techno / house / disco / bass / electronic bobbins listening club

updated every monday, i hope.

i'm going to go ahead and assign myself albums for next week because i want to let this stone gather some moss. it would be neat if we could get some volunteers for the first three weeks and see how the first month goes.

i was hoping this thread could serve as a sort of weekly summit meeting between the detroit-berlin connection and the europhile massive, where vague, half-formed thoughts can be gently tossed back and forth in mixed doubles format. i was also hoping to avoid the usual cock-waving of dance threads past.

anyway i'm going to suggest anywhere from two to four hours of music each week, and i'm going to put my first selections down for next monday, so that i can get together some "listening notes" to post next monday. if you want to sign up you can use this thread or if you already know your selections you can pm them to me.

#1 - 08/16/10 - moonship journey to baja
#2 - 08/23/10 - ?
#3 - 08/30/10 - ?
#4 - 09/06/10 - ?

this thread looks great. tho by europhile massive you mean "british people, many of whom from a small part of london" right?

yes. you want in, ronan?

week #1 - 08/16/10 - moonship journey to baja - detroit-esque dub (done four ways)

linkwood - system (prime numbers, 2010)

http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4095/4877168754_f1f830365b.jpg

v/a - berghain 04 - mixed by ben klock (ostgun ton, 2010)

http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4073/4876559045_082218416a.jpg

v/a - the kings of electro (disc 02: the present) - mixed by alter ego (rapster records, 2007)

http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4102/4877168864_321342ed2f.jpg

v/a - globus mix volume 4: the button-down mind of daniel bell - mixed by daniel bell (tresor, 2000)

http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4117/4877222852_9f47fc9d99.jpg

yep count me in, need to think about it a lot as i have relatively few albums compared to singles but defo count me in.

i'll put you down for week #2.

if you want to just say something like "all of levon vincent's singles from last year" as a selection that would be fine too. i imagine we can be very flexible with formatting on this thread.

I was about to post 'no dj mixes right?' because it would be more interesting to only discuss artist albums but too late now.

maybe then for your week you can do only artist albums and we'll see if it's more interesting or not over the long run?

would you like me to put you down for week three, bld?

I might follow this thread curiously. Two of the above are on Spotify:

System
Kings of Electro

yeah, i'll do week three. thanks.

i think dj mixes should feature heavily

some worthwhile and passionate discourse on djing and the art of the mix is something i'd love to read about itt

i'm looking forward to your listening notes moonship

you want week 4 r1o?

i dunno i think i'm too much of a dilettante for these kind of threads, but i look forward to reading anyway

Oh man, what a great idea this thread is, especially as the two threads mentioned at the top are sort of becoming the de facto dance music ghettos on ILM. The last dance music thread I made just sank without a trace :(

can i get a week

Also I'd certainly be willing to volunteer my services here.

okay, i got deej down for fourth and edb for fifth

Thanks!

Now I have a good excuse to force myself to buy the Linkwood album, too!

wish i could find that kings of electro thing but i'm stoked for this little club. i was wanting to hear people's reaction to the linkwood album when it came out last year but there was oddly very little discussion, so this thread already has me hooked.

and if r1o is a dilettante then idk what the hell i am, but i might be willing to do a week somewhere further down the line. are we talking about only commercially released mixes or do podcasts/internet mixes play in here? or what about ron hardy tapes, etc? i know things can get pretty saturated if we take that route but it seems like that is a pretty major part of how people listen to this stuff, plus it'd make tracking things down much easier

as far as i'm concerned, podcasts, mixtapes, live shows, vinyl only singles, cassettes, whatever ... it's all fine

if you want a hearty discussion on your week then it obviously behooves you to pick accessible music. but nowadays between itunes, mp3 blogs, spotify, youtube, leonardo, etc i'd be surprised if there's much that people can't track down if they're seriously interested in what you're bringing to the table

I'd be up for doing a week at some point.

i'd like to do a week but i got so behind with all the other "listening club" threads i tried to follow that jumping into this as well might be a touch optimistic

drexciya week?

straightola you want to do a drexciya week in september?

tim should i put you down too?

