James Blake, Mt Kimbie, CD/SD

i bet he's going to blow up when he eventually makes his piano & untreated vocals record

fwiw not feeling the new one at all upon first listen. honestly my favorite blake moment is his remix of MK's "maybes"

i don't think pariah is nearly as interesting as these guys btw. more danceable, sure, but his sounds and ideas are way more stock.

(i do like the dubstepped-up amens on that new track though)

"crooks and lovers" = lamb (remember lamb?) for 2010

except it's not corny bullshit?

(i didn't remember lamb, i had to youtube it)

Seeing Mount Kimbie tonight :D

Hope they don't sound like 2010's equivalent to Lamb, though.

uh

it's the less tracky, song-oriented, wistful defanged indie home-listening version of popular dance music

how is it not - by definition - corny bullshit?

what do you mean by "defanged" exactly?

they don't really write "songs"

i mean if mt kimbie bit your leg it wouldn't hurt (unlike if, say, dizzee rascal bit your leg)

they do too write "songs"

with words? that you can sing along to? like what?

do all songs have words?

I do actually sing along to "Maybes". Sounds pretty weird but whatever

yeah i mean noone wanted to say "IDM" did they ...

still, a little disappointed we're revisiting this debate in 2010. baja do you only listen to "pure" forms of every genre? or do you only listen to dj mixes of club tracks?

I'm probably not especially qualified to make this assertion, but it does seem that Lamb, as a poppy-ish, more fluffy take of drum n' bass as a post dn'b thins maps on pretty well to the fact that mount kimbie is a poppy, more fluffy take on dubstep, as a post-dubstep thing.

it's the less tracky, song-oriented, wistful defanged indie home-listening version of popular dance music
Can't help but agree with this, though it doesn't impede my enjoying it.

Okay, I haven't actually heard their album yet, so who knows.

i don't see it as reviving any old debate so much as ongoing trolling stretching from crap like "microgoth" and "soft sad techno" all the way to abominations like this thread.

the jr boys had 1 good song, get over it

oh no he dint!

<3

Oh great vahid's "home listening" rant again

xpost to baja

haha ok man if it makes u feel good inside troll up this thread

fwiw i love listening to hardcore dance music at home. i hate the idea that all home music has to be low-key or something

but obviously there are extra-musical concerns playing out here, so, yeah.

would lounge in a chillout room playing maybes

ok, first of all, this isn't about home listening vs hardcore dance. seeing as my all-time favorite label is mo'wax (closely followed by various ambient techno labels from UK / detroit) and i own more than 80% of the catalog, i think that's a bit of a red herring.

really, i'm just opposed to music that suxx.

truth is, these days anybody can slap some heavy grainy washed-out noise effects on a soft-baked, half-assed, underwritten pastiche of actual good music and then call it witch house, chillwave, post-dubstep, what have you. and people will just hoover it up the way they hoover up any sort of design whatever that references midcentury stuff (and i say that as somebody who has books on case study houses) or any sort of clothing whatever that is vaguely associated with heritage or americana.

so yeah, obviously some extra-musical concerns playing out here because i can't fathom how anybody could find anything intra-musical to like about this shit.

what i really want to do is precisely articulate why i think, say, mo'wax and boards of canada are legitimate expressions of this impulse and why

basically it just comes down to invention and novelty, i guess. and when i hear this stuff there's no shock of the new or anything, it's just like "oh, look, someone made a chillwave version of uk garage" and then i just get that same creeping feeling of lameness i get when i read interviews with these guys and they list their influences like "terry riley, grizzly bear, the xx, joker, todd edwards" OMG

that makes more sense. for me, i'd been checking out dubstep etc. for a few years, and i was interested but nothing really caught me, and it's not something i ever hear when out dancing (well, at this point there are a couple dubstep nights around here, but it's something you really have to seek out).

when i heard mount kimbie it was actually a revelation, i realized it was exactly the version of this music i'd been looking for. really musical, incredibly detailed, organic sounds. it's not really a surprise since i've always been a sucker for the artier "home listening" side of dance music, so if that's what offends you on a philosophical level, fine. but the "intra-musical" stuff is precisely what is so strong about this band to me.

so maybe i meant "that makes less sense"

so you like this music better because it's more musical

thanks geir

cause rap is just people talking over other people's beats, right?

the people want ART

ok "musical" is not a very helpful term, but i use it to mean tasteful (in a good way) and good at their craft, good at making everything have an effect, good at making decisions. i think i started saying that because drummers toss that term around to describe other drummers.

now just come on

tasteful?

http://m-a-g.org/mag/wp-content/uploads/2010/08/Mount_Kimbie-Crooks_Lovers.jpg

^^ tasteless

you're tasteless

taking ten year old beat styles and make it quiet and fuzzy sounding = good decision! (financially, anyway)

not as tasteless as two white dudes putting a fat black lady in streetwear on their "look at us tweak the conventions of street music" album

http://i.imgur.com/UcH7z.gif

well, thanks for attempting a musical critique of mt kimbie but it's not reverb and wooze at all; it's crisp and detailed sounding. it's mostly cutup samples i think. and im a sucker for that

but i guess i'm being hypocritical because i always shat on 'art rap' in college (atmosphere, def-jux) and preferred mobb deep, three 6, etc.

i will say that i liked the eps better than crooks and lovers. i could see it getting old. that's the problem with these threads - not like i think mt kimbie is going to save music or anything. i just really like their sound design.

i dont know man, i wrote a really mean response but then deleted it; i dont wanna get into that. i think i admitted to being an 'indie dilettante' upthread and if that's what it's all about, fine.

i think BoC is good ref. point -- what do you like about them that you don't find in Mt kimbie? mount kimbie don't have that strong affective undercurrent, i don't think, for one

xpost oh yes let's go there -- people who like mt kimbie ARE RACIST

shocked it took this long tbh

she's black?

(honestly it just makes me happy that this thread is active, even if it's b/c of trolling)

hey baja do you like the actress album? i think i saw you say you thought it was overrated but still dug it a lot right?

I think this argument has crystallised why I don't think much of this album, it's not big or kinetic enough to work on the dancefloor but just isn't interesting enough to work as swoony headphone/bedroom music. It could do with being MORE melodic, if anything.

Honorable exceptions = Carbonated and whatever that Kompaktish one is towards the end.

i loved both actress albums

i agree that carbonated is the best track, but also the one that just sounds like an extra-fizzy, slowed-down version of a todd edwards track circa 2000

hmm i feel like there must be a lot of reverb on something like "before i move off" but maybe they just recorded that guitar in a parking garage or some other suitably desolate, urban, british location

i don't think "before i move off" sounds any crisper or more detailed than, say, a skream track. it's just like year 1 college acoustic guitar lesson behind a super quieted down skream track

btw thank YOU for attempting a musical critique

=D

"quieted down"

I don't see any good reason to put Mt. Kimbie, and the album in particular, at the centre of any post-dubstep vs whatever debate - it's a nice album, and I love a couple of the songs right now, but it's not a defining masterpiece or anything. Albumwise I don't think I've heard anything since Untrue that's worth having fights over.

it's the center of the debate because certain, uh, cultural outlets are acting like it's a defining masterpiece.

well for one BoC took an existing trend and took a deeper look at the roots. oh hey, this new-fangled beat electronica stuff actually has some roots in 70s electronic soundtrack and library stuff, why don't we amp up that element and see what happens. that's relevant. fuck, that's how stuff like UK garage gets invented in the first place, right?

this is just making an existing beat science appropriate for play in starbucks. thanks, but no thanks.