Pitchfork's Chris Ott takes No Prisoners

not cool

hahha

later guys, just got my advance for my book about "New Jersey"s

it's hilarious that he won't type cunt

why won't he type cunt

he was typing "coyote" actually

late to this whole thang, but just a query about clarification: did Ott himself coin the genre term? was he the poster who turned a Burial song title into a genre? If so, then Patrin ought to at last acknowledge and cite that fact in his talk, though he's under no obligation to do so in an abstract of a conference paper (abstracts are always general summaries and often short on details, it's the nature of the format). The language of "stake-holding" seem kinda jacked up and over-stated here. Critics trying to "own" genres seems weirdly secondary anyway (just imagine how presumptuous the "stake holding" assertion would sound to your ears if you were, say, Burial).

it's not a real genre, though!

This isn't like "post-rock" or even "chillwave." This is about the contents of something that barely left a single message board thread

the second night bus mixtape was pretty cool

had no idea it started as an ilx thread though

i have been to several "night bus" club nights!

i mean, ott demanding stakeholder status is super dumb, but he wouldn't even have to pull that card if someone didn't do the EVEN DUMBER thing of turning his series of message board mixtapes into an academic paper to be read at a rock museum

this will be a stain on this comically-designed rock museum's honour for all time

Lamp is the only person on this board I trust to really walk the night bus walk

i don't think ott needed to be interviewed and i also think he is an asshole but if the central concept of patrin's article originated in a given place and patrin doesn't acknowledge that place, that's kind of shitty? i haven't read the article so i don't know whether he acknowledges the origin or not (excluding the burial song, obv)

here's the abstract

“Under a Street Halo: Night Bus and the Commuter Soundtrack”

For a brief stretch of the early 2010s, Night Bus was a scene that wasn't. It had its dubious origins on a music message board as a tongue-in-cheek pseudo-genre, sharing its name with a track from minimal dubstep star Burial's landmark 2006 debut. Whatever it was meant to convey—post-last-call transit rides home, foggy with fading inebriation and heavy with melancholy—was later consolidated onto a 2010 mixtape, Do U Like Night Bus? by Montreal electronic musician CFCF. And while there were several forms of music that fit under its overarching category—dubstep, UK garage, cloud rap, minimalist R&B, witch house, and ambient—Night Bus seemed constructed more around a sense of mood than one of aesthetic constraints.

But what gives a song that Night Bus quality, and how does that tie in with the feeling of riding after dark at the end of a long night? This paper will break down the connection from multiple angles: the stop-start rhythms of public transportation, the effect of private headphone soundtracks accentuating public journeys, the emotional qualities of long trips home in fluorescently-lit introspection, and how the dynamics involved in songs that ideally soundtrack being a passenger differ from the more established precedent of the “driving music” that fits a trip behind the wheel.

The soundtrack will run through a few different lines, starting with a personal recollection of the pivotal work of mid-00s dubsteppers like Burial, Kode9, and Skream, then sprawling out like a subway map to highlight routes through auteurs of instrumental hip-hop (Clams Casino, DJ Burn One, Flying Lotus), R&B (The Weeknd, Jeremih, Bilal), bass music (James Blake, Forest Swords, Bibio), and contemporary ambient (Tim Hecker, Emeralds).

haha i didn't read the article and clearly i barely even read the abtract

it is admittedly an interesting genre patrin has coined there

it basically seems to be "here is a way of looking at music that i think is cool," since when does everything have to be about a mt dew-approved scene for ppl to talk about it

later guys, just got my advance for my book about "New Jersey"s

― I got the glares, the mutterings, the snarls (President Keyes), Thursday, March 6, 2014 1:05 PM (18 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

you have to interview me that's the ILX cunt law

i agree with whiney in that is pretty embarrassing for nate patrin to write a pseudoacademic paper about the burial-mixtape-as-genre he invented but i dont understand what the other dude is so angry about

whats really embarrassing is 'bass music'

i dont understand what the other dude is so angry about

No one had paid attention to him for at least a week.

Chris Ott invented the Night Bus? In that case can he do something about the persistent funky smell on the N159 and maybe move the stop a little closer to John Lewis? Thanks!

it's kind of like how The Misfits were left out of Please Kill Me, except not interesting

I think it's pretty clear from the trail of breadcrumbs as it were that patrin invented the genre. ott just made a mix tape some months later and I guess was hoping to get it picked up by DJkicks and to be called in as a panelist for EMP. when neither came to pass he lashed out. he's probably over it now. Anyway congratulations to patrin.

