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

Ronan, I'm having trouble parsing out the presentation from the "actual music" (horrible term) myself. On one hand, yeah, this stuff follows basic house parameters, but on the other, it's being marketed and distributed in a way that does scream hipster--the retro-fetish labels, that "Church Song" video, Ital posing in a big goofy sweater with colored wayfarers, etc--so it's not as if that's something just unfairly being brought to the table by too-harsh critics...

xp. yeah, i think there is a roughness to the best of this stuff that is appealing in a way that slicker sounding (putatively "bigger budget"/less "DIY") house might not be, to some people. where you draw the border of "proper" house wrt this stuff probably depends on what arguments you're trying to win.

and i don't think there's some club/clubbers out there listening to this stuff exclusively at the expense of "real" house. i think it's very much a gateway for some people, and more likely for others an adjunct.

but such awful sweaters!

Ronan, I'm having trouble parsing out the presentation from the "actual music" (horrible term) myself. On one hand, yeah, this stuff follows basic house parameters, but on the other, it's being marketed and distributed in a way that does scream hipster--the retro-fetish labels, that "Church Song" video, Ital posing in a big goofy sweater with colored wayfarers, etc--so it's not as if that's something just unfairly being brought to the table by too-harsh critics...

I dunno, I guess all the hipsters (people) I know like purist type deep house, if anything this stuff feels like a nice relief from that, a bit of space for the music to change. Not that I don't love that music too, it's just I sort of think there isn't that much good house music that hipsters don't like and fuel in quite a big way.

maybe my defn of hipster is broad, but let's not go there for the love of god.

x-post

Thinking of it as a gateway actually makes it more endearing to me, I suppose. I would love to introduce people just getting into house via this stuff to, like, Theo Parrish, Omar-S, etc--guys playing with roughness/low-fi-ness in their productions, pushing against the forms, but in a way that feels so much more invested and less Stereolab-detached. I think that's the next step for people who dig this, not so much the slicker and more obviously "club-driven" stuff, but who knows...

It just occurred to me that this scene in some ways feels very similar to the James Chance / Cristina/ ZE Records axis back in the day. I really liked a lot of that stuff back in college when I discovered it, but now it just kinda makes me go "ugh"...

i wonder what this thread would be like if p1pec0ck were still around

tom/pipecock on March 2, 2011 at 3:36 PM
whoa, really didn’t expect to see this on LWE. i like the first two 100% Silk records a lot, and the next two that just dropped sound cool as well. the new Mi Ami joint has a 707 on it and more restrained vox, very HOUSE in every way basically. i’ve been a fan of them, and the more direct their dance influences are, the better the music is getting!

Way upthread I had difficulty understanding any claim that the music the subject of this thread constitutes some kind of liberating twist in "dance music" (beyond a highly personalised and subjective social one, i.e. that by virtue of its origins it provides an "in" for a whole group of people who have never self-identified as dance music fans), and I still feel that, like most claims to such things, the idea that this is constitutively "new" requires an unawareness of similar moves from within dance music circles.

ALL THAT SAID. I also think the idea that the music's presentation or its relationship to "proper" dance music is stultifying or problematic in itself is a pretty long bow to draw.

Reading about the music often gives the sense that it's like "house music. but made by avant noise types." As if the appeal is primarily some theoretical or social positioning vis a vis dance music proper, and this is what is important.

But a lot of the actual music(and certainly my favourite stuff) quite literally fuses in a very obvious sonic (rather than purely theoretical or social) manner its love of dance music with its inherent outsideriness. At this point the sense of theoretical overdetermination falls away, maybe because the more unusual the sounds the more they can "mean".

(which is basically what I think in a whole range of areas; maybe when outsideriness is limited to some kind of "sensibility" rather than a deliberate sonic point of difference I'm just not nuanced enough to hear it)

By way of example, I think there's something deeply appealing about Maria Minerva's approach (incl. on her housier material) that doesn't require any kind of stance vis a vis dance music pro or con, because it just seems sonically explorative and in-its-own-world; I could just as easily imagine it as the work of a dance music producer branching out (as so many do!) as that of an outsider burrowing in.

Similarly on the new Ital EP the real keeper for me is "Floridian Void" (so cinematic), perhaps in large part because it reminds me of Ronny & Renzo, who are like this narrative in reverse.

I guess the effect of this is that I think any attempt to automatically privilege or delegitimise this stuff is kind of way-overcrediting pretty facile ideas about it at the expense of the actual music.

I could just as easily imagine it as the work of a dance music producer branching out (as so many do!) as that of an outsider burrowing in.

this is the thing about this music, something feeling new/interesting but still within house is quite common. I mean the "newness" may be as little as just not being quite so sure of where every breakdown or hook is going to go, a lot of what's popular in house at the moment is incredibly predictable, again i'm saying that as a fan.

Yes I would agree with that. I think that 100% Silk feels more outsider than it would have 10 years ago precisely because a lot of contemporary house is quite conservative and purist.