'system' is so good! love the spaciousness and the eclecticism. makes me think of trus'me? but where i wasn't feeling the pastiche there this is... different. less fussy i think. the synths!

ben klock is awesome. this is all totally new to me. it's so umm contemporary. same with the daniel bell. very compelling and dense but open and just fantastic sounds all around.

i haven't listened to the kings of electro yet but i will soon. really feeling this thread so far, excited for the next installment.

k I normally can't be arsed with listening clubs but this is me

you want in?

I am a few weeks behind on the Ambient Listening Club but I would very much like to participate in the listening side of this.

Though I don't really feel like I know any particular subgenres of bobbins well enough to take a week I would very much like to hear what you all have to share.

yeah i'll sort a drexciya howdown

OK, I gave up on the Linkwood System album about 4 songs in, just wasn't doing it for me. Trying the Kings of Electro now - was wondering if it was gonna be all rapey nanorobot shit, but then the Timo Maas remix of Dooms Night just came on and that is THE MOST QUALITY WUB I have heard in ages. Chomping bass wub. Do want.

I'm surprised you'd never heard "Dooms Night" before! It was inescapable for a while, albeit a while that's ten years old by now.

That would be why I hadn't heard it (tho I had heard loads of other stuff on the comp)

10 years ago I was at the height of my "I hate dance music" only listening to super dronerock stage.

Yes I was a nidiot.

Don't give up on the Linkwood before you hear "electricity", at least.

Looks like the album might be sold out across the city :( but I'm gonna keep looking.

you want in?

I don't think I'd presume to do a week, especially at the moment, but I'm gonna give the thread as much attention as I've got spare.

I never noticed how much Nectarine sounds like old B12/Black Dog (early 90s UK) style ambient techno. Still not sold on the album since it seems to be just a tribute to a variety of dance/electronic music styles but it's interesting.

what is 'wub' -- does it have something to do with dubstep

No, it's kate's made up term to describe the high-volume mid-intensity droning noise that a lot of dronerock and some techno has. I kind it find of irritating because it is a cutesy version of "love" that also invokes dub, but I think I get what she means and she drops into few enough threads to use it so, whatever

Heh, I just assumed it was "dub", as said in a cutesy little kid voice.

i thought it was an onomatopoeia for something that sounds like "wubwubwubwub"

Yeah, but w/all kinds of affection and affectation attached. "full of wub" etc

Wub is nothing to do with dubstep. (Though I am trying to imagine what Wubstep, as a genre would sound like.)

Karl is right, it's onomatopoeia.

It's basically any synthesised sound with a really shaped filter on it that makes it do that rhythmic squelch or purr. The WUB on Dooms Night comes in about 0:33 or so and steadily speeds up over the course of the song, speeding up about 2:45 to full on wub. I think that's a 303 bass wub, but you can do it over any part of the scale with with a resonant filter sweep or a volume tremolo (or the classic Leslie Cabinet sound) or even just timing the attack and decay cut-offs to give a particular WOW sound.

Basically, any genre that uses that sound a lot (and lots of the more psychedelic end of dronerock, older techno and especially acid) is just really gonna hit my sweet spot.

And quite frankly I don't give a shit if anyone thinks it's "affected" or not, it provides a perfect representation of a sound which is really hard to describe otherwise, without getting into technical descriptions as above.

"Wub" makes sense to me - at least in relation to the Dooms Night remix. That's exactly what the central riff sounds like.

It's interesting because that tune was a hit across so many genres of dance music and seemed pretty unclassifiable at the time - but if it was released today people would probably just file it under electro-house.

Kate you've no doubt worked it out by now but the Kings of Electro comp is about the pre rapey nanorobot definition of "electro".