[cit. needed]

Going Cheese: Chris Ott, ILX Cunts, and the Prison of Belief

ain't it funny how the night bus moves

while this seems like a pretty flimsy thing to write a paper on, I wouldn't be surprised if message boards become a topic of academic interest

ain't it funny how the night bus moves

― he always came across as a great guy in Kerrang! in the 90s (some dude), Thursday, March 6, 2014 2:48 PM (10 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

okay you got me there, major larfs

Nate posted a response to some of you over on Facebook:

So that big Twitter back-and-forth between me and Ott has spilled over into some ILX debate that I wish I could clarify there. (see link below.) Since I can't post there -- I forgot my login info some 7ish years and three computers ago -- I wanted to point out a couple things.

1) My snarking at Ott was probably a bad idea, since the feeling of being set upon by outsiders is the fuel that sets his nitro-burning funny car on a collision course with wackiness. That said, the fact that we don't actually follow each other on Twitter but he jumped right out with a "MUST CREDIT ME" beef moments after I posted the link to my EMP abstract set off a big red flag. I do my best not to get wrapped up in inane beefs like that, since it almost never produces anything of value (unless you value hate-@s), but years of me being fed up with him shitting on my critical peers and friends took reckless precedence this time.

2) That said, he jumped to a lot of defensive conclusions based solely on the abstract (and probably a grudge against Pitchfork, ILX, whatever he ate for breakfast, etcetera), and while I didn't mention Hipinion by name in the abstract itself (and used unfair, heat-of-argument terms like 'circle-jerk' to describe the thread he claims I hijacked), I planned on attributing the messageboard and giving them their due, much like every circa-2011 "What Is Night Bus?" article I found on the Web did.

3) In fact, the paper I have planned (and haven't finished yet) starts with the idea that it's possible for something to start as a joke or a parody -- or at least come across like one, as most HRO-voice excursions in to subgenre-coinage are -- yet still get at something that actually resonates in wider terms outside of genre, as the CFCF mixes (which are rooted in that Hipinion dialogue) set out to prove.

4) And even then, aside from the necessary introductory historical context as mentioned above, the paper's almost entirely about pointing out, exploring, and emphasizing the aesthetics that these early adopters were getting at -- not claiming ownership over it, sanitizing it, or creating a revisionist history. Especially since "night bus" has since been discounted and declared "dead" by trend-fatigued bloggers and has largely fallen out of use.

5) I have no interest in gaining "cred" or whatever -- I've already done a couple EMP panels in the past, and it's a fun thing I get to do every so often as a way to connect with other music enthusiasts. Mostly I'm just interested in throwing around some ideas without the expectation that they'll be taken as gospel in academic circles. (And not to diminish said academic circles, but I'm far more interested in getting into dialogues with people from more journalistic/critical circles.)

honeybus > night bus

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xn0hsxzE5eU

fresher than the sweetness in water...

Thanks, Nate!

haha, nate's post convinces me to scroll back up the thread to get the whole story.

i'm sure all that guy wants is for you to reject "the man," man, and post content free on a blog. like god intended when he created the earth 6,000 years ago.

Live vlog and prosper

patrin doesn't know how to sign up for a new account?

Or maybe he doesn't want one

He seems to look upon this board with nearly as much scorn as Ott

*cries*

well, that's fine, but "i can't post there" comes off a little disingenuous then.

he meant "I can't post there because it makes me feel unclean"

Why should he sign up again to make one post? Why does it matter if someone posts that thought for him?

"i can't post here because i don't care enough about you jackholes to sign up for another gd email account"

He seems to look upon this board with nearly as much scorn as Ott

Nah. I decided to take a break some years back because of personal reasons (stress, anxiety, etcetera) and felt like I didn't really fit. It's not scorn (definitely not on an Ott-type caliber; this is not possible). More that I got fed up with the shit I was getting into, a lot of it my fault.

well, that's fine, but "i can't post there" comes off a little disingenuous then.

I can now. Registration took a couple hours. Not sure why I picked a late-period Sun Ra LP for my username other than that I like the record, but w/e

(tho I'm not interested in posting about gripe stuff for the most part, just yakkin' about music, figuring stuff out, the usual)

welcome back!

welcome back, sir.

yo is it true that lanquidity got sonned in a cheese beef with Ott

hi n8

hey dude, i'm not even involved in this debate, sorry for harassing you but welcome!