"It's been an intriguing year for fans of dancefloor music especially: where previously it was possible to pick out definite wider trends running through club floors, what's been most striking about 2012 has been its almost total lack of anything concrete to hang on to. Instead the most exciting music has come from the margins. Certain common tendencies have seen a lot of activity - the crossover region where noise and techno overlap has continued to produce some fascinating music - but individual artists working within those regions tend to be ploughing their own distinct furrow rather than engaging with any larger narrative. Which is great; at the moment these regions (tentatively approached by people discussing 'outsider dance', 'technoise' and so forth) feel fragile and fertile enough that they're best allowed to find their own paths." -- Rory Gibbs on the year in dance over at Quietus

a scene based around borderzones and solitary trajectories seems a bit entropic to me... at once congested but lacking the heft of converged energy....

still Rory's right about that Container album, ruff - this isn't even the fiercest track on it but it's all that's on YouTube

looking at this column and also the FACT albums of the year, i'm struck by the sort of unconscious collective decision not to even cursorily inspect EDM (or the bro-y / wobbly sectors of dubstep)... same total blanking towards all that electrohouse/digimax stuff out there...  it is assumed, i presume, to be beneath consideration ... but (being massively popular and all!) it would appear to be THE "definite wider trend", the "anything concrete" that Rory says is absent 


made me wonder,  is anybody listening to it (EDM/electrohouse/bro) and assessing it critically, or is this a scene without a discourse around it?  (meaning serious in-depth writing rather than online likes and chitchat and YouTube comments)

weeeeeeell there is this magazine that I saw in Target the other week - Elektro  - launched earlier this year

Has artists like Swedish House Mafia. Tiesto, Guetta,  on the cover...  inside acts like Boys Noize, Zedd, Bassnectar, Martin Solveig

yes the covers are quite shuddersome...

Gingerly picking one up I scanned through and did not recognise a single byline -- nobody in the electronic music journalism field, or the blogosphere that i'd come across before, anyway -- suggesting perhaps they are recruiting young ... from the generation that's embraced EDM and that doesn't, perhaps, know or care much about the history that informs the kind of writing done in FACT/Resident Advisor

I was going to say "an American Mixmag" but Mixmag always had (when I read it, which is 90s, anyway) a bunch of good writers (and a couple of great ones: Bethan Cole, Tony Marcus), these were informed, knowledgeable, scene-insider folk...   so maybe the proper analogy is with that magazine that Ministry started (called Ministry? i forget, which is my brain doing its job). I.e. shrewd investors spotting a gap in the suddenly swelling market.

A random swatch of text from the Elektro website, picked because it's one of the few convergences with FACT/Hyperspecific/etc world...

"Coming soon on Hot Flush Recordings (December 10th) is UK producer, Scuba’s new track “Hardbody.” This brand new production is a deep-house single that showcases Scuba’s ability to create clean and effective dance tracks. “Hardbody” focuses on Scuba’s layering, bringing together multiple electronic effects, resulting in a dancefloor banger that is built for the sound systems of the world’s biggest dance clubs. With this impressive production, Scuba is set for big things in the dance music world."

perhaps unfair to judge this (presumably this is more news item, than a review? ) against the FACT and RA's of the world....

next time I'm in Target I'll take a proper look... 

(i suppose it's interesting that it takes print form at all -- given that its target market probably are totally digitalized and smartphone / PC / tablet oriented )