RFI: Border Community - Nathan Fake, James Holden, The MFA, Petter etc.

And they mean this so literally! I mean, one of the most intriguing things about the Border Community 12"s is the inclusion of all these odd ambient or noise snippets (which usually remind me of My Bloody Valentine's "Touched" or something) as, literally, DJ tools!

It strikes me as something very unique and cool that there's this nominally prog house label who sound more like a weird interzone between M83, Superpitcher and Boards of Canada, and yet who are totally devoted to dance music as a fundamentally anti-artist, pro-DJ genre. It's sort of like some ultimate end point away from the middle-brow of "album dance" - not "nightclubbing at home" so much as "blissed out at the club".

That whole conceptual side wouldn't work so well if the music wasn't so consistently ace, but I think I've at least heard all the releases now and I've loved them all.

The MFA's remixing the Junior Boys' 'Bellona'...how swoonsome

their remix of Telepopmusik's 'Into Everything' is gorgeous

and yeah this label is about the ONLY thing i'm liking in prog house these days. so nice and refreshing on so many levels

01. Mathew Jonson - Ultraviolet Dream
02. Covenant - Bullet (Ellen Allien Flow Mix)
03. Superpitcher - Happiness (Michael Mayer Remix)
04. Roel H. - Curly Hair
05. André Kraml - Safari (James Holden Remix)
06. Petter - Untitled Acid
07. Steve Lawler - Out At Night (Nathan Fake's Night In Mix)
08. ADJD - Believe
09. Stryke & Santos - Amazon
10. ID
11. ID
12. The Rapture - I Need Your Love (Playgroup Dub)

It's good and I want more

I'm not sure if it's an actual live set or them DJing, it sounds very pristine for a live set though all the tracks do sound like MFA productions and pristine is sort of their style I guess.

Needless to say it is great, like completely electronic deep house or something, with a good quick tempo, which gives it that really clubby deep house feel, a bit like "Mushrooms" by Marshall Jefferson but alot more of an electronics only feel to it.

the remix of Ellen Allien is amazing.

my first exposure to fake/holden was at razzmatazz in barcelona last month, and even though i didn't see their entire sets, they still felt like total highlights. despite that, i kept forgetting to investigate;
tonite is the first night i've checked out any border community stuff at all. anyway, i've been sitting here for the last two hours, headphones on, totally spellbound. the james holden remix of "the sky was pink" is sublime -- i can't remember the last time i had this strong an emotional response to a 4/4 track. i'm currently about 9/10ths of the way through "balance" and its just been one frozen chill after another. this is wonderful, wonderful stuff.

MFA - The Difference It Makes (Superpitcher Mix)
Dextro - Do You Need Help? (MFA Mix)
Petter - Altogether
Holden - A Break in the Clouds
Nathan Fake - Dinamo
Andre Kraml - Safari (Holden Mix)

does anyone know if the icelandic version is a proper remix or just like a homage? first thing it reminded me of was mum.

Ha! Saw Nathan Fake play a liveset last sunday (after Michael Mayer) and he indeed started out with a blissfull storm of MBV style noise. The great thing: somehow there was a implied beat in there...oh boy when it materialized. :) I had to leave after a while (I saw Tiefschwarz the night before -out of this world btw- so I was a bit tired) As a result I missed James Holden. But now I'm obsessed by this bunch.

And then "Panoramic" sounds like the Mayer "Happiness" mix, right down to the same vaguely malevolent glower.

http://3voor12.vpro.nl/3voor12/festivals/media/index.jsp?event=22956363&episode=23221079

Mayer/Nathan Fake/James Holden sets available here:

http://3voor12.vpro.nl/3voor12/festivals/media/index.jsp?event=22956363&episode=23225470

But yeah some added love for 'Manderine Girl'.
Goes nice with that Holden remix of 'Safari' doesn't it? (as M.A.N.D.Y. proved...that 'Safari' remix is so...woozy? Can't imagine actually dancing to it, just sort of sway and make funny faces.)

Will Holden ever be able to live down his Nathan Fake Remix? The track already has an almost legendary status.

"Will Holden ever be able to live down his Nathan Fake Remix? The track already has an almost legendary status. "

It's interesting how it's this track that has put Holden over the edge for a particular crowd (the one that's come to all of this stuff via German/electro-house), whereas all the prog fans seem to imply he's yet to top "Horizons", which i don't think I've even heard. I think my first love will always be "A Break In The Clouds".

Also interesting is how malleable discussions of influences and sonic signifiers can be - whereas it would seem obvious to "us" that Border Community is part of the German/electro/micro house interzone (albeit a proggy end of it), the prog fans talk about it in entirely different terms, as if this is a form of experimentalism entirely internal to prog, which can be explained immanently or, if one needs to look outside, by reference to rock music (how long before Holden does a Back To Mine??? I see Adam Freeland's just done one). Do these people just ignore things like Fake's Traum release? Or do they see all that stuff as a moment internal to prog as well? I noticed that in the interview upthread that Holden describes Michael Mayer as being basically a very good mid-90s UK prog house revivalist, which of course rings true in many senses but I wondered to what extent Holden was trying to speak the lingo as such.

That interview article also puts Holden in the same boat as James Zabiela - is this accurate? I always thought Zabiela was just Sasha - The Next Generation, or at least that's the impression one gets from looking at his Global Underground or Renaissance comp tracklists. (BTW I listened to Involver in store and it sounded really disappointing - why get all these great distinct tracks and then mix them as if they were all one bleary stompy prog workout???)

Zabiela and Sasha are followers I think, though Zabiela is even more preoccupied with crap breakbeat.

Maybe I'm just resistant to what Sasha does to those particular tunes. I think I'm so used to the Mayer approach to DJing with this sort of stuff, letting the tracks really emerge as songs and having their own distinct identity. The blurring together that Sasha does is annoying in that context, whereas I'd probably be fine with it if he were playing honest to goodness prog.

prog trance producer/dj with idm pretensions and wide knowledge of currently-fashionable tech-house? yes, that's accurate.

And I say this as someone who has largely been sympathetic to Sasha over the years.

Also Zabiela is not popular, he's nowhere near as popular as most of the minimal DJs. Sasha may be popular but regardless of skill even the tracklisting on his latest mix was all quite old, for someone with access to any promo around you expect to hear a good record you hadn't heard before, not a load of tried and tested tunes mixed up. I mean that's like what you get from a friends mix CD.

Also this sweaty talk of "skill" makes me feel like a metal fan, please stop it. It's nonsense.

And Tim otm, what's the point of Ableton if people just use it to eliminate any tension between tracks.

James Holden's Balance mix rocks in so many different ways. Did anyone hear the Jonathan Lyles mix? Somehow i doubt anyone on here did since it was put out by Bedrock, but it's worth checking for sure. Minimal/Koln type DJ's generally can't mix for shit but they select good tracks. Lyles, Sasha and Zabiela can actually mix with precise skill but don't play the wank material obsessed on at ILM.

PS: Mayer is honestly an excellent dj (mixing/selection etc.).. never heard the rest

i don't really think it's fair to lump dan bell in w/ mayer, herbert, superpitcher. he can do the things your talking about - although i wonder why you're still banging on the point when clearly almost everyone here prefers track selection (the tracks they like) to dj'ing skills to the point where they'd probably rather hear mayer spin dubplates w/ NO mixing than listen to well-mixed prog house or breaks ...

Honestly this bullshit of "he can't mix" as a diss for any new DJ is such old school dance fan tossed off rubbish. If you don't like the records someone plays just wheel out the "he can't mix" chestnut.

Plus if the ILM stuff is such "wank material" why is your beloved Sasha playing ALL OF IT (6 months after release date) on his latest mix CD??

Well?

But other than that I think people here are as bothered with skill as anything else, not least cos track selection fucking is skill! It is the biggest skill of all by a million fucking miles and why Sasha is so fucking lost lately (Goldfrapp mixed into microhouse on Fundacion????, plus as I said totally safe tune selection)

But ignoring that, Mayer actually is a good DJ technically, I have enough live sets of his and have seen him twice, the notion he can't mix is utter fucking rubbish perpetuated by early 90s dance fans flexing their anti-fashion muscles as per usual, "it's fashionable therefore the technical ability must not be present"

DEATH TO FALSE METAL.

"he's not playing the right tunes together" does not make someone bad at mixing, that's just personal opinion.

well, he's mixing a lot of very formless tracks together - i'm not sure w/o specific examples what you mean, but he's working with some pretty abstract source material, as opposed to sasha's perfect 4/4 dj tools.

"Fabric 13" are about as good as it gets for DJ mix CDs

i don't really agree w/ this either, though. doc martin? tyler stadius? ivan smagghe? adam beyer? and this is only counting the fabric mixes - if we throw in jacques lu cont and bent there's a half-dozen which blow the doors off mayer and that's just in the fabric series.

classic!

I enjoy both types of mix but I don't think you could say Smagghe creates a vibe in the same way as Superpitcher, that said I can be almost certain Smagghe is a more clubby DJ to see out.

The "bad mixing" thing just rankles with me bigtime though, everytime a fucking DJ plays here, whoever it is (once it's not Clarke/Mills etc) somebody's fucking whining "oh his mixing was awful", it's just a lame attempt to make the subjective sound objective, and is almost always directed at new or newly popular DJs.

take Fabric 13 for example. Mayer should have had time to find tracks the mixed together well and created a vibe but there are several transitions that are either fade-ins or trainwrecks. he can pick a track, he just can't mix it as well as some.

xpost: Sasha's early mid-nineties mixing/track selection was near perfect. Fundacion was a drop in selection but the way they're put together is more pleasant to listen to than if Mayer had taken the same tracks and mixed them together. I've never seen Mayer live so my opinion is only based on Fabric 13, Immer and Neuhaus (plus a couple downloaded sets). He comes clean and admits he's more of a Selector than Mixer.

i think maybe part of the issue here is the difference between song-oriented mixing vs. track-oriented mixing. some tunes sound excellent when they are played all of the way to the end whereas some are made to be mixed and blended like crazy.

