protomicrohouse: s/d

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continuing on my rockist antimicrohouse crusade

please list all examples of early microhouse, pre, let's say, 1998.

now let's note that it would be retarded to list every mike ink side project.

i'm not so much interested in people that are the obviously linked historical precursors to microhouse but more stuff that somehow sounds like the present, or even better stuff that sounds like the future of what artists like tiefschwarz or losoul or superpitcher are presently up to.

i give you tim duysen's "interludium" from 1995 or 1996, not sure which. i was really hoping tim would be from the US but he turned out to be german after all.

http://s5.yousendit.com/d.aspx?id=2Q6SPNV0LKYL32E18VCUGI5F6V

― vahid (vahid), Friday, 14 January 2005 08:13 (twenty-one years ago)

does anybody know how long yousendit keeps things up?? i might switch that link to some server space i have...

― vahid (vahid), Friday, 14 January 2005 08:14 (twenty-one years ago)

That didn't sound like what I was expecting. I guess I anticipated something that was more "micro" and less "house", if that makes any sense. The synth riffs that come to the fore about three minutes in are very reminiscent of modern-day microhouse, even if the beats aren't.

I'm sure I can dig up some stuff tomorrow (must sleep now).

― MindInRewind (Barry Bruner), Friday, 14 January 2005 08:23 (twenty-one years ago)

You mean like Motorbass and such?

― deej., Friday, 14 January 2005 08:58 (twenty-one years ago)

How about Derrick May's 'To Be Or Not To Be'?

― Omar (Omar), Friday, 14 January 2005 10:21 (twenty-one years ago)

now let's note that it would be retarded to imply that tiefschwarz are microhouse,

― jed_ (jed), Friday, 14 January 2005 14:19 (twenty-one years ago)

i don't get it, what are you trying to prove with this "antimicrohouse crusade"?

even if there were no examples of microhouse pre-98 how would that prove it's inferiority?...

― Nic de Teardrop (Nicholas), Friday, 14 January 2005 14:22 (twenty-one years ago)

that tim duysen track doesn't say microhouse to me! so pretty soon all house tracks will be regarded as forerunners to microhouse? Nonsense.

― jed_ (jed), Friday, 14 January 2005 14:26 (twenty-one years ago)

westbam (yes really!) - mr. peanut (low spirit 1992). there is a limited edition 16 minute mix that pre empts basic channel by a good two years.

systeme imaginique - the sublime moment (atom communiations 1991). always play this in a micro set and always get asked what it is. it klangs!

sweet exorcist - test one (warp 1990) - for me, the grandaddy of micro.

lots more but i need to go out.

― stirmonster, Friday, 14 January 2005 14:34 (twenty-one years ago)

and x post. what jed said.

― stirmonster, Friday, 14 January 2005 14:36 (twenty-one years ago)

another quick couple -

the first few releases on sahko

ghouls - necrotising fasciitis (pin up 1992)

databrain - electrofrogs (pin up 1992)

if these two came out on trapez today, people would freak! '91 / '92 were great years for micro techno.

― stirmonster, Friday, 14 January 2005 14:41 (twenty-one years ago)

I agree -- it probably doesn't get more proto-micro than early Warp. The prosecution submits all of the "Pioneers of the Hypnotic Groove" comp asa evidence.

xpost

― MindInRewind (Barry Bruner), Friday, 14 January 2005 14:42 (twenty-one years ago)

oh, and here's the systeme imaginique track. if anyone knows whatever happened to new york's dj moneypenny, i'd love to know.

and how could i forget? - just about everything by dan bell.

― stirmonster, Friday, 14 January 2005 14:54 (twenty-one years ago)

teste - "the wipe"
d.h.s. - "the house of god"

you can't get more canonical than sweet exorcist here though on both the electro and micro tips.

all 303 acid records, plastikman, and thomas brinkmann to thread as well.

― it's tricky (disco stu), Friday, 14 January 2005 15:53 (twenty-one years ago)

Reflection - Cube Loop (Morgan Geist's Modest Science Mix)

― jed_ (jed), Friday, 14 January 2005 16:17 (twenty-one years ago)

Yeah, was thinking about Plastikman too, sort of the Godfather of Microhouse innit?

― Omar (Omar), Friday, 14 January 2005 17:03 (twenty-one years ago)

does anybody know how long yousendit keeps things up??

i think it's based on MB downloaded...but i don't know what that number is.

― it's tricky (disco stu), Friday, 14 January 2005 17:39 (twenty-one years ago)

Wishmountain.

― Dave Segal (Da ve Segal), Friday, 14 January 2005 21:31 (twenty-one years ago)

german after all

i hereby nominate this to be the title of kompakt's daft punk remix record.

― mark p (Mark P), Friday, 14 January 2005 21:32 (twenty-one years ago)

Is microhouse what you listen to while drinking a microbrew?

― The Mad Puffin (The Mad Puffin), Friday, 14 January 2005 21:39 (twenty-one years ago)

does anybody know how long yousendit keeps things up??

I'm not 100% sure, but I think they keep the file up until 25 people have downloaded it, or until a week has past.

― Michael F Gill (Michael F Gill), Friday, 14 January 2005 22:36 (twenty-one years ago)

I went through my collection a bit last night trying to find stuff that fit this thread but my stock-standard answer (Herbert's remix of Motorbass's "Ezio" from 1996) is ruled out by Vahid's opening rules. And so I could say certain things like Juan Atkins' "Starlight" or Healing Arts ft. Jane Walker - "Only Love (Will Lift Us Up)", but the links are too tenuous to be meaningful.

Which is not to say that I don't believe in the existence of proto-microhouse, just that I don't think I have much of it. I'm fully prepared to accept that my sheeplike love of a lot of this stuff (and a lot of electro-house, although I have a lot more "proto" stuff in that case) is a result of not having much in the way of precedents, and that Vahid's jaded scepticism is due to a wealth of knowledge I just don't have.

I do have that Stacey Pullen track "Sweat" on a John Aquiviva mix somewhere, it's great but maybe I've got a different version because it doesn't quite match Vahid's description from the other thread. It sounds like something from the harder more intense end of mid-nineties Relief/Radikal Fear Chicago-revivalism. Which I almost always love of course.

― Tim Finney (Tim Finney), Saturday, 15 January 2005 00:07 (twenty-one years ago)

i've got a feeling this thread is about something other than it seems to be about.

― jed_ (jed), Saturday, 15 January 2005 04:12 (twenty-one years ago)

well, jed, what this thread is about, see, is the supposition that microhouse isn't just about stripping tracks away to their bare almost-nothing essence. instead, i always hear about how microhouse artists use woozy textures and slight syncopations and weird spatial effects to add intricacy and interest to 4/4 rhythms.

i want examples of the same, from other genres (deep house, detroit techno, tech-house) and from other people (labelmates or whatever).

i'm not out to prove anything, i'm not trying to say microhouse is inferior to detroit techno and deep house, even though it clearly and obviously is (just kidding!!). i'm surprised the duysen track doesn't sound like microhouse to people but whatever.

― vahid (vahid), Saturday, 15 January 2005 04:25 (twenty-one years ago)

crinkly, akufen-styled pre-glitch science from the clear label, circa 96
crinkly, akufen-styled pre-glitch science from the clear label, circa 96
crinkly, akufen-styled pre-glitch science from the clear label, circa 96

metamatics "beatsamatic b1" (yousendit.com link)

here, more of an early playhouse vibe.

daniel ibbotson "7 future wonders"

― vahid (vahid), Saturday, 15 January 2005 04:26 (twenty-one years ago)

haha whoops

― vahid (vahid), Saturday, 15 January 2005 04:26 (twenty-one years ago)

i mean as far as that tim duysen track goes, please someone try to tell me that it's not simply a way friskier version of your average traum or trapez track and i'll eat my hat. the whole frisson of the track comes from the slight out-of-phase sliding between an endlessly percolating cosmic drain-sucking noise, some 4/4 snare/hat action, and some randomly placed synth chords. i mean, isn't that like steve barnes' "cosmic sandwich" to a tee?

