Mike Rubin with an NPR tribute to Diane Charlemagne and analysis of the under-appreciated, under-credited, often under-compensated role played by the singers in dance music
Wednesday, December 30, 2015
Sunday, December 27, 2015
death of dance
Metallica admirer Roger Scruton deplores the asocial / asexual dancing of modern music, but gives a big big-up to formation dancing and paired dancing
from the essay "Dancing Properly", published in March as part of the collection Confessions of a Heretic
today's clubbers
“jerk on to the floor in obedience to the puppet master at the desk”
“tend to avoid contact with each other, since there is no agreed convention as to what form their contact should take”.
“They are dancing at each other. The difference between ‘at’ and ‘with’ is one of the deepest psychological differences we know. It is exemplified in all our encounters with other people – notably in conversation and in sexual gambits … The decay of manners that we have seen in recent times is to a large extent a result of the loss of withness and the rise of atness in its stead. Rudeness, obscenity, the ‘in your face’ manners of the new TV presenter – all these are ways of being ‘at’ other people. Courtesy, manners, negotiation and deference are, by contrast, ways of being with.”
in these older dance styles, partners “touch, swing around each other, move together in an attempt to recapture withness”.
whereas techno-type music is a “grotesque caricature of music in which rhythm is mere beat and melody mere repetition”, and which is "loud enough to make conversation impossible and, provided the pulse is regular enough, to jerk the body into reflex motion, like the legs of a galvanised frog”
in the Guardian interview Scruton recalls how
“In the traditional dances, physical contact was permitted in a way that it wasn’t in everyday life. The electricity of physical contact has gone therefore from young people’s lives. For us ageds, I can remember the tingle in your fingertips when you touched a girl’s body anywhere. That’s part of it, but also that touching as a courtesy has gone.”
“I love Viennese waltzes and polkas, and especially cèilidhs and old-fashioned formation dancing... I like rock’n’roll too. Young women especially love the idea of formation dancing … Once it’s on offer, people go for it. There’s a kind of ignorance.”
on Elvis Presley's "Heartbreak Hotel" - “There is no violent drumming, no amplified bass, none of the devices which – I am tempted to say – substitute for rhythm in so much contemporary pop. This withness is felt by the listener as an urge to dance, an urge to look around for the person whose hand could be taken and who could be led on to the floor.”
in a way, he's not wrong exactly ... techno dancing is "autistic" but while it's asexual, maybe (some genres are pretty sensual) it's not asocial - in the massive-ification experience of being jointly subjected to overbearing rhythm, collectively synchronised to a pulse
despite loving Metallica (I'm assuming he's not ever heard metal in concert, at bodyshaking volume) Scruton also is unaware - seemingly - of the haptic dimension to amplified music, and especially to electronic dance music - sound as immersive, enfolding, penetrative, audiotactile..... this individualised (yet shared) surrender to overwhelming sound
^^^^^^^
Would Uncle Scruton approve of the dancing in this?
[via Karl Kraft]
from the essay "Dancing Properly", published in March as part of the collection Confessions of a Heretic
today's clubbers
“jerk on to the floor in obedience to the puppet master at the desk”
“tend to avoid contact with each other, since there is no agreed convention as to what form their contact should take”.
“They are dancing at each other. The difference between ‘at’ and ‘with’ is one of the deepest psychological differences we know. It is exemplified in all our encounters with other people – notably in conversation and in sexual gambits … The decay of manners that we have seen in recent times is to a large extent a result of the loss of withness and the rise of atness in its stead. Rudeness, obscenity, the ‘in your face’ manners of the new TV presenter – all these are ways of being ‘at’ other people. Courtesy, manners, negotiation and deference are, by contrast, ways of being with.”
in these older dance styles, partners “touch, swing around each other, move together in an attempt to recapture withness”.
whereas techno-type music is a “grotesque caricature of music in which rhythm is mere beat and melody mere repetition”, and which is "loud enough to make conversation impossible and, provided the pulse is regular enough, to jerk the body into reflex motion, like the legs of a galvanised frog”
in the Guardian interview Scruton recalls how
“In the traditional dances, physical contact was permitted in a way that it wasn’t in everyday life. The electricity of physical contact has gone therefore from young people’s lives. For us ageds, I can remember the tingle in your fingertips when you touched a girl’s body anywhere. That’s part of it, but also that touching as a courtesy has gone.”
“I love Viennese waltzes and polkas, and especially cèilidhs and old-fashioned formation dancing... I like rock’n’roll too. Young women especially love the idea of formation dancing … Once it’s on offer, people go for it. There’s a kind of ignorance.”
on Elvis Presley's "Heartbreak Hotel" - “There is no violent drumming, no amplified bass, none of the devices which – I am tempted to say – substitute for rhythm in so much contemporary pop. This withness is felt by the listener as an urge to dance, an urge to look around for the person whose hand could be taken and who could be led on to the floor.”
in a way, he's not wrong exactly ... techno dancing is "autistic" but while it's asexual, maybe (some genres are pretty sensual) it's not asocial - in the massive-ification experience of being jointly subjected to overbearing rhythm, collectively synchronised to a pulse
despite loving Metallica (I'm assuming he's not ever heard metal in concert, at bodyshaking volume) Scruton also is unaware - seemingly - of the haptic dimension to amplified music, and especially to electronic dance music - sound as immersive, enfolding, penetrative, audiotactile..... this individualised (yet shared) surrender to overwhelming sound
^^^^^^^
Would Uncle Scruton approve of the dancing in this?
[via Karl Kraft]
Saturday, December 26, 2015
Wednesday, December 23, 2015
Thursday, December 17, 2015
form(less) + function(less)
Philip Sherburne on the new formlessness and its relationship to a queering of electronic sound - Arca, Elysia Crampton, Lotic, Amnesia Scanner et al -- a messthetic (de)based around "muffled explosions, glassy digital synthesizers, the over-compressed bandwidth of FM radio; the metallic detritus of Southern rap and industrial music; the reduction of human voices to grunts and yelps..... tension, disjunction, pliability—things being stretched to the breaking point."
This is the real-deal brain(y)dance:
"At Krakow's Unsound festival this year, [Elysia Crampton] delivered a performance that was part concert and part graduate seminar in object-oriented philosophy: five minutes of music, then five minutes of lecture, and so on, for nearly an hour. Before she began playing, Crampton invited the audience to consider the "clowniness" of her music, but when she spoke, she ranged from the creation of atomic elements in the Big Bang, to her Aymara heritage, to the issue of "trans-visibility" in popular culture and the question of whether trans-being is not an end in itself, rather than a journey between two poles; the thread uniting it all was the idea of emancipation and survival."
