't help. After the first track there's several tracks in a row of very minimal four-to-the-floor stuff with very subtle rhythmic shadings. It only really breaks out again on "Miami" and "True To Myself", which perhaps a lot of listeners don't hang around for.

some of the other ones are good but there's not much about them to latch on to .... you couldn't even say "the one with the fizzing sprinkler noise" or "the one with glisteny Orbital IDM chimes" like you can with Achso

Could someone point me to this please?

The track 'que belle epoque 2006' is a remix right? So is 'lazer@present' also different from the original?

anyway, without looking up old threads/reviews, i think au'harem has proved to be a real grower for lots of people - certainly for me "hierklon" was the only thing that stood out at first, but now it's one of my favourite albums of the last few years.

also, i feel like "miami" offers lots of possibilities that no-one else has explored, although i'm not really sure how to make that statement more precise.

re villalobos and autechre - i've had that comparison in my mind for a long time (maybe back to au'harem?), but less in the sense of the actual sound and more in the relationship to their peers - e.g. au'harem to the other microhouse i was listening to was somehow like mid/late 90s autechre were to other idm. but possibly this just shows how shallowly i engaged with these genres! i definitely disagree with this trend to single out villalobos as the only innovator in town, but i do think that he was an eye-opener for a lot of people (esp with au'harem).

what else? oh, i've taken ketamine, but only by accident, and i din't find it worked that well with this kinda music (or indeed sound full stop). these days i find that this stuff's best listened to on sleeping pills - stay up really late until your super tired, then take some sleeping pills, stick au'harem on repeat on your headphones and drift off into the warmth...

i had a jazz guy slamming his beer on the table telling me that villalobos was "such shit. not even music. djing is not even playing music..." the other day.

Something about him interests/annoys/intrigues people who don't follow dance music so closely?

although mp3s never do justice to the low end of vinyl records...

ha, i totally misread that at first and was bewildererd as to how you found everything else more accessible.

i can see how he'd particularly annoy a jazz guy.

really? pretty much all i listen to these days is villalobos-style stuff and jazz, so i find that rather odd.

"let we go" is totally k-hole, yes. it's tracks like that and i guess also that mathew jonson/the mole speicher effort that make me want to learn to use ableton and make huge 5 hour mixes (or maybe even just edits) to do pure maths to/listen to when really tired.

Villalobos reminds me of Miles Davis and Sun Ra though.

indeed - i'm sure it only feels like this thread is linking in with loads of others, either real or imagined, but i think this music does raise the issue of there only being so many things that one can spend time and effort gaining an understanding/appreciation of, and it wasn't clear at first that au'harem was one of the things that i wanted to take that effort with; but having done so, i've automatically done the same with other villalobos releases (eg chromosoul, which doesn't seem to get mentioned much round here). i'm sure there are tonnes of other minimal-related things that i'd appreciate if i made the same effort with them.