delia gonzalez & gavin russom - the days of mars

BMS*

I think BMS sounds far closer to the "Adonai Elohim" than Harmonia but I'm being an ass so I'll stop.

need to hear this record so I can have a contrarian opinion about it

i still think it sounds more like acid house than dronerock, but i was just sayin i can see where she was comin from.

I think my issue whenever Kate starts talking about dronerock in relation to dance music is that the elements she's referring to are common to vast swathes of techno. Perhaps some of the current crop of producers wear their dronerock/Krautrock influences on their sleeves more, but there's always been, if not cross-pollination, then a shared or similar approach to music, partly because they have some of their roots in the same places. I think one reason why saying "this is just dronerock" rubs people up the wrong way is because it isn't giving enough credit to techno.

All the Black Meteoric Star stuff I've heard sounds fantastic by the way. Sound is huge, would love to see it live.

I mean, we're talking about two genres that are built on texture, repetition and build. Of course they're going to have elements in common because the artists in question are adopting similar processes, albeit with different gear and instrumentation.

I ordered the BMS album tonight based almost entirely on the praise in this thread. It had better be good... (Honestly though, I do really like the Delia/Gavin stuff from the past few years so not too worried.)

Another reason people might be getting rubbed the wrong way is that it sounds like dronerock is being used to (rhetorically) legitimatize techno/house/minimalism etc. (it just sounds like that, whether that's what's being said, I can't and won't say. I'm getting is "what's drone rock is good, and what's good is drone rock" and while you can hear anything in anything if you want, that logic loses a lot of meaning without boundaries of what drone rock is to begin with. It's also kind of selective, too, I hear Jeff mills as much as Neu in Music for 18 Musicians for instance.

And people may not agree with me here either, but drone rock or drone rockness isn't an inherently good thing, either.

Matt DC and EDB OTM; you put into words the thoughts my asshole brain is incapable of expressing.

if we're talking dronerock = harmonia and stuff like that, ok

― winston, Monday, 29 June 2009 20:33 (Yesterday) Bookmark

Yes. Michael Rother / the less meandering end of Cluster is exactly what I'm thinking of. It's no accident that I saw Cluster and James Holden playing a show together a few months ago.

I mean, we're talking about two genres that are built on texture, repetition and build.

Yes, this is what I'm saying. Exactly.

Of course they're going to have elements in common because the artists in question are adopting similar processes, albeit with different gear and instrumentation.

I'm not so sure about the different gear and instrumentation any more. It's not as if Dronebobbins (to coin a phrase, to avoid the rockist connotations of "dronerock" because I include a lot of krauty stuff, spacey stuff, dronepop in the larger genre of "drone" as well as your pure LaMonte Young/Terry Reilly stuff) avoids the use of synthesisers, sequencers, programming, etc. The only real difference is in the drumming/beats - that dronebobbins tend to stick to motorik/rock-based 4/4 straight rhythms while the dance stuff will stick on disco rhythms and house rhythms with more synchopation (or not - as I've discovered.)

I'm certainly not intending to "priviledge" dronerock over techno or anything - it's just that most of my musical experience is in other areas. I've been learning about "dance" or "club" music (whatever the hell that means, these terms seem so clumbsy - as if you can't dance to The Sonics!) - but as it's not my primary experience of music, I often need to find a way *in* to this kind of thing. And my easiest way in to it is through the repetative/drone/textural element. I'm not trying to "legitimise" anything. I'm just finding mine own way into a kind of music that I don't have the cultural or other reference points for.

I often feel like people on these threads are saying to me "because you come from a rock/pop background, you don't have a *right* to have an opinion on this music" which really rubs *me* the wrong way.

Listening to this now. To my non-trained ear I can hear a lot more (say) Basic Channel than (say) Faust, although there is definitely a krautrock thing going on. It's definitely a techno record though, were one forced to assign it to a single genre.

personally, "drone" to me has always constituted a distinct lack of motorik style rhythms or anything of the Steve Reich variety. If there are rhythms, they're of the microtonal type, or the big it takes minutes to get around each beat type. Drone as more specifically, the Theater of Eternal Music style, not like a rock band or dance producers plodding on and on. Something like Music for 18 Musicians may have subtle movements, but it's so detailed and frenetic that it has an excitement that is very un-dronelike. I guess the very definition of drone is of sustained notes, where motorik, acid house, etc are definined by rhythms and patterns.

I mean, we're talking about two genres that are built on texture, repetition and build.

Although you realize this could mean practically anything.

I think what I mean to say, though, is that drone is not the beginning or end of the story, but a small piece amid it. I'm wouldn't criticize anyone for accessing other forms of music through it, but but think of it as the gateway not the goal (and it might be limiting to comprehend things as structured so by a particular framework too, perhaps).

Never mind, I've learned my lesson. I'm never going to praise anything I like, on ILM, ever again for fear I might get the genre wrong and be told my reasons for liking it are totally illegitimate.

i believe we've been quite unfair to kate here - she's obviously using "drone" the way some people use the word "funk"; i.e. a record doesn't have to be a scratchy 45 with a brass section for someone to say "this is pure funk".

^^^^^^^^ yes. OTM. See also how some people use the phrase "soul".

