Demdike Stare

i keep wanting to do a breakdown of how this is different from illbient

1) "illbient" = marketing scheme for loosely affiliated group of artists. demdike stare is not really clearly affiliated with the hauntology crew, at least not in the way that say, mordant music and ghost box are.

2) illbient artists were largely not successful outside of illbient. these guys are successful in straightforward dance (as MLZ) and also the reissue game (as finders keepers). illbient more of a spoiler scene, like dubstep, mainly just dudes who were not successful at making hip hop or trip hop.

3) illbient didn't really combine anything novel - nobody's really hit on the combination of "ghost box meets porter ricks" yet, but there isn't a whole lot of room between a lot of illbient and a lot of trip hop other than "oh hey isn't this spooky sounding", whereas there's musical techniques in demdike stare that you wouldn't hear on anybody else's records right now.

not surprisingly, the one illbient artist almost always worth fucking with is 4E, who also recorded other music as khan / can oral / khan + walker / bizz OD, etc etc

Not surprisingly you have no idea what you are talking about.

you're seriously understating the experimental, exploratory, artmusic fringes of illbient, moonship. in combining musique concrete and abstract sound with hip hop, in delivering a hip hop that could be rhythmically fractured, and could play meta games with philosophy and art theory, i think illbient did combine familiar things in distinctly novel ways.

nor am i convinced by the idea that there are musical techniques on display in demdike that are unusual in a way that outstrips what you were hearing on on early records by spooky, et al.

anyway, love the two EPs demdike stare have released this year, and last years CD was ace, too. bummed that i didn't snag those first two EPs when i had a chance, though.

"forest of evil (dawn)" ffs

not surprisingly, my nuts are once again on your mom's chin

good one

not surprising, you continue to demonstrate that in addition to knowing jack shit about the subject at hand you also have the social skills of a teenage boy

This is the Salem thread all over again.

ILM sucks.

illbient more of a spoiler scene, like dubstep, mainly just dudes who were not successful at making hip hop or trip hop.

so dubstep producers are dudes who were not successful at...techno?

lol, is this what these threads are usually like?

Is moonship already lobbying to get me banned from the thread?

haha no, I was reading this because of the positive mentions of Demdike Stare on the Salem thread and now I see what deej was complaining about (although really I can think of about a bazillion different rhetorical styles that are better to emulate than this)

oh please, when have i ever lobbied to get you kicked off a thread lobbed my man juice down your mom's throat?

^^^ things I don't expect to read when I open a Demdike Stare thread.

When did you turn into a budget Dane Cook???

you're seriously understating the experimental, exploratory, artmusic fringes of illbient, moonship. in combining musique concrete and abstract sound with hip hop, in delivering a hip hop that could be rhythmically fractured, and could play meta games with philosophy and art theory, i think illbient did combine familiar things in distinctly novel ways.

Contenderizer, you're not... seriously... making this argument are you??

insert joke about your budget mom here

xp: I really want to know what "rhythmically fractured" means because I kind of don't see anything in that description that couldn't be covered by, well, regular old hip-hop.

So now I'm assuming that what illbient "did" was read a Divine Styler press release.

haha exactly

Contenderizer, you're not... seriously... making this argument are you??

well, yeah. but i'm not claiming to be any kind of expert and am perfectly willing to be set straight. sure, you can point to something like spiral walls containing autumns of light as a precedent, but that album was and still is a massive outlier. there's almost nothing in the world like it. it didn't proceed from anything going on in hip hop at the time, or kick off any significant mainstream following.

when i say rhythmically fractured, i mean aggressively arythmic, broken. shit you can't dance or even nod to. and i think illbient's (perhaps forced) relationship to academic art theory & music was novel in american hip hop. though, again, i'm perfectly happy to be schooled...

love spiral walls, btw

... so what exactly are you talking about here, because the most prominent name that pops up on Wikipedia when I look up "illbient" is DJ Spooky, and I know you can't be talking about him unless you just can't dance

also: Sub Dub, DJ Olive, Boards of Canada

illbient was like well after dj shadow, though. everyone was already well steeped in all sorts of fractured atmospheric hip hop beats when "galactic funk@ happened, and from there it only got worse.

i am in large part talking about spooky. i liked spooky, though haven't listened to him in ages. some of his shit is danceable ("galactic funk" ffs) and some is just chunks of noise - sometimes abstract, sometimes concrete, sometimes splintered beats.

kind of want someone to call me on the explicit art theory/music concrete connections

Can someone post an audio sample of what contenderizer is talking about here that was new and novel and not actually stuff that people had been doing for like 10+ years in the hip-hop, ambient and industrial worlds before DJ Spooky came along?

my main point being that i don't see DdS doing anything incredibly radical relative to what the c.96 illbient players were doing. not that illbient WAS so incredibly radical (kinda was, kinda wasn't, as has been pointed out), rather that demdike are playing around on the fringes of established scenes/sounds in a similar way.

no, I'm totally in "yelling at you about a point completely irrelevant to your argument" mode, don't try to derail me

the simple act of crossing the streams between hip hop, ambient and industrial was itself somewhat novel, especially as it was framed in specifically hip hop (and artmusic) context. it's one thing for an industrial producer to borrow hip hop beats and ambient noise and present it as industrial music, quite another for a hip hop dj to do the same thing. context is everything.