I think this might be my stumbling block with all this stuff - the "graduate seminar" aspect.
I don't know if I really want to be edified by music, exactly.... I want to be unloosed, opened, slammed... uplifted or flattened... the brain disabled by a flood of emotion..... or sensation....
I do seem to have fallen back on a somewhat moronic metric with music - that if it gives me a strong feeling, an emotional kick... or it has a basic function that it pulls off successfully (groove, chill, slam, brock out, etc)... then great
Personally feeling a bit exhausted with Conceptronica - all these complexly collated arrangements of weird and disparate electronic sounds, which are accompanied by equally dense spiels of theory and hyper-rationalisation.... music where the listening and the reading really have to be in parallel, meshed together inextricably...
It's the next step beyond IDM,....
IDM flattered itself that it was really cerebral and required a more discerning brain to understand it as sound ... but you didn't actually have to be au fait with theory or read the artist's spiels to listen to and enjoy and understand Aphex or Autechre or FSOL (if that floated your boat) ....
"Understanding" wasn't really the point... even with Oval, you could ignore Markus Popp's theory
But this next wave of form-bending electronic music is a new stage in IDM where the music is complex and the thinking around and intertwined with music is complex...
There is a kind of obsessive self-curation, a dotting of every 'i' and crossing of every 't', every last reference point mapped out
It's all a bit tidy-minded, for all the sonic imagery of abjection and splurging leakage and unravelled forms
For sure, the Conceptronica thing, it definitely was really refreshing, really stimulating, when it first started stirring (Ferraro, the first handful of OPN, etc) because things were a bit slack intellectually on the music scene...
Ultimately it's not really what I'm looking for in music I don't think
I'm looking for release.... not further knotting and cramping
Whatever the "it" is that I'm seeking it's not to do with verbalisation - music does what words can't do, that's what it's there for.
The words should follow later and be somewhat desperate, flailing attempts to catch up with the music
For textual intent to be so imbricated in the very heart of the sound....
Then again perhaps these artists are today's equivalent to early Scrittis.... hopped up on different texts, responding to different (yet not that different) conditions.... a new "Bibbly-O-Tek" fighting a different "Hegemony"
hmmm....
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Sherburne's take makes for an interesting compare + contrast companion piece to this one on NeoFuturism in (un)dance in the Tiny Mix Tapes end-of-year overview
^^^^^^^^^^^^
Rockets and Rayguns's Bruce came up with a good term for the new genre - MDM - Mutant Dance
This is the real-deal brain(y)dance:
"At Krakow's Unsound festival this year, [Elysia Crampton] delivered a performance that was part concert and part graduate seminar in object-oriented philosophy: five minutes of music, then five minutes of lecture, and so on, for nearly an hour. Before she began playing, Crampton invited the audience to consider the "clowniness" of her music, but when she spoke, she ranged from the creation of atomic elements in the Big Bang, to her Aymara heritage, to the issue of "trans-visibility" in popular culture and the question of whether trans-being is not an end in itself, rather than a journey between two poles; the thread uniting it all was the idea of emancipation and survival."
I think this might be my stumbling block with all this stuff - the "graduate seminar" aspect.
I don't know if I really want to be edified by music, exactly.... I want to be unloosed, opened, slammed... uplifted or flattened... the brain disabled by a flood of emotion..... or sensation....
I do seem to have fallen back on a somewhat moronic metric with music - that if it gives me a strong feeling, an emotional kick... or it has a basic function that it pulls off successfully (groove, chill, slam, brock out, etc)... then great
Personally feeling a bit exhausted with Conceptronica - all these complexly collated arrangements of weird and disparate electronic sounds, which are accompanied by equally dense spiels of theory and hyper-rationalisation.... music where the listening and the reading really have to be in parallel, meshed together inextricably...
It's the next step beyond IDM,....
IDM flattered itself that it was really cerebral and required a more discerning brain to understand it as sound ... but you didn't actually have to be au fait with theory or read the artist's spiels to listen to and enjoy and understand Aphex or Autechre or FSOL (if that floated your boat) ....
"Understanding" wasn't really the point... even with Oval, you could ignore Markus Popp's theory
But this next wave of form-bending electronic music is a new stage in IDM where the music is complex and the thinking around and intertwined with music is complex...
There is a kind of obsessive self-curation, a dotting of every 'i' and crossing of every 't', every last reference point mapped out
It's all a bit tidy-minded, for all the sonic imagery of abjection and splurging leakage and unravelled forms
For sure, the Conceptronica thing, it definitely was really refreshing, really stimulating, when it first started stirring (Ferraro, the first handful of OPN, etc) because things were a bit slack intellectually on the music scene...
Ultimately it's not really what I'm looking for in music I don't think
I'm looking for release.... not further knotting and cramping
Whatever the "it" is that I'm seeking it's not to do with verbalisation - music does what words can't do, that's what it's there for.
The words should follow later and be somewhat desperate, flailing attempts to catch up with the music
For textual intent to be so imbricated in the very heart of the sound....
Then again perhaps these artists are today's equivalent to early Scrittis.... hopped up on different texts, responding to different (yet not that different) conditions.... a new "Bibbly-O-Tek" fighting a different "Hegemony"
hmmm....
