Nina Kraviz - Nina Kraviz [2012]

she is v v pretty btw

v v v

It's a rule. You can't mention Nina Kraviz without saying how beautiful she is. Or how she may be fancying Ben Klock. The fanboys getting very hot under the collar. Really liked "I'm Gonna Get You" but none of these are really grabbing me. I saw her play a couple of times last year and she played tougher. The vocals sound a bit Luomo.

Not really feeling this, it's kind of drab.

otm, it's def not sitting at my desk/driving in my car music

This could never be as drab as Benoit and Sergio or Art Dept

not saying much

Benoit and Sergio occasionally nod in the direction of a tune. This doesn't

otm

b&s backlash make me sad :-(

Goddam those soulless house music producers with their lack of tunes!

i think this stuff is quite tepid

like the best track on here is a smoothed out version of tantakatan which itself was like a smoothed out version of a radio slave track

Goddam those soulless house music producers with their lack of tunes!

― Tuomas, Monday, March 19, 2012 4:25 PM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

yeah, what the hell are these fools talking about? this record is all about sounds for me (including her voice, which i love). i'm not coming into it looking for pop songs.

b&s backlash make me sad :-(

― flopson, Monday, March 19, 2012 4:17 PM Bookmark

backlash implies that we liked them in the first place, which NO. FUCK THAT.

I knew i'd be brought up on that throwaway tunes comment, but i don't find it this particularly atmospheric or anything either. Seems like this and Voices From The Lake are the two most acclaimed dance albums recently and i find both of them incredibly boring.

Rev I think yr crusade against hipster druggy house doesn't really apply to anything B&S have done in the past 12 months.

They've basically turned into a 2012 equivalent of Justus Kohncke.

I can understand disliking "Where The Freaks Have No Name" et. al. on your stated grounds, of course.

one man's "boring" is another man's "low key late night music"

maybe ppl are just confused cause it's on rekids? doesn't remind me of anything i've ever heard from that label

yeah, i could see that. rekids stuff is usually more overtly banging for sure.

yea, and her RA podcast, other singles etc were a lot different too.

backlash implies that we liked them in the first place, which NO. FUCK THAT.

― The Reverend, Monday, March 19, 2012 9:32 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

we did. i was there. i was one of them.

i can understand not being wowed by the kraviz album cuz it really is very understated, but it works really well at creating mood. there are too many actively annoying elements to benoit & sergio

ya idk if i'd call it a 'grower' but it definitely helps to be in the right mood. which, it turns out, i usually am.

couldn't imagine hearing this stuff 'out', it's so intimate and understated. i could imagine someone hating this record if they were sitting around anxiously waiting for something to happen or sweep them off their feet... this isn't 'just' wallpaper but it works really well in the right setting/with the right expectations... i think i gravitate towards records like this tho maybe others don't. also maybe cold rainy pacific northwest winters naturally complement this type of thing

i love b&s but this really is nothing like b&s, can we have that debate elsewhere?

maybe cold rainy pacific northwest winters naturally complement this type of thing

ha, you too?

yea this is my second pdx winter and i'm trying to embrace it rather than continuing to hold out for whenever the hell it's supposed to be sunny again

It's very effective at creating mood but that mood is really boring, this kind of druggy blankness. I'm not a massive deep house fan at the best of times but I actively leave rooms in clubs when it gets like this, there's nothing to really hook into here. I don't really get why we're talking about Benoit & Sergio here at all.

why have actual descriptive comparisons when we can have tribalist statements of allegiance and enmity.

ftr my tribe's position on Nina Kraviz is "indifferent," we just showed up to defend our Tribal Deities Benoit & Sergio's honour

the mood reads as warm intimacy to me

fwiw, the only track on this i'd actually want to hear (or play) out is "ghetto kraviz"

i also just really like how loose and breathable her stuff is. as far as the album goes it's not a "major" album, it's casual, but with a very defined vision, which feels kind of rare in this protooled-within-an-inch-of-its-life world which shows every sign of worsening

I hardly think that's a major issue in the genre context in which she's working.

maybe not, i have no idea!

i guess the reason it occurs to me is that the SOUNDS she uses are very, very nice, pristine almost, but it's in service to loose and almost ramshackle songs, which is a neat combination

(though "songs" is maybe overstating what they are..)

There are a hell of a lot of dance music albums like that though. It's practically traditional at this point.

i guess i am just way out of it.

No it's good news. If you like this kind of thing then there a lot of great albums for you to check out. Start with Kalabrese!