Yeah, I liked it because it was fairly heavy on the kind of electro I actually liked. But there were already rapey nanorobot tendencies starting to appear.

And OK, I'll give that Linkwood "Electricity" a listen because songs named Electricity tend to be quite good. Mostly.

I should start mine own thread called "Wub Listening Club"

Population: me

Funnily enough, today I really liked Electricity. And the track after it. So you never know.

Vahid can I do a week at some point after September (I'll be in Europe for Sept and somewhat distracted)

fwiw, Kate, I tend to be a pretty big fan of the sound you're championing. Didn't necessarily mean "affected" as a negative connotation, it just sounds kind of campy when I hear it in my head

um please sign me up for the next available date

Ben Klock - This is good. Actually does remind me a bit of seeing Electric Indigo at Berghain back in the day (she was more electro-tinged than this, but not that much more). The hottt cover helps. It's not as pumelling as I expected. Love love love: "7am Stepper", "Nuthin' Wrong" and "Elfin Flight".

Both discs of that Kings of Electro mix are great, Trevor Jackson always selects good stuff and the other mix is nice and varied too.

Mmm, Doom's Night. So wrong, but so right! Have we had one of those 'crossover' tracks everyone seems to play recently? Looking back a few years I'm thinking 'Rocker' and 'Erotic Discourse' probably. Hyph Mngo is the closest I can think of recently.

Saw Trevor Jackson boozing in a pub in Hackney the other night

Does Hyph Mngo get played in mainstream clubs?

depends where, right?

sorry all to be abandoning my own thread ... work got crazy this week. hopefully i will be able to post at least on one album tonight. linkwood, i think.

I lost track of ilx, is fe zaffe (sp) totally gone or a diff name?

finally had a listen to the linkwood album yesterday and whilst pleasant enough as background theres not a huge amount to get my teeth into. Theres and air of novelty to some of the tracks (the robotic electro pastiche, why?) which shouldnt really be a surprise really given that the edits scene is all about nods and winks. Quite a dissapointment really considering how much ive enjoyed the EPs ive picked up (barely eagle is my go to track for getting folk on the dancefloor while keeping it nice and slow)

i like the linkwood album lots but

quite a dissapointment really considering how much ive enjoyed the EPs ive picked up

is right otm. as much as i love 'falling' and 'electricity' and 'tears' they aren't really a match for the utter brilliance implied by his combined ep tracks, almost every one of which is just unstoppable. but i suspect a little rearranging of tracks could bring out my album of the decade, so no complaints here. bring on the fudge fingas album!!

guys

;_;

I hadn't noticed this thread before, but I'd definitely like to join. And I can contribute a week anytime.

I can also do this week if Ronan isn't around?

yeah let's not let this die ppl! i really dig that ben klock thing from the last round, and have been re-familiarizing myself with the many charms of that linkwood album because of this thread too

Is anyone even slotted in for this week?

I don't feel qualified to take a week but I have a friend who really knows his stuff, so let me see if I can goad him into doing a week.

I could post some albums to listen today, is that okay with everyone?

I'd look forward to that!

Okay, I'll post three albums, one at a time:

http://img12.nnm.ru/f/a/f/2/9/faf29d78323d05f6e62b710c3d91cfe1_full.jpg

Syrinx 2600 - Docking -20s

This album has always been kinda mystery to me, I picked it up at a local techno store sometime in the late 90s because I'd liked other stuff on the same label (Elektrolux). Apparently Syrinx 2600 is a variant name for a guy called "Dr. Scissors", but I know little about him except that he's released a few other records on Elektrolux too. Anyway, in my opinion Docking -20s is a fine album in the tradition of deep oceanic electro/techno. It's less beat-heavy and has more ambient drones and hums than Drexciya, but it's not quite as IDM-ish as Stay Down by 2 Lone Swordsmen. To me this is kind of timeless electronic music, it's just pretty, cosmic synth melodies, all sorts of ambient noises and electro beats. The album starts kinda slowly, you don't even get proper beats until track 4, but it's one of those records that just keeps on getting better towards the end. So if you're bored by the ambient stuff in the beginning, just skip the first tunes, IMO the real goodness starts with track 5.