You may prefer the track selections of the three, but they're not finer mixes in terms of technical skills. Mayer does play it pretty safe, but I'd say the same for most Fabric mixes.

I do like Smagghe's creative risks, especially w/r/t that Kills track, but it's honestly not a very smooth transition either technically or in flow.

Tyler Stadius does SMOKE THEM ALL, though- I agree with that.

And I don't hear these trainwrecks in Fabric 13, where are they? Fade ins also are just as valid a way of mixing, if that's what the mix requires, if you inherently believe every track should have a 3 minute transition overlap then of course this is not the case.

I don't know what ridiculously ott standard of "good mixing" you have biz, but I'd love to hear you explain in the abstract why it is better, aside from you simply preferring it.

Part of the beauty of the mix albums released is that you can perform enough tweaking to get disparate tracks to blend together so you end up with well-beatmatched and tone-matched mixes with a lot of variation. I'm fickle, though: I enjoy an occasional straight crossfade or paused transition in the middle sometime, if it works. The ableton aesthetic is pulling the live sets closer to this and it's worrisome if people are just using this to smooth out the bumps in their homogenous sets -- they should be doing more adventurous mixing and throwing in craziness! Suddenly you've lost a lot of worries about being in tune or on time...

If anything we're outing ourselves as a bunch of nerdy trainspotters with this stuff. Like biz said, it's wank material, but he's got a point. Often we end up discussing the tracks that have very distinct personalities, stuff that doesn't quite qualify as "anthemic" but is close. It might just be because the 4/4 dj tools stuff really are tools and we're more into discussing "songs" as they may be. Maybe it's the home listening aesthetic transposed back to the clubs, I don't know.

Back on topic, has anyone heard this Holden set from Sonar 2005? He really throws in some of the kompakt stuff with what I assume is his normal type of set, along with some random stuff like that Blue Monday acid house remix that was on rephlex. Mixing is great as far as I've taken notice even though he's pulling from a variety of sources.

Yes, I'd also like to know what "trainwrecks" exist in Mayer's Fabric mix.

Sorry, but I'm thinking they exist only in your head, maybe via the collision between the quality of the music and that little voice that keeps saying to you "He's so popular right now- I just hate him, Hate Him, HATE HIM!!!!"

Do you mean his admission that he likes to play tracks out? Because as far as I know, none of those was recorded live so it's not like it's even possible the mixing is going to be fucked up unless it's pure laziness or a broken computer.

xpost: i don't hate Mayer. In fact, i really enjoy Fabric 13, Immer and the other mix of his i have, however, his ability to mix records together is subpar.

Ronan, by your description above of a set you witnessed from Mayer, we're saying the same thing about his mixing ability but you translate that into a specific style while i see it as lazy DJing. It's one thing to pick great songs, it's another to be able to sequence them in a seamless mix. I don't consider a person who just selects good songs to be a DJ. I know my opinion is not popular but that's the way i feel about it.

xpost: Border Community have all their releases available to purchase in MP3 format at www.bordercommunity.com

honestly your definition of quality excludes so many DJs, probably every disco "legend", that I'm not sure how it stands up at all.

also how is one style "lazier" than the other? Where does "hard work" come into talent exactly?

This is yet more Joe Satriani Guitar Magazine monthly bullshit. No place on a dance thread.

Honestly no point arguing further with someone who has such a facile grasp of "talent/quality", it is EXACTLY like discussing music with a metal fan.

Another DJ excluded by your definition, Jeff Mills! Not saying anyone is beyond reproach but just to show the variety of DJs who don't do long overlaps.

btw, i hate Jeff Mills' mixing style. doesn't mean he's a shitty dj, but i don't like his style.

it's also difficult to play 4000 notes in 3 seconds on a piano but that doesn't mean it sounds better.

Also it's not cutting Mayer slack for "uninspired djing", you're being too absolute, he can actually mix and he does mix, he just doesn't frequently do long extended segues.

it'd be like talking about gilles peterson's dj'ing.

I still can't see how stylistically the way he mixes is somehow inferior, why is it so hard to believe that someone might choose an "easier" way of creating art (in whatever sense creative processes can be dismissed as "easy") because they believe it to produce superior works?

It's verbatim the same argument as criticising the Beatles or something because their songs are "easy to play".

Can we spin this off into the "Mayer is a crap DJ" thread, I really want to figure out where I'm going to order actual Border Community vinyl from, even gemm is looking good by now.

Ronan, i'm going to ignore the moron remark and move on. Sasha and Digweed's "Communicate" mix consisted of loads of dark, linear progHouse tracks that were overlayed in the mix quite a bit. I don't rate Communicate very highly even though the mixes were long. I dislike the track selection, and only listened to it the week it was released. Mayer's Fabric mix has been caned at my place yet i find the mixing lackluster. Mayer's "skill" as a DJ is purely in selecting the tracks, not in his ability to overlay tracks in a long mix. I enjoy his selection but his mixing falls short in my opinion. I've continuously stated these ideas as my opinion and my preference, not as the definitive chart to grading DJ mixes. Plenty of Dj's who can produce long mixes between tracks have shitty track selection. Plenty of DJ's with great track selection can't mix. It goes both ways and i'm simply stating my belief that a person who can choose the best tracks and fit them together in a seamless mix is the better DJ. This breaks down to 2 simple catagories: Selecting and Mixing. As i see it, Mayer only has 1 of those down. You obviously don't DJ and if you do, you probably can't match beats, which is the only reason i see for you defending unskilled DJ's. Anyone can choose great songs. Most of the folks who post on ILM have great taste, but can they sequence those tracks in a seamless mix?

If anyone needed further proof that your over emphasis of mixing is macho rubbish then there it is.

-- biz (b...), August 25th, 2005.

dude the only reason anyone's arguing with you is because your idea of what constitutes good sequencing and seamlessness is so... i dunno...one dimensional. dullsville.

I disagree. Most dance DJ's can learn basic technical mixing (beat matching and phrasing) in a month or two. Great track selection, at least in dance music, is something that can't be "taught" and requires years of work to master.

I'll take a few botched transitions over uninspired track selection any day, whether at the club or listening to a mix CD.

xpost: what is my idea of good sequencing and seamlessness? the perfect example is Disc 1 from Northern Exposure. Orb/FSOL etc. What is one dimensional or dull about that? Have you heard that mix?

DELETE DANCE MUSIC KTHNXBYE

fe7 brings up a great point about Club vs. Home listening. At home, fade ins and bad mixes are less annoying. Hearing a DJ wreck a couple mixes will make me leave the club, no matter what his name is or what label he's representing. This feeling was even more extreme when i was taking ecstasy. I guess you had to experience a set by Sasha in the mid-nineties on E to understand his ability to work a crowd with his mixing skill. I doubt Mayer could ever come close to that type of performance.

why should mayer want to replicate "that type of performance." the point is he has his own thing going on and generally it's pretty awesome.

Reread my post, that's exactly what I said. You can't teach selection.

well, i doubt he's trying - what i was trying to goad ronan into admitting upthread is that mayer is aiming away from the club scene, or, at least, playing towards a different style of clubber.

really? cause you might be pretty pissed if you spent $50 to get into the superclub, another $50 on really good pills / orange juice / bottled water ...

* = for foreign readers, the olive garden is a chain of low-end american-italian restaurants renowned for their tacky decor and bland, heavy, unadventurous cuisine.

andrew, i don't get why my argument is dull and one dimensional. in my opinion a DJ should be able to match beats, mix in key and select great tracks. Mayer only does one of those things well. I enjoy his mixes but i don't think he's a good DJ. Is that one dimensional?

Is it passe for a DJ to try to take the listener on a "journey"? I know it's a terrible cliche but most DJ's i know still mix with this in mind.

Hearing a DJ wreck a couple mixes will make me leave the club, no matter what his name is or what label he's representing.

So if Mayer had played the Fabric 13 set out and you were there, you would have left in disgust at the shoddy mixing?

when i saw mayer he played very uptempo electro and melodic techno - things like LFO's "freak".

sort of a different journey, though. another thing kompakt/mayer have become sort of renowned for is the way they reference other musics. i am pretty impressed w/ how he manages to constantly reference groups like japan and t rex and so on, but if i was off my head on acid at gatecrasher or something i might not be down for that sort of trainspotting.

i think if he played at gatecrasher, he would play a banging set. i have some live sets from mayer that are pretty relentless.

also, mike h, you can buy border community vinyl from the kompakt online store. they usually ship stuff fast.

This is an unnecessarily restrictive dichotomy though. When, in Sasha sets, it's hard to tell where a track begins and ends, it's usually because the tunes sound exactly the same! The fact that Fundacion manages to make a lot of disparate tracks sound identical to one another is for me quite maddening (and again I say this as someone who loves Northern Exposure 1 & 2, etc.). The idea of the choice being between barely-mixed "songs" and indistinguishable tracks seems to reflect a rather myopic view of dance music as being tech-house first and foremost.

I think 2-step garage provides a good example of the fact that a lot of mixed dance music runs quite counter to this: in 2-step you could always tell when a new track was coming in, there were no two ways about this no matter how good the DJ was. But this was actually one of the best things about it: those moments in between tracks, when you could hear two tracks jostling for attention, were frequently thrilling.

You can hear a different approach again on Herbert's Let's All Make Mistakes: mostly very fast transitions, and often between quite different tracks, but those transitions are seamless in the sense that the tracks fit together so perfectly. Even though you know a new track is coming in, it feels like the most natural thing in the world.

I think wrt Mayer, if you listen to something like Immer, it's not clear what could be added by a more Sasha-like approach: ironically, I always thought that the album had a Sasha-like feel in so far as the album feels a lot like a single piece, there's a really consistent mood to it that works against perceiving it as a collection of separate tracks (perhaps one break b/w Immer and Fabric13 is that there's still a slight "DJ tools" feel to parts of Immer, the "big moments" being held together with grooves content to "pass the time" claustrophobically).