― vahid (vahid), Saturday, 15 January 2005 04:35 (twenty-one years ago)

ok one more before i shut up. this is from the mighty ferox label, britain, 1995. um i think he was trying to rip off carl craig but he ends up sounding like a less-motorik and more-jazzy superpitcher instead.

paul hannah - wake up to the source (russ gabriel remix) (yousendit.com)

― vahid (vahid), Saturday, 15 January 2005 04:41 (twenty-one years ago)

Danie Ibbotson lives round the corner from me i think.

― jed_ (jed), Saturday, 15 January 2005 15:34 (twenty-one years ago)

great it sems like ive missed out everyone one of these tracks bar the systeme imaginique....guess i was too late, but how awesome would it be if someone pt these up somewhere permanent? (*winks*)

ps i dont have any webspace unfortunately

― ambrose (ambrose), Sunday, 16 January 2005 00:08 (twenty-one years ago)

funny - it seems like ever one of them is still up!

― jed_ (jed), Sunday, 16 January 2005 00:32 (twenty-one years ago)

hmm well it was just some weird thing that opera didnt like yousendit for reason, so you are right.

these tunes, and this thread is awesome btw

― ambrose (ambrose), Sunday, 16 January 2005 11:40 (twenty-one years ago)

"Cluster (originally Kluster) was formed by Dieter Moebius, Hans-Joachim Roedelius and Conrad Schnitzler as an improv group that used everything from synthesizers to alarm clocks and kitchen utensils in their performaces."

Check out "Hollywood" from 1974's zuckerzeit for that "woozy textures and slight syncopations and weird spatial effects to add intricacy and interest"

― Essdot, Sunday, 16 January 2005 12:01 (twenty-one years ago)

mouse on mars - 'frosch' (1994) (and 'chagrin' from the same record - vulvaland - is a by-the-numbers boards of canada knockoff 4 yrs in advance)

― m. on holiday, Sunday, 16 January 2005 13:26 (twenty-one years ago)

two months pass...

Cabaret Voltaire -- "Delmas 19" (1992)

from "Plasticity" = surely their most underappreciated album ... microhouse + Sheffield bleep + the old Lee Perry blowing dope smoke on the tape reels trick

― MindInRewind (Barry Bruner), Sunday, 27 March 2005 06:50 (twenty years ago)

one month passes...

The answer to this thread is the Motorbass album innit? Reminds me at times of Michael Mayer and other times of the Playhouse roster. Also it's a neat answer b/c the Herbert remix of "Ezio" is an obvious example of microhouse-before-it's-time, except he's disqualified b/c he's a microhouse team player.

(Vahid I'm not certain of the rules of this thread though - are Motorbass too continental to count?)

― Tim Finney (Tim Finney), Tuesday, 3 May 2005 21:10 (twenty years ago)

1989: Lil Louis - Original Video Clash (Dance Mania)?

― PappaWheelie, Tuesday, 3 May 2005 21:17 (twenty years ago)

I've said it before, I'll say it again: Armand Van Helden ft. Roland Clark, "Flowerz"

― Matos-Webster Dictionary (M Matos), Tuesday, 3 May 2005 21:22 (twenty years ago)

i haven't heard any motorbass - is there anything i should check other than their pansoul lp?

― natedey (ndeyoung), Tuesday, 3 May 2005 21:25 (twenty years ago)

I want to say lots of early R&S releases, especially Ken Ishii and another Japanese artist whose name escapes me - though they're much lusher and more "ambient," but still have that woozy, out-of-sync feel Vahid identified.

I also want to say E-Dancer's "World of Deep" though I could be totally fucking crazy.

I've also trainspotted some Paul Johnson trax that Villalobos was spinning that might fit the bill, but I'm not gonna bet money on it.

Maurice Fulton's "Wet and Sticky" (Transfusion) though it's not really early enough (2000).

― philip sherburne (philip sherburne), Tuesday, 3 May 2005 23:24 (twenty years ago)

Did Motorbass do anything other than the "Pansoul" LP? (+ singles, EP's associated with that album)

― MindInRewind (Barry Bruner), Tuesday, 3 May 2005 23:37 (twenty years ago)

phil i bet you mean rei harakami!!

― vahid (vahid), Tuesday, 3 May 2005 23:44 (twenty years ago)

and yes, motorbass is pretty OTM. some of the major things i had in mind when i started this thread: ferox label, clear label, sublime label, sabres of paradise, motorbass.

i remember there was a whole rhetoric around these labels that seemed to neatly presage "microhouse". i remember a review of a plaid LP that said "beats smaller than the molecule that shrank in the wash". i remember an early review of the clear label that said they specialized in "quirky playground electro".

i think the main difference between what i think of as a "1st wave" of mainly brit microhouse and the later "2nd wave" of kompakt/etc is the overt basic channel influence (only in the 2nd wave).

― vahid (vahid), Tuesday, 3 May 2005 23:50 (twenty years ago)

Oh yeah, Mannequin Lung's LP on Plug Research - they're '98, and as Detroit influenced as Teutonic, I think.

The Ken Ishii I'm thinking of is "Deep Sleep" (Apollo 008), and Discogs doesn't seem to list the other one, but it's not Harakami. Fuck, wish I could remember it!

― philip sherburne (philip sherburne), Tuesday, 3 May 2005 23:54 (twenty years ago)

i think ken ishii was the only japanese techno artist on r&s. boom boom satellites were on r&s but weren't techno. still, i agree that several early r&s releases would fit the bill. r&s 1990 - 1995 = the greatest techno label in the history of the world.

― stirmonster (stirmonster), Tuesday, 3 May 2005 23:59 (twenty years ago)

you're not thinking of ishii's pseudonym, FLARE?

― vahid (vahid), Wednesday, 4 May 2005 00:08 (twenty years ago)

how about "blue room" by the orb or better yet, "assassin"? the orb is an interesting one too because they would be both proto and proper. "gee strings" on kompakt is pretty micro...

although i think there are very few, if any, precedents for what the perlon guys came up with and to me perlon is thee micro-house label.

i mentioned 303 acid above simply because of the tweaked out factor, but i suppose "acid tracks" is too maximalist to be micro.

― tricky (disco stu), Wednesday, 4 May 2005 01:03 (twenty years ago)

there is a house sensibility on the perlon records that is missing from just about any idm record i can think of save some sweet exorcist singles.

― tricky (disco stu), Wednesday, 4 May 2005 01:08 (twenty years ago)

i suppose matmos is mildly proto-perlon, though much more from the IDM side? (thinking of matmos' first record)

and nope, not flare. not ken, promise. i am away from home so i can't consult the record... but IIRC, it's a black apollo release, same era as ishii's "deep sleep."

if anyone ever wants to sell/give away all their R&S/Apollo records, um, get in touch. i have far too few.

― philip sherburne (philip sherburne), Wednesday, 4 May 2005 02:33 (twenty years ago)

hey matos, aside from the compression in the drums and perhaps some clattery percussion in the far background, i don't really hear the "flowerz" reference.... mind expanding? (sorry i've you've already gone in depth on this.)

― philip sherburne (philip sherburne), Wednesday, 4 May 2005 02:37 (twenty years ago)

yoshihiro sawasaki!!! as in "meditation y.s."!!!

― vahid (vahid), Wednesday, 4 May 2005 02:37 (twenty years ago)

Oh, dear fucking lord, a boatload of Holger Hiller tracks from As Is (1991) and before could easily qualify...

― donut debonair (donut), Wednesday, 4 May 2005 02:38 (twenty years ago)

threads like this really confirm how little i know about non-jungle/garage dance music

― strng hlkngtn, Wednesday, 4 May 2005 02:39 (twenty years ago)

the Holger Hiller thread... mind you, not everything he's done is concentrated "proto micro house". Not at all. As for a lot of proto 4/4 sparseness, there are definitely tracks from the 80s til the early 90s that qualify. I would mention the most recent album but that's from 2000.. which is after 1998, therefore invalid as far as vahid's request goes.

