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

Frankie Knuckle's mixing Hercules in 2008 was the moment I thought classic house music resurrection became the topic of the moment.

I've been thinking about this a bit lately, I think what Tim says is definitely true, like obviously there have been endless house revivals, it's sort of inherent, but I do agree with Dan that there's some new watershed in the last few years.

I think the newer revival is a lot more about singers and male divas though. I feel like after a good few years of deep house dominating the more underground scene in Europe that a lot of the people who were into your Justice or whatev type clubs are now more into disco and house.

At least that's my experience of it...a friend of mine started a loosely gay night in Dublin a few years ago and it was all old electropop etc at first.

I'm DJing there this month and he swapped my date by two weeks cos Azari and III are playing at another venue and he said literally no other act could guarantee emptiness so strongly.

Anyway slightly tangential but I do find it good how the more, I suppose overtly gay, side of Chicago house has like FINALLY gotten through to your indie dance people...

Would definitely agree with the above.

A little late here but -- having not followed anything re: the label or style this year per se -- it was interesting last year to see a bit of this starting to gel at the second On Land festival. Thinking in particular about this night:

http://nedraggett.wordpress.com/2010/09/08/on-land-festival-2010-friday-shows/

And specifically Operative and White Rainbow's sets. (And then Oneohtrix Point Never after that, I suppose.) Given the crossover a lot of this crowd has/had with Not Not Fun via the Echo Curio/Smell it all happened pretty easily...

i dont really know if i see the connection bw white rainbow/OPN and this dancier stuff, tbh, ned. seems like there's an intersection in the fanbase, but i dont know about the music itself.

A lot of it is social/contextual, and can't be easily summed up -- the references above to indie/drone circles are key. There's no one to one connection but there is an overarching appreciation and supportive community, a space in which this has thrived and expanded.

the new forkner project, purple and green, is not hipster house but it is dancey as hell

in a mid-90s rnb kind of way

is there overlap with this scene and !!!/out hud? those guys' live shows verged on live goa trance at times

Very cool n' interesting thread. I'm gonna throw in a plug and beat Dan Selzer at his namedropping skills while pointing out just how deeply incestuous (in the best sense) we hipster housers are: I have an album coming soon on LIES that originally came about during a drunken convo with Legowelt about what kind of "fake soundtrack' I'd like to create for his StrangeLife label. LIES ended up wanting to release it after StraneLife went on hiatus. My record will have remixes by Steves Moore and Summers and Marcos Cabral. I once released a record on IDIB. I don't do yoga but I know Jan Woo.

steve moore remix = you have my complete attention

PS chicago's Traxx played a Halloween party last weekend that included a live Steve Summers set, etc. and everyone got down. Mightily. And it was a racially mixed crowd loving every minute of it. People are dancing.

Sorry to derail the thread with my plug. I feel dirty now. Carry on. I shall lurk.

YOU DAMN SCENESTER oh wait.

Blank - Justin V from !!!/OH a regular dj at brooklyn bar Tandem where many folks connected to the NY dance "scenes" go to dance/party on the regular. Everyone knows everyone and supports each others' endeavors for the most part.

Don't hate me, Ned.

justin v also has been releasing awesome edits and mixes under the 'try to find me' alias for golf channel

oh yeah i forgot about those! "mr doctor to you" is a jam

i dunno if there is any connection between traxx and the west coast stuff but he is one of my favorite DJs on earth and some of the stuff on his label "nation" would prolly be of interest itt, plus there seem to be connections between him and his collaborator in mutant beat dance with white car/gatekeeper/0PN and also gavin russom/no fun acid

Would definitely agree with the above.

― Tim F, Thursday, 3 November 2011 21:06 (Yesterday)

related to LG's post that Tim was cosigning (using Tim's to shorten the quoting), I don't think I 'get' Lamp's post upthread about this stuff being closer to his 'sensibilities.' it seems like indie is totally OK w/ 'regular house' -- not 'proper dance,' but like, edits & house music that might have an indie sensibility but is nonetheless no diff from house. is there really that large a crowd of Lamp-ish people who need to be reintroduced to this stuff? I went to a halloween party my friend threw that was all like art inst of chicago students -- like, the decorations were pretty intensively constructed & it was a v trendy v. 'in' crowd -- and they were playing straight up edits & dance music & etc. But it wasn't a 'proper dance' crow,d although i suppose there was a large crossover hipper side of gay clubbers there too, but nothing abt it struck me as being either particularly 'proper dance'-ish or needing this kind of distanced mediated dance.

so i guess what I'm asking is, are there really that many Lamp's out there?