Plus the notion Mayer can't beatmix or is trainwrecking mixes is just inaccurate and a total overstatement of the case by both Vahid and Biz.

I accept Vahid's point that Mayer is aiming for a different kind of listener, absolutely, with the mix CDs. I was going to say so myself, that his (and Superpitcher's) mix CDs are more like artist albums in themselves rather than mix CDs, but I don't see the problem with that. Also the time I saw Mayer he absolutely killed it, to an Optimo crowd in Glasgow, I've seldom seen such an atmosphere, at any clubnight, and I've seen all the DJs discussed on this thread so far pretty much.

I really think you overemphasise the distance between Mayer and co (or other people you don't like! sorry!) and superclub culture Vahid. I can't think of many DJs I'd rather take drugs and see at the moment than Mayer. You should see the fever of posts on the board of the main Saturday night club here anytime anyone mentions Mayer, everyone wants to see him play, out.

The more he plays out the bigger he gets, I have no doubt about that. He is absolutely not building his growing rep on mix CDs (cos you can't do that anyhow, to really break through you need to get a trusted reputation in big cities around the world, only the dance music types listen to the CDs etc)

Fezaffe otm also, there is waaaaaaaaaay overstatement of Mayer as crap DJ here, even people on his side are accepting it too readily, he doesn't fuck up transitions!

Yeah there's a certain level of brashness to electro-house tunes that would totally resist a subtle lead-in - one of the thrills with hearing this music (and it's not unique to electro-house obv) in the mix is how a big synth riff from the cued track will suddenly burst over the top of the currently playing track as if to shove it out of the way. This is another way of explaining the problem with Fundacion (Sasha gets rid of this feeling).

In my head I'm hearing the sudden and explosive arrival of the Ewan Pearson remix of "Perspex Sex" as I type this.

i am aware mayer has a pretty strong european following, but again, i think it is coming down to reading a crowd, the types of tunes they like to hear, etc. even when you read people who write rapturously about kompakt djs (i am thinking of geeta and phil s) they tend to talk mostly about track selection, the djs affectations and personalities, etc ... it seems to me to be a very different sort of fandom/appreciation than what goes on around prog/trance culture.

He is absolutely not building his growing rep on mix CDs

not sure about this one, ronan. really?

To me this means everything, it's what attracts me to Mayer. A seemless set is great, no doudt. But a narrative requires a different skill altogether. Connecting emotionally with the crowd or the person listening at home, happens by history, which I feel Mayer works on, Superpitcher as well. I just listened to Larry Levan's Live At The Paradise Garage 2discs on strut records, and the beat matching is far from perfect. Yet, I sense a similar goal with a lot of Mayer's sets with vocal heavy tracks, and the emotional undertow. I might be way off with this comparsion, but narrative does strike me as a common pursuit among them.

I do think there is a different appreciation going on with Mayer, sometimes, a popist appreciation. But that's because there is a pop persona and a pop side to everything Kompakt does, something which lots of dance fans will always rail against. That really bugs me too, I think the pop element is fun and brings a bit of fun to proceedings, if Mayer was a shit DJ and had this persona then fine but he's not. Also surely DJing is about affectations and that kind of thing? I just hate this anti-popism, or the assumption that because there is a popist side to a DJ he is therefore not technically good. it's so facile. it really smacks of the sort of attitudes which would actually send dance music further down an alley.

just because something is fashionable does not mean it "lacks substance" etc etc etc, and just because something is technically perfect does not mean it is by default unfashionable. And there's a world of middleground here too. that's what bugs me about this debate, I don't think it's as polarised as Mayer=good selector, shit DJ, Sasha=poor tunes, amazing DJ. The truth is so far from that.

As for Mayer's rep, I don't think any DJ actually can build a rep just on mix CDs, I don't think it's possible, plus Mayer plays alot harder out than on his CDs. I listened to a live mix on the way to college this morning and the mixing is great, sure he chops stuff in quickly but it's never out of time and it reminds me of seeing him, that fast jump between tracks which creates a sort of "panic" type of tempo, it's really really effective, also I noticed how clever he is in terms of where he brings stuff in and out, he knows all his tracks inside out, in tracks with overly long intros he'll mix it in so you're not waiting too long for the vocals etc, and every track just "feels" mixed out at the right time.

I really was blown away by him technically in Glasgow, I remember saying to the people I was with that it made me understand why so many of the same records he played didn't work when I played them, cos he's got that energetic mixing style going on.

Another thing which struck me is that Mayer basically seems to be mixing electrohouse music and tech-house more in the style of a techno DJ, which surely quite fits both his past and the actual nature of electrohouse, which I think has enough of a techno feel to it that you can't do long segues perhaps, as Tim suggests too.

I also generally find the extended mixing between tracks as mind-crushingly boring.. usually resulting in a homogenous, bland result - something like reconstituted food; the chicken-nugget of mixing, as opposed to a dish where disparate ingedients combine to produce interesting results.

I much prefer music to surprise, and to push forward, to not stay on the same plateau but to ebb and flow, to give my ears and body chances to push-forward or to relax for a while.

(I infer)

I too read the Dissensus thread and found it a bit laughable. Those guys must have fecal matter up to their shoulders with their heads shoved so far up their asses. Good music is good music no matter what the tempo/beat structure/production quality and all genre's have bright spots to go along with the low points. When Grime dies (or is it dead already) they'll be dry humping the next fad with the most street cred.

boooring. wait, before i say that, do i have to read the previous 100 posts? if so, nevermind.

I much, much prefer (and like!) the more structured stuff 'Dinamo' 'Outhouse' etc to the foggy, gauzy, nu-trancey overload of a lot of the material. It's all very pleasant certainly but wow is it sugary. It feels a little regressive.

That said I dtill have James Holden & others to check out. I may well change my mind.

I didn't realise he owned this label actually.

That said I dtill have James Holden & others to check out. I may well change my mind. "

I think James Holden's recent stuff is really the core of the label and its future. The three key tracks for me would be his remixes of Nathan Fake, Andre Kraml and System 7 respectively (also Booka Shade's "Mandarine Girl" is probably the best fake Border Community track).

That's not to say there isn't some other awesome stuff not in this vein - e.g. both Petter's "Altogether" and the MFA remix of Dextro's "Do You Need Help" have this awesome brittle urgency matched with atmospheric eeriness that I love. But Holden's work from "A Break In The Clouds" onwards is what I think really defines the label and marks it out as something distinct and exciting.

http://www.progressive-sounds.com/artists/The-MFA/The-MFA-interview-1-2004.asp

"The first album I ever bought was The Prodigy Experience. I am definitely influenced by that early 90s rave and hardcore scene. I still like The Prodigy, Daft Punk and all sorts of drum n bass"

http://www.thescene.com.au/hype/2004_1_19_22.html

"I started out liking Jungle/DNB, I used to go the original Metalheadz nights at the old Blue Note to see Peshay, Goldie etc - and still do now to listen to Hype, Andy C etc."

Anyone got the Holden set live@sonar from this year? It starts off a bit poorly mixing wise and tunewise but it's brilliant by the end, too many tracks I need to ID in it though.

Yeah I didn't think you were being negative.

"I like the latest Holden, but I saw him playing two years ago and he was definetly progressive. Not progressive house, but sort of, erm, progressive-IDM ???"

I think he still is progressive - he's changed over the last two years and so has progressive - although we should acknowledge that compared to Border Community, Sander Kleinenberg and James Zabiela (the other erm standardbearers for the weirdification of prog) aren't particularly inspiring.

My point was more that the same record can now variously be classed as house, techno, electro, prog.... and yet with tracks like Holden's it's not a case of records being a greyscale krusty imitation gruel hodgepodge of the various micro-genres, but rather being so odd and intriguing that they can (and do) fall into several stylistic corners.

Alex Smoke is another producer which prog tries to claim as its own...

'the sky is pink' is probably one of the best things on the album, and i always think i'd much rather be listening to the james holden rmx instead.

it's all a bit too (sub-)boards of canada-ey for my liking, and too little of the dancefloor action.

Pheeeew, that's a relief.

I dunno, I'm hoping for some tech-MBV stuff like his live performances which are spellbounding (with that little stutterbox of his.)

Anyway, at this point I'm more interested in a Border Community label compilation than a single artist album.

Omar OTM re: label comp.

Yes Tim, I think it's better than the original, which for some reason I never could really get into. But yeah 'Outhouse' also is my favourite.

exactly as i would have guessed :(

nathan fake originals (like cis, i make an exception for 'dinamo' though i think i love the eulberg mix more) sound, in comparison to these remixes, kind of cheap. they remind me of that spectacularly mediocre m83 band who not coincidentally are also vastly improved when remixed.

http://www.bordercommunity.com/gallery.htm

Tracklisting:

CD1
Apparat - Wooden
Plastikman - Cor Ten
Massive Attack Vs Mad Professor - Trinity Dub (Three)
Kate Wax - Angel Blues
Death In Vegas - Anita Berber
Petter - Some Polyphony
Vox Sola - Metro Pop
Issikadis - Hotter Now (Stripped Down Mix)
Holden - Lump
Midimillz - Trace Function
Harmonia - Watussi
Holden - 10101
Skugge & Stavostrand - Medean
Nathan Fake - Charlie's House (Apparat Mix)
Lucky Pierre - Angels On Your Body
Christ - Perlandine Friday
Fennesz - Rivers Of Sand

CD2
meta.83 - Opening Titles
Paul Kalkbrenner - Gebrunn Gerbrunn
Motiivi:Tuntematon - 1939
Malcolm Middleton - Solemn Thirsty
Aphex Twin - Xtal
Milky Globe Vs Holden - Sun Spots
Kalabrese - Aufm Klo
Lazy Fat People - Big City
Water Lily - Lottotron Reboot
Trans Am - Cold War (War Is Stupid Mix)
Slag Boom Van Loon - Poppy Seed (Boards Of Canada Reprise)
Egoexpress - Live At Sirius Prime
Black Strobe - Nazi Trance Fuck Off! (Holden Mix)
Plastikman - Cor Ten
AFX - Every Day

yeah, that sucked. For a second though I thought it was Holden reading out a mission statement: "this mix is my gift to the world, let there be equality among men, let there be an unification of house, etc..etc..."