― donut debonair (donut), Wednesday, 4 May 2005 02:40 (twenty years ago)

postmicroprotomicrohouse

― vahid (vahid), Wednesday, 4 May 2005 02:42 (twenty years ago)

From 1989... Greater Than One's "Black Magic" from G-Force on Wax Trax!

― donut debonair (donut), Wednesday, 4 May 2005 02:44 (twenty years ago)

Woohoo! Wax Trax kills another thread dead!

― donut debonair (donut), Wednesday, 4 May 2005 02:55 (twenty years ago)

Hey, you're right ... I turned up the pitch on "Black Magic" to +8% and during the quieter bits it sounds like something from "Artifakts BC".

― MindInRewind (Barry Bruner), Wednesday, 4 May 2005 02:58 (twenty years ago)

vahid, that sounds right!
if we're looking to things like holger hiller... what about some adrian sherwood stuff? particularly his bizarre depeche mode megamix (think it's the "people are people" one) and his production for one of james blood ulmer's rough trade 12"s.... ok, this has nothing to do with "house" per say, any more - but if we open up the thread to talk about artists that have pioneered various methods of TRUNCATION, we're getting somewhere.

― philip sherburne (philip sherburne), Wednesday, 4 May 2005 03:15 (twenty years ago)

there might be an odd track on Laibach's Kapital (1991, I think) that could qualify, though I can't be sure.. I'd have to dig it out

― donut debonair (donut), Wednesday, 4 May 2005 03:20 (twenty years ago)

I'm sure many tracks from 1988 or 1989 in the acid house vein could qualify.

― donut debonair (donut), Wednesday, 4 May 2005 03:36 (twenty years ago)

..unless the 606 is just "too busy" to be micro.. heh.

― donut debonair (donut), Wednesday, 4 May 2005 03:36 (twenty years ago)

i'd say that most bleep could qualify as a precursor, as well. tricky disco, f'rinstance...

― philip sherburne (philip sherburne), Wednesday, 4 May 2005 05:04 (twenty years ago)

Gene Farris - "Perkin hard"
Moodymann - "Music people"
Lil Louis - "War games"
Dannell Dixon - "Earthquake" (one of the remixes)
Unique 3 - "The theme"
Any of the Gherkin Jerks records
Loads of Gemini's Relief Records output

― Jacob (Jacob), Wednesday, 4 May 2005 05:31 (twenty years ago)

oh, apollo released a couple of other japanese artists too - mr. yt being the one i can remember. always forget apollo was an r&s label.

and jacob otm, especially about the gherkin jerks and their drum only releases.

― stirmonster (stirmonster), Wednesday, 4 May 2005 09:51 (twenty years ago)

re adrian sherwood, surely his remix work and the early tackhead stuff serves as a precursor to basic channel or the fascination with dub techniques by artists working in a dance context so he's like proto-proto-micro-house. pliocene micro-house?

i was just looking through an old case of cds and i spotted that apollo ambient comp which even my paul simon loving hippie roommate used to love back in the day. i can't even remember what half of the tracks on it sound like so i'm going to rip to it my ipod. but, more interestingly, in the same case i found the ymo remix album hi-tech/no crime in which some of the remixes have the signifier "micro" in them.

also, what about daniel bell, his comp of early trax, blip blurp bleep, is rather micro.

best greater than one proto-micro-house tune: "why do men have nipples?"

― tricky (disco stu), Wednesday, 4 May 2005 10:44 (twenty years ago)

nothing to contribute, except tto say thanx to you all, and relief that theres enough tracks mentioned here to make a full cd.

blip blurp bleep is very micro i think. isnt plastikman some sort of elephant in the room here?

― ambrose (ambrose), Wednesday, 4 May 2005 11:46 (twenty years ago)

has anyone heard Rastakraut Pasta (1980) from Moebius & Plank? the first song "News" is a slow fake dub reggae track with tons of echo and some sort of radio broadcast in the background. it sounds exactly like a Chain Reaction type track done with real instruments.

― [that bastard] jaxon (jaxon), Wednesday, 11 May 2005 20:07 (twenty years ago)

how about "pitch control" from moebius-plank-neumeier's "zero set" album? very proto-detroit-techno. thx for the recommend, i'll have to track down "rastakraut pasta" - what a great title! sounds like an uwe schmidt project ... (see: "inflatable rasta wig" from his mono tm album)

― vahid (vahid), Thursday, 12 May 2005 05:56 (twenty years ago)

Vahid, "Pitch Control" is also a track off the Eno Moebius Roedelius Plank album Begegnungen from 1984. I wouldn't call that track or version "protomicrohouse" though.. it sounds a lot more like "proto-Mouse On Mars" more than anything.

― donut debonair (donut), Thursday, 12 May 2005 08:02 (twenty years ago)

basically, it's not 4/4.. it has more a "break"sy rhythm, but without much a beat.. just the odd electronics following that rhythm. EXCELLENT song, and it's so ahead of its time, it's ridonkulius.

― donut debonair (donut), Thursday, 12 May 2005 08:03 (twenty years ago)

'rasta kraut pasta' rules but there isn't really a house element in there.

― stirmonster (stirmonster), Thursday, 12 May 2005 12:23 (twenty years ago)

here's the track i'm talking about

― [that bastard] jaxon (jaxon), Thursday, 12 May 2005 16:16 (twenty years ago)

i have always looked to the B1 track from this 1996 12" (sorry, no audio samples): http://www.discogs.com/release/78000

i was unable to find anything at all that sounded like it, until the first couple perlon records came a year or two later. i was certain zip/dimbiman had heard this record.

a few years later i played a gig with him in cleveland. i tested my theory, and sure enough, he came rushing down the stairs and screamed to me that it was one of his favorite records, and that he'd never heard anyone else play it before. i said the same.

― jeff samuel, Thursday, 12 May 2005 23:33 (twenty years ago)

jeff samuel?

er.....heres a test....are you really playign on the 17th june in london?

― ambrose (ambrose), Thursday, 12 May 2005 23:46 (twenty years ago)

not much of a test, is it? i mean it's on my website already and everything. :)

sorry to hijack the thread, i've just had an incredibly boring day and thought i'd share that story with some of the few people who might care. it won't become a habit. after all, someone has to make music for the next forseeable pseudo-future.

― jeff samuel, Friday, 13 May 2005 00:09 (twenty years ago)

another test..

jeff samuel, what's your favorite sauce that goes with an order of pomme frites @ neumo's?

― donut debonair (donut), Friday, 13 May 2005 00:10 (twenty years ago)

Jeff, your Endpoint 12" is one of my faves of the year.

ILM, STOP BEING SO STARSTRUCK.

― Michael F Gill (Michael F Gill), Friday, 13 May 2005 00:12 (twenty years ago)

17th june is during sonar :(

hey yo, ill be as "starstruck" (read: surprised) as i like! we dotn all get promos and hang with the "stars" y'know....

― ambrose (ambrose), Friday, 13 May 2005 00:23 (twenty years ago)

as i get my fare share of that stuff while overseas, i haven't had much of a need to visit that place, though i hear the winner is some sort of wasabi mayo action. the same goes for that new pizza place. i could buy 3 pizzas over there for the same price as one here, and i thought the dough was too salty. i mean, microsalty.

― jeff samuel, Friday, 13 May 2005 00:48 (twenty years ago)

maybe jeff is the man to give me a better description of a zip dj set than 'it was awesome'?

― stirmonster (stirmonster), Friday, 13 May 2005 10:36 (twenty years ago)

in any case, it's the real JS. the "wasabi mayo action" comment confirmed it. :)

― donut debonair (donut), Friday, 13 May 2005 14:11 (twenty years ago)

there's a rather bumping zip set from about a year ago up at paxahau.com if you're still curious, twitch (and anyone else). i would post the link directly to the real audio, but realplayer is evil and annoying.

― tricky (disco stu), Sunday, 15 May 2005 01:36 (twenty years ago)

dopplerschnit from the moebius/ beerbohm LP Double Cut.