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Sherburne's take makes for an interesting compare + contrast companion piece to this one on NeoFuturism in (un)dance in the Tiny Mix Tapes end-of-year overview
^^^^^^^^^^^^
Rockets and Rayguns's Bruce came up with a good term for the new genre - MDM - Mutant Dance
Tuesday, December 15, 2015
Sunday, December 13, 2015
Pleasure Force
[via Steeve Cross]
ah, there are a quite few of these Toronto early 90s rave videos put by TheCommunic8r
Thursday, December 10, 2015
history of our world parts 1 to 43 (and counting)
at The Ransom Note , the series Gone To A Rave - stories from the birth of jungle (and other nuum phases too), label profiles, interviews, key tracks, quirky angles (small ads in rave mags!), etc etc - by a fellow called Ian McQuaid
notable instalments
http://www.theransomnote.co.uk/music/gone-rave/gone-to-a-rave43-the-untold-story-of-renk-incredible/
pairs with this earlier one on Renk
http://www.theransomnote.co.uk/music/gone-rave/gone-to-a-rave-6-renk-records/
http://www.theransomnote.co.uk/music/gone-rave/gone-to-a-rave-41-kemet-3rd-party/
http://www.theransomnote.co.uk/music/gone-rave/gone-to-a-rave-39-graham-mew-the-invisible-man/
http://www.theransomnote.co.uk/music/gone-rave/gone-to-a-rave-38-roni-size-and-the-rise-of-bristol/
http://www.theransomnote.co.uk/music/gone-rave/gone-to-a-rave-36-dj-ron-a-london-someting/
http://www.theransomnote.co.uk/music/gone-rave/gone-to-a-rave-31-2-bad-mice/
http://www.theransomnote.co.uk/music/gone-rave/gone-to-a-rave-28-jungle-classics-from-e3-recordings/
http://www.theransomnote.co.uk/music/gone-rave/gone-to-a-rave-26-dj-hype/
http://www.theransomnote.co.uk/music/gone-rave/gone-to-a-rave-25-remembering-stevie-hyper-d/
http://www.theransomnote.co.uk/music/gone-rave/gone-to-a-rave-24-pirates-scourge-of-the-system/
http://www.theransomnote.co.uk/music/gone-rave/gone-to-a-rave-23-the-ragga-twins/
http://www.theransomnote.co.uk/music/gone-rave/gone-to-a-rave-16-wot-do-u-call-it/
http://www.theransomnote.co.uk/music/gone-rave/gone-to-a-rave-14-rhythm-section/
http://www.theransomnote.co.uk/music/gone-rave/gone-to-a-rave-12-naughty-naughty/ - aka Grant Nelson
http://www.theransomnote.co.uk/music/gone-rave/gone-to-a-rave-11-suburban-base/
http://www.theransomnote.co.uk/music/gone-rave/gone-to-a-rave-9-production-house-part-1/
http://www.theransomnote.co.uk/music/gone-rave/gone-to-a-rave-10-production-house-part-2/
not forgetting this one with P House founder Phil Fearon
http://www.theransomnote.co.uk/music/gone-rave/gone-to-a-rave-18-phil-fearon-talks-brit-soul-and-production-house/
http://www.theransomnote.co.uk/music/gone-rave/gone-to-a-rave-8-reggae-roots/
http://www.theransomnote.co.uk/music/gone-rave/gone-to-a-rave-7-right-before-my-eyes/
http://www.theransomnote.co.uk/music/gone-rave/gone-to-a-rave-5-boogie-beat/
well i thought i would just link to the most enticing looking 5 or 6 but i've nearly linked them all apart from the grime and UK and dancehall and happy hardcore ones. also left out the mission statements from Ian McQ
this reminds me i need to restart that Hardcore Heroes series, next year i will get back on the case.... i had got about 3 instalments half done but had to delay finishing them on account of the Book (now done, pretty much) and another 16 plus lined up as candidates
.... a potentially interminable series especially if hardcore understood to include gabba as well as breakbeat
notable instalments
http://www.theransomnote.co.uk/music/gone-rave/gone-to-a-rave43-the-untold-story-of-renk-incredible/
pairs with this earlier one on Renk
http://www.theransomnote.co.uk/music/gone-rave/gone-to-a-rave-6-renk-records/
http://www.theransomnote.co.uk/music/gone-rave/gone-to-a-rave-41-kemet-3rd-party/
http://www.theransomnote.co.uk/music/gone-rave/gone-to-a-rave-39-graham-mew-the-invisible-man/
http://www.theransomnote.co.uk/music/gone-rave/gone-to-a-rave-38-roni-size-and-the-rise-of-bristol/
http://www.theransomnote.co.uk/music/gone-rave/gone-to-a-rave-36-dj-ron-a-london-someting/
http://www.theransomnote.co.uk/music/gone-rave/gone-to-a-rave-31-2-bad-mice/
http://www.theransomnote.co.uk/music/gone-rave/gone-to-a-rave-28-jungle-classics-from-e3-recordings/
http://www.theransomnote.co.uk/music/gone-rave/gone-to-a-rave-26-dj-hype/
http://www.theransomnote.co.uk/music/gone-rave/gone-to-a-rave-25-remembering-stevie-hyper-d/
http://www.theransomnote.co.uk/music/gone-rave/gone-to-a-rave-24-pirates-scourge-of-the-system/
http://www.theransomnote.co.uk/music/gone-rave/gone-to-a-rave-23-the-ragga-twins/
http://www.theransomnote.co.uk/music/gone-rave/gone-to-a-rave-16-wot-do-u-call-it/
http://www.theransomnote.co.uk/music/gone-rave/gone-to-a-rave-14-rhythm-section/
http://www.theransomnote.co.uk/music/gone-rave/gone-to-a-rave-12-naughty-naughty/ - aka Grant Nelson
http://www.theransomnote.co.uk/music/gone-rave/gone-to-a-rave-11-suburban-base/
http://www.theransomnote.co.uk/music/gone-rave/gone-to-a-rave-9-production-house-part-1/
http://www.theransomnote.co.uk/music/gone-rave/gone-to-a-rave-10-production-house-part-2/
not forgetting this one with P House founder Phil Fearon
http://www.theransomnote.co.uk/music/gone-rave/gone-to-a-rave-18-phil-fearon-talks-brit-soul-and-production-house/
http://www.theransomnote.co.uk/music/gone-rave/gone-to-a-rave-8-reggae-roots/
http://www.theransomnote.co.uk/music/gone-rave/gone-to-a-rave-7-right-before-my-eyes/
http://www.theransomnote.co.uk/music/gone-rave/gone-to-a-rave-5-boogie-beat/
well i thought i would just link to the most enticing looking 5 or 6 but i've nearly linked them all apart from the grime and UK and dancehall and happy hardcore ones. also left out the mission statements from Ian McQ
this reminds me i need to restart that Hardcore Heroes series, next year i will get back on the case.... i had got about 3 instalments half done but had to delay finishing them on account of the Book (now done, pretty much) and another 16 plus lined up as candidates
.... a potentially interminable series especially if hardcore understood to include gabba as well as breakbeat
Wednesday, December 9, 2015
amen garage
"Am I listening to old or new music? When you're listening to one of René Pawlowitz's alter egos, it's a question you often have to ask. In the case of "Amen Garage," the query is one you have to direct at PCK, on a record called For The Kingdom, the second release from his label The Final Experiment, which includes "stuff out of the galaxy called Hardwax Berlin." This track's a revitalizing take on UK garage and breakbeats, combined with the severity and strength of Shed in his more fucked-up days. Proper business from the Don"—Jaun Pablo López
from Thump's best 50 tracks of 2015
Saturday, December 5, 2015
urbanism
Front and Follow blurb:
"With A City Remembrancer, Ed Gillett [Shape Worship[ pushes his sound into bold new territories. Inspired by the shifting histories of London’s physical spaces, the album is both a beautifully detailed piece of sound and a nuanced, politicised eulogy to the city and its inhabitants.Field recordings and vocal samples paint a rich portrait of London as a gigantic palimpsest, constantly being rewritten or renewed; from the postwar utopianism of Brutalist architects, and the plight of residents now being evicted from those same monolithic estates, to ancient burial grounds dislodged by new Crossrail tunnels, or secrets being recovered from the mud of the Thames.