Lovely mix (although there is a live@Lausanne mp3 doing the rounds that i like even better.)

im still sort of unsure about BC. perhaps it is that bit too fluffy for me. they seem very now, but also out of kilter with everything else, at the same time

soopertrack i like, i always wondered when there would be a marco zaffarano revival;) gazebo is probably my favourite one though

pretty good (I'm talking about the dub version). Maybe not as immediate as the Black Strobe remix after one listen, but another interesting version of his wipe-out style (copyright T.Finney).

Do you have them?

what tracks do they have?

-- blunt

I like hearing his stuff that way a lot more than on record! Pretty OTM description though... it's not so fucked up though (imo) just not ball-achingly over-"beautiful".

Listening to a Holden essential mix now... is it Border Community's mission in life to deliberately wring the unfamiliar only from the utterly familiar & played out sounds of old?

Like how that Nathan Fake record kind of makes an IDM 101/Ulrich Schnauss record with an actual spine, handily cutting most of the crud off in the process?

And this Holden set is like... absolutely bog-standard fluffy prog house, or at least it WOULD be if the whole thing wasn't seemingly pitched down to the entirely wrong speed (Black Dog's "The End Of Time" in slo-mo), but stay with it and it starts to become... kind of interesting!

It felt like he had built a setup with improv/noise features which had him so fascinated that he didn't entirely master it or became too overwhelmed by its possibilities. Also, considering that variations in sound dynamics (beyond the constant, obvious tweaking) were few and far between overall, said possibilities weren't truly explored. It sounded more like "OK, there's this mode in which I can hold it together, let's not stray too far because this shit's messy enough as it is".

Also, losing track of time is what's called for in these proceedings but when a performer doesn't seem to realise he is doing it too, it veers towards self-indulgence.

wait - you can snort e?

if you speak of me...

Eulberg is playing out a remix of All Together by Petter which is very nice. Is this Eulberg's own stuff? I really like it.

Also I did a Holden interview.

Yeah, like he has a button on his computer that says "press for instant Holden remix". Lovely remix indeed.

http://www.discogs.com/release/694121

skip straight to cd2.

Vahid it's a four year old prog mix! How unpredictable can it be?!?

nothing's really wooshy enough for me

someday im just gonna have to start making the dance music i want to hear

This is good isn't it, I especially love that second housey track on the Villalobos mix.

"someday im just gonna have to start making the dance music i want to hear"

Jess descriptions plz.

also, i dont think this is possible but somehow driving and lighter-than-air at the same time.

xpost: no, what is?

Too bad i can't really, really feel its might (and I try all the remixes too.)

Sadly I haven't even heard the original played out yet! My party lifestyle is currently in abeyance.

I think partly it's just that "In White Rooms" and The Knife album are the only 2006 music I've felt deeply emotionally connected to (Ashlee Simpson's album excluded b/c of 2005 release date). There's other stuff I've loved but this is what has squeezed my heart. The connection is trance obv.

Having said that I honestly don't know whether you'll love it Jess. Our tastes diverge a bit more than they used to these days it seems.

what did we decide about "At The Controls"??

i've been listening to it this morning, not sure i'm convinced. seems like a misuse of harmonia.

but damn, that nathan fake / apparat track is the loveliness.

Disk 1:
Mathew Dear - Tide
Isolée - Willy Skipper
Djuma Soundsystem - Les Djinns (My My Mix)
Jona - Smart Cats Vs Dumb Dogs
M.A.N.D.Y - Take Two Four
Alex Under - Collage
Dinky - Michelle
Señor Coconut - Electrolatino (Ricardo Villalobos 'Lecktro Carlño' Mix)
Osborne - Outta Sight
Jesse Rose & Henrik Schwarz - Stop Look & Listen (Henrik's Version)
Rockers Hi Fi - Push Push (M.A.N.D.Y Mix)
Booka Shade - In White Rooms (Mexico Version)
Mathew Jonson - Sub Atomic
Mile Caro & Franck Garcia - Far Away (Jennifer Cardini & Shonky Mix)
Cobblestone Jazz - India In Me
Kenny Larkin - Catatonic (Fourth State) (Stacey Pullin Mix)
Fingers Inc - A Path (Instrumental Mix)
Lindstrøm & Prins Thomas - Feel Am
Michal Holy & Ajana Calugar - Black Vanilla Guitar

Disk 2:
Marden Hill - Bardot
Cat Stevens - Was A Dog A Doughnut
Rune Lindbaek - Junta Jaegar
Atjazz - Its Complete (Chateau Flight Darkside Mix)
Lopazz - Share My Rhythm
My My - Clean Break
Claude Vonstroke - Who's Afraid Of Detroit
Lindstrøm - I Feel My Space (M.A.N.D.Y Mix)
Heartz4 - Intimacy Girl
Ricardo Villalobos - Ichso
Sensorama - Where The Rabbit Sleeps
Scsi-9 - Senorita Tristeza
Chikinki - Assassinator 13 (Ruege Hagelstein 'Ride On Take Off' Mix)
Justin Martin - The Sad Piano (Charles Webster Mix)
Zweikarakter - Synthic
Djuma Soundsystem - Les Djinns (Trentemøller Mix)
Coldcut - Walk A Mile In My Shoes (Henrik Schwarz Radio Mix)

weirdly enough, that's almost EXACTLY how i feel about holden's mix, too!! i can barely get any interest going in the weird IDM / triphop shenanigans at the start of the first disc or second discs. i wish he'd edited the more propulsive parts of the mix together into one seamless whole ... i'd start w/ "anita berber" and stop again after the apparat track ... then maybe start AFTER "xtal" on the 2nd disc and go to "nazi trance fuck off".

that'd make a tight 80 minute mix.

i really want to hear this.

there is a germ of something worth pursuing here, but as a whole album it's the kind of thing you forget you even heard later it's so insubstantial. weird.

also, i dont think this is possible but somehow driving and lighter-than-air at the same time.

still waiting on this btw.

Um, school me in the ways of James Holden, if you please?

I wasn't going to stay for his whole set last night, but got totally SUCKED INTO it.

Who was it who said I would like this? Matt DC? Well, you were right. It's not even dance music so much as it's just... dronerock made with electronics. He totally does that whole "take one chord, one note, one sound, repeat until transcendence is achieved" that made me love Spacemen 3, NEU!, etc.

People were dancing, but my friend found me a chair, and I just sat on it in a kind of daze and wibbled. (The only problem is, if you sit on a chair at a dance gig, people assume you're on Ketamine and come up and spill their drugs all over you, bah.)

Where should I start with this?

went to Cluster eh? Jealous.

Nathan Fake's Album and James Holden's at the controls are the best places to start, as is their Essential Mix.

NF's Album is great for those fantastically bright days where you always seem to have the sun in your eyes but dont mind it.

Who was it who said I would like this? Matt DC? Well, you were right. It's not even dance music so much as it's just... dronerock made with electronics. He totally does that whole "take one chord, one note, one sound, repeat until transcendence is achieved" that made me love Spacemen 3, NEU!, etc.

You mean... it's dance music?

I mean, you have pretty much nailed down the appeal of minimal techno (of which Border Community is kind of a key landmark) right down in one sentance.

Umm anyway, reading the 2005-06 period of this thread would do nicely to start. Either they went off the boil or I lost interst. But anyway:

Nathan Fake - Sky Was Pink (James Holden Mix)
Fairmont - Gazebo
Petter - Six Songs (or whatever it was called)
Extrawelt - Soopertrack

Is the golden age of this stuff. For similar shit try Stephan Bodzin's album from 2007, and then read the Kompakt threads from start to finish.

Hahah I just realised this thread doesn't progress much past 2006 which pretty which tells you all you need to know.

Don't listen to Nathan Fake's album it's rubbish.

Jesse Somfay-We Breathe The Stars Through Each Other is an amazing track in this style...

My favourite Somfay track is "Lying in a Bed of Mist", and though it's a little bit different to this sound I reckon Kate would love it.

More specific to this style:

Andre Kraml - Safari (James Holden Mix)
M83 - Run Through Flowers (Jackson Remix)
The MFA - The Difference It Makes (Superpitcher Mix)
- in fact it's a fair bet that Kate would adore all of Superpitcher's dronier moments e.g. "Heroin", "More Heroin", the remix of Hell's "Je Regrette Everything", the remixes of M83 and "See What I've Become'...

...and esp. the last three tracks on Fleucht disc of Dominink Eulberg's Kreuct & Fleucht mix, being:

Holden & Thompson - Come To Me
Chaton & Hopen - An Area (Hrdvision Remix)
System 7 - Planet 7 (Holden Remix)

nobody really reps for the 'icelandic' take on 'the sky was pink'. that was my intro to border community stuff, i probably prefer it to the holden mix (which i liked a lot).

'lump' off holden's album is, as firstworldman said a few times upthread, amazing (and a bit mental).

I really really didn't like the Nathan Fake album!

I mean, it was repped to me as minimal techno meets nu-gaze and it just didn't do much for me because it was too, well... TWEE. The sounds were very rinky dinky.

As to the "you mean dance music?" - no, not all dance music has that quality. Just because something is repetitive doesn't mean that it achieves that transcendent quality. It's something in the texture shifting. For instance, Orbital's Brown Album has it. Tiga's Mind Dimension doesn't. (Though supposedly the Erol Alkan mix of that is far more psychedelic - I'm looking for that to see if it meets my criteria for transcendence.)

I will try and search out this stuff - YouTube links would really help if you know of any, but I'll go and search myself when my connection gets a bit better.

THANKS FOR ALL THIS! This is really brilliant and v. helpful.

