Debris "Static Disposal"!! omg. I wonder if that guy will start the site back up, no new ones since February ....
sorry, back to Ricardo ....
― Renard (Renard), Tuesday, 21 March 2006 22:12 (eighteen years ago) link
I think this is correct but I think this has more to do with the way in which "we" tend to talk about dance music and experimentalism and etc than the quality of the music - not that this delegitimates the claim.
That was the point of my mammoth post on dissensus comparing the two - I actually find both equally exciting but, rightly or wrongly, villalobos is exciting in ways that make many people (critics esp) grope for the word "genius" rather than, I dunno, "hot shit" or something.
― Tim Finney (Tim Finney), Wednesday, 22 March 2006 06:32 (eighteen years ago) link
― geeta (geeta), Wednesday, 22 March 2006 06:36 (eighteen years ago) link
This is what I said:
"This is what I meant when I was talking on that other thread about the difficulty of proving vanguardism. It's not so much that vanguardism doesn't exist, but that - at least today - its claim is always plausibly (but rarely finally) refutable. There is in all contemporary music a certain component of revivalism or repetition, and this becomes a sticking point for people (or not) depending on their willingness to accept the presence or echo of that which is being repeated - e.g. dub and reggae in dubstep.
Dance music provides some good examples of this. When I think of two of my favourite current producers - Ricardo Villalobos and Booka Shade - it's immediately clear that Villalobos is the one being lauded as vanguardist (to the point that I felt moved to complain on ILM that in critical terms he's becoming the Outkast of German dance music). But the argument could be made that Villalobos's Achso ep, as awesome as it is, is just reviving 80s Jon Hassell and early nineties "intelligent" techno (Black Dog and early Autechre are probably the key reference points).
Booka Shade, meanwhile, are arguably reviving disco, early UK (acid) house, early trance, early rave and detroit techno - so their reference points are maybe A Guy Called Gerald/808 State, Eye Q Records, early Warp/Ital Rockers etc, with a dash of Detroit and early Orbital in there too.
Both are providing a pretty clear "twist" on their influences in terms of recognisable production nuances and immediately recognisable sonic signatures. Neither tend to straightforwardly revive one sound in particular, but carefully combine their influences (Villalobos's "Ichso" is a Jon Hassell/Talk Talk collaboration with Black Dog on production; Booka Shade's "Manderine Girl" is, I dunno, Carl Craig gone trance through a white noise filter).
So how do we distinguish between the two?
The audacity of the translation of influences? Villalobos is drawing on stuff from further outside house's legacy, but it's not really outside techno's legacy. His chosen sources may appear to come from more disparate genres, but they actually blend together quite easily and smoothly - whereas with Booka Shade the influences rub up against one another quite forcefully and delightfully ("Mandarine Girl" and esp. the new track "In White Rooms" do quite amazing and unexpected things with tearjerker trance riffs).
The freshness of the source material? Is Jon Hassell less played out than early A Guy Called Gerald? Hard to say...
The transition of the source material from a genius context to a scenius one? Maybe, but in doing so Villalobos is increasingly being distinguished as "genius" rather than "scenius" anyway.
The radicalism of the new production stamp? Villalobos is more openly, ostentatiously idiosyncratic and epic, but I think Booka Shade are just as impressive and interesting finally.
These aren't unanswerable questions, but they're complex ones, and every juncture I just see personal taste bleeding through.
Mark's definition of vanguardism - the creation of new populations, the redefinition of the very concept of music - avoids this trap, but it does so by skirting the entire field, equally rejecting both options as being mere product. Which is fine, but it leaves us with a vacuum as to what critical language we can use to talk about these rejected options. And there is music we all like which falls into this category - Junior Boys for example, or Ariel Pink, or..."
― Tim Finney (Tim Finney), Wednesday, 22 March 2006 06:47 (eighteen years ago) link
ps did my package get to australia?
― vahid (vahid), Wednesday, 22 March 2006 06:52 (eighteen years ago) link
dissensus requires patience i think, you have to adjust to a different speed whereby there may be one interesting new thread per month as opposed to one every couple of days at least here.
― Tim Finney (Tim Finney), Wednesday, 22 March 2006 06:54 (eighteen years ago) link
― geeta (geeta), Wednesday, 22 March 2006 07:07 (eighteen years ago) link
(Vahid perhaps your polemaesthetic is strident pro-smeariness!)