― GALKIN (GALKIN), Sunday, 15 May 2005 02:59 (twenty years ago)

six months pass...

One record that totally belongs on this thread is the first G-Man 12" as well as his first album "Kushti." Great aquatic minimal techno that still sounds fresh today.

― Michael F Gill (Michael F Gill), Sunday, 4 December 2005 11:02 (twenty years ago)

alchemagenta"" by zoviet*france = proto k-house

― Yawn (Wintermute), Monday, 5 December 2005 05:23 (twenty years ago)

one year passes...

what is the 1st fila brazilia album?

very spacey percussive house-not-house stuff in the vein of the first coco steel + lovebomb work ... but is it microhouse?

― moonship journey to baja, Sunday, 4 March 2007 01:27 (eighteen years ago)

obviously not and certainly not proto because i have no illusion that any germans were listening to fila brazilia ... but still ...

― moonship journey to baja, Sunday, 4 March 2007 01:29 (eighteen years ago)

Jeff S v much otm upthread and this other Cabinet release by DJ Zky & Daniel P(aul)

http://www.discogs.com/image/R-80803-1105006636.jpg
is an alltime fave. Very inspired synth! Plus on the flip "Jellyheads" grooves everything off the table. "Elwico" on Cabinet #8 is a must-have too, I think the first ten or so 12" were good. Hawtin & Acquaviva supported them with distro from the US so they should be found there.

D. Bell sure, but always watch out for the (part-)chileans: here, Cristian Vogel & Alexi Delano!
Not entirely sure about the latter. I have a feeling the Ladomat label could be a turning point, I mean I'm pretty sure a passage to micro-blahblah can be outlined through its' discography although somewhat around or after 1998.
Agreed on the Clear/Sweet Exorcist/Ferox UK axis but Orb/Warp/bleep already stretches it a bit. Also wrt Motorbass and as much as I enjoy them they can't be all things to all people, I think Kompakt, Köhncke et al. took cues from them like many others outside of this particular trend.

Also while browsing for this thread I ended up listening to a pile of C. Morgenstern records and whatever he did, experimental electronic dance music, was just plain awesome. R. I. P. ( ;__;)

― blunt, Sunday, 4 March 2007 19:14 (eighteen years ago)

the hell. "Open Air" is here:
http://www.discogs.com/release/80803

― blunt, Sunday, 4 March 2007 19:15 (eighteen years ago)

oval? microstoria?
dancemania?
steve reich?
aphex twin?

i think microhouse sucks bad.. it is made because people don;t know anything about harmonies and shit.. they have to cut the sounds short just so you can;t tell it is out of tune.. really disposable souless crap.

ps. i am sure there is like one or 2 ok songs.. but who cares.

― speculator, Monday, 5 March 2007 00:04 (eighteen years ago)

have you met blunt?

― Ronan, Monday, 5 March 2007 00:08 (eighteen years ago)

way to bring up the level of discourse there, speculator!

― pshrbrn, Monday, 5 March 2007 00:14 (eighteen years ago)

no problem

― speculator, Monday, 5 March 2007 00:15 (eighteen years ago)

boycott all speculator DJ mixes

― Michael F Gill, Monday, 5 March 2007 01:14 (eighteen years ago)

speculate me

― lfam, Monday, 5 March 2007 02:51 (eighteen years ago)

blankety blank

― the table is the table, Monday, 5 March 2007 03:15 (eighteen years ago)

i am only going to listen to protomicrohouse from now on. i am convinced.

― speculator, Monday, 5 March 2007 17:24 (eighteen years ago)

where it all began: experimental horse music

― Tracer Hand, Monday, 5 March 2007 17:43 (eighteen years ago)

dancemania?

speculator on Sunday, March 4, 2007 7:04 PM (Yesterday)

1989: Lil Louis - Original Video Clash (Dance Mania)?

PappaWheelie on Tuesday, May 3, 2005 5:17 PM (1 year ago)

― PappaWheelie V, Monday, 5 March 2007 18:50 (eighteen years ago)

but to me that lil louis doesn't represent the sound of dancemania.. that first dj funk record on dancemania has some really minimal acid stuff..

i don;t think i know what microhouse is? can someone who reads british deejay mags explain it to me? isn;t it the same as minimal techno and electrohouse? stupid genre names. is it like pole and basic channel? or that horrible clicky shit on perlon and ghostly and kompakt and stuff..?

― speculator, Monday, 5 March 2007 23:19 (eighteen years ago)

haha what? when was kompakt ever clicky

clique-y, yes

― fies, Monday, 5 March 2007 23:22 (eighteen years ago)

clicky/ trance for the new generation.. i get those mixed up.

― speculator, Monday, 5 March 2007 23:23 (eighteen years ago)

OH NOES......TRANCE, HE CALLED IT TRANCE. WARNING WARNING YOU ARE LISTENING TO TRANCE AND SOULESS MUSIC, AN OLD PERSON HAS REMINDED YOU OF THE 90S, STOP AT ONCE!!!

― Ronan, Monday, 5 March 2007 23:29 (eighteen years ago)

as long as you know about guitars ^_^

― fies, Monday, 5 March 2007 23:29 (eighteen years ago)

xpost

― fies, Monday, 5 March 2007 23:30 (eighteen years ago)

you can make trance with guitars.. ever heard of spaceman 3?

isn't kompakt form the 90s?

― speculator, Monday, 5 March 2007 23:35 (eighteen years ago)

LIKE TRANCE!

― Ronan, Monday, 5 March 2007 23:41 (eighteen years ago)

TRANCE EVERYWHERE...GET HELP...UNDERNEATH MY SKIN TRANCE...MY WIFE TRANCE...

― Ronan, Monday, 5 March 2007 23:42 (eighteen years ago)

so let me get this straight. microhouse is trance? or are they equally bad?

i still want to hear a good trance mix.. i bet there is some kind of freakey underground trance that is bad ass..

― speculator, Monday, 5 March 2007 23:45 (eighteen years ago)

there's nothing wrong with trance! something isn't bad just because it's trance. it seems sometimes like people expect that if they call something trance, those who like it will go "oh sorry, shit I didn't realise that, my mistake, kompakt is awful".

having trance elements in dance music is like denying the holocaust or something! people whisper about it then the whispers become undeniable shouts of condemnation. except that trance didn't have anything to do with killing anyone!

― Ronan, Monday, 5 March 2007 23:49 (eighteen years ago)

I get ALL my microhorse news from british deejay mags!

― fandango, Monday, 5 March 2007 23:54 (eighteen years ago)

lol @ the troll, double lol @ ronan's amazing flip out :'D cheered me right up that has!

― fandango, Monday, 5 March 2007 23:56 (eighteen years ago)

So, if post-modernism is solely the result of "last-stage" capitalism, as Frederic Thompson notes, why rage against it in such heavily moralistic tones, as Julian Schvindlerman does? Post-modernism, after all, fits in well with market economics and entertainment. Condemning it all, as Schvindlerman does, is pointless. The "trance" subculture, towards which Schvindlerman directs his angry barbs, is perhaps an eloquent expression of post-modern confusion; it contains ample elements of what Jameson calls "pastiche" : "inexpressive parody, bereft of any sense of humor, of the parade of yesteryear’s fashions." This pastiche is manifesting itself everywhere from art to architecture, from films to literature. If rock, rap, break-dancing and graffiti were originally "protest movements", they are no more: rather, they are profitable staples of the entertainment market. The vanguard of social protest does not find its place easily in the quicksand of post-modernity.

