ricardo villalobos

Not really.

"Basically everything is house music and there are different versions" = OTM (but that's just me.)

echo and reverb: fabricating space in sound recording, 1900-1960

that's sounds like an interesting read. Who wrote that?

xpost

yeah. while this is true re: Au Harem, more work went into Alcachofa in this regard. the prettiest two tracks on that -- 'ygh' and 'Black Conga' -- are CD only (the former having never been on vinyl, ever). the vinyl version of 'Hierklon' is even more, uh, 'home listening friendly' than the CD edit -- there are large stretches where the kick just drops out and it's just extended guitar/hand percussion interplay. why he didn't kick one of the 'Tenemarc' tracks off the CD and include that instead is puzzling.

I reckon you can view Alcachofa as more of an artistic 'statement' -- more thought seems to have gone into its layout. (by the way, anyone who's not heard the 3 vinyl only extras on it should -- I can YSI if needed)

yes please!

http://www.discogs.com/image/R-344629-1108150413.jpg

worked well with

http://images-eu.amazon.com/images/P/0140442731.02.LZZZZZZZ.jpg

this morning on the bus

I don't really see him as being entirely out on his own, or as an isolated example of "the only guy doing something innovative in dance music" when Isolee, Luciano and a lot of others orbit close enough by him in the same musical micro-universe.

Didn't Orbital get similar kinds of stick for everything they did post-The Brown Album? They might not be 100% suitable, or sublimated to the purposes of rocking a crowd, but I'd still have difficulty calling them "not dance".

And if you're thinking "ah, but that's not that innovative" just repeat the mantra "he made it in his bedroom, on a laptop, for nothing!! and it's sold like a proper record!" as if you'd never heard of such a crazy idea before... I get the idea people at large (in the UK?) have very low expectations of what it means to break new ground in dance, that they can still recognise as something they know.

Of course, this is why we need people like Booka Shade & James Holden... but Ricardo should hardly be kicked to the curb for not bending to the accepted way of doing things. We need mavericks!

*(I don't mean as a rule, that it's ALL they should do, and never touch 4/4, disco, vocal house or other "cheese" (scare quotes))

and who in the photo has the worst hair?

http://www.theoriginalsoundtrack.com/art/svenvath.jpg

http://www.theoriginalsoundtrack.com/art/svenibiza.jpg

http://img41.imageshack.us/img41/6318/282lk.jpg

This is so reminiscent of Louis Armstrong's attitude towards bebop. From the liner notes to the C'est Ci Bon: Satchmo in the Forties box set: "He spoke out against his new, young rivals for the only time in his career. Bebop, he claimed, ruined jazz and everything he had done to popularise it. It denied people the simple pleasure of melody that always gave jazz its accessibility and appeal." The author points out in the preceding paragraph that "bebop was exciting, energetic, tense, precise, sophisticated and somehow less easy on the ear. It was an expression of a new post-war age, and it was a music to listen to, rather than dance to." (my emphasis)

sorry for the run-on.

of course! i mean, i'm honestly mystified by this statement. why would you listen to music that didn't move you? i don't listen to dance music to ID the superficial features of it; i don't listen to music for reasons of fashion or anything else. i listen to it because it moves me in a deep way. i agree that there are a lot of different ways to be moved, but i also sympathize with ronan's point of view that central to the idea of house and techno is a four-to-the-floor functionalism, and that this functionalist aspect of villalobos' music these days is, for the most part, not there. that's not always true--i was reminded recently of a fantastic old track that Villalobos did in 1996 under the name of 'richard wolfsdorf,' called MDMA (ha!)--it's interesting sonically, but it's also bangin' as fuck. it's not like those two impulses need to be at odds with each other.

that said, i really do enjoy villalobos' current music. i am not against what he's doing; i'm all for him expanding his mind and expanding ours along the way. but i really don't react well to this romantic and reductive idea of villalobos as the sole auteur, as the only sentient lifeform in an otherwise dead and dessicated musical field.

wow, i don't feel this way at all. that is indeed silly and simple.

Susan I think it's this bit which is causing confusion. It sounds like you're suggesting that most dance music is just a technical equation, and that people dance to it because they recognise the equation as equalling "dance music"... but are not at all being moved by it.

Is that not what you were trying to say? What were you trying to say?

(I'm not trying to be patronising BTW... I think it can be very difficult to talk about this sort of music in a manner that is clear enough that it's not going to give rise to misinterpretations)

Tim, by the way, if you ever visit Singapore you MUST go to Zouk on a wednesday night. They play a medley of 80s music and pop hits thats in a strict format and every single song has a whole set of special moves that go with it. All the boys stand on one podium and all the girls on another and they do 'question and answer' moves at each other, all in perfect synch. It's like an entire club full of people doing DDR.

Ha ha this makes me think of Beyonce's "Crazy in Love" - everyone loves the chorus but they dance hardest to the spare "oh oh oh oh oh oh oh na na" bit straight afterwards.

:O

But wait...an average Villalobos track is 12 minutes long, so this will be 7 max 8 tracks, no?