Rolling techno* albums thread for people who are clearly doing it wrong

i think the boof album is pretty much doing it right, comparable to levon vincent's lp with the variations in style and ratio of dancefloor to couch

I wasn't feeling the Boof at all when I listened earlier in the year but may give it another go.

yeah hunee is an incredible dj, haven't heard the album yet lol.

how do y'all feel about the dj richard album? i thought it was good w/ some misses. i liked the flow and general vibe.

as this thread title kinda implies, most dance albums are p sterile - the buzz of a great mix is so much better. if i listen to electronic albums it's p unlikely they'll be house and techno.

it's a no brainer - all the music ever made v one artist's music.

i mean of course, some albums are good and there are great electronic albums, but even at a time when i'm less purist about electronic music than ever, this all still feels quite true for me, not least because i don't think it's ever been possible to get such a glut of mixes from clever selectors.

this idea of a dance album replicating a dj set is like someone telling me a jacket made out of shoes is a good substitute for a pair of shoes

i don't think the aim of most dance albums is to replicate a dj set and most of the best dance albums don't have the same appeal as a mix at all. i guess a lot of the time it's a producer finding or honing a very distinct style or sonic palette that works really well together rather than joined up with other artists' styles (which is true of the vincent, hauff and nozinja albums, the three on my list that i'd really really rep hard for as albums qua albums and which are also dancefloor-oriented)

Yeah it's not literally wanting a mix of an artist's own stuff (although I did feel that about the DJ Q album from last year) it's more just a sense of narrative or flow or whatever, some sense of energy rather than bloodlesness.

So many techno albums in particular just feel like an arbitrary selection of discrete tracks, with the sense that the artist didn't consider them good enough to release as singles. And who wants to listen to individual techno tracks anyway? Like, the records are explicitly designed to be heard in the context of one another.

that is a bit of an old saw around here and it isn't completely true imo, i mean it depends on the artist. i want to listen to individual techno tracks when they're good as tracks and would much rather hear those in a dj set anyway. if it's boring to listen to start to finish it's boring in a set imo. i can enjoy an album full of good house / techno on its own even when it's relatively 'mixable' as long as it has some character.

i like the album format for certain artists because it lets you dive a little bit more into what makes them tick. examples coming to mind are the pearson sound or anthony naples albums from this year, which like don't grab me by the lapels but are rich as collections i think.

i guess a lot of the time it's a producer finding or honing a very distinct style or sonic palette that works really well together rather than joined up with other artists' styles

for sure - i guess that sentence describes any good album, to a point - i just think it's p rare for this to be done in a brilliant way in dance music - you need a real auteur.

i want to listen to individual techno tracks when they're good as tracks and would much rather hear those in a dj set anyway. if it's boring to listen to start to finish it's boring in a set imo.

yeah i mean i have always liked listening to individual techno or house tracks. thing is, there's kind of a long-standing prob with dance albums whereby the tracks are just not as good as the producer's best recent 12 or remix. of course it's not a cast iron universal truth but i always feel like 12s or singles are just worth more. a really brilliant two-track 12 feels like it gives more joy than an album, or a really brilliant track. a mix full of these components the same.

it's not even purism - it just feels kind of essentially true to me, like a characteristic of what dance music is, though obv ymmv.

in any case i think this year is a p good example of this - i liked the hunee record on first listen but after a few plays it's p much done. the breadth of his selections on nts have me going back for more constantly. the power of these amazing cratediggers on tap on soundcloud is serious.

yeah i have to say i mostly prefer the 12" to the album anyway, more bang for my buck!

i've really enjoyed this album, vaguely drexciyan italo jams

http://eodtracks.bandcamp.com/album/the-derelict

Yeah I guess the issue is more often than not with producers just not bringing their A game to an album, or trying something new that they just aren't as good at.

I think I'm really talking about techno albums here - there are loads of great house albums, especially at the vocal end of the spectrum. But it's also structural - techno is so much about momentum and build that it's frustrating to hear producers abandon that by including half a dozen inessential tracks, or veering off into ambient just as they've got something building.

Going right back to a record like Landcruising, or the Brown Album, and you think these guys just nailed how to make techno work in the album format. The Levon album has that whole properly structured flow, the Nick Hoppner album as well, in a gentler way. But it's also significant that the best Omar-S album is a mix of his own stuff, the best Matthew Jonson album is basically a live set etc.

"if it's boring to listen to start to finish it's boring in a set imo"

Thing is I've heard so many unexceptional records come to life in the hands of a really skilled producer. Plenty of records are just components, a cool noise to be thrown in at the right time, and that's fine, they're basically made with that in mind.

I mean a really skilled DJ, not producer.

trying to think of other electronic albums that work as mixes in their own right- there is obviously the Villalobos Fabric mix of his own material, as well as Omar-S. The (excellent, under-rated) i:Cube album M:Megamix record springs to mind as well.

confessions on a dance floor is basically a continuous mix

unexpectedly i enjoyed the helena hauff album much more than her previous 12s

The (excellent, under-rated) i:Cube album M:Megamix record springs to mind as well.

Just to be clear this was both an album and a record, available in the CD and double vinyl formats.

trying to think of other electronic albums that work as mixes in their own right- there is obviously the Villalobos Fabric mix of his own material, as well as Omar-S. The (excellent, under-rated) i:Cube album M:Megamix record springs to mind as well.