For Mr. Schvindlerman, post-Zionism has "de-judaized" Israeli society, diminishing its defenses in the wake of its full incorporation in the framework of the Middle East. According to Schvindlerman, democratic values constitute a threat to the existence of Israel as a Jewish state. A bit questionable: the proof is in the pudding. The establishment of diplomatic relations with the Palestinians has in no way endangered the Jewish character of the state. And the popularity of trance music can hardly be attributed in any logical way to the flourishing peace movement; it is simply the result of Israel’s integration in the global entertainment market, nothing more, nothing less. And just as the state is playing a less and less important role in the shaping of Israel’s economy, pushed aside by stronger international market forces, Zionist collectivism is also on the wane. The communal model has been supplanted by multi-sectorialism. Post-Zionism, which desires the absolute normalization of Israeli society, is actually reactivating and reinvigorating the older postulates of Zionism. Ironically, Julian’s conservative attack on universalist post-Zionism is itself a very RETRO style of pastiche-like arguments, tenuously connected and ultimately…….post-modernist.

― JW, Monday, 5 March 2007 23:58 (eighteen years ago)

is microhorse like lsd, but like, heroin, like, on blotter paper?

― speculator, Monday, 5 March 2007 23:59 (eighteen years ago)

I <3 proto anything.

― Drooone, Tuesday, 6 March 2007 00:00 (eighteen years ago)

protohorse?

― speculator, Tuesday, 6 March 2007 00:04 (eighteen years ago)

protobacksweat.

― Drooone, Tuesday, 6 March 2007 00:07 (eighteen years ago)

hasn't tim finney been talking about microtrance for a while now.

― moonship journey to baja, Tuesday, 6 March 2007 00:15 (eighteen years ago)

hasn't every single discussion of new trends in house and techno for the last 4 years involved someone tentatively alluding to how trancey things are as others scornfully think they realised this already, all the while kompakt gets EVEN MORE trancey, introducing new people into this loop to once again say "b-b-b-but...is this......TRANCE?" as EVEN MORE people scornfully think "yes we are so over that now".

― Ronan, Tuesday, 6 March 2007 00:24 (eighteen years ago)

& microgoth, of course.

― jed_, Tuesday, 6 March 2007 00:28 (eighteen years ago)

Yeah i love slamming some microgoth up my earpussy.

― Drooone, Tuesday, 6 March 2007 00:29 (eighteen years ago)

I thought microgoth was those kids who hang out in starbucks

― Ronan, Tuesday, 6 March 2007 00:30 (eighteen years ago)

Why does black people not like to microhouse?

― Display Name, Tuesday, 6 March 2007 00:35 (eighteen years ago)

Yeah i love slamming some microgoth up my earpussy.
Yeah i love slamming some microgoth up my earpussy.
Yeah i love slamming some microgoth up my earpussy.

― the table is the table, Tuesday, 6 March 2007 03:06 (eighteen years ago)

*punches self in dick*

― Drooone, Tuesday, 6 March 2007 04:04 (eighteen years ago)

hey ronan, don't forget about funky house

― lfam, Tuesday, 6 March 2007 04:46 (eighteen years ago)

stop ruining my thread you clowns

― moonship journey to baja, Tuesday, 6 March 2007 05:03 (eighteen years ago)

2005 eurotrance bobbins:

http://www.discogs.com/release/431092

― artdamages, Tuesday, 6 March 2007 05:03 (eighteen years ago)

Ronan's rant here is OTM.

― Tim F, Tuesday, 6 March 2007 09:42 (eighteen years ago)

i am sad that i missed luciano last weekend :(

― Tracer Hand, Tuesday, 6 March 2007 12:52 (eighteen years ago)

Fuck this thread. Shame, it started out well enough

― blunt, Tuesday, 6 March 2007 15:40 (eighteen years ago)

this was a cool thread. i downloaded some of the early perlon stuff (i am a dance dilletane (sp?) and had only heard the last superlongevity) and some other things. can someone explain to me why bleep stuff is a precursor to microhouse? i honestly want to know. name me some bleepy microhouse.

― artdamages, Tuesday, 6 March 2007 15:56 (eighteen years ago)

because bleep artists use woozy textures and slight syncopations and weird spatial effects to add intricacy and interest to 4/4 rhythms just like microhouse artists.

before you say "BUT ALL DANCE MUSIC IS SYNCOPATED", compared leftfield to sweet exorcist and compare each with the latest perlon jazz and you'll see what i mean.

― moonship journey to baja, Tuesday, 6 March 2007 17:43 (eighteen years ago)

ok, thanks. i will listen to some of both and try to hear what you are talking about. don't worry i wont report back!

― artdamages, Tuesday, 6 March 2007 18:13 (eighteen years ago)

ok i think i sorta get it. i gotta go look up the equiment they were using back in the day.

http://www.ozon.ru/multimedia/audio_cd_covers/lg_10_27_11_01.jpg

― artdamages, Tuesday, 6 March 2007 18:28 (eighteen years ago)

actually i was listening to 808 state utd 90 and they were def. on some future jazz shit. i can see a connection to perlon i spose even if they sometimes feel like they are drawing on more current sources.

― artdamages, Tuesday, 6 March 2007 18:52 (eighteen years ago)

can someone explain to me why bleep stuff is a precursor to microhouse?

it isn't.

Microhouse was what happened when weird semi-ambient arty minimal techno went computer in about 2000-2001. Frankly, Klang Elektronik and Playhouse contributed a milion times more to that sound than anything happening in Sheffield in 1991. I used to do a "minimal" night in 1999 with Carlos Souffront and he played all the records that were precursors to microhouse. It was a lot of Klang, early Kompakt, Plug Research, Sahko, BC/CR/RS, and a lot of other more obscure minimal labels that I wish I could remember.

Whoever brought up Cabinet Records is otm x1,000,000.

― Display Name, Tuesday, 6 March 2007 19:23 (eighteen years ago)

display name = mike taylor?

grr nu-ilx

― fandango, Tuesday, 6 March 2007 19:42 (eighteen years ago)

nu-ilx is techno!

― Display Name, Tuesday, 6 March 2007 19:52 (eighteen years ago)

― moonship journey to baja, Tuesday, 6 March 2007 20:08 (eighteen years ago)

pitch up "metal beat" by john foxx and the break downs sound like a tuning spork record.

― rio natsume, Tuesday, 6 March 2007 20:33 (eighteen years ago)

I dunno why I brought up Kompakt (and Köhncke) and why you have to use it again, it's a mistake

― blunt, Tuesday, 6 March 2007 20:33 (eighteen years ago)

I guess the early stuff yeah.

― blunt, Tuesday, 6 March 2007 20:45 (eighteen years ago)

yes, as mike points out microhouse emerged from nowhere in the mid-90s. those early kompakt artists had never actually heard an early bleep record or a detroit techno record. they listened to exclusively to cluster and kraftwerk and roxy music and played guitar, until one day, when a giant stack of mike ink records toppled out of a third floor window and narrowly missed crushing a young michael mayer ...

I think you kind of missed my point. Let me make it a bit more obvious for you:

http://www.discogs.com/label/Playhouse
http://www.discogs.com/label/Klang+Elektronik

Listen through the 90's back catalogs of these two labels and tell me that Richard H Kirk invented microhouse. Those two labels are not the beginning and end of this stuff, but they were the big ones.

I am not saying that Bleep wasn't a part of the electronic dance music continuum or that any of the German guys never heard LFO. What I *am* saying is that there was an entire thread of minimal spacey German dance music in the 90's that _DIRECTLY_ became microhouse when those same people started using computers.

Playhouse had Villalobos, Isolee and LoSoul in like 1995-96. Klang had DBX in 97 and Farben in 1998.

These labels are like the elephant in the living room of proto-microhouse.

― Display Name, Tuesday, 6 March 2007 22:37 (eighteen years ago)

The reason I consider bleep not to be a precursor is because microhouse house wasn't feeding directly off of those records in the way that say hardcore/darkside/jungle directly fed off of the bleep records. If anything, I think that bleep was a forerunner to UK IDM, and certain strains of UK techno. I think if anything the place to look would be Chicago and NYC deep house.

― Display Name, Tuesday, 6 March 2007 22:46 (eighteen years ago)

pitch up "metal beat" by john foxx and the break downs sound like a tuning spork record.

rio natsume on Tuesday, 6 March 2007 20:33 (3 hours ago)

yeah i was sort of thinking about this. what about penthouse and pavement or hot on the heels of love? early 80s electro pop, bleep/acid house, minimal techno = all forged out of technological innovations? i dunno...