One person's excitement over where the hook or breakdown might go is another's nagging sense that the compositional chops of the producer are pretty limited...

Isn't that always the case though? You could have made the same enthusiastic claims for, or sceptical dismissals of, Kompakt circa 2001.

tal posing in a big goofy sweater with colored wayfarers

that's actually how californian teenagers dress though

especially "hip" ones who read vice and look at tumblr a lot

yeah i mean if you listen to those virgo four reissues or frankie knuckles for eg it sounds just as primitivist/futurist as any of this. i still like a lot of this. its about filters and lenses in some way.

yeah i was thinking that the line btw outside and inside experimenter is p difficult to parse if you arent aware of where the line gets drawn in the first place

Well Clarke it's both good and bad to me, there is a power in the way the more purist stuff has a predictability, I mean there is something satisfying about that predictability.

But the more meandering nature of 100% Silk and similar is refreshing too. The pristine house thing can get a bit artless.

xpost yeah actually part of the reason I love this stuff is cos it sounds spiritually akin to this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d3s1O4Ppyms

I do really like the idea of people trying to go back to that sloppiness, not for some silly DIY principle borrowed from whatever other scene, but just cos it actually sounds nice and loose and woozy and not as sharp as so much of what's around.

I feel a bit conflicted in that I love a lot of the deep house stuff that's around but there are other ways of making good music.

I think a big part of what I like Maria Minerva it that she sounds like she's been produced by DJ Koze.

x-posts

yeah i mean if you listen to those virgo four reissues or frankie knuckles for eg it sounds just as primitivist/futurist as any of this. i still like a lot of this. its about filters and lenses in some way.

I hear you Judith, but that Virgo Four stuff is, like, freaking exquisitely amazing. The "out"-est stuff on the Resurrection comp is also waaay more out than any "Hipster House" I've ever heard; like, I mean:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QHe-JDl8eNM

Even if they occupy some sort of similar primitivist/futurist zone, the Virgo Four stuff is visceral and thrilling in a way this stuff isn't. Virgo Four actually reminds me (not in the way they sound, but how the music feels) a lot of Fourth Drawer Down-era Associates! They share a sense of just unbelievable raw creativity trying to figure stuff out--intensely personal yet totally expansive. Whereas the HH stuff reminds me more of the way it felt to hear, say, Interpol start out dabbling in postpunk.

I think a big part of what I like Maria Minerva it that she sounds like she's been produced by DJ Koze.

Or Martin Hannett.

Like, there is NONE of that sense of remove / clinical distance with Virgo Four...

Whereas the HH stuff reminds me more of the way it felt to hear, say, Interpol start out dabbling in postpunk

REALLY? this seems kind of about who's making it rather than what's being made now. I don't know what "remove/clinical distance" sounds like on a record, presumably it's as discernible as "irony".

the problem here (re: the hipster issue) is that people are judging a lot of this music by an ill-fitted name it was given ITT (which nobody involved would ever use or identify, and surely find insulting), rather than by the actual context it's coming from, namely as space-out/trip-out music rather than club music

I don't think retro moves in rock map onto retro moves in dance very well anyway.

Like, it'd be hard to identify an Interpol of house given that house has effectively been continually revived since day one.

namely as space-out/trip-out music rather than club music

I dunno, everything about Miracles Club's presentation says they want to be judged as club music

I guess there are examples and counterexamples of this throughout the thread but plenty of these are more club music than head music I think

REALLY? this seems kind of about who's making it rather than what's being made now. I don't know what "remove/clinical distance" sounds like on a record, presumably it's as discernible as "irony".

Listen to, say, a Stereolab song and a Neu! song side by side and tell me one doesn't sound more detached and clinical... This gets into really difficult "feel" territory--and I recall another thread where you seemed pretty unconvinced by a similar notion--but for me it's palpable.

im sure weve argued about this before enough already but i dont think theres a point trying to divorce this stuff from how you 'xp' it irl or whether or not you xp it irl the h1pster tag is no better or worse than or false than calling it 'space-out' music. like clarke's interpol dig is p telling & if that the way hes framing this stuff than who cares its not really illegitimate some ppl read tumblr some ppl read levi-strauss some ppl make diamond catalog remixes it doesnt have to 'mean something' or it can mean 'everything' in how you understand/interpret the music.

dmr- hm, yeah that's the thing about grouping all of this together... some of it could almost be aptly described as 'hipsters getting into house' (bringing this post-indie lofi aesthetic to it), but a lot stuff getting grouped in here, especially the 'dysfunctional' stuff, is more specifically an outgrowth of the post-noise/drone/psych underground and could probably be better understood in the light of that approach to (and experience of) music making

okay i like the virgo four stuff a lot more than this, but a lot of very early house has this sense of wonder, the magic of machine music combined with the mundanity of consumer electronics. worlds inside boxes inside your house. i guess i would see 100% silk as arriving out of a partic narrative similar to the cliche about noise bands turning into chillwave bands. there's this sense in which the more primordially ecstatic vein of post anco musics has turned to early house as an analogy, an interrogation of the narratives of bedroom primitivism and futurism and bodies in the dark and machines and magick. like jamie principal writing Your Love alone in his room but also jackin until your skin is burning. i can see why these particular things would feel worth reviving, worth coming back to, at this moment within another genealogy.