I think there are a lot of these, just to name a few off the top off my head:

Donato Dozzy - K
Voices from the Lake - Voices from the Lake
L.S.G. - Rendezvous in Outer Space
L.S.G. - Singles Reworked (this is a great example of how to make your "greatest hits" album into an interesting new work, Lieb has remixed his old singles and presents them as a nice continous mix)
Vapourspace - Themes from Vapourspace
Air Liquide - Nephology
Innerzone Orchestraa - Programmed
Microglobe - Afreuropamericasiaustralica
The Dark Side of the Moog ‎- The Evolution of the Dark Side of the Moog (another "greatest hits as mix" compilation)
DeepChord feat. Echospace ‎- Liumin

etc.

thanks! do any of those come as particularly highly recommended? Innerzone Orchestra will be good I suppose?

Oh and Kraftwerk - The Mix, of course!

This Nozinja album is brilliant by the way, would happily listen to multiple albums' worth of this.

fucking love levon's album. up there for me with like burger/ink for home/travel listening albums centered around 4/4 kick.

versus a mix i like having a track i don't always want to hear in there like "small whole-numbered ratios" bc it can be skipped without ruining anything but also makes me think yeah i feel you levon...

how do y'all feel about the dj richard album? i thought it was good w/ some misses. i liked the flow and general vibe.

btw i love this record

the other week i alternated it with a bunch of death metal records and they seemed to share a swampy quality

also, the nozinja record!!!!!

Pye Corner Audio - Prowler

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UPw9zFkvgOY

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XA5U7bL1JrM

Perfume Advert - 200+ Gamma (Opal Tapes)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wKu6IW_O5k4

Tulpa from 2013 is worth a go too - https://1080pcollection.bandcamp.com/album/tulpa

just encountered Lumisokea from Berlin, this is out this week and I'm really into it so far http://opaltapes.bandcamp.com/album/lumisokea-transmissions-from-revarsavr

definitely techno with an asterisk, kinda on the Cut Hands / Raster Noton type acts side of things. hypnotic/pingpongy/electroacoustic

Shalt - Unconfined
https://soundcloud.com/factmag/shalt-unconfined

full ep out today: https://astralplanerecordings.bandcamp.com/album/acheron

Really loving the recent Pye Corner Audio album, Prowler.

I missed the best albums of the year discussion but mine would be

1. Jlin - Dark Energy
2. Elysia Crampton - American Drift
3. Nidia Minaj - Danger
4. Holly Herndon - Platform
5. Floating Points - Elaenia
6. Hieroglyphic Being & J.I.T.U Ahn-Sahm-Buhl - We Are Not The First
7. Natasha Kmeto - Inevitable
8. Lotic - Heterocetera
9. Rabit - Communion
10. RP Boo - Fingers, Bank Pads and Shoe Prints

"Really loving the recent Pye Corner Audio album, Prowler." Yay! reissue available - http://www.morethanhumanrecords.com/product/mth008-pye-corner-audio-prowler-2nd-pressing

Not Waving - Animals

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LD73HtCHbWs

Anyone into Samuel Kerridge up in here

that is a banger for sure

xp

Track one of the A Pleasure album is called Durutti Gottsching, like how am I not going to give that a crack?

Track two is called Arthur Russel, they might be pushing their luck a little there

sleepy bear lets the salmon pass

https://soundcloud.com/estimulacion/estimuloshow-14-february-2016-w-estimulo

The Connection Machine have a new 2x12" / Digital release called Presentiment. Sounds good so far.. https://tabernaclerecords.bandcamp.com/releases

this is really great, drum-heavy club music from Uruguay:
https://salviatek.bandcamp.com/album/aequs-nyama-ep-stk002-2

has anybody else gotten into "kindred phenomena" by mattheis?

kind of kosmische type techno

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

other tracks are perhaps more italo

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JVr9vmtBhmw

but the best parts (to my ears) are the more krautrockish parts

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=04bsEbIoCeQ

truly lovely album

Does this go here?

http://dreamcatalogue.bandcamp.com/album/breathless

I really like a couple of the longer tracks. Some of the more distorted moments (Digital Rivers for instance) freak my brain out a little.

That Mattheis album is great, thanks for the heads-up TLG.

I'm really enjoying the Not Waving album mentioned above. It's really varied, some dark ambient, some early acidy Aphex-like stuff and (gasp) tunes! It's good.

It's also got a load of tunes that sound like updated versions of Chris & Cosey. I'm liking this more and more.

Yeah, really enjoying that Mattheis record.

Been digging a lot of this stuff over the last few months and finding connections...never heard of Mattheis till now but just bought 2 albums on itunes and see other stuff on labels that have released other recent discoveries I dig.

Same w/ Not Waving. Got a Sam Willis album a year or two ago, the one with the Wire sample, and dug that. Months later got some Walls stuff and was listening to that a lot over the last few weeks. Then heard Not Waving and bought a bunch of that and was listening to that as well, back and forth with Walls for like a week before I realized it was the same guy.

I dont really agree with spacetravel as an idea, its harmful to the environment and there are still so many places here on Earth to discover, there are paths in the copse over in the next valley Ive never even seen yet

but here is a mini Spacetravel set...the last track justifies at least some traveling into space, I'll concede

https://soundcloud.com/spacetravel-2/spacetravel-ipse-berlin

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