Techno/House Bobbins of the past

this is what I was thinking...where does that argument stop? or why should you get off the hook by saying "I'm not looking for polyrhythms" etc...isn't that where it stops being about actual classicism and starts being "I prefer this music to that".

Do you honestly think that the guys that you blog about who can barely string a track together on a computer are going to be able to out do guys who can actually play music on real instruments?

The computer is an instrument like any other. Being about to pluck a guitar with your fingers doesn't mean you can automatically program a computer or a synth well - and that's where the complexity & nuance comes from: not from live dexterity or chops, but from being able to master the electronic machines so that you can get the absolute most out of them. Learning Reaktor is exactly the same process as learning the violin.

If you criticize electronic music for its thudding obviousness, or over-determinedness, or because bar 64 sounds exactly the same as bar 2 (which do I agree is a huge problem), the producer is bad at programming interesting music on machines not neccessarily bad at playing live music. Apples and oranges.

why is repetition a 'huge problem'?

because it's unimaginative and unsurprising. Compare a track like 2000 and One's remix of Aardvarck's Cult Copy, which modulates a stab throughout the entire track and retains your interest (which still being a tool), to Orbitalife, which does not.

All my favourite house producers this year (Seany B, Crazi Cousinz, Roska, Fuzzy Logick, Marcus Nasty etc.) would be guaranteed to inspire loathing from the ILM Carthusians. And thank Christ for that, really.

The difference between older dance music and today is that the guys making the old stuff had a background in "real music." Larry Heard was a drummer, Juan Atkins was a bass player, Jeff Mills played drums in his high school jazz band, Mike Banks was a session keyboard guy... That is the thing that nobody wants to bring up about all the old school legends, those guys were musicians.

Mike Banks plays a mean guitar too.

there are no "huge problems" only huge opinions.

No, it's definitely not all my mind ;) all music is not created equal: some records are more well-crafted, more effective, more ambitious, etc than other records. Some people are more talented at making music than others, with better ideas, and a keener ability to execute those ideas. This is just obvious stuff, surely, in any artform. Does your comment really mean "Nothing is wrong with any record and it's all just down to taste" - surely not - i know you, Ronan, and you've got a whole theory of what's right/wrong with just about every record you hear! And every one of those reasons that one record is better than another is objective reason - the only subjective thing is whether those elements please you or not

nobody hears the same things in the same records...there can't be objectivity, or hears records without prejudice/taste/years of their own listening/their mood that day etc etc...

sure some people may be better at certain parts of making music but it's very complex to say how that relates to how their work is consumed/received...I mean what does "better" even mean in this context?

The only worthwhile definition of better is somebody liking something more. How could there ever be another definition?

The point of reviews etc is that perhaps some people share the same sentiments about why something is good/bad.

Well yeah, that's talking sense. The purpose of reviews/criticism/chats like these is to convince people to your point of view. "it's all just opinion anyway" is just noise, not an argument.

if you think that Ableton-straightjacketed loops are interesting music, I'd like to hear a defense. I can see the appeal of 'Enfants' (although only for a few minutes) but making a whole genre out of this stuff, and filling up a whole club night (which is what Mara Trax do) i mean i can see why people are exasperated and resort to things like "they don't know how to make records which develop" etc

Although: that night I saw Mara Trax this guy had great records (which did develop). So I do think talent is down to individual DJ/producers, not neccessarily the genre (or heaven forbid, country).

if you think that Ableton-straightjacketed loops are interesting music, I'd like to hear a defense. I can see the appeal of 'Enfants' (although only for a few minutes) but making a whole genre out of this stuff, and filling up a whole club night (which is what Mara Trax do) i mean i can see why people are exasperated and resort to things like "they don't know how to make records which develop" etc

don't think they're Ableton straightjacketed loops

I mean come on...how is "ableton straightjacketed loops" supposed to be some kind of neutral agreeable definition for anything.

You might as well say "if you think crap music is good music I'd like to hear a defence".

what's interesting is that you aren't providing any kind of defense or explanation as why these records are great. Please explain why this stuff is wonderful.

on another note...