Yeah okay fair point but a lot of minimal house has this quality (or at least did until a year or so ago), especially at this end of the spectrum.

I think what all of this stuff has in common is a sort of florid girly trancey shoegazey feel and a commitment to melody and prettiness that seems to fit the vibe you're looking for.

I haven't heard either Jesse Somfay tracks listed here but he's got another track called Small Pebbled Forest which is all kinds of lovely, albeit a bit more mournful. It kind of sounds exactly like how you expect a track called Small Pebbled Forest to sound.

Actually forests are pretty urgent and key - Dominik Eulberg's Flora & Fauna is another good starting point in that he is an actual park ranger. Although this is his finest moment and isn't on it.

I'm not sure 'florid girly' is entirely right, I dunno about kate but the appeal for me in this stuff is the harshness, the electronic buzzes and crackles, the way the drone splinters and breaks. Trancey though, yes, that exquisitely unbearable ratcheting up of the tension and the inevitable joyous release.

No, I often don't like florid and girly - I think that's specifically what I don't like about Nathan Fake. The tweeness. It's a sort of textural... slippiness. That ever so slight phase-shifting that produces a sense of tension and release, that I'm after. The aural equivalent of yes, a small forest pebble in a very shallow stream - that you can see the texture of the rock quite clearly, but you're also aware that there's a very thin sheet of water covering it and making it... slippy and shimmery. (I could just be saying that coz I'm listening to Hidden Cat remixes right now and that totally has that shimmery quality.)

I'm really liking that Dominik Eulberg track - yes, that's the sort of thing. (How can I get a job being a park ranger by day and making electronic music by night? That sounds ideal, really.)

(Also, can't remember if it was you or Ronan that posted that Psychotic Photosynthesis (?) track a while ago - that's the sort of thing I'm after.)

It's the stutters, the not-quite-perfection that really gets me. Not quite as harsh as glitch, but still... the sense of two very simple textures sliding over one another like an audio moire pattern.

You know, those lights that they always use at dronerock gigs (and I'm discovering, at certain dance clubs. I need to go to more dance clubs where they have the dronerock lights not those stupid fucking lasers.)

some of these have dated a bit worse than others. still. had forgotten how good "shinjuku" was/is. in posting all these I'm also reminded of why this stuff was so short lived, cos they all sound practically the exact same. still...good times!

It is florid and girly compared to a lot of other dance music of that particular time, but maybe not so much on its own merits. The Nathan Fake album is considerably more twee than most of the stuff mentioned in the last few posts.

I suppose "florid and girly" is only half way there really, what makes a lot of this stuff great is the tension between girly melody and more crackly clicky abraisive noises and it's similar to shoegazing in that regard.

But yeah Tim is OTM upthread about Superpitcher's two Heroin tracks, which are about as close as this strain of house music gets to dronerock in almost every aspect. Slightly different to everything else here as well in it's more, erm, smacky.

(bear in mind that dance music sounds like ass on youtube)

^ definitely, was just gonna mention that.

Dextro, Do You Need Help (Holden Noise Tool) is an excellent, 3 minute, beatless example of the fractured, filtered, howling drone.

Really you should just get any James Holden remix you can, but my fave, aside from the obvious Nathan Fake, is the Britney Spears Breathe on Me (James Holden Dub) - what he does with her voice is delicously creepy, it's almost like stalking with a sampler.

ha i was JUST GONNA post that

Wow, so much... this is KILLING my bandwidth, but I'm glad to have these all bookmarked in one place to come back and listen to.

That Shinjuku track is REALLY DOING IT FOR ME.

So that's where that rubbish Simian Mobile Disco track recently ripped its drums off from. That GUNG GUNG GOOP GOOP GOOP noise in the bass range, mirrored by the squelchy noise. Oh yes.

I've had Steve Reich records out this weekend (I swear to god, Linstrom samples Music For 18 Musicians on Where You Go) but this is even more... lushly relentless.

Speaking of Steve Reich:

henrik schwarz, ame, dixon - the grandfather paradox

TOOO MUUCCCH AAAMAAZING MUSIC...

::EXPLODES::

Why did I blow all my bandwidth d/l-ing Beyond The Wizards Sleeve mixes this month?

Oh yeah, coz they're GRATE. But still. I gotta save something for checking work-related email.

(can't see youtubes at work so sorry if this is all redundant)

mnml/drone(rock) crossover: beatless, I think, but how IMMENSE is the whooshiness of Motiivi: Tuntematon's "Mankind Failed", b-side of Speicher 46? (One third of MT used to be in some 90s organ-based garage rockers, which is... maybe a link of some kind)

Can't work out if the Pop Ambient series are a good next step, or exactly the wrong direction. Probably the latter if we're avoiding "florid".

Yr actual James Holden catalogue likely to be a little disappointing on this front, I reckon; the album is patchy, and before '05ish he's not really going for this sound at all. "At the Controls" is a fun enough mix though - and has a short burst of "Watusi" by Harmonia on - and Holden's remix of Nathan Fake's "Sky Was Pink" is pretty essential but I imagine there are already several youtube embeds of it here.

For bonus Kate points, James Holden is also a former mathematician - well, he studied it at uni, which seems to be the same thing to the music press at least - with quite a distinctive nose. (For bonus me points, dude also used to use the slightly obscure music software I used, and even wrote a little tempo-to-LFO-freq gadget for it)

For bonus Kate points, James Holden is also a former mathematician - well, he studied it at uni, which seems to be the same thing to the music press at least - with quite a distinctive nose.

HEY, I SAID NOTHING!!!!

This is the kind of shit that gets me in trouble and gets me hated on ILM.

I didn't actually notice what he looked like - apart from the fact that he looked so much like my mate I that I couldn't actually tell them apart when they went off to have a smoke. And I is totally a DDB, so, erm, yeah. Never mind.

::back to YouTube listening::

You can totally tell that he's a mathematician, from the way that he approaches music. I don't know how, but, erm, I think you can.

i've never heard that britney remix - wow.

i think kate might like The Field.

Can't talk. On Turkish Psych binge now!

Hrmm. That only goes to show the dangers of YouTube. I watched the video with the song the first time, and wasn't that impressed. Mainly because I didn't like the video. But now I'm listening to the song without the visuals and liking it a lot more.

"At the Controls" is a fun enough mix though - and has a short burst of "Watusi" by Harmonia on

^ this is missing in some versions, unfortunately. it's like the high point of the mix.

his earlier "balance" mix is the only trance i listened to.

I bought the mix and liked it, but never really gave it too many listens,

Then a couple of years ago, I got turned on to Harmonia and was lucky enough to see them live.

last week I pulled out the at the controls mix to listen to when going for an early morning run and almost freaked when the Watussi part kicked in whilst the sun suddenly came out.

I had to go back and check it was actually there, really into this mix again, but can take or leave the other less pastoral stuff.

Is there ILM love for this??

<object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/uhgbmFhE3nc&hl=en&fs=1";></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/uhgbmFhE3nc&hl=en&fs=1"; type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object>

Jesse Somfay is what you need, such as his new album, very good, as in not shitty (like James Holden, for instance).

some shitty holden tracks i really like:

"i have put out the light"
"nothing"

and his rmxs of:
new order - someone like you
depeche mode - the darkest star

You can totally tell that he's a mathematician, from the way that he approaches music. I don't know how, but, erm, I think you can.
he said in an interview that his early stuff was made exclusively using trackers; a sure sign of some math/cs mentality

one thing that was refreshing about holden's mediocre album was its length, under 50 minutes. i do want to check out the somfay album but just thinking about the length of it (2 discs) exhausts me. one disc is "ambient" or whatever though, right? i still haven't gotten around to that 2cd minilogue album but maybe it's not worth it?

also, kinda bummed that it seems BC abandoned the "coloring contest" thing for their sleeve art

Ignore anything you read about disc one being ambient and disc two being techno, it's flat out untrue. There isn't really any straight up techno on it, the whole album is an exploration of sonic textures and soundscapes, some have repetitive 4/4 percussion, others don't (and no dancefloor material proper, really).

Anyone else listening to the new James Holden DJ Kicks release? Daaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaamn

And my favorite bit from the DJ Kicks thing, I just found out, turns out to be a version of a new Holden release out on !K7 - Triangle Folds

Daaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaamn

Spotify keeps on pausing for about 3 seconds between every track, which is not ideal for a DJ mix. And I can't read who the storming Mogwai remix is by (oh it's himself). But aside from that, yeah, this is pretty dope, but some more bangers would have been nice.

Anyone heard Holkham Drones by Luke Abbott? Think Kate for one would love it.

Its on spotify so I'm just putting it on now

OK, I like the name and Spotify can tempt me to listen to anything once, so I'll bite.

(Or at least until I dispell the illustion that Luke Vibert and a beloved ILX mod had a musical babby which would be awesome)

My biggest problem with this so far is the cover, really...

http://static.boomkat.com/images/356655/333.jpg

Does this dude *want* me to get an ophthalmic migraine looking at that?

Aye, the cover is a little... obnoxious. Well, the typeface is. Same on the rear tracklisting too.

Just about to go out for a bikeride with this in my ears. Anyone else listened yet? I fell in love with the opening track straight away, the rest is growing on me.

It was good, but I just really wanted to go back to listening to Diskjokke. Which is gonna be my problem with everything for the next few weeks, I suspect.

loved a remix of his that I heard last year (Mit - "Rauch"), I should check out the album

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z2Ya3g_TiPk

It was very Border Community, but a bit generic on first listen. I'll give it another go, but it didn't grab me like Nathan Fake does.

I never got on with Nathan Fake. Maybe I should try again.

i like the cover, but I like blurry text so I' a suckah

I'm a suckah

i can be a suckah for border community but this was pretty dull tbh. not bangin' or grindin' or squawkin' enough.