Those voices emerge from a rich sonic backdrop: clouds of billowing synths and digital textures wrap around clarinets, pianos & dulcimers, or are underpinned by fierce drum programming and oppressive bass weight; modular synth experiments blur into minimal composition and pounding techno, the album’s dense collage of sounds reflecting the disorientation, beauty and verticality of the city itself."
(via An Idiot's Guide To Dreaming)
double crispy
via this tasty mix of obscure-ish junglizm by Pearsall
track list
100% Vinyl!
Mixed in Berlin, November 2015
(45:10, 103 MB, 320 kbps MP3)
Mixed in Berlin, November 2015
(45:10, 103 MB, 320 kbps MP3)
Tracklisting:
01. Wild Orkid - The Magic In You (Lucky Spin)
02. DJ Crystl - Let It Roll (Dee Jay Recordings)
03. DJ Solo - Made In London (Production House)
04. JMJ & Richie - Trouble In China (Moving Shadow)
05. Sub Sequence - Music Is The Vibe (Too'z Up)
06. DJ Trace - By Any Means Necessary (Speed Mix) (Dee Jay Recordings)
07. Harmony & Xtreme - X-Amount (Deep Jungle)
08. Parallel World - Tear Into It (Good Looking)
09. Eternal Bass - Infinity (Eternal Bass)
10. Babylon 5 - Yes Yes '95 (Dread)
11. Just Jungle - Double Crisp (Trouble On Vinyl)
12. DJ Fallout - Ripper (Rough Tone)
13. Spirits From An Urban Jungle - White Lightning (White House)
14. Octave One - Chillin' Out '94 (31 Records)
15. Sluggy Ranks - Ghetto Youth Bust (Voyager Dark Vocal Mix) (Profile)
02. DJ Crystl - Let It Roll (Dee Jay Recordings)
03. DJ Solo - Made In London (Production House)
04. JMJ & Richie - Trouble In China (Moving Shadow)
05. Sub Sequence - Music Is The Vibe (Too'z Up)
06. DJ Trace - By Any Means Necessary (Speed Mix) (Dee Jay Recordings)
07. Harmony & Xtreme - X-Amount (Deep Jungle)
08. Parallel World - Tear Into It (Good Looking)
09. Eternal Bass - Infinity (Eternal Bass)
10. Babylon 5 - Yes Yes '95 (Dread)
11. Just Jungle - Double Crisp (Trouble On Vinyl)
12. DJ Fallout - Ripper (Rough Tone)
13. Spirits From An Urban Jungle - White Lightning (White House)
14. Octave One - Chillin' Out '94 (31 Records)
15. Sluggy Ranks - Ghetto Youth Bust (Voyager Dark Vocal Mix) (Profile)
Tuesday, December 1, 2015
nice 'n' Screechy (does it, does it every time)
1992
1984
1976
Or is it Jim Squeachy?
Or even Jim Squashy?!
Never registered - or maybe knew once and forgot - that "Walk & Skank" = "On A Ragga Tip"
There was a promo video for SL2, I remember it faintly - black and white, hyper-hyper figures scuttling around, doing rave stage-dancer type moves ... Not on YouTube seemingly
Ah, here it is (cheers Eli Bee in Comments) - not black and white though (distortion of memory)
Did Mr Screech do anything else as superfine as "Walk & Skank"?
Love the YouTube write up on this - "from the double-LP-length digikal reggae opus "March Of The Gremlins" by Naram filled with gritty minor-key riddims designed to wreak havoc on the cogs of the Babylon system"
Better than the LP itself judging by this track anyway....
Ooh, vibey
Monday, November 30, 2015
crystal clear memorE
via Karl Kraft, who notes that cf. your usual shit quality VHS rave tapes from late 80s and early 90s, these are unusually crisp and clear:
"It says something about how we experience the past now that this footage almost feel like
some kind of re-enactment with perfect costumes / art direction than historical archive in the
grainy VHS patina that we usually get."
Saturday, November 28, 2015
Sunday, November 22, 2015
comps of legend
Epic list of JUNGLE TEKNO comps from Man Like Woebot!
+ commentary with a polemical emphasis on techno - and an anti-emphasis vis-a-vis Amentalism and Roots 'n 'Ragga, contesting their status as cornerstones of Nuum
I think I have all of these, pretty much
On CD though - i could never see the point of the vinyl slabbage versions - surely the thing with comps is either A/ continuous through-play or B/ reprogramming your favorite bits into killer sequences,leaving off the filler and duff-ige crew that all but a few inevitably shove in there
These comps were so crucial for those of us stranded in the sticks - or in my case NYC, much of the 92-93 period - without access to the specialist stores with the vinyl 12 inches
As for M like W's polemic
I knew from earlier snipes that Matt thought Amen was a calamity for jungle, or at least a severe restriction of possibility.... "all those other breaks out there that could be used" ...
I dunno, though, there's so MANY fantastic tunes that run on Amentalism, and such a wide range - from LTJ Bukem's "Atlantis (I Need You)" all the way across to Renegade "Terrorist" and mad topsy turvy tumbling-down-the-stairs Remarc / Dred Bass et al type full rinse jobs.... it is the privileged pulse of junglizm for a reason yunno...
As for reggae as not crucial, just a flavour... and too often a bad idea
Three little words!
- rewind
- dubplate
- MC
(The way MCs function in nuum-genres is very little to do with how rappers work in hip hop, and a lot to do with the MC - or deejay as they confusingly call it - on a sound system.... improvising with an arsenal of catch phrases)
A fourth keyword - jungle itself - comes from junglist, as in "alla da junglists", as in Arnette Gardens in Kingston being the (concrete) jungle, yard tapes reaching the U.K, getting sampled... Proof surely that Reggae Owed Credit ...
I'd agree that the only indispensable element is breaks - and thus hip hop = the privileged cornerstone, the origin
There are important tracks, artists, labels in the broad stream of this music that barely connect to the Jamaican thing
But taking the continuum as a macro-entity - as music + scene + vibe + microeconomy + demographic.... taking into account all the worldview mood-tropes and concepts like Babylon and downpression and dread... the reggae elements are crucial
(Could hardly fail to be given the parentage, the ancestry of so many of the participants)
But even just as a music-form, isolated from its subcultural matrix, its rituals...
