Photek: Classic or Dud?

nothng but piles of asian drums on top of one another. nothing to do but twitch like a jellyfish on a butcher block

wow, probably the truest thing i ever said on ilm

some dude called "the law" assembled this all photek 93-97 mix. makes a pretty damn good case for photek's brilliance.

01.. Photek - Third Sequence - Astralwerks [1996]
02.. Studio Pressure - Jump Mk II - Certificate 18 [1993]
03.. Goldie - Still Life (Photek Remix) - Razors Edge [1995]
04.. Studio Pressure - First Sequence - Photek [1994]
05.. The Truper - Vol 1 A - Street Beats [1994]
06.. System X - Mind Games (Dub Mix) - Entity [1994]
07.. Photek - Consciousness - Metalheadz - [1994]
08.. Photek - The Hidden Camera (Static Mix) - Science [1996]
09.. Photek - Ni Ten Ichi Ryu - Science [1997]
10.. Studio Pressure - The Water Margin - Photek - [1995]
11.. Photek - One Nation - Sanctury [1997/2007]
12.. Phaze 1 - Natural - Timeless [1995]
13.. Aquarius - Drift To The Centre - Looking Good [1995]
14.. Code Of Practice - Infiltrate - Certificate 18[1995]
15.. The Truper - Vol 2 B - Street Beats [1994]
16.. The Sentinel - Pulse Of Life - Basement[1994]
17.. Therapy? - Loose (Photek Remix) - A&M [1995]
18.. EZ Rollers - Rolled Into One (Photek Remix) - Moving Shadow [1996]
19.. Everything But The Girl - Single (Photek Remix) - Virgin [1996]
20.. Photek - Rings Around Saturn - Photek [1996]

go geddit here: http://drumandbassmixes.com/thelaw.htm

is burial the new photek?

yes ... sort of

photek >>> burial

he's a little bit bigger relative to the scene than photek was, and he's more "outside" the scene too

i want to say he's the new squarepusher but squarepusher was actively adversarial w/ drum and bass, whereas burial likes dubstep & 2-step, he's not trying to tear it down w/ something new.

and again, i think he crossed over more than squarepusher did. squarepusher probably sold less albums than goldie.

Rhythm & Sound ^ (Hyperdub + Skull Disco) * (2008 / 1996) = (Metalheadz + Photek Productions) ^ Basic Channel

thanks to this thread revive i went on a search for my copy of "something else...the bleeps tune" and i can't find it. i wanted to hear it again before coming onto this thread to proclaim its greatness.

that equation is breaking my brane

2008/1996 = breaks?

mind, one of my favorite things about 2008 is the return of breaks in non-traditionally steppy musics

Maybe... I was just writing gibberish really. Try listening to T-Raenon if you've got a headache. Hearing that for the first time, while reading an interview with him, where he mentioned that Black Dog's Bytes was his favourite record, made me a fan forever.

yeah the vibe of bytes is pretty much untouchable.

i think a digital music player needs to be invented where you can just drop in equations like that and then it plays them for you.

i'm going to echo mr dan perry from upthread and point out that BDP and detroit techno refs made a lot of people dislike him!

gibberish or not it is quite appropriate on a photek thread. mr science of breaks himself.

why would that make people dislike him?

i dunno. ask a british.

I don't think the Artificial Intelligence and Drum'n'Bass lot mixed that much at the time, though I don't remember there being any animosity there. Anyway I got into both via the lowly NME so I'm not well-qualified to cover this...

i dunno why the dislike either, other than part of the pre-existing sniffiness re "intelligent" tag

^^ this used to be a big deal! 300-post threads and stuff.

Pretty sure most of the backlash was Reynolds' inspired and I think he was mostly sniffy that Photek seemed so desirous to distance himself from jungle and instead align himself with detroit techno. Plus (at the time) he considered Photek's brand of d'n'b kind of dull compared to ragga/jump-up/what not. No doubt like everything else he's changed his mind half-a-dozen times since.

las time we did this i rolled out the reynolds line and got schooled: 'pparently early photek is pretty jump-up-ish.

im wondering how reynolds will treat post-1998 developments in 'energy flash 2: the blog years', because this argument over 'intelligence' has sort of gone away.

yeah photek started with mashy amen like everyone else but lol at outsiders who saw the switch from this to other areas as a duller direction given how boring and ubiquitous that sound seemed by late '95. still baffled by why so much seems to hang on what reynolds thinks tho.

http://www.lifesacharacter.com/cartooncharacters/rodneymoose.gif

i knew that was it, but "intelligent" totally misses the point re black dog and photek because we can talk about mystical alchemy or breaks-surgery but to me that confuses how we talk about the music with actual visceral impact. it all seems to hedge on this idea of class. like if you didn't use amens and looked towards detroit, you were upwardly mobile or something which is just ironic.