Anyone else listening to the new James Holden DJ Kicks release? Daaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaamn

So, I still agree with this...for the CD VERSION. DO NOT EVER BUY THE VINYL VERSION. It just came in the mail, and I am so, so SO disappointed. I knew it only had some of the tracks (it's a 2XLP, but even then it's length doesn't approach the CD version), but what I didn't realize is that most of the vinyl tracks are different mixes, and for some reason he decided to use mixes that are way worse and totally ruin everything. I'm just flabbergasted.

The Apparat one is coming in the mail, and if he ruined his tracks in a similar way (compared to the digital release I heard) I am going to shit my pants in the bad way

Is there a reason to even get the vinyl versions? Seems like they'd be decent unmixed, but a mixed 12" just sounds weird. Wouldn't flipping the record kind of kill it?

i assume they're unmixed?

http://www.junodownload.com/products/dj-kicks-dj-mix/1579466-02/

fully mixed version: £2 for the .wavs.

That's got to be good news for the person that bought the vinyls but still wants the full mix.

Holden's remix of The Sky Was Pink still pretty damn amazing

i guess Nathan Fake has a new album coming out
http://soundcloud.com/border-community/icenistrings

Yup, was listening to that on Spotify a bit

So the new Nathan Fake is good then? I'd always been a bit meh on the prospect of his albums but this looks like it could be decent?

http://www.factmag.com/2012/08/16/nathan-fake-steam-days/

it's aight

oh wait i wrote that review, lol

worth hearing, not especially wow, prob his best album yet but i wouldn't say it's a must-hear, just quite good

two word summary of your review, there? :)

I was more excited about the prospect of new James Holden until I heard this, which is nice enough but feels a bit too wonky.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=NFTXLT8V1UM

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NFTXLT8V1UM

(if someone could explain to me what I'm doing wrong with pasting a Youtube link that would be fab)

The album any good?

Yes! Absolutely loving The Inheritors. Really digging the whole strange earthy vibe to it.

MMHM VERY GOOD. It makes me want to read the book after which it is named... Has anyone read it?

I want this album.

his recent RA mix is great - "a companion piece to the album" he says
http://www.residentadvisor.net/podcast-episode.aspx?id=367

Blackpool Late Eighties is amazing.

he looks like shit in the new edition of mojo.
bloke seriously needs to get some proper food and sleep.

I like this record, I like the general pagan vibe to it. Quite a lumpy approach to rhythm, reminds me a bit of the some of the flirtations with dance by some of the bands at the noisier end of the indie spectrum (Fuck Buffoons, Astral Social Club... one song in particular sounds quite a bit like Atlas by Battles).

Oh, it's the Caterpillar's Intervention that's reminding me of Atlas.

It's the same schaffely glitter-stomp with the guitar strings being picked at just so.

Is it out yet? I didn't really get on with the last one but he's one of those producers I'm prepared to give the benefit of the doubt to on every release.

Out yesterday.

I've kind of avoided him until now as I've not been super impressed by Border Community in general, but he's a name that gets dropped so often by so many musicians I love, and the pre-release talk about this seemed like it'd be up my alley, so I picked it up.

He was born in (presumably) the same hospital as me, three weeks after me. Which is odd. If not remarkable.

I've not been super impressed by Border Community in general

Out of everything else I've heard of theirs, Holkham Drones by Luke Abbott is top quality stuff imo.

I find myself periodically surprised that Border Community is still a going concern, they just feel so of their time (ie 2005).

Aye, Holkham Drones was my favourite.

I fuck with this new Holden album. Damn.

This is absolutely perfect when you were out until 2am and need to drift off into the atmosphere for 75 minutes the next lunchtime.

i don't know, i wanted to like this but gave it a couple of spins yesterday and wasn't feeling it. i was in a bit of a mood anyway but it just made me tetchier. oddly claustraphobic. i'll give it another go when i'm on better terms with myself. i did really like 'blackpool late eighties' tho.

A glowing review from Sherburne in Spin:
http://www.spin.com/articles/James-holden-dance-tracks-of-the-week-james-holden-border-community-john-cage-dj-kicks/

First listen didn't strike me either but it's really, really growing. Can't wait to listen to it on Dartmoor.

People need to talk about this record more.

I didn't even know who James Holden was a week ago. Shows you how much I keep up with things. But a friend on facebook, generally a detroit techno/electro/minimal/coldwave type of guy, posted about it the other day effusively, so I checked it out. Heard a few minutes and was immediately taken. Bought both LPs off iTunes and have been listening nonstop for a few days now.

Sherbourne's article is really otm. For the last few years I've been trying to pay more attention to a lot of stuff that's going and and while I'm generally excited by much of it, not that much really sticks with me. This new record seems to draw from/share so many current influences/sounds, but work with them without any need to shoehorn himself into a particular genre. Electro-acoustic ambient stuff with krautrock rhythms giving away to triumphant horn parts, cosmic arpeggiating synths, minimal influences, maximal influences, Aphexy atmospheres, one song that sounds just like Popol Vuh, a bit of hauntology etc. Without ever being afraid of a catchy melody, sometimes as the dominant part of a track, sometimes more subtly.

I think I especially appreciate that. In a year or two where a lot of the most interesting sounding stuff has come from these neo-industrial/post-punk influenced acts which sound great but can get a bit overwrought and silly in their "darkness", Holden marries those sounds with epic melodicism.

I'm really into this album right now and I think it's really special, and think Sherbourne nailed it.

probably record of the year for me. i was so overwhelmed by it that i was compelled to write mr. holden a gushing fan boy email.

xpost - I got into him around the time when Kreucht and Fleucht, "Cosmic Sandwich" and all that was big. You should check out his remix of Andre Kraml's "Safari" off of Fleucht.

https://soundcloud.com/thaliadavies/safari-andre-kraml-james

He's been off my radar for a while, I'm excited to hear this new thing. The track linked in that review sounds really nice.

http://sickmouthy.com/2013/07/03/holden-the-inheritors/

very intrigued to hear this! I love his Balance mix and various singles. His journey from progressive house to this more abstract style is pretty cool; his records just kept getting dirtier and more blown out. I remember one interview from years ago where he said his passion was really postrock/krautrock etc but iirc he just got sucked into dance music production and djjing with the success of his early singles (at least one of which he produced using only tracker software). It kind of bummed me out at the time, cuz i wanted him to keep doing like britney spears remixes and not "evolve" into some middlebrow idm-ish artist. But in hindsight who wouldn't want to hear him stretch out and get all abstract? dude does amazing sound design, i would listen to his multi dimensional sound sculptures in any style.

Holden and Thompson - "Horizon" (Dub Mix)

http://youtu.be/0UEgLJznJDc

Here's a spaced out scuzzed up "dub mix" he did of one of his early anthem-y singles.

this is a really great record ... psyche machine buzz music ... been cycling round in a muggy loop of overgrown suburban old railway lines listening to it all week ... delirious with it

"I did write 'Blackpool Late Eighties' in a hotel.I was flying back from the States and it snowed here so we got re-routed to Amsterdam and I was gutted because I don’t really like being away and I was really homesick. I went into Amsterdam and bought a big bag of weed, downloaded some free soft synths and made that track in the hotel room, off my tits. I tried to remake it using real instruments and it just never really worked, so the synth parts in that are from some free string synth I found"

That's the track that sounds like Pye Corner style hauntology.

oh this is gorgeous. it really is demanding i go on an isolated walk with it.

I cant work out why this isn't hitting as hard for me as it should..

either I've become so used to modular collapse techno (you can have that one for free) by spending evenings watching eurorack synth tutorials on youtube.

Or I just need that perfect gestalt moment of situation and soundtrack to unlock it for me. The Victoria line at 08:30 is pretty far from pastoral cycling as you can get.

even The Caterpillar's Intervention was a bit meh after the Zombie Zombie cover of rocket No.9, which is also synth + wild rhythm + Ettienne jazz sax.

will try an early morning walk in epping forest this weekend and see if that shifts anything.

^ I've got a slight feeling of this though admittedly that's from playing less than ideal youtube clips, while doing other things.

Yes, "situation" would make a difference.

Every time I listen to this on speakers it washes over me in a pleasant kind of way and then I listen on headphones and it sounds fucking amazing.

The whole thing is so expertly timed, he's got the ratio of work to payoff absolutely down.

It's pretty great. Enjoying this a lot. It's also gonna make me go back and revisit The Idiots Are Winning even though I know it's not really the same style.

In a year or two where a lot of the most interesting sounding stuff has come from these neo-industrial/post-punk influenced acts which sound great but can get a bit overwrought and silly in their "darkness"

what are some specific things you're talking about here, out of curiosity? like Blackest Ever Black / Wierd Records type bands? Factory Floor?

The more I listen to the Holden album the more I love it. 'Renata', 'The Inheritors' and 'Blackpool Late Eighties' in particular are amazing, but even in the more ambient bits there's still loads going on, the individual sounds never stay still, it's a really liquid album, constantly sloshing around and throwing up new shapes.

no comment dmr. Just generalizing. I generally genuinely like and in some cases love a lot of that stuff...but sometimes find it a bit overwhelming.

that's cool, not looking to make you diss something, I was curious what you considered "some of the most interesting sounding stuff." no biggie.

really just generalizing...I could say MOST of that stuff sounds cool to my ears in a way that is more interesting than straight boring minimal techno. The influence of all these post-punk textures or whatnot.

it was dumb of me to avoid "the inheritors". this is mostly pretty great.

Were you consciously avoiding it?

I was gonna bump this, having finally realised it was on Spotify under Holden (not James). I'd imagined it to be some kind of fantasy sweet spot between *cough* folktronica and border community white noise techno - and maybe it is. Perhaps less pastoral than I was expecting. Still digesting it, some of it is incredible - The Caterpillar's Intervention is like an utterly demented Penguin Cafe Orchestra. Some of the calmer stuff hasn't clicked for me yet though - Inter-City 125 sounds curiously like a cold, bloodless echo of its titular french counterpart's theme song (http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x374ku_electrique-feat-solex-train-grande_music ).

i was consciously avoiding it, yes.

Why?

You do realise who you're asking here, right?