Also I stand by my Dani Siciliano reference above.

i love kalabrese! they/he seems more jam-packed and maximalist to me though. not skeletal and spare like this.

some of those dance albums with pristine sounds and ramshackle songs ALSO have ramshackle voices, be warned (iirc i thought kalabrese was one of these)

Oh yes I would expect you to have some issues with Kalabrese, lex. Also Noze.

yup nôze have always repelled me slightly apart from "remember love". just...disgusting vocals

there's also something just a little bit evil and twisted about nina kraviz that i'm responding to. like she is going to drag you down into her dark world if you let her. looseness + great sounds + evil = turkish delight for tracer hand

yea i think dani siciliano is a fair comparison, maybe luomo too. it's not mining any strikingly new territories but honestly it doesn't matter because it nails the vibe it's going for perfectly - and i don't get 'druggy blankness' at all. again, i can't imagine hearing this in a club, but maybe it codes that way in that setting.

i'm actually glad that it wasn't produced by someone like matthew herbert tho, it wouldn't have the same warmth. tbh i think siciliano, kalabrese and noze actually accomplish something a lot more twisted than this record. nina gets a little 'evil' as tracer mentioned but if you're looking for disjointed alien sex jamz you have come to the wrong place

yeah i meant psychologically twisted rather than anything specifically in the sonics

more of that indie tech house

2012 landfill indie house

Big up the ghost of DFA

Blondes/Talabot/Kraviz

Your time

yea we've already talked about how none of those things have anything to do with dfa

lol @ 'landfill' in the context of three albums as they compare to the glut of post-dubstep blah (talk about BORING) put out in the first few months of 2012. and talabot might be a bit indie but don't you like sun araw and shit?

This is mega Berlin 2012 DFA tech indie house if ever I saw it.

so what (it isn't, but so what anyway)

i agree with some of those qualifiers but still sorta fail to see how dfa has anything to do w/it (maybe ndf/benoit & sergio at a stretch)

plus, dfa is great! i love all of those qualifiers except "tech house", but i guess that term can be stretched to mean p much whatever you'd like

this, which despite its surface-level boringness and songs which develop maybe 2mm from where they started still manages to keep me listening

i don't know, but maybe there's less songcraft getting in the way of the good bits? i hear, like, refrains, and fragments of refrains, and of backing vocals, but less of a heavy effort to sculpt them into house's version of a 'song'

even if it is there somehow.

cuz anyway good refrains or groups of refrain-like parts don't need so much in the way of development

DJ Kicks mix is sultry and moody and deep and basically what I expected, not hugely thrilling but not boring and definitely cut from the same cloth as her album.

Fabric mix is tight!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TUhQV6QBeck

tracked down a decently priced copy of her album for REKIDS on cd.
cannot wait to hear it.

Is this the record from 2012 that's self titled

yup.
saw it on cd in my local hmv in the week of release and thought i'd get it at some point.
never saw the cd edition again except for £££ via amazon.
however, someone who used to work for the label is on discogs and has a clearly has a couple of copies up for grabs :
https://www.discogs.com/Nina-Kraviz-Nina-Kraviz/master/414521

Absolute classic record. Enjoy!

also from the same bloke,
got the radioslave/rekids/mixmag covermount ordered as i never got the mag.
and ...
shhhhh, but a hopefully few extra edits and stuff that are not allowed to be advertised on discogs
cannot wait.

ok, package arrived yesterday.

the standard NK cd album with skinny promo (perfect for the car !)
along with a copy of mixmag with NK on the cover and a covermount cd of a mixtape of unreleased extras aka 'Mister Jones'.
(alongside a few REKIDS extras, but hey i dont want to brag)
blood and sand, it's a good album.

in other news : just found out today that Radio Slave had a proper artist album out recently !
clearly i am no longer on the ball, as i had no idea.

and weirdly, NK is this months cover of Mixmag, with 2 cover variations available.

ty for reminding me about this album

it's a cool album, i like it

canceled

https://www.residentadvisor.net/news/44688

Yeah that was all garbagey yesterday.

lol I saw the initial instagram post and scrolled right on past

I absolutely don't want to delve into that conversation, hoo boy

mh otm.

having attended a panel talk that included Frankie from Discwoman a couple weeks ago that touched on similar issues... I would absolutely not advise Nina to do the "well, actually.." stuff and slowly back away

(it was a really good panel)

It would appear 99% of Nina Kraviz fans (sadly) can't see that she did or said anything wrong.

things that make you go hm

Trying to imagine getting Russians whites on board w the concept of complicity in global anti blackness is kind of a mindfuck, it’s already an ordeal in actual former slave colonies and original colonizer states

https://undergroundandblack.com/2019/10/29/keeping-it-real/

ash lauryn weighs in

Yeah, her response is embarrassing but it's also clear there's a total disconnect and she just doesn't get it (and also isn't particularly interested in getting it, which is the main thing driving people crazy I think)

i think ash lauryn nails it more than anyone else is ever likely to.