Pitchfork's kompakt review

so indie kids will read the reviews, think 'hmm, that sounds sucky', but go to techno nights anyway, just to complain?

god, i haven't heard the word techno since, like, 1994!

Haven't you? Where have you been?

now you're just being silly.

you're going home in a fucking ambience!

Have record reviews become such a standard to judge if music is actually good or not.
not sure I understand this remark. please explain.

This comment and many others that I have read in reviews bother me. When writers go on about how a record was reviewed while reviewing a record, it just bothers me. But my real problem is reviewing tracks meant for a DJ set. Though placed in an album format, most techno or house music dosen't really come alive till played in a set. Not to say reviews for this music should exist, A litttle more perspective would be nice.

you've got to tailor reviews to the likely audience though, no? I don't read Pitchfork at all unless someone links one of their reviews on ILM, but I am the sort of person who consumes Kompakt stuff solely at home via my CD player. So jess's review + overview is useful from my perspective.

(in fact I almost take offense at the idea I can't appreciate a piece of music fully unless I've (also) heard it in a DJ set!)

please explain some more

just because techno is "designed" for x-purpose doesn;t mean the reviewer needs to take this into account. there is a strand in rock (ie clapton-type stuff) that provileges virtuosity and the live performance and distrusts modern production techniques -- you have to 'really play' i think there are affinities with the 'it's meant for clubs' mentality.

zebedee, I did not intend to offend, I have played at a lot of parties with readers of pitchfork, and they only request rock influenced music, which I will not even call dance music ie. DFA, Le tigre..... I only would like techno to be review with a djs view

"It is a form which is designed to be used in multiple contexts, and - whilst one of these is home listening as a single track - there are many other possible juxtapositions possible."

cf every musical form ever.

"I only would like techno to be review with a djs view"

!!

i sympathise with being asked to play stuff that isn't 'really' dance, but all the same, remember you are playing "parties".

-- jaymc (jmcunnin...), August 11th, 2005 1:11 PM. (jaymc) (link) (admin) (userip)

i have to voice in on this... techno is more of a specific genre of electronic music than people will accept. when i think of techno i think of tresor, suregeon, ruskin, oliver ho, henrik b, chris liebing etc... there are definitely techno records on kompakt and i like them a lot, but i was always under the impression that most of it fell under the tech-house term or ambient...

not that all terms are not silly, but usually when people start delving into electronic music and then dig into the underground area inhabited by tresor and so on, they are scared off, when they are confronted with the harder edged straight forward techno.

techno as a specific genre is sort of in a stasis at the moment, but i do think it is about to rebirth due to the experimentation of people like ho, who's light and dark series is truly inspiring.

"COME WITH US! TECHNO IS HERE TO STAY!!"

...what he said.

agreed on that... usually when i hear the term now is when i am at DJ stores buying techno records like Liebing and so on... and it is used rightly so.

1) This CD is for sale to the general public in shops and plenty of people enjoy Kompakt releases who never go to clubs;

2) I hope Jess if he's reading this appreciates the guilt-by-association that can come from reviewing for Pitchfork -- now he's an "indie kid" who doesn’t understand the context of dance music;

3) Does this review really read as though he doesn't understand the Kompakt catalog? He may have different ideas about the label's peaks, but come on -- you can tell he's listened closely to almost all of it.

Despite all that, I do think the context in which dance music is discussed is an interesting topic so I'm glad for this thread.

i do see what you are saying and honestly i hate slapping tags on music of any variety. really, it is either shit or it is not... that easy. i do agree with you on techno heads liking what they are doing more than the house crew as you said. so... it probably is easier to push it to the techno side. i was mostly speaking from the angle of watching and hearing people become very aggravated when i put on a ruskin disc for example because it is quote-un-quote... too techno. :)

also, jess reviwed the 24-track CD rather than the eight-track LP version.

2) ha ha you bastard

3) up next is a weekly feature where i review EVERY KOMPAKT SINGLE from "triumph" to spiecher 666

haha i don't think simon hardly danced at all that night! maybe he was trying to keep his "cool" as dance dude #1.

There was a faintly hilarious thread on the Planet Mu board, regarding his review of the Exile album, that said exactly the same thing

What I meant by this was that when I write something I often hear Jess's voice in my head telling me why it's wrong. Also Rob Them Co. And you Vahid!

Tim, I am surprised that you don't do any home djing. That said, I could see it becoming all consuming for you, so perhaps you should avoid it!

Personally I hadn't noticed Kompakt being better or worse than usual of late (though I haven't checked out total 6 yet). Really enjoying Speicher 31 at the moment.

I do think the Kompakt label and artists seem to get a disproportionate amount of attention in online sites and forums... Producers like Alex Smoke and Jay Haze who I rate just as highly rarely seem to get mentioned.

I like Jay Haze! His stuff provides a nice dose of jack to the sometimes cold microhouse proceedings.

Is he behind those "Tuning Spork Family Affair" releases. I love those.

I just like to sit around and sniff my copy of UR-21.

Shoot me an email Jacob, Austin needs all the heads it can get.

Yes, but also more than that! It's hard to explain.

!!!! Adam you are very evil, I will never be able to listen to this the same way again.

From their review of Total 10:

DJ Koze, one of the label's more underrated producers, kicks things off with "40 Love", a blippy...

Whatcha trying to get at?

Oh lord, my first thread revived.

xpost: don't you get it? saying dj koze is kompakt's more underrated producer is like saying animal collective is domino's more underrated band.

gui boratto is more overrated imo

To be fair, the kind of people who think DJ Koze is Kompakt's best producer tend to be the same people who think Kompakt generally jumped the shark some time ago. If Koze is Animal Collective then Superpitcher is Mercury Rev.

moonship: we're talking about underrated in case you haven't noticed. hehe

tim f: i don't quite get what you're trying to say but my point is that koze is highly rated by the majority. so that reviewer may be out of step by saying he's underrated.

saying he's underrated is pretty much overrating him at this point tho

enlightening music discussion

Who is "the majority" in this particular case though danzig? The techno enthusiasts who (yes, in 2009 probably over-) rate DJ Koze, or yer typical dilettante who might read pitchfork reviews to decide whether they still need to keep up with Kompakt now that everyone seems to be talking about Zomby etc.

the first one, tim

danzig I get you. Saying "one of the label's more underrated producers" makes it sound like he hasn't been critically feted for years now. Smacks of someone who hasn't been paying attention, frankly.

yes, that's what i mean. it's that simple.

I hate all this over/under stuff as it's all so dependant on who is doing the rating. That said, and since it's fun, saying koze is underrated is sort of insane. He is surely the only kompakt artist being praised these days. But "x is over/underrated" is prob one of the weirdest and most repetetive memes