Anyway, because Holden's last album isn't very good? Because his previous work represents a furrow that's been done to death? I mean I didn't really anticipate a change of direction like this either and my first listen was more out of vague interest than actually expecting to enjoy it.

I have no idea who I'm asking, actually! A Wilco fan?

I hadn't heard The Idiots Are Winning before but I've listened to it now and The Inheritors doesn't sound like that much of a change of direction and departure; it's different, for sure, but it feels like a development rather than a reinvention. I like a lot of TIAW too, actually.

mattdc otm

couldn't bring myself to listen to "the idiots are winning" cos of the moronic and quintessentially british title.

Anyway, because Holden's last album isn't very good? Because his previous work represents a furrow that's been done to death?

kind of feel like this is only true if you're not really into this direction to begin with? all of the reviews or blurbs about this album emphasize how it's more cohesive as an album and not really sketches like the last "album" was

I thought "the idiots are winning" was a pretty lol Nathan Barley reference

I loved Sky Was Pink et al but couldn't really get into Idiots at the time, although I haven't gone back since.

Holden's basic melodic sense hasn't changed very much but in terms of instrumentation and approach it's completely different. I mean a lot of this was basically performed live.

I don't think you can really dispute the done-to-death thing though given that people like Bodzin were putting out entire albums of Sky Was Pink rips six years ago and Jon Hopkins is getting praise for doing much the same even now.

fair enough, I think I avoided most of that glut

They all sound pretty when they're on but an element of "do I need any more music like this?" is entirely understandable so credit to Holden for moving on, I mean it must be a bit embarrassing to him by now.

embarrassed about having propagated a wildly influential sound that people seemed to like

If you read current interviews with him, yes, very much.

I had not idea what Sky Was Pink was and hadn't heard anything the guy made until this record but have gone back and tried to make sense of his history. In recent interviews he's pretty disparaging about his own past.

TIAW is pretty far removed from The Sky Was Pink.

more's the pity

brb listening to stephan bodzin

It's less far from TIAW to Inheritors than it is from Sky Was Pink to TIAW. To my mind, anyway.

ok bodzin sounding a bit samey now.

aw, didn't realize he was down about all that

I know he kind of shrugged off his earlier trancier work, though

Not keen on the label in general, but this from 2004 stands up

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0cY8Ct9ENJk

James Holden wrapping up a live set on Beats in Space

& here it is:
http://www.beatsinspace.net/playlists/697

Not live as mentioned. I was confused because I heard one of his own tracks and Tim Sweeney posted a pic of him with some kind of controller which I thought was for synths. Late in the episode they talk about it being some new controller for Traktor.

This is probably my favourite record released this year. It's fucking wild fun.

This album is such a grower. I've persevered with it, purely because of the unanimous adulation it's receiving, despite finding it very disappointing on first play and a bit bland on a few more attempts at having it on in the background, but today it really clicked for me - the melodies stuck a bit harder, the textures seemed richer and the rhythms more crunchy and dramatic. It is definitely a late night album.

I know the criticisms of the Jon Hopkins album were "this sounds like minimal techno from last decade" but I do think it sounds like the kind of album Nathan Fake should have made at Border Community's critical peak, it is certainly better than the last one he released.

God I fucking love the way Rannoch Dawn builds manic tension.

Couldn't see a Clark thread and here seems a good a place as any:

http://www.xlr8r.com/podcast/2013/11/clark

(Seemed a bit odd for xlr8r to be apologetic that it's a bit intense).

Anyone got tickets for Holden at the Roundhouse this weekend?

Looking forward to it, cant imagine he's do a live show without having it pretty much locked down.

Heard him at his modular rig during the Caribou Vibration Ensemble gig and it's immense.

Dreamt I saw Holden on TOTP, which was odd.

Have no recollection of that.

Still never figured out who The Late Great was/is.

v4h1d

Holden's mix on Avery's most recent Rinse show was incredible. Haven't heard anything like it.

Don't really know who v4h1d is, so...

you've only been posting in the same threads as him (inc this one) for a decade nick

Well yes, and I recognise it as a name on a messageboard and a set of opinions that go with it, but I have no ideas who v4h1d is beyond that. I've always been crap with keeping up with who people are on here unless I've met them or worked with them. And sometimes even then.

love you, too

Yeah, I don't know who you are, either, in terms of joining dots from ILX to elsewhere. It took me a year to realise who Imago was.

I didn't expect you too, I feel like tlg/moonship/etc has a pretty well-defined thread persona, but if you're not here often, it's probably not as rigid

Yeah, I don't think I'm here anything like often enough over the last four years or so to keep up with things.

i'm not asking you to know everything about him, i was just surprised you seemed not to have heard the name of one of ilx's most long-standing posters before

I didn't mean I don't know the name, just don't know who he/she is. When someone you've never met changes from one pseudonym to another on a messageboard you use vaguely infrequently and there's no avatars or account details etc to keep track, it's pretty difficult to know who's who.

identity is fleeting

have you thought about how this makes the late great feel?

i didn't think so.

btw I am tuomas

have you thought about how this makes the late great feel?

Irritated and hating on drippy indie-dance fanboys, probably.

Diddums.

great, now my cover is blown

Don't ever join the clandestine services.

sorry mang

Who the fuck is 'mang'?!

http://passionweiss.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/11/1247519186-scarface-photo-xl-scarface-6235696.jpg

Luke Abbott's new album is doing more for me on first play than the James Holden one ever really managed.

Anyone else go to the Holden/Koreless/Luke Abbott Terry Riley homaging thing at the Barbican last night? SO GOOD.

Sounds interesting. What was it like?

Funny, I dug out an old mix of Border Community stuff I made back in '06 to listen to at the gym just yesterday.

Going to see James Holden again next month! His live setup sounds cool.

Long modular synth pieces (c. 40mins) from both Holden and Abbott. Abbott's was a big drone piece, essentially, Holden's was incredible. He had a (fairly restrained) tabla player with him and the were sitting opposite one another, he hit on this one gorgeous melody and just let it run and run and run, building and building more synth lines over the top of it.

Koreless had a ten-piece string section, all sitting in a line, in the dark, each with one large light bulb in front of them. Each player played one note and one note only whenever their light came on, playing it differently according to the brightness and duration of the light. Koreless was off to the side of the stage, controlling the lights via computer and therefore essentially both conducting and scoring the piece in real time. It wasn't that minimal, the patterns kept changing and getting more and more complex, the whole thing was astonishing actually.

that sounds fantastic. i'd love to hear a version of In C played entirely on digital instruments or whatever...

sounds amazing

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uQsHZ0eyPl8

new james holden finally out next month, strongly suspect it's going to be incredible

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=58y6Kdv9ZV4

out on november 3 on border community

nice!

I was relistening to James Holden's "At the Controls" mix the other day and remembering how enjoyable his style is

Out tomorrow. Hope I can pick it up.

the glass is half full = the synthesizers are wildly too loud in the mix

the glass is half empty = the drums are way too quiet in the mix

really liking this so far. some of it is very... boredoms?

this is straight solar energy music

okay it's all gone a bit steve hillage now

yurt the fuck out, people!

(rly good record btw)

Thunder Moon Gathering is so good, a step out into this huge dark space. But yes, drums could be louder

really liking this so far. some of it is very... boredoms?

― plp will eat itself (NickB), Friday, November 3, 2017 12:54 AM (ten hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

this is straight solar energy music

― plp will eat itself (NickB), Friday, November 3, 2017 1:00 AM (nine hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

okay it's all gone a bit steve hillage now

― plp will eat itself (NickB), Friday, November 3, 2017 1:07 AM (nine hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

you're making this sound awesome

i'm digging it.

i remember when the last holden album came out, there was a small rush of cool cosmic techno in a similar vein around that time, stuff like stellar om source "joy one mile" and huerco s "colonial patterns"

i like that sound

it's harder to feel any techno roots in this one tbh, feels more like it's coming more from psych rock and jazz and non-western folk musics

interesting! can't wait to listen

Holden is virtually unique among 00s house and techno producers in that his steps away from the dancefloor have made him more interesting rather than less.

Fucking loved this on first instance, crazy cosmic Wicker Man pagan forest festival music. Some of the early tracks seem to have hit on some halfway point between Cluster or Harmonia and I dunno Pentangle or someone.

not sure which producers you're thinking of, but i think in the case of a lot of what i am thinking about the producers have moved from experimental music more toward dance music as opposed to moving in the other direction (like holden)

personally i think holden is interesting in both modes - still love his "balance" and "at the control" mixes

Yeah I wasn't responding to your post in particular (I love Joy One Mile and had no idea that Stella Om Source was coming to dance music from a different background). Holden's mixes are good ('At The Controls' is great) but as a producer he was never especially interesting to me, even if his original sound has been aped to death in the intervening years.

The one track on this that really sounds like it might be borne out of techno is also the one thing that sounds kind of like a radiohead jam (each moment like the first)

When I say techno I probably actually just mean boards of candada tbh

Shamanic psych Sun Ra jazz techno. Perfect music for a ayahuasca trip. This is truly an album for our 10s times.

have you done ayahuasca or is this a conjecture

this reminds me of when [redacted] got sonned by [redacted] in a cocaine beef

I’ve got the music here, just pondering

This does exactly what I hoped it would.

Excellent album

listening to this now, and it sounds like Popol Vuh!

also, was going to say the closest companion to this is the recent Floating Points stuff (tho this is a little wilder) -- and forgot they had actually been on an EP together w/Maalem Mahmoud Guinia in 2015.

I haven't been able to get into Floating Points...it was just too clean and refined. Holden w/ his modular fun has been able to grab that live exciting noisy everythings out of control kind of vibe thats hard to do (actually it's easy to do, but it's hard to do it while still being in control?)

yeah, FP tends to err on the side of post rock that I find a bit boring, but when he gets it, he really get it (I would say Kuiper is the closest to this). But really impressed at this Holden thing, guess I'll have to go back and check his recent stuff.

oh my god this rules

i don't get much out of floating points but their new record that sounds like Meddle/DSOTM is GREAT

Dominique if you slept on the inheritors please listen ASAP.

