Bobbins 2020

i'm not for or against people not liking things. not liking things is a natural part of life.

but long ago i realized that "writing about music" really is "dancing about architecture". and 90% of the "serious pop music criticism" on this board is actually not music criticism at all, it's just really bad cod-sociology (the right kind of people like this so it must be good! the wrong kind of people like this, so it must be bad!) or even worse, pointless and absurd speculation about shit 99% of people on this board really know nothing about (the internal life of the artists who made the music and the techniques they used to make it)

so given that none of us really have anything interesting or meaningful to say about music, we can either be either supportive and make people feel good when they post bobbins (by appreciating what they posted) or we can be whiny and passive-aggressive and make them feel bad about posting (by complaining about what they posted).

so i choose to say nice things when i can say nice things, and in general to say nothing when i can't say nice things, because i want to make people feel good if i can and i want to avoid making people feel bad

anyone who knows my 20 year ILX posting history is probably snickering at that statement, but hey the wisdom of age etc

where is the right thread to post things like "I guess Loraine James is just buy on sight huh"

possibly this one?

Rolling (post-)Reconstructed Club Music 2020

lol @ the late great’s late-breaking pacifism

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

what can i say i'm a man of peace now

i think when someone is actually super knowledgeable about a specific niche there is an opportunity for interesting negative criticism, but the smug, dilettantish kind of dismissal typically seen in EOY threads is embarrassing imo. i don't mind negative reactions here, i genuinely did enjoy seeing some opinions. though i am glad some people said they enjoyed the tracks i posted, otherwise i might've concluded i just don't belong on the bobbins thread anymore

yeah i don't mind "that track has annoying sounds" or "i'm sort of over x or y" but am definitely turned off by / would want to avoid snobbery or reverse snobbery.

xxxp

haha, Tim F!

I agree with most of the post, tlg. I now mostly resist making negative comments apart from when you really feel the urge to make a particular point. I'd criticise someone's opinion on a movie or book more readily but I'd still be reluctant to do so about something someone liked a lot but then again sometimes you've watched Midsommar and you really need to say something.

the music discussion i tend to enjoy nowadays is less analysis and more description. i wanna know more about music scenes i don't have first-hand access to, i like to be able to imagine myself in the situation in which the music sounds best

I think it’s really just a question of “can this person say anything interesting about this music other than expressing their dislike”. It’s a lot harder to do so with something you dislike because there’s not much motivation to spend time with your dislike, examine it from multiple angles, come up with an articulation of it that isn’t just a patchwork of received wisdoms etc.

One way in is to frame the question as “what could this music do that would make me like it more?” But the problem is that most answers to that are just, “be more like this music over here which I am already emotionally or financially invested in boosting”, which is really just a device to excuse and justify further non-engagement.

In this thesis I will-

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EJFjbKnuF-Q

Wholesome activity from Javier Zugarramurdi

also i should clarify i don't mean to police this thread or board, if being negative nancy is your deal have at it and i won't criticize further, but that's basically how i break it down to an extent re: how i want to spend my time on the internet at the ripe old age of 43 vs 23

I think it’s really just a question of “can this person say anything interesting about this music other than expressing their dislike”. It’s a lot harder to do so with something you dislike because there’s not much motivation to spend time with your dislike, examine it from multiple angles, come up with an articulation of it that isn’t just a patchwork of received wisdoms etc.

yeah well put

As for that track that caused the kerfuffle, I did go back and listen to it again, on my studio monitors. I still think the sample is wildly irritating, but the peak of distorted madness is kind of nice...I just don't like the rest of the track, which relies on an uncomplicated beat, little in terms of secondary rhythmic structures, and a vocal sample. It just doesn't move me at the moment, whereas the Sansibar track I posted above it is really where I'm at... Listening to a lot of electro these days!