Here's a fifth little word, or phrase - "drum and bass" ... as in "strickly drum n bass come an wine up yah waist"
The bass is second in command, as it were
And for sure there are B-lines in hardcore / jungle that are fast 'n' bippy, or that detonate more like electro 808 boom.... but an awful lot of them involve simple bass-note patterns played slow and low, repetitive cycles .... an aesthetic that comes straight out of reggae... even the more abstract oozy ones, the whole feel of the bass is dread
The counter-examples are legion, just a few that spring to mind - "Bludclot Artattack"..."What's My Code" ... Bert & Dillinja's "Lionheart" .... DJ Nut Nut & Pure Science "The Rumble", the original or the "Boom Shaka Mix"
Matt brings up postpunk echoes but one of the reasons darkcore often sounds PiL-y is the sinister Wobble-y bassige
Now, thinking of someone directly and consciously influenced by postpunk.... Goldie ... he was someone who did complain about the surfeit of ragga tracks in 94, who was incensed by General Levy's outrageous putsch
But then Goldie in his pre-rave years had been through a Rastafarian phase... did a track called "Jim Skreech" (surely not unconnected to Big Youth's "Jim Screechy")... did a track called "Jah"... has basslines and echoey bits in "Menace"
Personally I love the Jamaican element.... the thunderbass in DJ Solo "Darkage"... the ragga-techno of "Mixed Truth" by, well, now you mention it, The Ragga Twins.... "when i was a yout' i loved to smoke collie weed"... the fast-skank of SL2 "On a Ragga Tip"
The fact that Jamaica is close second place to hip hop as foundation of the macro-genre is shown by the fact it's the rootical and raggamuffin aspects that carry through, or resurface, in UK garage and 2step.... and not the hip hop element at all really... the dub-sway riddim, the dancehall raucousness, the lover's rock sweetness ... New Horizons "Find The Path" and "Slam Down Ya Body Gal", Gant "Soundbwoy Burial", Double G "Special Request"....
(Reggae is also right there at the start with bleep - Unique 3's "Weight For the Bass (Original Soundyard Dubplate Mix)", Ability II's "Pressure (Dub)", Ital Rockers etc etc)
I think of jungle - and nuum generally - as this sort of terrain over which the different source-genres are contending to take the upper hand, as it were - a three-way collision that then becomes a battle zone - hip hop vs reggae vs techno (and perhaps house is in there as well).... and naturally different participants (meaning both producers / DJs and listeners-opinionators) will have different allegiances... and these allegiances / preferences shift also through time....
For sure, with all the fundamental structural bases and prime flavours of the nuum - hip hop, techno, reggae, souljazz .... each of these can get to be mixed blessings, pass from thrill to tedium when overdone
All lead to bad things ultimately, or dead ends....
Amentalism led to breakcore, ultimately....
Techno led to neurofunk / Photekism
And the dread/ bass-meditational side of junglism led to the more placid 'n' ponderous side of dubstep
Stop Press; further interesting discussion on this Dissession, at, where else, Dissensus - involving Droid, Woebot and others.
+ commentary with a polemical emphasis on techno - and an anti-emphasis vis-a-vis Amentalism and Roots 'n 'Ragga, contesting their status as cornerstones of Nuum
I think I have all of these, pretty much
On CD though - i could never see the point of the vinyl slabbage versions - surely the thing with comps is either A/ continuous through-play or B/ reprogramming your favorite bits into killer sequences,leaving off the filler and duff-ige crew that all but a few inevitably shove in there
These comps were so crucial for those of us stranded in the sticks - or in my case NYC, much of the 92-93 period - without access to the specialist stores with the vinyl 12 inches
As for M like W's polemic
I knew from earlier snipes that Matt thought Amen was a calamity for jungle, or at least a severe restriction of possibility.... "all those other breaks out there that could be used" ...
I dunno, though, there's so MANY fantastic tunes that run on Amentalism, and such a wide range - from LTJ Bukem's "Atlantis (I Need You)" all the way across to Renegade "Terrorist" and mad topsy turvy tumbling-down-the-stairs Remarc / Dred Bass et al type full rinse jobs.... it is the privileged pulse of junglizm for a reason yunno...
As for reggae as not crucial, just a flavour... and too often a bad idea
Three little words!
- rewind
- dubplate
- MC
(The way MCs function in nuum-genres is very little to do with how rappers work in hip hop, and a lot to do with the MC - or deejay as they confusingly call it - on a sound system.... improvising with an arsenal of catch phrases)
A fourth keyword - jungle itself - comes from junglist, as in "alla da junglists", as in Arnette Gardens in Kingston being the (concrete) jungle, yard tapes reaching the U.K, getting sampled... Proof surely that Reggae Owed Credit ...
I'd agree that the only indispensable element is breaks - and thus hip hop = the privileged cornerstone, the origin
There are important tracks, artists, labels in the broad stream of this music that barely connect to the Jamaican thing
But taking the continuum as a macro-entity - as music + scene + vibe + microeconomy + demographic.... taking into account all the worldview mood-tropes and concepts like Babylon and downpression and dread... the reggae elements are crucial
(Could hardly fail to be given the parentage, the ancestry of so many of the participants)
But even just as a music-form, isolated from its subcultural matrix, its rituals...
The bass is second in command, as it were
And for sure there are B-lines in hardcore / jungle that are fast 'n' bippy, or that detonate more like electro 808 boom.... but an awful lot of them involve simple bass-note patterns played slow and low, repetitive cycles .... an aesthetic that comes straight out of reggae... even the more abstract oozy ones, the whole feel of the bass is dread
The counter-examples are legion, just a few that spring to mind - "Bludclot Artattack"..."What's My Code" ... Bert & Dillinja's "Lionheart" .... DJ Nut Nut & Pure Science "The Rumble", the original or the "Boom Shaka Mix"
Matt brings up postpunk echoes but one of the reasons darkcore often sounds PiL-y is the sinister Wobble-y bassige
Now, thinking of someone directly and consciously influenced by postpunk.... Goldie ... he was someone who did complain about the surfeit of ragga tracks in 94, who was incensed by General Levy's outrageous putsch
But then Goldie in his pre-rave years had been through a Rastafarian phase... did a track called "Jim Skreech" (surely not unconnected to Big Youth's "Jim Screechy")... did a track called "Jah"... has basslines and echoey bits in "Menace"
Personally I love the Jamaican element.... the thunderbass in DJ Solo "Darkage"... the ragga-techno of "Mixed Truth" by, well, now you mention it, The Ragga Twins.... "when i was a yout' i loved to smoke collie weed"... the fast-skank of SL2 "On a Ragga Tip"
The fact that Jamaica is close second place to hip hop as foundation of the macro-genre is shown by the fact it's the rootical and raggamuffin aspects that carry through, or resurface, in UK garage and 2step.... and not the hip hop element at all really... the dub-sway riddim, the dancehall raucousness, the lover's rock sweetness ... New Horizons "Find The Path" and "Slam Down Ya Body Gal", Gant "Soundbwoy Burial", Double G "Special Request"....