too bad there wasn't an equivalent late 90s detroitification of garage by home counties suburbanites eh

LOL

too bad there wasn't a late 90s ?-ification of detroit techno

anyway i show you a mix and this is the thanks i get

the mix is cool. i'm surprised by how non-photeky some of the earlier tracks sound (amens & divas, etc.).

there's also this one, as mentioned on "favorite dj mix" thread

Source Direct versus Photek
Download

Call & Response : Source Direct
The Physical : Photek
Computer State : Source Direct
Touching Down : Photek
Snake Style : Source Direct
Black Domina : Source Direct
The Fifth Column : Photek
Concealed Identity : Source Direct
Technical Warfare : Source Direct
The Water Margin : Photek
Love & Hate : Source Direct
Fusion : Photek
Capital D : Source Direct
Mind Weaver : Source Direct
Enemy Lines : Source Direct
Complex : Photek
Black Rose : Source Direct
The Seventh Samurai : Photek
Wanton Conduct : Source Direct
Ni Ten Ichi Ryu : Photek

http://drumandbassmixes.com/hades.htm

^^ there's some good, good mixes on that page

it's an interesting contrast hearing the two next to each other, considering how much ballyhoo people made about source direct being photek clones. photek comes across as the very much clinical breaks technician. spare, pure, surprisingly funky. source direct sound incredibly rigid and dark. the 2-step is so stiff it starts to push into into cristian vogel territory. (tech itch did some tracks like this)

having mentioned tech itch, it reminds me of a question i've always wanted to ask. just out of curiosity, what was the last drum and bass album you bought? i mean, the last one before you hung it up and said "fuck it, this stuff is over".

mine was ram trilogy's "molten beats"

full-length: probably breakage, a couple of years ago. didn't really like it. otherwise, just a macc 12" i think?

Photek's Solaris, assuming that counts

i never bought that many artist albums anyway so it's actually 'Saturnz Return' for me ha ha never did actually buy a copy of 'Mysteries Of Funk' (but did pick up 2nd hand copy of 'The Prototype Years' last year). you may be disgusted to know the dnb album from this decade i came closest to buying was John B's 'Future Reference' (also 'Malice In Wonderland').

i bought "mysteries of funk" and i was always really, really impressed w/ the sound design on the tracks but i never really liked listening to it. i was always like "whoa, grooverider optical did an amazing engineering this". i remember "rainbows of color", "starbase 23", "rivers of congo", "560 degrees" and "imagination" all being really good. also maybe "where's jack the ripper?" ... anyway RIP big man, at least it's not a turkish prison.

there's some great stuff on "prototype years"! "city lights", "deep inside", "silver blade", "subway" etc. but you NEED the 2-disc version with the VIP mix of "still' on the 2nd disc. incredible! i think grooverider in the liner notes he calls it "more devastating than the borg" LOL nerd!

i wish i still had my copy with the stereo cover that switched between images of grooverider's face and an x-ray of his skull

hey, did anyone hear that last venetian snares album? i didn't hear a word about it but the tracks on his myspace sound pretty great.

arrrggh don't even mention that guy

I bought that Hive/Gridlock album that Jess repped for. It's good enough, but not as amazing as he'd said.

Grooverider's in jail in Dubai right now, ain't he? LESSON 1: DON'T BRING DRUGS INTO THE UAE!

Before that it was the Soundmurderer/SK-1 thing, I guess. If mixes count I've bought a number (some Chopstick Dubplate stuff, various Offshore/Clever things, that Knowledge Introspective cover mount mix.)

mixes don't count, no

Oh wait I might have bought a Bong-Ra album since either of those if that counts.

you didn't have to buy the album, the videos are on youtube

Haha silly me then.

i think mysteries of funk is a great album as is the prototype years (i have the version with the holographic cover, but not the double cd). i still buy calibre albums. i think the last two-step dnb cd/mix i bought from the late 90s was the stakka and skynet comp on audio blueprint and the matrix album. there's probably others i am forgetting.

Oh wait I bought that Digital Dubzilla record for $1 from the Tower sale.

I just rediscovered his 2012 DJ Kicks mix , so nice

ooh, sounds like a good listen for the commute home

Pitchfork piece was great. There’s a lot of electronic music from the mid/late 90s that I loved desperately at the time. These days a lot of it feels… of its time. I don’t want to say they’ve aged poorly but I just can’t separate them from their era (Squarepusher, u-Ziq, Bukem, Roni Size and others). All these years later this particular Photek album still captivates me. I always put it on when I really need to get into a state of intense focus (i.e. writing to deadline).