I came across this today, it is worth looking into. I was surprised to hear something this good come from my own backyard. Texas is bubbling...

http://www.myspace.com/submersiblemachines

Which records are we referring to anyway apart from "Orbitalife"?

xpost

I think it's very difficult and dangerous to start and talk about "real music" (with real drums and stuff) and not so real music (produced with Ableton). That's as if you say: that's a real text, the guy wrote it with a pencil. And this text isn't: he wrote it on a computer.

But when it comes to thinking about why a lot of electronic dance music that comes out these days is quite boring, I'd say it has something to do with Ableton. This program is a brilliant piece of software. It makes it very, very easy to produce a track that sounds like all the other tracks.

And yes: ten years ago you could try to get a 303 and make some kind of generic neo-acid track. But you still had to figure out how to plug things together. And you had to find a 303.

This is not supposed to be a defence of boring "ableton straightjacketed loops". They exist, everybody knows it, everybody complains about them.

But it's ot about "real music" and playing an instrument.

I think that one of the driving force in electronic dance music always was to work with and against the limits of technology. And that gets increasingly difficult.

Why should I defend records against prefabricated criticisms? I'd take your approach and just say "Johnny D is great because he's not UR" but I actually like UR and don't define my taste by what I dislike or what it isn't.

In any case...it's completely irrelevant what records we're talking about. Criticisms like "he is a better musician" or "straitjacketed ableton loops" really are just "I don't like this" posing as some kind of theoretical knowledge.

x-post nobody can agree what the "straitjacketed ableton loops" are. is this the new "boring minimal" or something?

people just say "yeah we all hate those, we all know they exist" then spread their purchases out over an entire scene anyway.

it's so suspicious when "boring" is the criticism of anything.

Anyway, for a discussion of which modern stuff people like, there is a thread you know...

Sure.

This whole Ableton thing just keeps me thinking at the moment.

I just spent an afternoon with a friend who knows how to work with it and I was surprised that we came up with a track that sounded --- well, not exactly like an "ableton straightjacketed loop" but kinda good. And that's tempting.

Anyway, for a discussion of which modern stuff people like, there is a thread you know...

exactly...plus why should anyone have to defend their tastes based on someone else's tiny view of them? eg should I say why every record this year I liked is good? or every minimal record ever? or every one mt and tom have heard?

all of these discussions are also taking for granted the number of artists who play instruments anyway, but that's another day's work.

I've fiddled about with Ableton and perhaps a loop is easy to create, but modulating it is very hard. I don't think the tracks that come out are "easy" to make, I mean...again this is what people said about Chicago House and Detroit Techno at the time.

But 20 years pass and suddenly some people think "it's not me that's getting old, that argument was stupid back in 88 but techno really is easy to make now".

I still want to know which specific records are supposed to be boring straightjacket ableton loops.

If I was a techno artist I would def. release an album called Straightjacket Ableton Loops.

Don't be silly Tim, we can't NAME the records. We don't actually listen to music we hate! That'd be as insane as lambasting it needlessly at every opportunity.

Try the collected works of Marco Carola...

I like to think I'm okay at talking about this sort of music but it's become almost a point of pride for me that I don't really know the mechanics of how the music is made. I don't really go for reviews that read like an inventory of the producer's computer set-up or home studio.

It'd never occur to me to say "boring ableton straightjacket loops" because I have no idea which programs make which tracks etc (easier to distinguish ableton mixing from vinyl/CD-J mixing obv).

Perhaps I'm making a virtue of necessity, but ultimately I'm glad that I have to use other ways to think and talk about why/how particular tracks are good or bad.

Ironically a lot of writers who champion "soul" in dance music spend a lot of time talking about gear, even if only negatively.

heh

personally i'm just concerned by what i perceive to be a slight excess of hawtin-esque trackiness. which is maybe a trick of perspective. then again, there's tons of new disco and balearic, right? but that stuff's not terribly clubby, or at least not clubby enough. and as you point out, a just a couple of years ago everything was super songful. like martin buttrich (who mike hates, i think) and matt jonson and shit robot and tricksi, very melodic, like the sweetest norwegian power-pop.

but i guess maybe the shift toward toolsiness and tracksiness - lots of which is perpetrated by detroit-y dudes! i have a hard time squaring some of the comments upthread with the hype for omar s, who must be one of the most ultra-tracky detroit producers since, well, forever? - is just a weird perception i have, based on the fact that my only outlet for hearing european dance music is the resident advisor tracklisting?

i mean the podcast, not the tracklisting.

and yeah there's all this neo deep house stuff and i am glad we are all agreed that it is sort of irritatingly prefab

too bad this thread got so nasty and contentious

if anybody still wants to talk about the r&s reissue program i'm still here!

well i could do wither a new copy of model 500's deep space, my copy has a few bits\scratches on it which where they were when i bought it :(

also http://www.discogs.com/release/16030 moonwalk = best comeback in house ever ?