― artdamages, Tuesday, 6 March 2007 23:53 (eighteen years ago)

but y'know shit also sounds like "explorer" or "superphreak" or any number of classic og us minimal techno records

― rio natsume, Tuesday, 6 March 2007 23:58 (eighteen years ago)

playhouse + klang? i think you're missing the point, mike - i'm interested in what the dudes who started playhouse + klang were listening to when they started playhouse + klang.

and you think that when roman flugel started putting out those acid jesus EPs, he was listening to relief? but wait, relief wasn't around back then. but baby ford was! and so was the dark minimal electronic sound of bleep'n'bass, and DBX, and mark broom, and ferox and laurent garnier and so on.

i just TOTALLY DON'T BUY the reigning orthodoxy, which is that michael mayer and gang were heavy relief records and classic chicago house listeners who one day picked up and decided to start making stuff that mysteriously sounds like the next step from old ferox records (i am thinking of tracks like superpitcher's "fieber", for example) without ever having heard that british wave of housey techno ...

― moonship journey to baja, Wednesday, 7 March 2007 01:01 (eighteen years ago)

― moonship journey to baja, Wednesday, 7 March 2007 01:02 (eighteen years ago)

I don't understand, how are Playhouse and Klang the elephants in the micro-room when everyone universally acknowledges that they were the pretty much the starting point for the whole trend?

― Tim F, Wednesday, 7 March 2007 03:27 (eighteen years ago)

i think vahid is correct to challenge the "reigning orthodoxy" (though i question whether it exists in the first place and whether kompakt even qualifies as microhouse). there's a kompakt project called forever sweet which obliquely references sweet exorcist, there is a great mike ink ep on warp, in 05 kompakt re-released tricky disco much to my amusement, there's that early kompakt vs. sub rosa comp etc, etc.

― tricky, Wednesday, 7 March 2007 04:18 (eighteen years ago)

Other mentionables: Schatrax? Or, come to think of it, the last 3rd of that 1995 Hawtin 'Live at the Building' mix? Stephan Robbers/Terrace? Early Irdial? Thomas Melchior? 1994-era Trax a la Johnny Fiasco? Matrix/Todd Sines/(later: Stewart Walker)? ROBERT HOOD FTW?

If we're talking closer to 1998, early swedish stuff like Svek (e.g. 'Controlled Kaos', Conceiled Project, etc.), Plumphouse, etc.? Although then you may as well just throw in all of the stripped-down UK tech-house from that era as well ...

Re: influences on Flugel/Voigt: given that those guys were putting out records in like 1994 or so, I'd imagine probably the usual Detroit/Chicago/Warp/R&S suspects.

Glyn

― glynsync, Wednesday, 7 March 2007 04:57 (eighteen years ago)

I'm gonna do my damnest to try and fit Octave One in there somewhere as well.

― glynsync, Wednesday, 7 March 2007 05:00 (eighteen years ago)

I don't understand, how are Playhouse and Klang the elephants in the micro-room when everyone universally acknowledges that they were the pretty much the starting point for the whole trend?

Exactly, why have they not been mentioned as the starting point?

I guess it depends on what your definition of microhouse is and when it's starting point is. I think of microhouse as starting around here:

http://www.discogs.com/release/2814
(this is where the line between minimal and micro starts to blur)

and then you get these:

http://www.discogs.com/release/125551
(which is full on micro)
http://www.discogs.com/release/34074
(as is this)
http://www.discogs.com/release/86199
(ditto)
http://www.discogs.com/release/117845
(loved parts of the first one, hate this one...)

In my mind the split happened between 2000-02. The big difference between microhouse and 90's minimal techno is the use of computer for sound generation and processing. I see is as a huge split and the rest of you see it as a continuum. This is the point where I got off the train. I do not like the sound of computer music, especially the 00-05 stuff.

To me there is a huge gulf between 90's minimal and micro.

― Display Name, Wednesday, 7 March 2007 05:24 (eighteen years ago)

but the 2nd "button-down mind" has more straight tech-house on it

― moonship journey to baja, Wednesday, 7 March 2007 05:59 (eighteen years ago)

i just don't think the difference between computers + hardware (00-02) was as audible as the shift towards minimalism. also i like to see things in big sweeping generalizations.

― moonship journey to baja, Wednesday, 7 March 2007 06:00 (eighteen years ago)

that algorithm mix is great and ahead of its time.

― tricky, Wednesday, 7 March 2007 06:03 (eighteen years ago)

i agree that there was a huge split. the other elephant in the room is the avant clicks n cuts stuff.

― tricky, Wednesday, 7 March 2007 06:14 (eighteen years ago)

and herbert.

― tricky, Wednesday, 7 March 2007 06:16 (eighteen years ago)

To me there is a huge gulf between 90's minimal and micro.

And probably between "micro" and whatever is there now.

I mean is anyone else kinda wondering about the use of "microhouse" on this thread, isn't it something else now? Minimal house? It may seem petty but these sort of semantics are sort of important, I mean Digital Disco or something to me is "microhouse" but that's a world away from the stuff that's considered "minimal house" at the moment.

― Ronan, Wednesday, 7 March 2007 10:34 (eighteen years ago)

Hello, this thread is about before microhouse.

― blunt, Wednesday, 7 March 2007 10:53 (eighteen years ago)

shit I said,"microhouse" : /

― blunt, Wednesday, 7 March 2007 10:54 (eighteen years ago)

are you going for "cranky 15 year old brother" or does it come naturally?

― Ronan, Wednesday, 7 March 2007 12:20 (eighteen years ago)

i checked out that clicks and cuts stuff like three years ago and was totally bored by it. itd be interesting to hear it again. keep arguing fellas! this is interesting!

― artdamages, Wednesday, 7 March 2007 13:03 (eighteen years ago)

but the 2nd "button-down mind" has more straight tech-house on it

well then lets swap this out and call it the digital disco comp or whatever... I have not heard it in a awhile, but I remember it as being pretty computery in a bad way(I could be remembering it incorrectly).

i just don't think the difference between computers + hardware (00-02) was as audible as the shift towards minimalism. also i like to see things in big sweeping generalizations.

*and*

i agree that there was a huge split. the other elephant in the room is the avant clicks n cuts stuff.

I was thinking about these two posts while I was in bed last night. The thing about minimalism is that it was already there before microhouse. If I remember correctly, Sherburne's big piece before microhouse was about minimalism. Aside from Mills/Hood/DBX/BC/Sahko in techno there was already interest in Steve Reich. Although they are nearly forgotten now, these labels also made HUGE impact before micro:

http://www.discogs.com/label/Profan
http://www.discogs.com/label/Studio+1

I don't think it was minimalism per se that changed things. I think the more pernicious influence was microsound. Since techno producers were using computers now, and they were awash with ideas of intelligence via the idm boom and the death of rave, they thought that they should try and be a bit more academic and rigorous. The jump from the 313, Global Tech and IDM lists to the Microsound list on Hyperreal messed a lot of peoples heads up. Techno went from being body music to be strictly head music.

This comp did not help either:

http://www.discogs.com/release/3160

in hindsight:

http://www.discogs.com/label/Mille+Plateaux
(this whole labels' influence on techno was a bit pernicious)
http://www.discogs.com/label/Raster-Noton
(this one too)

I mean is anyone else kinda wondering about the use of "microhouse" on this thread, isn't it something else now? Minimal house? It may seem petty but these sort of semantics are sort of important, I mean Digital Disco or something to me is "microhouse" but that's a world away from the stuff that's considered "minimal house" at the moment.

I *think* that we are discussing 2000-2004. Minimal bobbins or minimal house are new developments in that continuum.