I think the dichotomy some ppl are referencing (not to put words in Lamp's or anyone else's mouth) is almost more about venues and less about the music?

like, diy basement show vs trendy club

and other people are like, well, a lot of the stuff that ended up in big clubs started in some type of underground scene and it's not like 100% Silk invented some new blueprint of up-from-grassroots diy house music

i'm talking about a loft party full of (sorry ugh) 'hipsters' that are dancing to just, like, dance music, but aren't 'proper dance music fans,' like, the tracks they know are hercules & azari & basically the kind of middle ground hipster stuff that is also not very far from just being dance -- i guess i don't see a lot of room for this stuff, because almost anyone who would be in a 100% silk scene would just be into straight-up dance. or to put it another way, there already is a hipster house for loft parties & etc. ... why would we need hipster dance that takes a further step back from 'dance music proper'? (if i take 'dance music proper' to mean anything from superserious classic house heads to moodymann obsessives to minimal to cheesey clubbers to euro to pop-electro etc.)

haha weird

i was really trying to articulate this divide btw the way the label & its realtionship to the larger culture of dance music is being presented and talked abt by amanda/in interviews and the way ppl itt view that relationship: like, objectively i agree with the general thrust of tim's posts itt but at the same time subjectively i can appreciate the outsider rhetoric, even if it misconstrues what 'dance music culture' really consists of or how it functions.

a big part of all this is just the way the music is distributed and consumed ime, and much of that is independent of the way it sounds (although not completely, again look upthread at the mastering debate) which i can see annoying ppl or seeming tacky. i made total sense to me to see ned mention white rainbow bcuz 100% silk gets played in the same places and by the same ppl that wld jam frkwys or time wharp or w/e, this is more abt the cultural space the music occupies i guess?

i guess what i'm really asking is if this is a retreat from the increased engagement w/ 'proper dance' that started w/ rapture, moved into LCD, then hercules, finally azari?

since namedropper Capitane Jay Vee was still modest enough not to link to his own tracks here ya go

http://soundcloud.com/l-i-e-s/professor-genius-presents
http://soundcloud.com/l-i-e-s/professor-genius-presents-1

love both of these

i guess what i'm really asking is if this is a retreat from the increased engagement w/ 'proper dance' that started w/ rapture, moved into LCD, then hercules, finally azari?

i dont think so, really. in some ways i think you can make an argument abt 'functional' vs more engaged use of the music but thats sort of tricky/maybe kinda gross

and fwiw i recognize that that cultural space is already occupied by other kinds of dance music, plenty of drone/avant/noize kids love cosmic and edits and minimal all sorts of shit but i dont think that means theres no market for 100% silk et al. if anything i suppose it argues in favor of a (marginally) wide reception?

yah i think i'm asking the wrong question here -- rather than 'there isn't space for it' i guess i'm wondering why this space is opening up. like, was azari a bridge too far, or something, and so a bunch of fans pull the other way. or are we talking about an entirely difft scene & now i'm treating indie w/ the monolithic brush ppl were saying about dance.

in this op-ed in the wire amanda brown sort of laments that she feels like the way the internet hype machine works forces smaller labels to try to put out poppier more crossover-y type shit in order to secure enough income to stay afloat, which sort of implies to me that she herself is not interested in releasing pop records or crossover records

like on one hand i guess that seems strange because on the face of it 100% silk records seem to be more accessible/marketable than not not fun records but in interviews her ambition for the label seems to stop at getting to the level of a proper dance label that can release proper dance records, so maybe her interest in dance music is totally concordant with the opinions in the op-ed because she sees future times or whatever as being uncompromisingly not-pop in the same way that NNF is

which is not at all the approach of the other acts mentioned itt, iirc miracles club is on modular a via cut copy vanity imprint and teengirl fantasy is on true panther, making pop songs with vocals for labels that are not really "proper dance" labels and basically just kind of working under an MO that seems very different form the one 100% silk is espousing

so i mean in terms of intent and relationships with other entities within dance music it doesn't seem like you can really lump these people all under any single umbrella despite the fact that they all seem to get along pretty well and not mind working with or in proximity to one another

is there overlap with this scene and !!!/out hud? those guys' live shows verged on live goa trance at times

― blank, Friday, November 4, 2011 2:13 AM (5 hours ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

I interviewed Outhud years ago, like when they were touring STREETDAD I think, and mentioned a bunch of (pretty well known) British stuff from the 90s that they reminded me of, and iirc the only one they'd heard was The Orb

i was fortunate to get a white label of namedropper and uber hipster Capitane Jay Vee's L.I.E.S .record. it is fantastic.

as for Traxx, he's an interesting example to cite as his records are definitely homages to Chicago's early house days, he has links to L.I.E.S. but i wouldn't put him in amongst this as he's been doing it for eons and is an oracle / evangelist / encyclopedia for all things Chicago.

sounds like a such a sad state to be in...where i grew up
...it was junglists vs househeads and never the twain shall meet

― you want fries with that (flame grilled meat), miércoles 2 de noviembre de 2011 17:40 (2 days ago) Bookmark

ok yeah i was definitely part of the HOUSE 4 EVA JUNGLE IS CRAP camp through the early 20's... didn't "get it" until hearing db's a secret history part ii: the rough and the smooth - that was more from a distaste towards the og-bro-y WOMP WOMP WOMP, WOMP WOMP WOMP over and over again tracks that seemed to permeate everywhere. house + ...nu skool breaks were always like pb+j though

I'm not really sure which side of the divide Azari & III are being placed on here.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gPMSMEl82rU

not my idea of fun

but i'm told i hate fun

I'm not really sure which side of the divide Azari & III are being placed on here.