Here's the Spotify link to it:

http://open.spotify.com/album/3xmD0YDXiSVwYxVnwwTCc6

Oh yeah, forgot to mention it's from 1998.

http://images.hhv.de/catalog/detail_big/00114/114052.jpg

Burnt Friedman - First Night Forever (2007)

I'm not totally sure if this counts as an "electronic" album, certainly it has a lot of "real" instruments on it, even electric guitars! But there's a definite electronic approach to how the album was made... The various vocals and instrumental bits were recorded in different locations between 2000 and 2007, and then put together by Burnt Friedman, using his patented "chopped-up dub" style. Certainly the whole is more cohesive than you'd expect from an album with so many bits and pieces by so many guest musicians. What Friedman's attempting here is to produce a piece of experimental-but-accessible 21st century soul/rnb, and IMO it's a success. I've been a fan of Friedman since mid-90s, and I've found pretty much everything he's produced worth a listen, but First Night Forever is still his best full album, the one I keep returning to the most. It's pop music with tons of small details and rhythmic intricacies to delve into.

Spotify link:

http://open.spotify.com/album/7MfIZVfeaTtoAlLx5mkQF8

Syrinx 2600 - Docking -20s <---- this was good, I enjoyed it so much I'm going to listen to it again.

Glad you liked it! I've always thought it's kind of a lost gem, something many people might enjoy but few have heard about. I haven't managed to find a single review of the record on the net.

I'll post a third album later this evening.

i like just about everthing i've heard on Electrolux. That label was seriously underrated.

Elektrolux is still around, I think. But I agree that it should've gotten more attention than it did.

I've got a Ruxpin album and Estelle Montenegro? something or other that is really good. Ruxpin sounds a bit like Boards of Canada or some IDMish downtempo. The Montenegro reminds me of the first Swayzak album.

http://img11.nnm.ru/3/e/0/8/7/72496724643597582ea8e68ba1a_prev.jpg

Jahcoozi - Barefoot Wanderer (BPitch Control 2010)

Okay, this one is a bit different from the previous two, as it's a new album from this year that I myself acquired a few days ago. So I can't tell if it'll become a timeless classic (probably not), but so far I'm enjoying it. I'd never heard of Jahcoozi before I came across this album. When I first heard Barbara Panther singing on the Burnt Friedman album in the previous post, I totally fell in love with her voice, so after that I've been checking out the other records she's featured on, and Barefoot Wanderers is one of them. Apparently Jahcoozi are a multinational (British/German/Israeli, to be exact) trio who've released two albums before, though this one is their first on Ellen Allien's BPitch Control label. As an album Barefoot Wanderers is all over the place: you have some electro, some dance pop, some grimey rap, some trip hoppy atmospherics, and most of it is drenched in heavy dub reverb. Besides Panther there are other guest vocalists (M. Sayyid of Antipop Consortium, and two others I've never heard of before). So for a 42 minute album there's a lot of going on, and it's in no way a coherent whole, but most of the individual tracks work nicely on their own. Jahcoozi seam to be capable of coming up with both catchy melodies and compelling beats, and their vocalist Sasha Perera has a cool, breezy voice (though not as cool as Barbara Panther's, who's a bit underused on her guest track). So based on this introduction, I'll definitely be checking out other stuff Jahcoozi have released.

Unfortunately this one is not on Spotify, but should be easy to find on Slsk or as a torrent.

way 2 jump the line bro

Er, of course I urge everyone who's interested in the album to acquire it legally, that's what I did.

way 2 jump the line bro

― NOT FUNNY NEEDS MORE GUCCI (deej), Wednesday, August 25, 2010 11:47 AM (4 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

Okay, maybe some comments on the music now...