Played it at record club: https://devonrecordclub.com/2017/11/09/james-holden-the-animal-spirits-the-animal-spirits-round-104-nicks-choice/

looks like he's touring, but mostly europe

someone check out the tour!

I saw him at Le Poison Rouge a few years back, was great.

also saw him a couple of years back touring 'the inheritors'. was just analogue synths and a live drummer - like a cave-rave version of silver apples. would love to see him with the full band

yup, saw him doing that tour at mutek

Great words, Nick. This descriptor is both notable and irresistible to those of us forever influenced by late Talk Talk or post-Japan Sylvian: "To go from control-freakish, micro-edited techno experiments to what’s essentially live, improvised kraut-jazz-prog-rock, is quite a move in only three albums." Even better that Holden's record easily meets the resulting expectations. Wonderful stuff.

just to say that any time the new record is playing, everyone in the car (i drive a fair bit) asks me what it is because they are entranced.

Saw them live last weekend and it was fantastic, everything you would expect and want them to be.

new James Holden single (from upcoming album) is sensational - https://jamesholden.bandcamp.com/album/imagine-this-is-a-high-dimensional-space-of-all-possibilities

With artwork from our very own professor genius!

so there is! extra bonus.

:)))

I am OBSESSED w this James Holden Britney remix rn

https://soundcloud.com/muumuse/britney-spears-breathe-on-me-james-holden-vocal-mix

what are the best James Holden remixes besides The Sky Was Pink????? I WANT MORE

SAFARI REMIX

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mXk5rUUalBE

new order - someone like you

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

System 7 - Planet 7 (James Holden Remix)
Holden & Thompson - Nothing (93 Returning Remix)

huge co-sign on that 93 Returning mix

I thought this was going to be about the new track from the upcoming album

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eHsqkhz4AOg

Holden’s remix of XAM Duo’s “Cold Stones” was one of my top tracks of 2022 - intergalactic jazz techno!

as if the new Katie Gately being great wasn't enough, the new James Holden is sounding fab too!

Absolutely incredible interview about this album's making. Clearly an astonishing feat

https://www.musicradar.com/news/james-holden-interview

Really enjoyed that in-depth process interview. I don't know that there's anything about it that makes it an astonishing feat per se (if you really dig into the nitty gritty of a lot of electronic records I think you'd find an impressive degree of creative processes, resampling, etc) but I'm excited to listen to it now.

Enjoying the record...and I like pretty much everything he does these days, but miss a bit of the noise of the Inheritors. Maybe it's a bit too jazzy and hippie for me.

knowing very little about how electronic music is made i am very easily impressed lol. but it does seem like he went to impressive lengths! it's a very long record and it keeps me interested the whole time. love that he describes it as the album his 12 year-old self wanted to make, and a dialogue with that self

I do really like the looseness and liveness of the record, although it's all a bit too "cosmic jammers" for me too. I don't know that the drums benefit from being recorded through speakers with ribbon mics in a room either, for dance music I like that in-your-face feel. It took me a long time to realize that the room that the music is going to be played in, over a soundsystem, is more important than the one it was recorded in.

But I'm jealous of his process because it sounds fun, and there are some really cool moments and tracks here.

yeah none of it is that involved or exciting for most people that use max or equivalent systems/approaches.

to be fair to him though, he never makes out the process to be as if it's a big crazy cutting edge autechre/william fields type thing. more that he's into building systems according to his tastes and trying to make it fun for himself to make music. basically: to be able kosmischely-noodle on one's own.

i read the interview after listening to the album and i kind of assumed it was a curated collection of live jams like the animal spirits record ie. not knowing all the traditional instruments (sax, piano, violin) were just self-overdubs. which probably counts as a big success and proof-of-concept for him.

i am surprised by imago liking thing though! cause what makes me not fully connect with james holden (and luke abbott) - despite generally liking the surface aesthetics and all the interviews etc. - is that i just get bored musically of the majority of their stuff being a single pattern and the track "just" being riding timbral variations, inversions and the arpeggiators-upon-arpeggiators. the same build it-up-and-then-break-it-down structure... obviously that's very much what their whole thing is though!

i do really like "contains multitudes" on here though which does shift a lot more even if it a single progression as well, it just seems a lot more dynamic. i like the almost-rave-stab-pattern stuff (there was some of that on the last nathan fake album too). also the most surprising part of the album for me is on that track - when that portentous piano line comes in.

Agreed I wouldn't have thought there would be enough chord changes for imago (he even says in the interview he hates bridges and loves staying in one harmonic place)

yeah it's totally my issue, just different tastes and wanting music to do different things. i would love to hear a JH or LA track that's *just* bridges!

to be clear: i don't want to cast shade on anyone being super into this! i was just a bit surprised reading this thread after listening and seeing who was singing its praises.

also don't want to sound like a know-it-all in regard to JH's set-up. just more that, if you're totally unfamiliar with that kind of world, the kind of things he is doing are pretty par-for-the-course. not that it really matters or makes them any less valid...

Love this album, but I was also a bit surprised that it's a lot more of a traditional techno record than I had anticipated (maybe feeds into linee's point about it not feeling like an imago record, though I wouldn't have thought that without linee's comment and explanation).

It reminds me of a lot of Lindstrom's Smallhans but with a broader and denser sound palette.

while my first love is indeed melodic development, textural development and the Swelling Sonic Array is a close second. this sounds so lush and adventurous, it is absolutely the sort of exuberant fantasy he describes and I'm way into that

The other album it reminds me of a bit (though not necessarily in strict stylistic terms) is the Khidja & Balabas album - reproducing the density and depth and atmosphere of Monolake's "Lantau" and "Macau" but in a less minimalist context.

*writing emoji*

I need to hear more Lindstrom, ty for the heads-up. Regard WYGIGT as a towering masterpiece but strangely haven't explored more!

The other album it reminds me of a bit (though not necessarily in strict stylistic terms) is the Khidja & Balabas album - reproducing the density and depth and atmosphere of Monolake's "Lantau" and "Macau" but in a less minimalist context.

when Tim mentions an album offhand and you know, not even having heard it yet, that you'll be playing it all summer

lol yeah the K&B is so good

Would be in my top ten "underrated to the point of being unheard of" albums of the past 5 years or so

not familiar. I see a few EPs on bandcamp and will check them out. What is the album?

https://khidja.bandcamp.com/album/khidja-si-balabas

oh yeah I saw that. thought that was an ep and there was some other LP being referred to. Will def listen.

I am unsure what I think of this new James Holden thus far. I was really excited for it but it hasn't quite connected. I adored the Animal Spirits and have played it loads over several years, probably more than The Inheritors which was a big favourite when it came out. My (very minor) antipathy might be contextual - I've been getting over jetlag since I got it on Friday and every time I try and sit down and listen to it on the big stereo I get interrupted or I'm knackered, so it's mostly been ambient music while I've been wfh Monday and today. I think I was expecting more from it in terms of drums and rhythms; it's very vaporous.

Headphones and sunshine turn this into a completely different record for me.

I dig it. Lots of feeling and color and grooves. It's floating and cosmic but a nice kind of busy and the live feel is distinct. Obviously I'm here for any long-form electronic albums with spiritual ethno and jazz touches.

second listen, this time on headphones, def more interesting.

it's deffo a fantastic headphone listen. great for long walks and late night drives (the latter i can only imagine as i don't drive). i love the cheap drum machines and lo fi beats; refreshing in this era of over produced drum beats.

playing live early eveining this sunday in a park in Glasgow. can't wait!

It's a sunshine and sunset record!

the thing about mic'ing speakers...makes so much sense. No amount of lo-fi plug-ins and/or digital reverb is going to create that kind of space.

Had it on outside in the sunshine by a fire this afternoon, so good I played it twice

I have basically had this on repeat for the last month, occasionally flitting back to the last Daniel Avery record. Now the sun is properly out and it's warmer, it makes so much sense. It also makes a great soundtrack to swooping between sky islands in the new Zelda game (while the Daniel Avry works well for exploring subterranian landscapes in same).

Don’t sleep on the Long Weekend EP by Holden and Zimpel: one of the best trance synth jazz things he’s done.

Also the Leafcutter John album from 2019 is lush.

seconded

I used to work in a hospital and, as an art project, the service users designed some sleeves for early Border Community twelves (I can't really remember the context but I think there was colour-in sleeve that you could download and print). Anyway, they put all the work on their website, which felt fun at the time.

I was having a quick scan to see if I've told that story before on here and feel compelled to say that I loved Michael Mayer's Fabric mix (but don't want to start the next world war).

Fabric 13 is one of the greats imo

Thanks for the Leafholdenzimpelcutter recommendation (John)

Thanks for the reminder about Long Weekend, great record.

that's really cool, djh. I remember the cover coloring thing and the border community site showcasing the results!

xxpost The BC people are great folks.

Holden and Zimpel have just announced an album. Out in June. Psyched.

It is lush.

it's really good

they're playing live here in August for Mutek. I'm hoping to go even though the show starts at 10pm and they're on third ;_;

(helpfully, Valentina Magaletti are on second)

Effervescent and magical! Zimpel seems to bring out the best in the people he collabs with

I'm a big fan of both of them separately. This is easily my favorite of their collaborations.

holy fuck this is good

My CD arrived today. Came with a punk heart shaped sticker that had the album title on it. I like the sentiment.

This is great. Big Harmonia vibes from the second track.

God the Zimpel/Ziolek record is amazing.

fwiw past Zimpel chat has mostly been here: stara rzeka, innercity ensemble, polish underground

should probably rename the thread tbh

this is a lovely new interview that covers a lot of ground...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2AbL4P2IkRo

also appreciated scuba as an interviewer - asks some good questions, seems to have done a bit of research beforehand, and otherwise just let's the interviewee talk without getting in the way the whole time