― Matt DC, Friday, November 4, 2011 12:05 PM (2 hours ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

isnt this stuff far too close to ~actual~ house to qualify as 'hipster house' even though its predominant audience is in fact hipsters, which is part of my confusion about how stuff that isn't quiet so dance-y managed to gain purchase, in 2011

azari & iii is a pop group with vocals, people dancing to them in a h****** loft party are probably also dancing to things like holy ghost or penguin prison or whatever, their lack of interest in proper house and techno is probably equal to their lack of interest in 100% silk singles or teengirl fantasy

it seems like there was at least some interest in reconciling all of that stuff together in the mid 00s with black dice and gavin russom being on DFA, but i guess arguably it didn't really work. the people who went to go see holy ghost open for chromeo were for the most part probably not running to go buy black meteoric star albums and by the time their tenure at dfa ended, black dice's former label paw tracks had grown a lot and maybe become a better place for them

like i guess there are reasons for throwing the h****** tag around but if you're going to do that, it has to be made clear that the people in stutter shades going to secret sponsored parties with spank rock and duck sauce or whatever are not the same people who are making or buying 100% silk records

I think the dichotomy some ppl are referencing (not to put words in Lamp's or anyone else's mouth) is almost more about venues and less about the music?

like, diy basement show vs trendy club

This goes a long way toward explaining the spirit of the scene and answering Tim's question about how it differs from electroclash in terms of being outside the dance music mainstream. While the NY aspect of electroclash (Fischerspooner, Larry Tee) made a conscious reach for mainstream success w/o needing dance culture success, one of the key parts of the hipster house scene is it's underground quality - Azari & III end up not being a part of it simply by being too successful, taking them outside of the realm of DIY venues and limited vinyl only releases (and that's aside from the differences in mastering, that they're on Turbo, etc.). At least from what I've seen here in DC it is, to a large extent, a house party scene and there are a lot of kids in it who are just really wary of actual nightclubs in general.

azari & iii is a pop group with vocals, people dancing to them in a h****** loft party are probably also dancing to things like holy ghost or penguin prison or whatever, their lack of interest in proper house and techno is probably equal to their lack of interest in 100% silk singles or teengirl fantasy

― james brooks, Friday, November 4, 2011 3:57 PM (11 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

i disagree i think ppl who are into edits & etc are also messing w/ the big azari singles (all 2 of them)

I don't think that era of DFA has really ended either - the Invisible Conga People 12 for example.

i can personally attest that 'in a hole' sounds good in a set incl h1pster house music

Yeah I'm sure it would!

Invisible Conga People are basically my platonic ideal for this kind of thing. And I would love for some of this stuff to go in the percussive direction that ICP did on "Weird Pains".

I've been liking yr last few posts btw Lamp - I do think that perceptions of relationships and differences are as important as the reality so if someone is saying "notwithstanding anything else this feels different or distinct to me/us because of the contextual framework" that makes total sense to me, so long as it's at least somewhat self-aware.

i have heard azari & iii songs in miracles club sets fwiw. also that neurotic drum band single, which sounded excellent.

it's worth noting tho that these sets don't rly include any hipster house at all

not sure if this kind of stuff was discussed already or really fits in here, there's some silkiness to it anyway

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DRp-CWxAMHU

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=npo5gC6r8bU

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

azari & iii is a pop group with vocals, people dancing to them in a h****** loft party are probably also dancing to things like holy ghost or penguin prison or whatever

Okay that makes sense because I associate Azari & III with Permanent Vacation and similar labels and totally think of all that as 'proper' dance music (albeit of the disco variety). Holy Ghost are kinda the link between Permanent Vacation/nu-disco and DFA, I suppose? All this stuff feels like it's at least linked to the rest of dance music (and also Gavin Russom etc) but the stuff that's being talked about on this thread feels like it's coming from a different direction, which is why Azari being brought in confused me a tad.

Permanent Vacation and similar labels and totally think of all that as 'proper' dance music (albeit of the disco variety)

not sure why this needs an "albeit" caveat

Would prob like some of the stuff in this thread but i never like hearing a block of things all together like oh hello you must listen to this whole new thing these are the things that sound like it....prefer just hearing records in isolation (or in a mix or whatever), not having to represent some other things

it's the 21st century man get with the program

love your username btw!

THIS track from Mr Wolfers recent FACT mix was made for this thread - right down to the fake you tube back story and everything

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LTyZm9qr37A

Maria Minerva was just playing at the local record shop. Sounded better on their system than it does on my headphones.

potential new entry:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n4T2K-dkxA4&

song's not half bad...