― Display Name, Wednesday, 7 March 2007 16:54 (eighteen years ago)

i don't know man, you seem stuck on a "THE DEATH OF REAL DANCE MUSIC" type thesis that seems more predicated on turning into a cranky old man than anything actually going on in music.

are you saying hood/mills/sahko are somehow less intellectual than audion or whoever? that the dan bell globus mix was more "body music" than the herbert one?

aside from where my sympathy lies (believe me, i'll take most 90s music over most 00s music any day - i still love love love stuff like big beat and money mark and morcheeba and coco + the bean, i'm not some new jack microhouse fan) i think what you're saying is just bonkers and backwards.

if anything early "minimal" as you define it is MORE intellectual, even if it is based off hardware and not software (and i still disagree that there is a big difference between the two ... what about amiga-tracked early rave? is that hardware or software music?)

― moonship journey to baja, Wednesday, 7 March 2007 18:18 (eighteen years ago)

and ANYWAY, aside from identifying possible lineages (all of which are as tenuous and ephemeral and imaginary as all music lineages that don't involve the same actual people will be) all i wanted to do on this thread was to point out how SOME STUFF FROM THE PAST sounds like SOME STUFF FROM THE FUTURE.

i think it is a lot more interesting to look at the fact that some ferox stuff from the early 90s sounds like some kompakt stuff from the 00s, and wonder how that happened, than obsess over the very fact that kompakt stuff is gradually turning from something that sounds like studio 1 / profan to something that sounds like early 90s warp-tronica.

― moonship journey to baja, Wednesday, 7 March 2007 18:21 (eighteen years ago)

i guess i am just against the thesis that

1) minimal dance music sprung fully-formed out of its own ass (obviously not)

or

2) it somehow randomly evolved from the combination of the studio 1 aesthetic with the NYC/chicago deep house aesthetic (not because i can disprove this, but it's WAY WAY WAY too much that many-armed octopus of europeans trying to connect with authentic black dance music and fake binaries like "soulless cold german minimalism of techno" / "sweaty black american warmth of house" ... it's just a lame music journalist story that gets passed on and on and people cotton on to it and all of a sudden they believe it too ... cue basic channel "oh, uh, yeah, we've ACTUALLY been doing disguised roots reggae since the beginning" or kirk degiorgio "uh, my early records weren't B12 ripoffs, they were homage to sun ra and roy ayers")

instead i am going to use occam's razor and suppose that THIS branch of european art-techno is going to be connected and interwoven with all of the OTHER branches of art-techno, and we're doing a massive disservice to critical thinking about dance music to stick strictly with the line of ron trent + basic channel = kompakt.

― moonship journey to baja, Wednesday, 7 March 2007 18:28 (eighteen years ago)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strawman

― Display Name, Wednesday, 7 March 2007 20:17 (eighteen years ago)

you guys are weird

― fies, Wednesday, 7 March 2007 21:41 (eighteen years ago)

"I don't understand, how are Playhouse and Klang the elephants in the micro-room when everyone universally acknowledges that they were the pretty much the starting point for the whole trend?

Exactly, why have they not been mentioned as the starting point?"

Because that's not what this thread is about - it's about stuff that isn't acknowledged as a precursor to this music. As Vahid said in the first post:

"now let's note that it would be retarded to list every mike ink side project... i'm not so much interested in people that are the obviously linked historical precursors to microhouse but more stuff that somehow sounds like the present, or even better stuff that sounds like the future of what artists like tiefschwarz or losoul or superpitcher are presently up to."

Re: The Button Down Mind of Dan Bell: I guess this is a relatively early example of the style, but not the beginning. 2000 also witnessed debut albums by Isolee, Losoul, Markus Nikolai, Luomo and MRI, Swayzak's second album, Herbert's mix, the second Kompakt Total comp... and that's just full-length releases (and i'm sure i'm missing/forgetting some).

― Tim F, Thursday, 8 March 2007 07:15 (eighteen years ago)

i think it's interesting that certain historical narratives become privileged over others and that history itself is evolutionary. now that so much information is available it becomes all the more crucial to find realness in the glut, but at the same time it is tempting (and not incorrect) to want to draw parallels where the "real" connections might be tenuous at best. somewhat complementary to that idea, there is lots of evidence of independent artists coming up with extraordinarily similar ideas at the same time. i think it is a critical mistake to malign fashion and that's critical fashion as well. there is a great article in this month's believer about how perplexing it is that perhaps the best way to write about the postmodern condition is by using realist technique.

― tricky, Friday, 9 March 2007 06:55 (eighteen years ago)

and really that's not so perplexing at all if you apply the idea to techno. it seems to be derrick may's mantra and the whole detroit legacy is born out of realness/authenticity.

― tricky, Friday, 9 March 2007 07:03 (eighteen years ago)

i like how some people think there is one story of microhouse (or anything else) when its clear no one has heard all the same stuff or could possibly hear all the same things in one 12" let alone a whole label or subgenre. i do like the concept of the accidental history of microhouse.

― artdamages, Friday, 9 March 2007 07:05 (eighteen years ago)

let's all make mistakes

― tricky, Friday, 9 March 2007 07:08 (eighteen years ago)

there is lots of evidence of independent artists coming up with extraordinarily similar ideas at the same time

this is what i want ... we can apply explanatory powers later, figure out if there are actual real connections later, when we finally find those early michael mayer playlists ...

― moonship journey to baja, Friday, 9 March 2007 08:18 (eighteen years ago)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newton_v._Leibniz_calculus_controversy

― artdamages, Friday, 9 March 2007 13:29 (eighteen years ago)

I sort of see a lot of US deep house in the late nineties as verging on the microhouse sound - in the same way that Babyface's textural lushness circa 1994 seems to prefigure Timbaland a bit.

The difference between Andy Weatherall's Live @ the Social mix and his Force Tracks Hypercity mix is pretty much just the Basic Channel resemblances of the latter.

But the best example of Vahid's early Warp comparison is actually documented on a canonical microhouse mix: Nightmares on Wax's "21st Century Kong", as used on Herbert's Let's All Make Mistakes, sounds more microhouse than the Isolee track it emerges out of!

― Tim F, Saturday, 10 March 2007 01:46 (eighteen years ago)

early nightmares on wax is so good. back in the early 90s in chicago a lot of the more underground jocks played the shit out of "i'm for real" and "aftermath" and the lfo remixes. there's your connection to chicago house right there (to cologne via pre-hardcore templates like these). i heard jeff mills play that track late last year and it made the hair on the nape of my neck stand up. it was like travelling through time, but it sounded perfect in his otherwise prototypical relentlessly modern/monolithic set.

perlon is so missing from this thread especially because perlon broke new ground in much the same way kompakt did, but from a much more housey area. (perlon was also very big with some of the chicago underground house djs from the very first releases.) (and check that sickeningly tasteful herbert tracklist.) first perlon release is 97, first kompakt release is 98. i always thought kompakts popularity was due to the more rock and disco influences in their music i.e. superpitcher and schaffel.

― tricky, Saturday, 10 March 2007 03:27 (eighteen years ago)

and if you don't believe me here's this bit from SR (http://members.aol.com/blissout/unfaves2001.htm):

HOUSE MUSIC

Early 1996, a club in Meinz near Frankfurt, a Vauxhall-Arches-style catacomb carved into the concrete foundations of a bridge over the big river (whose name I forget). That's where I fell in love with house again, after a long period of thinking it the lightweight option c.f. jungle. Accompanied by Force Inc/Mille Plateaux boss and lager connoisseur Achim Szepanski, I'd came to check out a set by Chicago DJ Gene Farris of Relief/Casual/Force Inc reknown. Helped by copious alcohol intake and a contact high from the killer vibe in that murky crowded cavern, a revelation began to unfold: just how much fantastic music I'd missed out on through being such a monomaniacal junglist patriot, and the extent to which house had a rebirth of creativity in the mid-Nineties after a long null lull of tribal tedium and handbag hackwork. Farris played so much great stuff--from early filter-house/disco cut-up stuff to Relief-style nu-acid to stuff so techy, tracky and abstrakkk it was essentially what we'd today call micro-house. But if a single song can be said to have opened my ears it was when Farris dropped "Flash" by Green Velvet. When those double-time snares kicked in, it was one of those whatdafuck?!?!?!?! see-the-light moments.