I love Burnt Friedman so i'm going to be 'acquiring' that album soon. I think i've already trashed that Jahcoozi album. Is that the one with the Cure cover? Fucking horrible, imo. It's interesting until you hear it a few times, then you realize it's complete shit.

I don't hear any Cure covers on it... Though I know little about Cure, so I guess one of the songs could be a cover? They're all credited to the band members though.

Oh, yeah I guess "Close to Me" is the cover. It sounds perfectly fine to me, but then again I'm not a Cure fan.

hey tuomas i'm excited to listen to those soon, just wanted to point out that you hijacked the thread and more annoyingly you asked if you could, didn't wait for any answers, then did it anyway. there were people signed up to drop some recs before you. i can't speak for them and don't know if they were really planning on it but tbh i was kind of looking forward to hearing from them.

anyway if that's the way it's gonna be i don't want to be thread police and i agree we should just roll w/ whoever wants to make recommendations whenever especially if someone else isn't doing it. gonna have a listen to these tonight!

just wanted to point out that you hijacked the thread and more annoyingly you asked if you could, didn't wait for any answers, then did it anyway. there were people signed up to drop some recs before you.

Okay, I'm sorry if felt like hijacking the thread. But I did wait for answers: I first asked if I can do this week last night, then went to sleep, then 11 hours later (today) asked about it again. No one said anything, except Psychgawsple and Kate who thought it was fine. Looks like Ronan (who I think was supposed to post a new selection on Monday) isn't around and the others who were slated for a week haven't posted anything, so I thought I'd just keep the thread rolling. I didn't mean to offend anyone.

a lot of peeps were threatening to post and nothing ever happened so props to thuomas.

hi everybody. here's what happened.

last thursday i was driving in a pretty shitty part of LA (east santa ana) when i saw this stray dog running back and forth across a busy five-lane road. i was surprised because it wasn't really a residential area. i went around the block and i saw that as soon as he made it safely across the street he would run back in the other direction. he was literally zigzagging through SUVs.

anyway i pulled over and ran out into traffic and he ran away from me into some bushes. after about 45 minutes and with the help of 5 or 10 passerby, my girlfriend managed to coax him out of the bushes and into her arms.

http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4099/4928943154_6e2aaf1036_z.jpg

he's a really beautiful dog and he has neither collar nor microchip. the people at the pound and the animal control officers urged us to take him home, so here we are. he seems really depressed so we wonder if he wasn't trapped in some sort of horrible thing like an underground breeding ring (he still has his balls and seems to not have had much socialization). he basically just sits on our laps with that traumatized look for 10 hours a day. he doesn't like to not be touching one of us and when one of us goes in the shower he stands at the door and whines. he won't walk on a leash anywhere that isn't the inside of my warm, safe, apartment because i think he's scared. he literally shivers with fear when he hears barking dogs. so i am basically starting to feel like i've adopted an infant.

but, there's some progress. he finally started wagging his tail like a real dog on sunday and playing with toys yesterday. at this rate we should have him chasing a stick by 2012 and housebroken by 2015.

http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4101/4928963888_de599d9d7b.jpg

so, yeah, life happens. sorry i abandoned my project and sorry if it led to a bit of stress. i still have my notes on my four albums and i think i'll just wait for another turn next week or for the conversation to pick up.

oh little dog!

i am still mulling over the records from two weeks ago - concentrated listening to four new albums in a week is oddly hard, i must be grown old.

Well sorry if I gave an answer that looked authoritative enough for Tuomas to start posting albums. After a couple of weeks of staring at a blank thread and wishing I was listening to some awesome bobbins, I'm quite happy that Tuomas stepped in. Sorry if anyone thought that was queue jumping.

