BT (Brian Transeau) - from yuck to awesome?

If you like BT and buy vinyl, it's worth tracking down this 12". http://www.discogs.com/GTB-Entropy-Kotex/release/80174

It's BT plus a couple other guys but it's (Entropy) one of the best progressive house tracks from that era.

aha - I see now. as I figured the Sasha mix has all the three preceding tracks on it (on my version). this is what I got:

http://www.discogs.com/BT-%E4%BB%8A-Ima/release/18398

you want that other version, "Blue Skies" is great

I like the BT track with Richard Butler on vocals.

http://open.spotify.com/track/1UTbUx2vmxa7sImXvuRdVi

Yeah, that track with Richard Butler is great. From some soundtrack right? Remember a few good tracks on that.

"blue skies" is amazing - loved the story of how it came about (bt and tori amos getting drunk together then searching across london for a studio to record in, and eventually breaking into the sony one - she does sound completely pissed tbh; and apparently none of the lines appear in the order she sung them in)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=axupfccW51M

http://methodsofdance.wordpress.com/2011/10/24/bt-blue-skies/

" After being introduced by mutual friends, Brian Transeau and Tori Amos discovered they had much in common personally, and subsequently collaborated professionally in the mid-1990s. “Blue Skies” came about after Amos sent Transeau a DAT of her singing improvised lyrics over “Divinity” from BT’s debut album. Transeau created a new instrumental foundation and edited Amos’ extemporaneous vocals into a structured song."

maybe this account skips a few steps.

Deep Dish were on fire then. Their Blue Skies mix, Give Me Luv mixes and Stay Gold 12" were what made me a fan.

Not sure if I heard Hideaway or Give Me Luv first, but they're linked in my mind.

oh i think maybe th estory i was thinking of was for bt's remix of her "talula" single?

"What I did for the Talula single was scat, recording over the original vocals. I was in Holland to do tele with my guys, specifically with Marcel, and Rob. Mark was working on setting things up for the tour. The Dutch just came to hang. This all actually started in London. BT and I were having dinner and he was telling me about these people who chase tornados and all this stuff about the Internet, which I don't understand. Why would someone go on there just to make up lies about me? I don't get it, it sounds like a sport, I mean feed the Christians to the lions, or like, gladiators where one of them has to die, it's nuts. All I know is BT was telling me about a page, a web, or something, where everyone talks about chasing tornados. Real people who jump in their Jeeps, cars, or on bicycles, and start racing toward these tornados with video cameras. I just started singing, 'He's chasing tornados, I'm just waiting calmly, he's chasing her'. We were with a guy named Spence from Perfecto Records too. BT said, 'What the hell was that?,' and I said, it's the new opening line for the Talula Tornado mix. We both looked down at our plates, BT looked at me and said, 'screw the spaghetti, lets record.' So we smuggle a bottle of wine out of the restaurant, rush to a black cab, and go studio hunting. We show up at EastWest. I knock on the door and we say, 'It's us,' and the security guard asks 'Is it OK' and I say, 'Of course it's fucking OK,' he was nice to us then. So we are working off the label's phone trying to find a studio. We're not having any luck, then Spence remembers a friend that has an old studio in his house, near Ladbrooke Grove. So we call him, race down in another cab, it's one or two in the morning by then. I do a scratch vocal so I can remember it, and take it with me. It sounded like shit but it wasn't supposed to sound like anything, it was only reference. I knew I was going to have to do it again, but I was leaving the country the next day to go to Spain. Anyway, when I got to Holland, I tried to record it again but I only had seven minutes and it still sounded like shit. So I said, 'Come on Marcel, I've gotta go back in the studio, make it work, I have to do it right.' So I went to Germany, then back to Holland for another TV show. After dinner that night, ten or eleven o'clock, Marcel and I went to a studio about 40 minutes out of Amsterdam, and sang the Tornado mix over Talula. I didn't even have the CD, I had to borrow a copy of Pele from someone, and sang to it. The DAT was about 15 or 20 minutes of me just scatting over the album track. I rushed that to BT in London, and so he's using it for the 20 minute dance mix. Just adding to it what I made up, and the part about chasing tornados."

He's been real busy the last 2-3 years. Anyone hear any of this stuff?

Last I really heard of him was These Hopeful Machines, which is a bit outside that window, but I completely loved about half the tracks. He uses elements of everything he's previously worked on in it - guitar rock, trance, orchestral, pop - often within the same song. Sometimes that indulgence works and sometimes it doesn't, but the best tracks on it are the best stuff he's ever done. I also briefly checked out If the Stars Are Eternal, which I think was a sequel of sorts to This Binary Universe (this dude and his album titles... hard to type them out without rmde), but it was too slight for me to give it a second listen.

Ok so I just gave a listen to ELECTRONIC OPUS and hoooly shit, this has got to be the most overwrought and utterly contrived thing I've ever heard. maximum everything, all the time...here's an ornate little orchestral section, then WOMP WOMP WOMP here's some FUCKING DANCE MUSIC then lets bring the singer in and GLITCH THE HELL OUT OF THIS VOCAL and now here are some more strings and piano and MORTAL KOMBAT!!!!! AHHHHHHH!!! And then some real pretty stuff too. It's fuckin hilarious too, like literally making me laugh out loud at the most absurd parts, and you know what? I think I actually...really like it? I mean this dude is utterly insane, but it's something I can get behind. Its probably disappointing if you're expecting some sort of orchestrated take on his greatest hits, when it's really just REMIX!!! TO THE EXTREME!!!

Haha I'll have to check it out. It's easy to understand why nobody on ILX is really into him (and god, his fans act as if he is the world's only musician), but I think his excesses are often interesting detours. I do wish he would combine his excesses more creatively - usually it's like one section of this genre, then one section of another, as opposed to actual cross pollination. Yeah contrived is the right word for it. I still haven't heard anything from him as good as the good half of These Hopeful Machines

I remember Muzik putting Ima at #5 in their best dance albums ever list in like 2002 or something and raising an eyebrow but I still don't think I've ever bothered to listen to anything he's released. Always assumed he was essentially the breaks version of Sasha & Digweed or something and really life's too short.

hes got a new album with Christian Burns out now under the name All Hail the Silence. it's a 84 minute synthpop album and clearly a childhood dream but man, I'll definitely be voting for this at the end of the year. analog synths, overwrought vocals, bad haircuts...man it's like the 80s all over again. even the videos are kind of hilarious, I mean you can picture the director saying "yell louder!! no, louder!! Brian, we need five more shots of you smirking and bobbing your head!!!"

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

Thanks for the tip! I'm digging this so far.

I probably like him most in synth pop mode, but the AHTS EP left me cold. May check the album out tho

...maybe back to yuck again? C'mon dude.

The next generation of music will be context driven, dynamic, biometric aware, fluid, changing adaptive. The next generation of artists will be algorithms not humans. You heard it here first.

— BT (@BT) November 19, 2019

'You heard it here first.'

The nerve.

There's nothing of value from BT since 1995. Just a frosted tip, cheesy has been.

Don't you dare talk like that about ESCM.

I still like this guy but man is he easy to make fun of. One of my favorite blogposts I've ever done is a...uh..."review" of These Hopeful Machines...

https://critterjams.wordpress.com/2016/02/22/bt-these-hopeful-machines-2010/

the period where he sounded like a USA-poppier version of Hybrid was probably pretty yuck after even a brief period

lol, didn't notice that Tim had made that comparison upthread

just realized this dude is the Garth Brooks of electronic music

not in terms of popularity or anything but rather that weird energy and intensity they bring to such aggressively mediocre music. plus their uhh 'signature' fashion sense