(Reggae is also right there at the start with bleep - Unique 3's "Weight For the Bass (Original Soundyard Dubplate Mix)", Ability II's "Pressure (Dub)", Ital Rockers etc etc)
I think of jungle - and nuum generally - as this sort of terrain over which the different source-genres are contending to take the upper hand, as it were - a three-way collision that then becomes a battle zone - hip hop vs reggae vs techno (and perhaps house is in there as well).... and naturally different participants (meaning both producers / DJs and listeners-opinionators) will have different allegiances... and these allegiances / preferences shift also through time....
For sure, with all the fundamental structural bases and prime flavours of the nuum - hip hop, techno, reggae, souljazz .... each of these can get to be mixed blessings, pass from thrill to tedium when overdone
All lead to bad things ultimately, or dead ends....
Amentalism led to breakcore, ultimately....
Techno led to neurofunk / Photekism
And the dread/ bass-meditational side of junglism led to the more placid 'n' ponderous side of dubstep
Stop Press; further interesting discussion on this Dissession, at, where else, Dissensus - involving Droid, Woebot and others.
Friday, November 20, 2015
sample sorcery
this
into this
with a bit of this in there as well?
sampladelic wizardry from Jamie Myerson
into this
with a bit of this in there as well?
sampladelic wizardry from Jamie Myerson
Thursday, November 19, 2015
groove science
interesting post by Steven Shaviro at The Pinocchio Theory about interesting book by Mark Abel - Groove: An Aesthetics of Measured Time
"Abel’s other major point, which I find entirely convincing, is his demonstation.... of how metric time — time conceived as an empty and homogeneous linear successions — is a product, not just of modern scientific technologies (like the ever-more accurate clocks that have been made since the 17th century), but specifically of capitalism, with its ubiquitous organization of commodity production, its appropriation of labor power as a commodity, and its need for the close measurement of time both in order to discipline workers, and as a measure of value more generally...
".... the underlying structure of capitalism can explain why metric organization is so central to Western music of the last five hundred years or so, while it is absent from other historical forms and traditions of music. Metric organization is central to European classical music, and it is picked up with a vengeance in the groove of popular music ever since sound recording techniques became widespread...
".... the heart of Abel’s argument with and against Adorno.... for Adorno 20th century classical music at its most successful (e.g. in the earlier Schoenberg, according to Adorno), resists the universal capitalistic imposition of metrical time by refusing meter as much as possible, and by drawing on (or retreating to) the few areas of culture that have not yet been entirely overwhelmed by metrical regularity. For Adorno, all popular music — everything that has a groove, in Abel’s terminology — capitulates to the regularity of meter, and this is what ultimately stands behind Adorno’s criticisms of popular music as conformist and formulaic, as merely filling up a pre-existing form, as offering only trite and inconsequential minor variations which never affect the basic underlying tyranny of meter as commodified or Taylorized time, etc. Abel’s counter-argument to all this is that it is precisely by being metrical with a vengeance, by using meter in a far more intense way than classical music ever did, and therefore by proliferating syncopations against a metric beat which is the dialectical condition for these violations of metrical logic to take place — it is by doing all this that groove music at its best is able to subvert homogeneous clock time or commodity time.
"Thus it is by means of Adorno’s own dialectical logic that Abel defends the emancipatory possibilities of groove music; and even suggests that the 20th century classical music that Adorno at least ambivalently championed only represents a conservative retreat, since it simply disengages from metric time rather than working inside it to challenge it. Groove music at its best provides an antidote to Adorno’s, and indeed Jameson’s, pessimistic position that resistance to reification can only emerge from spheres of humanity which have not yet fallen fully under the sway of commodification,
"... Abel’s thesis makes a lot of sense in the specific case of Afrofuturist music, and more generally of Afro-diasporic music of the Black Atlantic...."
"Abel’s other major point, which I find entirely convincing, is his demonstation.... of how metric time — time conceived as an empty and homogeneous linear successions — is a product, not just of modern scientific technologies (like the ever-more accurate clocks that have been made since the 17th century), but specifically of capitalism, with its ubiquitous organization of commodity production, its appropriation of labor power as a commodity, and its need for the close measurement of time both in order to discipline workers, and as a measure of value more generally...
".... the underlying structure of capitalism can explain why metric organization is so central to Western music of the last five hundred years or so, while it is absent from other historical forms and traditions of music. Metric organization is central to European classical music, and it is picked up with a vengeance in the groove of popular music ever since sound recording techniques became widespread...
".... the heart of Abel’s argument with and against Adorno.... for Adorno 20th century classical music at its most successful (e.g. in the earlier Schoenberg, according to Adorno), resists the universal capitalistic imposition of metrical time by refusing meter as much as possible, and by drawing on (or retreating to) the few areas of culture that have not yet been entirely overwhelmed by metrical regularity. For Adorno, all popular music — everything that has a groove, in Abel’s terminology — capitulates to the regularity of meter, and this is what ultimately stands behind Adorno’s criticisms of popular music as conformist and formulaic, as merely filling up a pre-existing form, as offering only trite and inconsequential minor variations which never affect the basic underlying tyranny of meter as commodified or Taylorized time, etc. Abel’s counter-argument to all this is that it is precisely by being metrical with a vengeance, by using meter in a far more intense way than classical music ever did, and therefore by proliferating syncopations against a metric beat which is the dialectical condition for these violations of metrical logic to take place — it is by doing all this that groove music at its best is able to subvert homogeneous clock time or commodity time.
"Thus it is by means of Adorno’s own dialectical logic that Abel defends the emancipatory possibilities of groove music; and even suggests that the 20th century classical music that Adorno at least ambivalently championed only represents a conservative retreat, since it simply disengages from metric time rather than working inside it to challenge it. Groove music at its best provides an antidote to Adorno’s, and indeed Jameson’s, pessimistic position that resistance to reification can only emerge from spheres of humanity which have not yet fallen fully under the sway of commodification,
"... Abel’s thesis makes a lot of sense in the specific case of Afrofuturist music, and more generally of Afro-diasporic music of the Black Atlantic...."