I guess I'm just emphasizing that electronic-music-as-psychedelia was always one of the currents in the American rave scene, and some of these acts are kind of coming to it more from that angle

I'm suspicious of "you're listening to it wrong" arguments generally, even though I disagree with Clarke's take here.

Probably the most pernicious unspoken assumption in this thread is that everything's gotta be either avant noise space out or raw authentic house music.

exactly, i think its really this moment of elision

like this moment where one thing looks like another

largely agree with chris. the start of this thread was wildly off-base, even if you care about the negative stereotypes about "hipsters" this music is not even typical of that, it doesn't fit the prefabricated criticisms.

i do feel some of it potentially is club music, but maria minerva has a very strong artist album feeling that is rare enough in house/techno.

i'm not sure that you can make the interpol comparison any more readily with these us artists than you could with people reviving ron trent or basic channel.

plus just because technology allows music to go one way or move doesn't mean every good idea has been done at whatever point that happens.

Probably the most pernicious unspoken assumption in this thread is that everything's gotta be either avant noise space out or raw authentic house music.

or that house music has to be club music!

Listen to, say, a Stereolab song and a Neu! song side by side and tell me one doesn't sound more detached and clinical...

which songs?

i think most neu! songs sound more detached and clinical than "john cage bubblegum", "mountain", "wow and flutter", etc

sounds like you're using "detached and clinical" to mean something negative though

you like mika vainio? he's detached and clinical.

I'm not against critiquing this stuff by dance music standards, just questioning framing it all as 'hipster' music - bringing in a lot of assumptions that don't all necessarily aply, and putting all of this stuff together in the same category

x-posts (to be addressed)

okay i like the virgo four stuff a lot more than this, but a lot of very early house has this sense of wonder, the magic of machine music combined with the mundanity of consumer electronics. worlds inside boxes inside your house. i guess i would see 100% silk as arriving out of a partic narrative similar to the cliche about noise bands turning into chillwave bands. there's this sense in which the more primordially ecstatic vein of post anco musics has turned to early house as an analogy, an interrogation of the narratives of bedroom primitivism and futurism and bodies in the dark and machines and magick. like jamie principal writing Your Love alone in his room but also jackin until your skin is burning. i can see why these particular things would feel worth reviving, worth coming back to, at this moment within another genealogy.

Love this, and agree totally, which is why it's frustrating for me that this stuff tends to feel so kind of tentative and restrained. I want that ecstatic release. I want it to be more sinister, more unhinged, more visceral feeling. I'd be really thankful for suggestions of tracks more in that vein.

b-b-b-but the feelings are in your ears not the records

yeah^^ the ecstatic release/magick is the real connection here xp

im just going to post this youtube

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lyqr00BtUSw

b-b-b-but the feelings are in your ears not the records

True, and it just appears we have pretty different ears when it comes to this stuff (given your Stereolab feeling less clinical than most Neu! comments, too).

I'm not against critiquing this stuff by dance music standards, just questioning framing it all as 'hipster' music - bringing in a lot of assumptions that don't all necessarily aply, and putting all of this stuff together in the same category

Yeah, I'm starting to feel bad about having painted it all as "this stuff"--it's obviously grouped together in some folks' minds not entirely without justification, but it doesn't really get us very far to paint in such broad strokes.

I'm not against critiquing this stuff by dance music standards, just questioning framing it all as 'hipster' music - bringing in a lot of assumptions that don't all necessarily aply, and putting all of this stuff together in the same category

― Chris S, Monday, 13 February 2012 11:09 PM (8 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I'd like to think we can all agree on this? Judging music by what you think of the people making or listening to it isn't always the worst of all possible moves but I'd not want to bet against it much.

you like mika vainio? he's detached and clinical.

Sure, he's AIGHT. But being detached and clinical in a genre like his is different from being detached and clinical in a genre that, at its best (in my opinion), expresses some degree of joy and/or release and/or ecstatic abandon and/or rawness.

i don't really think there's much of a problem with the HH label as its kind of tongue in cheek and as meaningless as like witch house or chillwave or w/e. to me it just signifies the "outsider" aspect of it. btw, are pretty much all of these acts american?

no kompakt is german

hipsters surely don't listen to Kompakt in 2012

Lamp, that Diamond Palate has some good stuff going on... I dig the sludgy vibe and the dread of it. I really dislike the little lead line, though; it seems too obvious of a signifier. "Hey, in case you were wondering whether or not you were allowed to dance to something so murky, this will assure you that it's alright!"

re the HH label, yeah Clarke B, the conversation on this stuff (from the outside) has to be started somewhere, guess the details/distinctions-of-genres/scenes can be worked out as the converstaion develops (as is the case)