"drone", "wub" - all these things are just my way of saying "this record brings the goodness"

i think we're being pretty reasonable actually. nobody is denying anyone their opinion here, simply stating their own.

i think it's interesting that some of you think of BMS as drone, but i don't need to agree! i started this whole thing by saying that her description was misleading, not rong or 'bad' or anything. people are allowed to disagree, yeh?

so I guess I'm the only one who likes Days of Mars better than the BMS record then? (of course when it comes to that record I am very much the demented governess who believes the baby is her own; it's probably my favorite record of the decade.)

oh i much prefer Days of Mars. this doesn't do much for me.

I prefer Days... as well (one of my fave records of the last 5 years), but I like the BMS record too...

i also prefer Days of Mars. i like the BMS and would love to see it live, but i doubt i'll come back to it nearly as much as Days of Mars.

i think it's too early to tell if i'll like this one more. i've always liked 'days of mars' but it continues to grow on each time i pull it out, and i could see the same thing happening with black meteoric star

I don't know how BMS can be as good as Days of Mars, but I kinda lump in the Carl Craig mix in with Days...

Which makes it an unstoppable monster frying all who cower before it.

personally I find the beats on BMS kind of distracting. part of the charm of Days of Mars for me was how passively you could listen to it - I used to listen to it first thing at work when I was still half asleep.

carl craig relevee is pretty holy shit the first time you play it for anyone

this is pretty good too i suppose

Elsewhere Russom channels rock dynamics - the differences and repetitions on the fist-bumper Anthem recall trance-rock pioneers like Spacemen 3, Velvet Underground and Suicide, where churning rhythms get wound up into overwhelming, epileptic grooves.

a weirdy mix by gavin. (at bottom)

http://www.20jazzfunkgreats.co.uk/wordpress/2009/06/22/sister-electras-ballad/

So, erm, basically, Gavin Russom is channelling 4AD circa about 1989?

Whoa, he even has a HNIA track on his mix?

I might actually be in love. (question is, does he *look* like the DDB he's so clarly chanelling?)

He looks like a disgusting dirty hippy is what he looks like.

Ah! He looks like a missing member of Faust. Awesome. I want his shirt.

Anyway, this is not appropriate. I'm annoyed because one of my sodding colleagues called when I was halfway through that mix... oh, it did pause and save my place. Good. I keep waiting for Danielle Dax to burst in with some mad 4-track chanting.

I want to hear him remix Bishi. That's what I'd really like to hear. Yes.

have you heard his petar dundov/britney remixes, kate?

i really want to hear days of mars now - never bothered at the time b/c someone said something about it which was really offputting to me (can't even remember what that was).

Psygawpl linked the Petar Dundov thing on the other thread, yes, I liked it.

so yeah the black meteoric star is pretty rocky

Days of Mars is pretty damn awesome.

yeah one of my favourites of the decade. would love to have heard a remixed version of the whole thing, the carl craig version of 'relevee' doesnt get old at all

Bought this the other day, anticipating it's firs listen

I might like this better than Black Meteoric Star. But I can't really decide. They're two different moods.

challops time: why was this hidden away on a hipster dance label? ach well. I'm just sad all the years I could have been listening to this that I lost.

because it is secret hipster music.

what sort of label should it have been hidden away on?

still thinking "casual friday" is the best thing gav's been involved with.

yeah, i always come back to that one, tis grebt

not that i agree that its the best thing he's been involved with, just different

that's #2 for me, after el monte

http://www.xlr8r.com/mp3/2009/12/accusations-gavin-russom-remix

^^^ v. impt

http://madelikeatree.com/Pages/bms.html
Right now I've produced two 12"s singles as The Crystal Ark. Those will be released on DFA in 2010. The first one is called "The City Never Sleeps" and we're shooting for February 2010. I was very much inspired by the 12" series that Praga Khan and Niki Van Lierop did in the early 90's under their Phantasia alias. I have been playing those tracks in my DJ sets for a while and like I said, things I'm interested in just filter in. I also cut the original instrumentals of the tracks after coming back from working and traveling in Brazil where I got exposed to a lot of great music; Carioca Funk, Atabaque, Berimbau... That fed in there too. It's very psychedelic, very heavy, very intense, and very beautiful music all at the same time. Percussion plays a major role, which was a natural development for me from the way I used pulses of electronic sound on "The Days of Mars" (which was heavily influenced by Afro Latin percussion, so the whole thing kind of comes full circle). I worked really closely with Viva Ruiz who is a New York based singer, dancer and film maker. She did a lot of the vocal work and lyric writing for The Crystal Ark which adds a whole other level to the sound. Intense femininity. Some other good friends and former collaborators were also involved; Alberto Lopez of Belu Music and Lizzy Yoder who I worked with in Sweet Thunder and who went on from there to be the driving vocal force on the first Fischerspooner album. She absolutely kills it on the 2nd Crystal Ark 12". We're going to play a pretty extensive live show schedule in 2010/11, but that's all I'll say for now.

sounds great. that first fantasia single completely blew me away when it came out. still great (despite somewhat dubious lyrical content).

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

O wow, really looking forward to this! That Phantasia track sounds tailormade for Russom ;)
Phantastic song, never heard it.