I like descriptions of texture, vibe, and what kind of scene a techno/house/etc track might fit into and possibly a “TIP!” if it’s especially good

dance music is interesting in, like other types of sounds that might be more tracky than songy, there’s a place for standalone songs, dj tools, peak hour intensity, weird experiments

Love the chill vibes from tlg

Absolutely slaughtered me multiple times over the years lol

*let the atonement begin*

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=stM8-0BncCE

new dj slyngshot on workshop ... fucking b o n k e r s

riyl puristic mpc breakbeat jackin

https://youtu.be/IVfZOHi67Qc

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=youtu.be&v=IVfZOHi67Qc

Oh ffs

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IVfZOHi67Qc

yes, that's the one!

;)

so good! bliss

A2 is revealing to be a real trip too, wilder

The Slyngshot is great

Looking forward to this new Pessimist on Ilian Tape!
https://soundcloud.com/ilian-tape/itx018-pessimist-atyeo

this whole slyngshot ep is killer! thanks for the heads up!

That Pessimist sounds dope, thanks for the heads up.

Slyngshot is nice, though not really where my ears are at right now.

https://humanelements.bandcamp.com/track/human-nature-remix-2020-remaster

not my style but what a jam

Very much so.

Different genre of not my style at the moment, but I used to drop this all the time at parties in the mid to late aughts. Another MJ sample, made crowds go mental.

https://soundcloud.com/karmicpowerrecords/whiplash-freddy-turner-whatcha-doing-to-me-club-mix?ref=clipboard

that one's going the disco house section of my onenote notebook lol

i wonder if mj will still be canceled on dance floors after corona eases up

sorry these are not 2020 bobbins related thoughts

Direct or indirect MJ references are all the rage in Nigeria this year:

naming songs after him...
dressing up and dancing like him...
making songs that sound like him...
interpolating his melodies and videos...
and... naming songs after him - sorry Angola, you got there first

well, not really, if we go back far enough

posting extremely late to say i love when people get mad at a song ... forces me to take a side ... in this case I listened to the song & it was the very act of his dislike that made me like the vocal sample ... could have gone either way tbh. But in this case I think its exactly the 'annoying' vocal sample that makes it hooky & memorable for me. Annoying stuff rules! Except when it sucks

like how many bajillions of minimal techno songs this board has put me onto over the years and i don't think i've ever really heard a song lean on that particular vocal tone before ... wow finally something stands out enough to annoying the table is the table!! thats a point in favor (no disrespect specifically to TITT in this instance)

*to be annoying to

I'll take the cheeky BS of Marc Houle's Techno Vocals over that big-room crap any day.

oddly enough i always thought of marc houle as the one of the leading exponents of "annoying noise big room minimal" (the others being audion, switch and simian mobile disco)

https://youtu.be/l58-LnNoD3U

lol that thing you just posted is terrible

it was a huge anthem in ibiza / berlin!

yeah the lead is annoying af but those crispy swinging claps that come in on the 2 and 4 after the drop are so nice

and i still play audion's "mouth to mouth"

Lol I’m never posting links to anything in this thread.

But I am really sick of the clean reverby techno that just sounds like it’s made for bomb disarming scenes in Tom Clancy movie adaptations or something... probably sounds better at Berghain or something. I know I’m probably the last person to care.

It just sounds like a piss take to me. Who am I to argue with the masses!

my thing with big room techno is just that big concrete dance clubs / sex dungeons with funktion one sound aren't even on the menu for a rich person right now. i mean they were always off the menu for me. and i'm over wanting to go to one anyway. it's just not attractive to me right now. i'm thinking of ostgut ton, i'm thinking of a recent ellen alien / matrixxman boiler room set i saw as an example. ellen was playing that kind of thing and it just looked so silly to me over streaming audio; i'm sure it would have been amazing in a concrete sex dungeon. idk what i'm really saying, sort of being randomly critical i guess. i still enjoy anything that anyone posts to this thread on some level.

it's sort of like i guess i'm rooting for that sound to brighten up a little bit (from halfway around the world). like i'm rooting for most of the air-tight burning man 'deep nature' sound to fracture into a million little pieces and turn into something with some life in it that isn't wallpaper music for graphic design execs.

maybe i'm just mad i can't go dance anywhere

"deep nature" sound?

i'm definitely mad abt that

both on your behalf and mine