Wednesday, November 18, 2015
Friday, November 13, 2015
Enforcers 4
A talisman of an E.P. for me
Those two tracks especially, but also this one
This one I had no memory of at all though - and even playing it again now it doesn't ring any bells
But with the Tek 9 and the Manix - that whole AA side of Enforcers Volume 4 - that was one of the key moments when I realised.... this stuff was way more musical than the stuff at that time that was considered to be properly musical.... that this stuff was far in advance of the stuff that most folks then considered superior
The other EPs have many high moments
Vol 6 / Vol 7 double-pack almost eclipses Vol 4 just for these two tracks
Myerson - a God for all time - just for that one tune. Flora Purim like a tropical bird flitting through the rain forest....
Neil Trix ! Name that movie sample...
Incredibly fond of Vol. 8 also on account of this gorgeous gorgeous remix of Tek 9's "Slow Down" by the Man Like Nookie
And this collab between Gerald and Goldie also delightful
The Enforcers series concept was something like "probes" - music that was "forward" for the scene, a bit ahead even for Reinforced (the scene's vanguard, alongside Moving Shadow)
The picture disc thing Reinforced was doing with this series (and for a few other releases) was saying "this is something special.... something to have, hold, keep, cherish.... this is artcore"
I think I have them all.... at least the first run of when-it-was-essential.... the early ones picked up well after the time of their release ....
One, bizarrely, I found in CD-single form - Vol 3 I think. I'm pretty certain I came across that in the discount annex of Tower in New York! That's where had washed up a sizeable number of CD-singles put out by optimistic UK technorave independent labels in 91-92 - during the boom years, when Suburban Base and so forth were having chart hits - they must have been imported and distributed by Tower only to never find their market and washed up in the clearance annex.... I found a CD single of Nasty Habits there, a CD-single of 4 Hero Journey From the Light, a Moving Shadow CD EP too I think.... various odds and sods on even smaller labels. All on CD-single!
But I digress. Early on, the Enforcers series is not solid gold, but always interesting....
That was on Vol 3 - a surprisingly small fraction of which EP is on YouTube, I discovered
"Rolling Like Scottie" is up there but embedding disabled.
This is the unreleased original that was remixed for Vol 3
Vol 5 was a strong one but for some reason doesn't linger in the memory like the EPs that flank it on either side temporally
When did I stop bothering with the series? I'm not sure I got the 9 / 10 double-pack. Seemed like it was running out of steam a bit....
No recollection at all of Vol. 11 / 12
Vol 13 / 14 seems to be folding back on the label's own history
I was gone by this point... swept into UKG and 2step
Then a long gap .... more than a decade? - until Vol. 15/ 16
Those two tracks especially, but also this one
This one I had no memory of at all though - and even playing it again now it doesn't ring any bells
But with the Tek 9 and the Manix - that whole AA side of Enforcers Volume 4 - that was one of the key moments when I realised.... this stuff was way more musical than the stuff at that time that was considered to be properly musical.... that this stuff was far in advance of the stuff that most folks then considered superior
The other EPs have many high moments
Vol 6 / Vol 7 double-pack almost eclipses Vol 4 just for these two tracks
Myerson - a God for all time - just for that one tune. Flora Purim like a tropical bird flitting through the rain forest....
Neil Trix ! Name that movie sample...
Incredibly fond of Vol. 8 also on account of this gorgeous gorgeous remix of Tek 9's "Slow Down" by the Man Like Nookie
And this collab between Gerald and Goldie also delightful
The Enforcers series concept was something like "probes" - music that was "forward" for the scene, a bit ahead even for Reinforced (the scene's vanguard, alongside Moving Shadow)
The picture disc thing Reinforced was doing with this series (and for a few other releases) was saying "this is something special.... something to have, hold, keep, cherish.... this is artcore"
I think I have them all.... at least the first run of when-it-was-essential.... the early ones picked up well after the time of their release ....
One, bizarrely, I found in CD-single form - Vol 3 I think. I'm pretty certain I came across that in the discount annex of Tower in New York! That's where had washed up a sizeable number of CD-singles put out by optimistic UK technorave independent labels in 91-92 - during the boom years, when Suburban Base and so forth were having chart hits - they must have been imported and distributed by Tower only to never find their market and washed up in the clearance annex.... I found a CD single of Nasty Habits there, a CD-single of 4 Hero Journey From the Light, a Moving Shadow CD EP too I think.... various odds and sods on even smaller labels. All on CD-single!
But I digress. Early on, the Enforcers series is not solid gold, but always interesting....
That was on Vol 3 - a surprisingly small fraction of which EP is on YouTube, I discovered
"Rolling Like Scottie" is up there but embedding disabled.
This is the unreleased original that was remixed for Vol 3
Vol 5 was a strong one but for some reason doesn't linger in the memory like the EPs that flank it on either side temporally
When did I stop bothering with the series? I'm not sure I got the 9 / 10 double-pack. Seemed like it was running out of steam a bit....
No recollection at all of Vol. 11 / 12
Vol 13 / 14 seems to be folding back on the label's own history
I was gone by this point... swept into UKG and 2step
Then a long gap .... more than a decade? - until Vol. 15/ 16
Thursday, November 12, 2015
the building of a new break
Boymerang, aka Graham Sutton, on building a brand new break, with a "new old" feel, back in the day:
You'll have to throw your mind back to a time before computers were audio-manipulators, to when everything was hand-made in a hardware sampler, and the computer was merely a MIDI sequencer.
The gear at the time consisted of:
Atari ST running Cubase
Emu E4 - 16 outs
Roland JV1080
Boss SE50
Mackie SR24:4
Sony Portable DAT
...and that was pretty much it!
Ok,
Step 1: got the original Amen Break, played at original speed, and hand-chopped it in the E4 up into *every* constituent hit, including tiny-tiny flams etc etc.
Step 2: sequenced all the fragments, moving the pieces by the tiniest of amounts, so they played identically time-wise to the original.
Step 3: Using the timing refs from step 2, replaced all
the sounds (still at old skool original tempo). Only rule was no sound could come from a break that I'd heard already used. You can probably spot at least a JV ride in there.
Step 4: Kept engineering different layers of background noise etc etc, til it sounded "new but old", at least to me.
Step 5: Resampled the whole break to DAT, then dumped it back to the E4.
Step 6: Replay back at sped up DnB speed to check for tone and vibe etc. Usually this would then involve going back to Step 3.
Step 7: CHOP CHOP CHOP - one new break to use!
Hehe, it sounds like an easy operation written like that, but honestly, it was fucking time consuming. Probably took a week or two til I was happy.
I was so happy when I started hearing others using it, starting with Dilinja's Silver Blade, as I'd left a couple of free bars of just the break in the track so it could grabbed.