That said, I couldn't make it more than a couple of songs into the second album you posted, T. It was just a bit too... jazz for me. Always happy to hear Barbara Panther's vocals, though, but much beyond that I didn't get.

Also - super-cute dog, but dachsunds are notoriously neurotic (my mum had one and my old boss had several) and do require rather a lot of care and attention.

yeh, wasn't aware i had any authority but i am glad that someone stepped in to post this week. even if i can't find any of the albums tuomas posted...

that's a beautiful story. what have you named him?

Yeah, that's a heartwarming story, Vahid. Certainly a good enough reason to be absent from here.

his new name is santiago de chicharron

Still no discussion of the Dan Bell mix. I remember being totally in love with it when it was released. Can't recall if it was before or after the Herbert mix but it definitely crushes the Herbert mix, in my opinion.

one before: vol 4 to mh's vol 5

i always thought the praise heaped on vol 5 was deserved by vol 4. it's not exactly like the VU of microhouse - actually dan bell might be, now that i think about it - but maybe it's the nuggets.

OTOH i found it extremely hard to find anything to write about it, other than something snide about how only heads understood vol 4 because it was still mostly in the mode of microhouse pretending to be deep house whereas vol 5 is more like microhouse pretending to be IDM

hey dudes i'll still do this, also having a bit of a stressful one, moving job, i was sort of waiting for a prompt of when to do this, but if someone gives me a date i'm there.

mad props to the dance music clique for showing ilm how to have an irl

I like Vol 4 and Vol 5 roughly equally, maybe slight edge to Vol 4. I think Herbert's got more praise mainly because his rep was really growing at that point in time, plus cos Vol 4 featured so much Herbert anyway it's like he got preference votes from the Dan Bell mix anyway.

My sentimental favourite track on the Dan Bell mix is the Problem Kids track, so pretty/goofy/eerie all at once.

I only have listened to that Dan Bell mix and its companion, "the return of the button down mind" once, years ago. Should really revisit, especially given the occasion here, since It's ultimately my kind of thing.

That and Daniel Bell is probably my favourite DJ out there.

Herbert got more praise because they actually sent copies of that one to reviewers.

haha ahh the old TVT rap music in the mid 2000s effect

SO SO SO many things

iirc xhuxk eddy was at one time a big fan of yo gotti

(he was right)(sorry for the derail)

oops sorry i just saw original dates at the top? I can go Monday if that's okay with everyone?

please do

almost there...standby, have picked two and deciding on the third, exciting!

http://cdn.pitchfork.com/media/5657-body-language-vol-1.jpg

M.A.N.D.Y-Body Language Volume 1 (Get Physical)

Only link I could find but many of you will remember this anyway.

thought this would be interesting to listen back to, 5 years on. what's weirdest i guess is the idea of lindstrom being on the same cd as villalobos and wighnomy brothers, tho at the time i think this seemed sort of organic and normal. also...electrohouse and the whole denial it ever existed that followed. sort of interested to know if people think there are unifying mixes like this anymore? was this the last mix where the physical release was in any way significant, the last big mix cd? or perhaps my view is tainted by having worked in a record store in 05 where we sold endless copies of this. all that said, can't remember the last time people talked about a mix cd.

http://img106.imageshack.us/img106/2082/superpitchertoday4oe.jpg

Superpitcher-Today (Kompakt 2005)

Listen here

With this I'm sort of wondering where this music actually went? In the years that followed people like Lawrence and Efdemin seemed to get really popular with a sort of post-deep house revisionist version of this sound but they never really did it like Aksel as far as I'm concerned. In fact Dial's big boom always sort of surprised me, it was like they just stayed doing the same thing for long enough that eventually there was nothing else to detract attention from it.

Back to this mix though, I guess what I like about it is that ghost of electroclash/electrohouse that's present in stuff like the Psychonauts remix...but like, what happened to this sort of techno? Who's doing it now? I think it's aged pretty well and there's a beauty (take that purely as a descriptive rather than a value judgement) in this stuff that doesn't seem to be in style at the moment.

