ricardo villalobos

or is minimal techno?

one does not equal the other.

I have no doubt loads of people really like villalobos, people who like minimal techno and people who post here etc. I just meet so many people who say "yeah villalobos" and I doubt they have ever heard him, I realise this is cynical but it'd be fine if people say this about m.a.n.d.y. or mayer cos essentially it's house/techno but villalobos doesn't really fit the crossover mould......

I have no doubt loads of people really like villalobos

okay whatever

This isn't incompatible with the notion that a lot of people listen to Villalobos privately, but that distinguishes him from a lot of other dance music producers, who are probably "listened to" more by people out dancing or downloading DJ sets than by people buying or downloading specific 12 inch tracks.

As I suggested upthread, I hear a lot of references to villalobos which strike me as using him as a stand-in for the notion of creativity in dance music, far over and above artists like booka shade or dominik eulberg or anyone else who is undoubtedly more ubiiquitous on dancefloors.

I guess in some ways what's exciting for me about alot of electrohouse is that it is blatantly obvious what the point of it is, and while it may not be doing massively different things on a literal level to house and techno down the ages (ie people dancing, in clubs) it continues to bring new sounds from different things into these two genres.

I know it's a fairly hardline stance but as a result of the sort of tension and fight between house and experimentation I think the non house output of these artists is kind of irrelevent, to me anyway, it's like......what is it part of, who does it represent?

i don't think minimal techno is the new post-rock because even if the 4/4 kick is removed from minimal techno, there is still too much that is structurally and historically different between the two. there is some overlap, but it seems too general to really draw an explicit connection. i still hear way more techno and disco and south america in villalobos (or luciano or guido schneider) than in pretty much all of my knowledge post-rock combined (which is admittedly not much). maybe i need to listen to "achso" more.

w/r/t a hardline house stance, i think the form sometimes gets tired and needs to be rehabilitated by experimentation.

villalobos' set on that green and blue comp is a perfect example of his populousness. also "what you say is more than i can say". surprised that people aren't talking up the green and blue mix more.

i am down with restless or relentless experimentation because when it works there is just this frission especially in the context of house or techno where the idiom is so strict but there can be that huge payoff in the way tracks mix together. even if such experimentation doesn't work, the reverbations on the culture or other artists are worth it. so if it's deploying post-rock stategies or sampling depeche mode into the k-hole or choppy rhythmic tricks, the ends are the same. the actual sound of tortoise and autechre and villalobos are very different to my ears so i think it is hard to discuss this topic without comparing scenes or methods or culture. the big post-rock record for me is millions now living... and i get the autechre reference in a villalobos review, but autechre have gone way further out in the way they stutter their beats. they seem to be returning to the dancefloor though. (i have been listening to untilted a lot lately). i guess if i had to say one thing these artist's sounds all have in common is their songs can sound as if it they are evolving in real-time, sometimes from measure to measure. but with autechre there are strong hints of detroit techno and electro and the sheffield legacy and industrial music; tortoise feels more formalized and not reliant on software (at least in a live setting), based in a jazz and improv legacy; and villalobos sounds more painterly and decorative like he's cooking something brilliant with rare ingredients, but there is always (on the singles) a strong hint of rhythm in the house/disco/techno tradition. he doesn't sound as hard as autechre or as mathy as tortoise. this is all reminding me of taka taka and how it brings all of these different techniques together (well not necessarily post-rock)

ep7 is one of my favorite pieces of music ever. it sounds so troubled by its own existence.

But I guess it also gives a sense of how different techno is today than 10 years ago. It's so much more niche now, so someone with a sound as uncompromising as his can be that big. And that niche is clearly catering mostly to people who like uncompromising club music and don't necessarily need melody etc. (also shows how druggy that niche is).

The other day I sat down with fruity loops and tried to replicate even just one bar of "ichso". It's impossible! The amount of detail in these tracks is totally extraordinary, not that this is necessarily a good thing, but I can't help but be reminded of how in the early days of jungle producers would talk about spending weeks just crafting a beat - it seems to have that level of intensity.

postrock / postrave song-building method 101

1. begin with building blocks of some accepted genre
2. introduce elements of new genre as the song progresses until the two mesh
3. song falls apart as elements stop meshing

(if i haven't metamorphosed into a being of pure logos by the time i'm done)

i can just see him disintegrate into a million tiny drum sounds and float out the window.

haha...brilliant.

(seems I'll have to try that exact combination of tracks)

kinda funny to recall Jess's initial dismissal of The Au ("a slog" on his blog) in light of how he now considers Villalobos the "first genius of the 21st century" or whatever.

anyway: i find "The Au Harem..." infinitely more interesting than "Alcachofa". It's probably got a lot to do with listening to it at home rather than in a club situation - listening to it as an LP - but it's got all these subtleties that make it sound different every time i hear it.

"Achso" is the same really, although that has an overall different sound but then i guess Villalobos meant for "Achso" to be played out a bit more, seeing as it's vinyl only and whatnot.

I was only today comparing Confield to minimal techno with some other people, although i think that "The Au Harem..." is far more Autechre than "Achso". The percussion on "Miami"!

And no, i've never taken ketamine. Although when a friend did, he requested "a creamy ball to get inside". Hmm.

"But history has done a curious thing to Spandau Ballet. It's made them more interesting. I think that's a valid way to listen to music, by the way. I think lots of things get more interesting when you add some time to them. To hate something now and like it three years from now isn't so much hypocritical as it is critical."