Techno/House Bobbins of the past

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.

YES!. i was actually talking about this with some friends the other day, and they couldn't understand my loathing. then again, they're more noobs to the dance scene than i am, and are still enamored of electro, so it makes sense.

more noob than you?!?!

http://youtube.com/watch?v=vPnRkkbt2Do

^^^awesome

Man, I love/hate youtube channels like those.
They make me want to buy too many damn records! Either I spend way too much $$ on ebay and discogs and whatnot or I just get pissy because I don't have all of these records that I desperately need in my life.

This just got repressed:

http://www.discogs.com/release/44984

if they reissue the biorhythm comps my head will explode

for real tho...

i bumped a juan atkins thread 4 u

who wants to sell me a vinyl copy of <a href="http://www.discogs.com/release/144385";>crustation's "flame"</a> (with the mood ii swing "insanity dub") -- or, barring that, hook me up with a 320 rip?

heard vince lemieux play this at a quebec countryside afterparty last week, and it was one of the most perfect pieces of deep house i'd ever heard...

oops, sorry for the bad formatting...

Funny, I've been looking for a vinyl copy of Law of Grace by Soul Capsule, or a 320 rip (and haven't got one yet), which was brought on by hearing Vincent Lemieux play it to finish off a Piknik Electronik (playing the whole track, unmixed, in it's entirety, as an encore of sorts), and it was one of the most perfect pieces of deep house I'd ever heard. . .

I did see a copy on ebay, for like $150 or something way beyond the usual $7-8 I'm used to. If elan is reading this, I'd like to take up the offer mentioned on the melchior prod. thread from from like 9 months ago about the 320 mp3, (this 174 one isn't cutting it for me).