― tricky, Saturday, 10 March 2007 03:30 (eighteen years ago)

haters

to: v*hid f*zi
from: ******** *****

The ability and tendency to give a techno track the ol' post-modern dissection is not an indication of superior thinking, it's an indication of superior music-geeking.

And, um, you've actually admitted this as at least somewhat of a racially motivated issue to me before- on the way home from a trip to Lou's Records once, so please do not respond to this e-mail until you LEARN to REMEMBER. The context was your thinking hipsters ignored early techno pioneers because of race, whereas it's really more timing, but whatevs.

And, regardless, not liking Michael Mayer, while subjective, is fine, but hating on an entire music genre of no objective lesser value than much of the music you enjoy, to the point of starting (and admitting within them as such) hate rant threads like "ProtoMicroHouse" or whatever, is a clear indication that you do have a bias against this music well beyond it's aesthetic value, or lack thereof, and that leaves, for the argument, either racial issues or social issues (such as trendiness), but I doubt the latter because you are a by-the-book follower of such dynamics (denim brands, trainer fetishes, music trends such as disco-revival, etc.). And with previous confessions intact, that leaves me with at the very least a reverse-racial bias charge, which is still racial motivation, especially because your original complaint had no real merit.

― moonship journey to baja, Sunday, 11 March 2007 00:25 (eighteen years ago)

you guys are weird

fies on Thursday, March 8, 2007 7:11 AM (4 days ago)

― Display Name, Monday, 12 March 2007 03:35 (eighteen years ago)

drop some more science on this thread dude. fuck the haters.

― tricky, Monday, 12 March 2007 06:36 (eighteen years ago)

"perlon is so missing from this thread especially because perlon broke new ground in much the same way kompakt did, but from a much more housey area. (perlon was also very big with some of the chicago underground house djs from the very first releases.) (and check that sickeningly tasteful herbert tracklist.) first perlon release is 97, first kompakt release is 98. i always thought kompakts popularity was due to the more rock and disco influences in their music i.e. superpitcher and schaffel. "

Also with Perlon, and especially Markus Nikolai's stuff, the aesthetic basically arrived fully formed. I've always suspected that the paucity of Nikolai-related material post-Back has basically been because he'd already made the connections everyone else has been making. Whereas with, say, Kompakt, the artists weren't really hitting their stride until '99/'00.

I forgot to mention before that probably the easiest way to document the german house/US house connection is to just look at the tracklists for the DJ mixes coming out on Neuton circa. 98 - e.g. this and this and this and this.

― Tim F, Monday, 12 March 2007 07:04 (eighteen years ago)

but there's no explicit german connection other than that's a german label?

― moonship journey to baja, Monday, 12 March 2007 07:16 (eighteen years ago)

well, that and losoul

― moonship journey to baja, Monday, 12 March 2007 07:16 (eighteen years ago)

what about this and this.

those neuton comps remind of these force inc comps: I / II

― moonship journey to baja, Monday, 12 March 2007 07:20 (eighteen years ago)

hey tim ever hear this? ian pooley is like the todd edwards of the late-90s german house scene or something...

― moonship journey to baja, Monday, 12 March 2007 07:22 (eighteen years ago)

"Also with Perlon, and especially Markus Nikolai's stuff, the aesthetic basically arrived fully formed."

yes, for sure, that was what was so thrilling about it!

― tricky, Monday, 12 March 2007 07:31 (eighteen years ago)

that ian pooley mix has "r-theme" on it!

― tricky, Monday, 12 March 2007 07:33 (eighteen years ago)

"yes, for sure, that was what was so thrilling about it! "

That's what I mean!

"but there's no explicit german connection other than that's a german label?"

Isn't Heiko M/S/O one of the main guys involved with Acid Jesus/Playhouse/Klang? It gets confusing though what with Heiko Laux etc. Also, in between those mixes Neuton also released the first Michael Mayer DJ mix.

I've never heard that Ian Pooley mix but I always thought it looked good. I really loved Since Then and I also liked his [link mix-cd]http://www.discogs.com/release/8649[/i] for NRK but I didn't like the direction his productions went in after that - very much in that Jamie Anderson/NRK/Peace Division style but also quite anonymous (although i think that style can tend towards anonymity very easily).

― Tim F, Monday, 12 March 2007 09:25 (eighteen years ago)

i just picked up that ian pooley mix last night ($3.95 bargain basement overstock special, sandwiched between multiple copies photek's "solaris", moby's "play" and tricky's "pre millenium tension")

it's REALLY good, REALLY excellent, actually somehow manages to fold in some of that late garage / early 2-step flavor of acts like smokin beats or indo or sommore or deetah or bump'n'flex or the wideboys. no surprise, right, since it features desiya and bernard badie and braxton holmes and satoshii tomie, but i guess i wasn't expecting so lush ...

you'd LOVE it, tim

― moonship journey to baja, Sunday, 18 March 2007 19:12 (eighteen years ago)

last week the weather just changed here from 40-50 degrees / rainy to 70-80 degrees and clear every day, and also the time change happened so we have those long long evenings ... this ian pooley thing isn't protomicrohouse by any stretch but it's just PERFECT for the situation.

― moonship journey to baja, Sunday, 18 March 2007 19:14 (eighteen years ago)

well actually it sort of dives into kompakt territory when he drops "dominas" and "sueno latino" but that's about it.

― moonship journey to baja, Sunday, 18 March 2007 19:31 (eighteen years ago)

sueno latino is kompakt territory??

― lfam, Sunday, 18 March 2007 19:40 (eighteen years ago)

please recommend more kompakt that hits a sueno latino vibe

― lfam, Sunday, 18 March 2007 19:40 (eighteen years ago)

I kind of tardily mispredicted microhouse in late 2000 when I described Ian Pooley's Since Then as occasionally sounding like Basic Channel at the beach.

― Tim F, Sunday, 18 March 2007 21:49 (eighteen years ago)

i want daft punk @ the beach

― moonship journey to baja, Sunday, 18 March 2007 22:01 (eighteen years ago)

i guess that's crydamoure?

― moonship journey to baja, Sunday, 18 March 2007 22:01 (eighteen years ago)

"i want daft punk @ the beach"

Stardust etc? The one house track I remember hearing at the beach more than any other house track ever was the house remix of "Sun Is Shining". Although "Sing It Back" and "It Just Won't Do" were also popular.

On a vaguely related note, the Sebastian Leger and Chris Sky remixes of Dannii's new cover of "He's The Greatest Dancer" are both excellent in a "did they manage to snaffle copies of the Carl Craig remix of "In The Trees" in advance?" kind of way - big arpeggiators and stirring Faze Action strings. I'm half-tempted to start a thread about a commercial house tracks and remixes which you could imagine being discussed in Philip Sherburne's column - as a kind of spin-off from this thread.

― Tim F, Sunday, 18 March 2007 23:24 (eighteen years ago)

and Superdiscount/Etienne De Crécy yeah

― blunt, Sunday, 18 March 2007 23:24 (eighteen years ago)

six years pass...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QkjmPRC1WXc&feature=youtu.be

― the late great, Sunday, 29 December 2013 18:31 (twelve years ago)

eight months pass...

I was listening to this track (from 1996) for the first time in years, and I was kinda wondering what you'd call it?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BcrtSgo0Isw

Obviously it's not house, but I dunno what it is? Protomicrotrance? I remember some other German rave artists, like Westbam and Marusha, going into this direction in the mid-90s too (and you could say Westbam's "Mr. Peanut" from 1992 is the progenitor of this style): fast ravey beats and trancey synths, but a totally stripped-down sound. It sounds really weird today, I'm not sure if it ever lead to anything.

― Tuomas, Thursday, 4 September 2014 20:01 (eleven years ago)

Here's a couple more from the same era:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TwWYzxES69o

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hlSa4TqaqGI

― Tuomas, Thursday, 4 September 2014 20:18 (eleven years ago)

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