"personally i'm just concerned by what i perceive to be a slight excess of hawtin-esque trackiness. which is maybe a trick of perspective. then again, there's tons of new disco and balearic, right? but that stuff's not terribly clubby, or at least not clubby enough. and as you point out, a just a couple of years ago everything was super songful."

This makes more sense to me as a way to approach this issue: how does the music work at the moment (the missing step between soul and gear).

But yeah, it's important to note that this is not about one scene but a whole bunch of scenes interacting with each other. And whereas 3 years ago a tune like "I Feel Space" could cross all those scenes it's harder to see that happening now (italo's influence becoming concentrated in balearic/nu-disco but purged elsewhere. Vahid do you like Aeroplane though? Marvellous clubby balearic nu-disco). Lest we forget that 5 years ago a lot of these artists (or their equivalents) were making Metro Area tributes.

The biggest concern I have is not precisely that this music is becoming too tracky - rather that it is becoming very anti-populist and rather respectful. It is difficult to imagine a Freeform Five equivalent emerging from this scene now, let alone a Jacques Lu Cont (I guess that's what nu French stuff is for, but it seems a shame to have an absolute split between excellent sound design on one hand and personality on the other).

(meanwhile one wonders if mt and pipecock could bring themselves even to acknowledge the existence of haircut house / fedde de grand / axwell / david guetta etc.)

Not that I'm only into poppy stuff, but as recently as two years ago it felt like European club music existed on a continuum from abstract to popcentric where the two poles talked with one another a lot more than they do now.

minimal man's make a move got a repress :)

It seems to me like people are blaming ableton instead of blaming the people who are using it. Yeah, it provides for the exploits of samey music, but (and I've never used it, so I'm not 100% sure) is it not possible to make something that doesn't sound like straightjacket ableton techno on it? Seems like an issue of people struggling with too much freedom in making music, but there are plenty of producers that simply move past this with ableton, no?

and manyXposts: that T-Shirt!

Got this for £1 earlier today...

http://www.discogs.com/release/3539

AWESOME

can i just say that i have NO IDEA what that sounds like? hard tech house w/ chicago touches?

been listening to the LIKEMIND discography on iPod today. SO DOPE. who still makes shit like this?!?!?

other than i:cube!!!

drop me an email when r&s repress model 500's sonic sunset! my fave record.

Right on, Sonic Sunset and Deep Space were such great records.

I was watching a youtube video and mistook 'coloured city' by Laurent Garnier for a new tiga track... i was a blushing sad face. That track is incredible though, and somehow I'd never known it. I really thought Tiga was living up to his acid promise (Matt Walsh being a recent Turbo signee).

Never knew this was on R&S!!! great record

http://www.discogs.com/release/87774

no idea

I know what I am doing this weekend...

http://youtube.com/user/RealFreshBlog
http://youtube.com/user/Chicagowax
http://youtube.com/user/ressla

Ok, lets talk Dan Curtin. I was into the Purveyors of Fine Funk housier stuff back in the day but never really followed his techier stuff much. However i'm really enjoying the new Planetary release, and the Leena one wasn't bad either so lay out some knowledge...

Whoah! That MK - "Strider" track from the realfreshblog!

Fuck this is an incredible selection. The Jackmaster Curt is amazing too.

I can kiss goodbye to finishing GTA this weekend now...

i am perhaps the only person on ilm who cannot stand anything i've ever heard from Tiga?

I certainly can't.

OK, I totally adored his essential mix when it came out, and indeed it is a very fine, tightly mixed 2 hours of electro tinged techno, but it sounds kind of dated now, and I've moved past that sound myself. Everything he's ever produced himself I've found to be embarrassingly bad.