quite another for a hip hop dj to do the same thing... and in the process to explicitly frame his hip hop production as a 20th century artistic and critical practice on par with musique concrete and academic deconstruction.

there has to be a way to just fucking post in threads without making them go all pear-shaped

ILM: Where Everything Is A Fight For Some Reason

there has to be a way to just fucking post in threads without making them go all pear-shaped

― naked human hands and a foam rubber head (contenderizer)

Yes, make everyone use their real names.

quite another for a hip hop dj ... to explicitly frame his hip hop production as a 20th century artistic and critical practice on par with musique concrete and academic deconstruction

so wait, now you get a prize for being pretentious?

btw the way guys, my posts on this forum are a 21st century critical practice on par with slavoj zizek

so wait, now you get a prize for being pretentious?

wtf dude? spooky is pretentious as shit. i'm just talking about what he did, and he made a big deal about it. are you developing a hilarious internet style?

http://www.modern-love.co.uk/releases/voices-of-dust

siiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiick

Demdike Stare: Tryptych, 3xCD compilation of all LPs released in 2010 + extra unreleased material, out 24 Jan '11 on Modern Love

Yeah, was just coming here to post this. Good for folks like me who missed out on thiose limited 12"s

Artist: Demdike Stare
Album: Tryptych
Release Date: January 24
Label: Modern Love

Tracklist:

Disco One - Forest of Evil
01 Forest of Evil (Dusk)
02 Forest of Evil (Dawn)
03 Quiet Sky (Bonus Track)

Disc Two - Liberation Through Hearing
01 Caged in Stammheim
02 Eurydice
03 Regolith
04 The Stars Are Moving
05 Bardo Thodol
06 Matilda's Dream
07 Nothing But the Night 2 (Bonus Track)
08 Library of Solomon Book 1 (Bonus Track)
09 Library of Solomon Book 2 (Bonus Track)

Disc Three - Voices of Dust
01 Black Sun
02 Hashshashin Chant
03 Repository of Light
04 Of Decay & Shadows
05 Rain & Shame
06 Desert Ascetic
07 Viento de Levante
08 Leptonic Matter
09 A Tale of Sand
10 Filtered Through Prejudice (Bonus Track)
11 Past Is Past (Bonus Track)

Notes: This 3xCD set compiles the dubby techno outfit's three 2010 releases and adds 40 minutes of previously unreleased material.

the lock grooves on the 'liberation through hearing' lp are strangely appropriate, scratchy vinyl sound until you get up and flip the record

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8bL1I7XSqZQ

http://www.gifbin.com/982973

http://www.gifbin.com/bin/052009/1242802986_arnoldsmokingpot.gif

anyway, mixed grr at the wealth of bonus on that CD set. i mean, i'm psyched for more DS, but the vinyl buyer feels a wee bit cheezed, pressured to buy again what i already own.

Yeah feels very mean. It would be nice if they would at least issued some sort of download credits for vinyl buyers.

Not that I bought the vinyl myself lol, but yeah I would feel gypped buying this SUPER LIMITED MUST BUY thing only to find that a CD boxed set with bonuses was in the offing.

eh, kind of have to expect that, tbh.

six tracks in 40 min, though! figure "quiet sky" is probably like 20m on its own.

#4 just arrived and it is just as great as 1-3.

I only realised the other day that I've been listening to Eulogy at the wrong speed for months. It's their fault ffs.

would love to see a digital compilation of the testpressings

I think that was the most boring Wire cover feature I've ever read.

Been digesting a load of Demdike mixes lately. Some superbly diverse selections all cohesively mixed. Would single out the Osmosis, FACT and xlr8r sessions in particular.

http://somuchnoisetobeheard.blogspot.co.uk/2012/07/demdike-stare-collected-mixes-podcasts.html?m=1

the empirical research tape is really nice

I keep trying to shazam tracks off it, lol

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

No thoughts on Wonderland here?

I prefer droney Demdike like Liberation EP, kind of disliked the Testpressing series when it was coming out but think this album is great on first couple listens

I like as always how their production m.o. is "a good idea presented simply"

Yeah I really like it. I was initially disappointed to read they'd moved away from the droney side of things but this LP is great.

picked up the 3cd edition today, so have a lot of soak up,
but 'elogy' from the testpressings is fantastic.
i much prefer this to the drone stuff to be honest.

the 3cd edition is the one to get, fantastic to have the testpressings collected. "eulogy" is great, yes. each time after i play "dyslogy" in my car i feel i have to secure all nuts and bolts

yeah, proper double whammy those two, love them.

cant wait to get this on the home stereo over the weekend.

blimey. "past majesty" is borderline earl brutus/pre new

proper stereo listening : does not disappoint.

Revisiting the testpressings, "Fail" is absolutely immense.

disc 3 - track 1 ?
that got listed as 'Fall' when I ripped the cd.
or, is this a different track ?

Should be Fail, I think:

https://www.discogs.com/Demdike-Stare-Testpressing-004/release/5183044

https://www.discogs.com/Demdike-Stare-Wonderland/release/9435052

brilliant, it is the same track.
so, to answer your point : yup, it sounds fantastic.

Can't wait to see them here in a couple of weeks. A chance I never thought I'd get!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KY4k4d9iRVk

enjoying myself