― Tim Finney (Tim Finney), Wednesday, 22 March 2006 09:41 (eighteen years ago) link
godammit i wish this had been released as a 12" instead of chromosul
― ambrose (ambrose), Wednesday, 22 March 2006 10:50 (eighteen years ago) link
― a, Wednesday, 22 March 2006 11:03 (eighteen years ago) link
― ambrose (ambrose), Wednesday, 22 March 2006 14:16 (eighteen years ago) link
― matt2 (matt2), Wednesday, 22 March 2006 20:22 (eighteen years ago) link
― NoTimeBeforeTime (Barry Bruner), Wednesday, 22 March 2006 20:29 (eighteen years ago) link
http://www.roskilde-festival.dk/object.php?obj=4e342774&code=1
― DJ Martian (djmartian), Wednesday, 22 March 2006 20:36 (eighteen years ago) link
― biz, Wednesday, 22 March 2006 21:20 (eighteen years ago) link
― geeta (geeta), Wednesday, 22 March 2006 21:27 (eighteen years ago) link
Isn't it the long (9 mins or more) unfolding of larger musical pieces from "micro" structures?
― file under cozy techno (fandango), Wednesday, 22 March 2006 21:43 (eighteen years ago) link
― mike h. (mike h.), Wednesday, 22 March 2006 21:47 (eighteen years ago) link
― NoTimeBeforeTime (Barry Bruner), Wednesday, 22 March 2006 21:59 (eighteen years ago) link
― file under cozy techno (fandango), Wednesday, 22 March 2006 22:18 (eighteen years ago) link
― vahid (vahid), Wednesday, 22 March 2006 23:09 (eighteen years ago) link
― vahid (vahid), Wednesday, 22 March 2006 23:13 (eighteen years ago) link
Probably why I like it as much as any other reason. I've heard enough recycled sounds of all that "golden age of IDM" stuff.
― file under cozy techno (fandango), Wednesday, 22 March 2006 23:27 (eighteen years ago) link
"He's perfectly content with forming luscious, pensively roiling, ten-minute grooves that double as some of the most organic-sounding electronic productions imaginable ... all patterns of percussion, save for the bumping tubs of bass thrum, could come from folk-dancing marionettes. The splats of harpsichord-like acoustic guitar seem wind-generated..."
sherburne on "confield"
"Autechre are part of a movement of artists exploring generative composition, harnessing algorithms and complex programming to create tracks that warp and morph independent of the producer's will. To whatever extent that method was used in creating Confield, the album certainly sounds like an automaton's creation. "VI scose poise" opens the album with a skittering cadence of ball-bearing rattle, seemingly without logic or repetition ... Confield's lithe processes slip nimbly from measure to measure, creating themselves anew at every turn ..."
― vahid (vahid), Wednesday, 22 March 2006 23:28 (eighteen years ago) link
― geeta (geeta), Wednesday, 22 March 2006 23:31 (eighteen years ago) link
zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
― stirmonster (stirmonster), Wednesday, 22 March 2006 23:33 (eighteen years ago) link
So are Ricardo & co going to avoid the mistakes of the past on their further excursions?
I totally hear the Black Dog tone coming through Luciano's stuff incidentally, fwiw.
― file under cozy techno (fandango), Wednesday, 22 March 2006 23:34 (eighteen years ago) link
― file under cozy techno (fandango), Wednesday, 22 March 2006 23:36 (eighteen years ago) link
dude, remember house music? house is a feeling!
― geeta (geeta), Wednesday, 22 March 2006 23:38 (eighteen years ago) link
― file under cozy techno (fandango), Wednesday, 22 March 2006 23:40 (eighteen years ago) link
Looking forward to whenever I get round to hearing Au Harem(House?) Luciano's SFHFi(House?) or Taka Taka(ah.. House!) though.
― file under cozy techno (fandango), Wednesday, 22 March 2006 23:54 (eighteen years ago) link
― blunt (blunt), Wednesday, 22 March 2006 23:56 (eighteen years ago) link
????