[via Droid in this interesting Dissensus thread on the Studio as Instrument]
Wednesday, November 11, 2015
Tuesday, November 10, 2015
when trance seemed like a good idea
if all trance sounded like "Freedom of Expression" i might have gone the other way
nah, not really .... junglist, me!
still, ripping tune eh?
Sunday, November 8, 2015
Friday, November 6, 2015
drumtrip junglemix heaven
great Drumtrip mix from a while back based around unreleased tuneage - "a mixture of dubplates and test presses ripped to mp3, and tunes only ever released on CD or on compilations".
"There are also a couple of remakes in here. A remake, in this context, is a lost tune that has been painstakingly remade sample by sample by a few extraordinarily dedicated fans".
TRACKLIST
01. DJ Trace – Definition Of Living
01. DJ Trace – Definition Of Living
02. The Invisible Man – The Journey
03. The Undergraduates – Space (The Dark Remix)
04. Droppin’ Science – Volume 1 (94 Mix)
05. Wax Doctor – The Saint (Dubplate Mix)
06. Dillinja – Follow Me
07. Photek – Say It
08. J Majik – Your Sound (Digital & Photek VIP)
09. Dillinja – Baby Your
10. Doctor G – Bassface
11. Dillinja – Lion Heart VIP
12. System X – Mind Games (95 VIP)
13. Roger Johnson – Crazy Day Dreams
14. Photek – Feeling Up
15. The Undergraduates – Into Da Future (Droppin’ Science Remix)
16. Dillinja – In My Soul
17. The Invisible Man – Drifting
03. The Undergraduates – Space (The Dark Remix)
04. Droppin’ Science – Volume 1 (94 Mix)
05. Wax Doctor – The Saint (Dubplate Mix)
06. Dillinja – Follow Me
07. Photek – Say It
08. J Majik – Your Sound (Digital & Photek VIP)
09. Dillinja – Baby Your
10. Doctor G – Bassface
11. Dillinja – Lion Heart VIP
12. System X – Mind Games (95 VIP)
13. Roger Johnson – Crazy Day Dreams
14. Photek – Feeling Up
15. The Undergraduates – Into Da Future (Droppin’ Science Remix)
16. Dillinja – In My Soul
17. The Invisible Man – Drifting
similar concept with this mix
couple of other great drumtrip mixes
mixrace old and rare
this one by Brian Badonde with the concept being the most expensive jungle and hardcore 12 inches - the one's that'll set you back the most should you try n buy em
Tuesday, November 3, 2015
the musician as outsider
Named after the Colin Wilson book, presumably?
That period of late 90s Reinforced got well congested - Vortexion, Arcon 2, The Sonar Circle, Nucleus and Paradox, Seiji, Alpha Omega, Procedure 769 etc
But good to see them lot sticking to their guns as late as this
Quite possibly still sticking to their guns although 2011 is the latest emission from P Man as far as i can tell
Talking of people sticking to their guns...
A young man I met at a class on electronic music last week told me I should really check out what Doc Scott's label 31 Records is doing
I was like, 31 Records is still going?
Remembering "Shadowboxing" as some kind of pinnacle of the 20th Century, but not much else by them...
This was the comp he recommended I believe
Liking this stuff a lot actually
this tune in particular
this one good too
checked this one out for the name frankly - Ghost Warrior
The young man also said to check out D-Bridge's label Exit
that one's quite ruff and churny
I fear it's a bit late for me and D&B though...
Monday, November 2, 2015
who's the gangster
a list + commentary of speed garage white labels at Vinyl Factory pulled together by William Wynne-Morgan - the bulk of which, I must confess, I have never heard / heard of. so much undiscovered stuff still in the nuum
next one is relick of omni renegade snares
only one copy of this one ever made apparently
not strictly a white label this
next one is relick of omni renegade snares
only one copy of this one ever made apparently
not strictly a white label this
Thursday, October 29, 2015
Tuesday, October 27, 2015
Monday, October 26, 2015
Friday, October 23, 2015
Thursday, October 22, 2015
clank's coming
cold new release on House Not House
lighter but nice - with UKGish trace elements
HNH being Dom D's label
some tunes on other labels Datman recommend, all of varying degrees of wintry vybe
good wolfy noises on that one! v. much in the Tradition
tryna think of a pun to do with jack and frost....
nah, snot happenin....
Wednesday, October 21, 2015
the Novum
"The breakbeat is actually made up of two mono files on the sampler, which I adjusted separately, so that when I stuck them together, I had the break riding up and spinning around in the stereo soundfield. It sounded like nothing we'd ever heard, it was a revelation -- we listened to that for hours and hours." - Rob Playford, on working with Goldie on "Timeless"
(via Dissensus)
(via Dissensus)
time to get ill(bient)
never imagined anyone would get into the historiography of illbient, but i guess we really are running out past
http://www.factmag.com/2015/10/20/asphodel-records/
http://www.factmag.com/2015/10/20/asphodel-records/
Tuesday, October 20, 2015
Friday, October 16, 2015
deep tepid
not been following deep tech terribly closely this year, but each time i dip back in - gotta say .... it feels like it's treading water
the above is a recent-ish mix that da cognoscenti were buzzed about
but i dunno tho... a diva lick and a bass drop, is that really enough in 2015?
Dominic Datwun diagnoses on Dissensus thread
"Deep Tech's always had opposing poles, pulling towards both the tradition of UK club music and international house music. This year deep tech's been pulling a lot more in the house direction - a good example would be the fact that House ENT, Top Shelf Recordings, Definition Music, Shadow Music - who were all pushing the harder, more 'UK' side of the sound, have all gone quiet. Other labels like Audio Rehab are pushing the more housey end of things, as are a lot of the producers themselves. Though that sounds like a recipe for the scene becoming more bland or loosing it's identity - which was always super vague anyway, with producers calling their music 'house' as much if not more than them calling it 'deep tech' - I don't know if that's really happening. Though it would be a shame to see that harder edge stuff disappear - and we're definitely pushing that sound with a lot of our future releases on HNH - it's not gone completely, and a lot of the housier, tech house stuff is wicked, with that UK energy carried across in the vibe if not obvious samples."
some tunes he recommends:
"something for your mind your body and your soul" - out comes the antique sample, for the umpteenth time! or has it been revoiced?
faint flicker of a smile raised by the "alla da youth shall witness the day that Babblon shall faaaaaalll" sample ... but if only the trak was one tenth as exciting as Splash's "Babylon"
funktional but not spectacular is how these deep tech 2015 choons strike me - they do the bizniz in the clubz i'm sure
chugging and banging
this more cold-digital tune recommended by someone else on the Diss-thread is nicely icy
good reverby micro-chasms in this production
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