Let's talk about Derrick May

Honestly I'm kind of a latecomer to techno period because when I was coming up that scene here was dominated by egghead Moby clones, so I never bought much into that specific mythos or veneration.
― Get Me Bodied (Extended Mix), Wednesday, 30 June 2021 01:16 (four minutes ago)

I mean I used to say there are techno strains of dubstep when it came on the pirates and people used to be like this guys chatting nonsense, but I think this is why I've always had a problem with the club as the prime experiential space. For me this music really unlocked its potential at peoples yard, huge spliff being passed around, a good sub

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fgdw3_rVrRY

Not to mention the inherent 'we are the clique' aspect of club doors. At first I thought it was amazing to be part of this select few and quickly I realised I don't actually have much in common with these people.

That Italo book I mentioned does that too btw - the author’s main message is that Italo Disco was unique and rich and varied, full of amazing artists, skilled producers, inspired by a rich musical history, wrote only the most marvelous, uniquely Italian melodies - clearly the best thing ever. While of course it’s crystal clear that the Italo house that displaced it in one fell swoop in 1988 was cheap, badly produced cookie cutter garbage by talentless hacks, just out for a buck.

And yet despite all that, it’s an immensely entertaining (and informative) read.

I prefer the cheesy piano stuff personally

one of my all-time faves

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HBttSU1yDP8

Yeah but talk to the heavily invested italo piano/dream house collectors, and ask their opinion on the “mediterranean progressive” sound that displaced it overnight in Italy circa 95/96, and you hear some familiar soundbites.

that one mix of “no ufos” totally sounds like “robot is systematic”

well for a few seconds anyway

xp I'm sure although I have no idea what that is

That Italo book I mentioned does that too btw - the author’s main message is that Italo Disco was unique and rich and varied, full of amazing artists, skilled producers, inspired by a rich musical history, wrote only the most marvelous, uniquely Italian melodies - clearly the best thing ever. While of course it’s crystal clear that the Italo house that displaced it in one fell swoop in 1988 was cheap, badly produced cookie cutter garbage by talentless hacks, just out for a buck.
And yet despite all that, it’s an immensely entertaining (and informative) read.

That's interesting because I think late 90s trance is the same. Those progressive records are much better produced than the brain bashing minimalism of techno, yet on the whole they do nothing for me. High production standards can mean too many novelty tricks for the sake of it. this just ends up sounding like aural wallpaper.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WfJQ4l5wbMk

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

this is my favourite italo though, much rawer, much more the way I wish the genre sounded. It's great pitched ut at +16 Claudio Simonetti (from Goblin) magic. Big Millsy favourite and you can see why. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_2T-0ucWAi8

not sure why this is all getting dumped on this thread

attributing a lot of weight to May’s opinions on music outside of his narrow sphere is buying into his importance and legacy in a way he’s really pushed for decades. after releasing a handful of essential tracks in the formative years of a genre he’s sold the legend ever since, with occasional dj spots and business connections filling in the blanks

mr pires makes some interesting points that’d probably be better served on a thread not about a probable serial harasser/rapist

Your love doesn’t just “feel” Italo. It’s built on Electras Feels Good. And any talk on Italo that cites it’s zenith as 85 is conflating totally different phases and scenes. The Italo that hugely influenced house and techno is primarily late 70s euro disco and the circa 82 electro Italo that was widely imported through New York and Chicago. There’s a fare amount of cheesiness in there but it’s very different than what Italo was in 85.

There's a certain 'cunning of reasoning' metanarrative to the fact that while May was bashing UK hardcore techno in the early 90s, by the late 00s detroit techno was being used as a stick with which to beat minimal - which, if anything, was on the other side of detroit techno from hardcore, and was being dismissed in nearly diametrically opposite terms (other than the US vs Europe dichotomy) as being too white, too posh, too clean.

Which goes to the point that mythmaking/gatekeeping tends to be infinitely flexible and ultimately devoid of real content once it's being used by one group as a stick to beat another.

I think there was a Theo Parrish interview circa 2008 that got talked about a lot here where he made some vague reference to not liking a lot of popular clubbing music and everyone who read it just assumed that they knew exactly what music he was referring to and why - a Rorschach test for dance music taste.

(or maybe it was Omar-S? I can't remember now)

'Detroit techno' of course describes a very broad swathe of music (even in terms of just the difference between May and Saunderson, say) which makes it even more readily able to be deployed to serve just about any rhetorical device one wishes.

it's also especially laughable when discussions of future-forward music get stuck debating what the realest shit was 30 years ago

That's interesting because I think late 90s trance is the same. Those progressive records are much better produced than the brain bashing minimalism of techno, yet on the whole they do nothing for me. High production standards can mean too many novelty tricks for the sake of it. this just ends up sounding like aural wallpaper.

any talk on Italo that cites it’s zenith as 85 is conflating totally different phases and scenes

xpost: that said, that Cass & Slide tune is indeed boring as fuck.

Nah, it does nothing for you because you were just too old when 90s trance came along and it wasn't your scene. I'm not trying to give you a hard time here, that's just how this whole thing works. Virtually nobody appreciates the stuff that came right *after* their favourite era of music.

Actually no. I was into UK garage (well, 2step especially the overtly poppy shola ama end of it) at the time. Which did have some polished production values but this progressive stuff is panaramic in a way 2step wasn't. In a way I see that as it's strength. But it's not a strength I'm interested in. Complexity can be a curse. I was actually too young at the time to know about the earlier (mid 90s german trance.) Hardly what teenagers glued into the london pirates had access to. But to me trance should have always sounded like this. Amphetamine psychosis:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jQK32947YTA

I actually can't find much hard trance even from this 1993 era that is eerie and gothic like this. Nu beat for the raver generation.

There's tons of that, mostly German and Belgian though.

trance, like techno, is a very wide umbrella though, in terms of sonics, geography/scenes and eras. It's almost impossible to make useful generalized statements about it.

Discussions at this point on techno realness (with or without involving trance) are too poisoned by all the posturing, mythmaking and gatekeeping. The same tired cliches are getting wheeled out in 2021 as if they're brand new insights, just see any discogs forum. At some point you've read it all. This shit is 30+ years old, if you're invested in this music you know the score by now.

^^^^

Many of you sound very old, none of the young people making rave music talk like this, and disdain these discussions of purity and realness. Rightly so.

I am very old, but I agree, although there is definitely a trend of extremely hip up and coming techno and acid purists who spin the classics.

Lectric Workers

Thank you for mentioning this name, I know jack shit about Italo-Disco of any era but I love the singles I pulled up on YT.

though not limited to italo disco, check out I-F's Mixed Up at the Hague, a 2000-era mix that re-codified italodisco for a new generation.

^^ so good and so fun

Was going to also mention, a great thing about Chicago house (and its heavy Italo content) is that the blueprints of what went into it are all in mixes on YouTube from the mid 80s WBMX era

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

pretty much how I view Mills' Wizard mixes and techno

Many of you sound very old, none of the young people making rave music talk like this

sorry, nobody under eighty. i’m getting old.