― Tim Finney (Tim Finney), Thursday, 23 March 2006 00:13 (eighteen years ago) link
― geeta (geeta), Thursday, 23 March 2006 00:14 (eighteen years ago) link
― Susan Douglas (Susan Douglas), Thursday, 23 March 2006 02:08 (eighteen years ago) link
― blunt (blunt), Thursday, 23 March 2006 02:09 (eighteen years ago) link
― Ronan (Ronan), Thursday, 23 March 2006 07:54 (eighteen years ago) link
― Ronan (Ronan), Thursday, 23 March 2006 07:58 (eighteen years ago) link
― a, Thursday, 23 March 2006 08:00 (eighteen years ago) link
― a, Thursday, 23 March 2006 08:08 (eighteen years ago) link
― j blount (papa la bas), Thursday, 23 March 2006 08:32 (eighteen years ago) link
I'm really interested in this comparison, since it's based on my two favorite producers at the moment. Probably the only two that I've kept a determined watch on.
I'm not entirely convinced about this idea that Villalobos' influences blend easily. While they create an impression from the outset of a compositional whole, I think the actual production internally emphasizes disorientation and perspectival hallucination. He routinely highlights discrete elements that operate almost like feedback, temporarily frazzling and distorting the mix (throughout 'Sieso' or 'Let We Go', for instance).
If Villalobos is a smooth blend, this would only be in terms of pattern rather than perspective (particularly when he presents a point of view that is rapidly shifting, scanning). A classic sonic trope here would be the splayed snare as informational pattern on 'A Walk In The Park (Villalobos 'Til Thursday Rmx)', which catches both elements in motion.
This is opposed to Booka Shade I'd say, whom I find much easier to 'focus' on. While they have an aesthetic of the trance-riff as a evolutionary hinge (In White Rooms, Mandarine Girl, most obviously), the music always feels consistently 'out there' and clearly placed. Their embrace is a emotive hold.
So I realise I'm merely enforcing (somewhat boringly) the very consensus position on Villalobos that you're quite rightly attempting to disrupt, but to seperate out 'production' from 'influences' seems disingenuous considering the two artists involved.
Plus, I just wanted to mention that snare-sound that I so love, and mention some other things that Villalobos makes me think about, and want to write about.
― Michael Dieter (Mika), Thursday, 23 March 2006 08:52 (eighteen years ago) link
Mike I think this is an important point to make - actually with Villalobos and Booka Shade both, I think that when we are tempted to talk about "influences" we should usually actually talk about "production" (by which I mean, what may seem as deliberate influences may be organically developed production choices). My discussion above is a bit artificial because I'm trying to magic up a neat example of how discussions of influence (and their relationship to the notion of vanguardism) are less straightforward than they appear - or they should be less straightforward than they appear, at any rate.
― Tim Finney (Tim Finney), Thursday, 23 March 2006 10:57 (eighteen years ago) link
"Basically everything is house music and there are different versions. Even techno music is a different version of house music, it's a little bit faster and more aggressive. I try to be somewhere in between techno and house, and the reality is that everything is based on house. I would say I'm a house DJ for sure. And all this click-house, and micro-house and bleep-house, it's only to sell better the product, you know? At the end, everything is obeying the rules of house -- the breaks, the snaps, the snare-drums, the high-hats. Everything is absolutely house. You can substitute different sounds -- instead of a normal high-hat, you can use a click or whatever, but it's all house."
― geeta (geeta), Thursday, 23 March 2006 12:32 (eighteen years ago) link
for listening to. there are very few villalobos records i'd play out as i rarely get to play late enough at night for them to work on the dancefloor. they would probably clear most dancefloors i play for but i love listening to his music wheras i can't imagine lazing about reading a book with booka shade on in the background. there is a world beyond the dancefloor ronan. :-)
― stirmonster (stirmonster), Thursday, 23 March 2006 13:15 (eighteen years ago) link
― strongo hulkington is a guy with a belly button piercing (dubplatestyle), Thursday, 23 March 2006 13:30 (eighteen years ago) link
― geeta (geeta), Thursday, 23 March 2006 14:01 (eighteen years ago) link
thats not true but its what i aspire to
― ambrose (ambrose), Thursday, 23 March 2006 14:01 (eighteen years ago) link
― geeta (geeta), Thursday, 23 March 2006 14:05 (eighteen years ago) link