I can't remember what Vahid thought of both of these at the time, which also should be interesting, I vaguely remember discussions about "imaginary dance music"!

http://i16.tinypic.com/6p4y0pc.jpg

Laurent Garnier-Laboratoire Mix (1996 React)

Let me know if this doesn't work!

I've always really loved this mix, I guess the largesse of it, I don't know if anyone here has any fondness for the mix CD as a format but I do. I guess prob associated to getting back to someone's house after a club with a big stack of stuff like this lying around. This is one of the ultimate post club CDs to me, I love the way it just starts off at really high BPM. Again..the power of the mix is so divided now, it's like finally reached its rightful place as ruler of discourse imo, but there was something cool about these sermon from the mount type mixes, double and triple cds and shit (lots of shit actually was of course a problem)

(this also reminds me of a long argument about holocaust denial held at 4am in Dublin between two ex taxi drivers...while I played this through the PA of the doctors surgery they and I were working at the time...turning it up steadily as they became more angry/bizarre.)

Bonus final submission:

Flying Lotus-Cosmogramma (Warp 2010)

http://www.undertheradarmag.com/uploads/article_images/Flying_Lotus.jpg

(seems to be all over google and I'm guessing you've all heard this already?)

I've picked this to break from the comfort zone of the first three, and I've not actually heard it at all. I sort of want to come at this with an open mind and see what I think, but what does interest me about stuff like Flying Lotus is...are there people for whom this is like the centre of everything they love about modern electronic music? I sort of want to understand. Is this dance music or something else? I don't want those to seem like implicit criticisms either, I'm just sort of interested, there seems to be a bigger scene around just sort of...beats....than there has been prob at any time since I got into dance music. anyway I'll pop back and talk about this when I listen a bit, just since all my friends keep telling me to check this out!

hope these choices aren't too tedious or the analysis too trite...any discussion would be welcomed.

Yeah I think that Body Language mix was one of those moments when a mix stood in as a snapshot for an entire series of interlinked scenes in a way that would be difficult to do without seeming self-consciously eclectic in a manner that mix didn't (my point being: there are mixes as broad as this now, but they don't seem as unselfconsciousness in their broadness).

Linked with this is the notion of "beats" you raise at the end there Ronan. I feel like in 2010 a lot of people want either beats (a continuum that stretches from post-Dilla through to purple Bristol etc) or very "straight" dance music - and I mean straight not as in hetero, but kind of openly and proudly utilitarian and tracky, from the harder strains of minimal techno to pared back deep house to detroit revivalism as always.

Today was a fantastic collection - listened to it endlessly when it came out. Each track was given room to breathe yet it still sounded like a cohesive mix. Never got into Laboratoire for whatever reason. Maybe a bit too intense for home listening? I found his X mix far more satisfactory, possible because it was chock full of Detroit goodies.

Linked with this is the notion of "beats" you raise at the end there Ronan. I feel like in 2010 a lot of people want either beats (a continuum that stretches from post-Dilla through to purple Bristol etc) or very "straight" dance music - and I mean straight not as in hetero, but kind of openly and proudly utilitarian and tracky, from the harder strains of minimal techno to pared back deep house to detroit revivalism as always.

very good point...feels a bit like a a lot of the shoegazey/emotional stuff is in the beats side too...

Yeah, post-burial emotionalism innit.

i was thinking about this last night too. the whole post-dubstep running into post-dilla thing is just the inevitable swing back to trip hop, mark my words.

I'd say it's all the way around to trip-hop if the tracklist of the Ninja Tune 20-year box is any indication: It's all remixes (or damn near all) by FlyLo, Zomby, Dorian Concept, Scuba, Rustie, Joker, Benga, etc. (OK, Todd Edwards, Joe Goddard, Micachu, etc. too.) Basically it reads like a year-end FACT list.

it's like breathlessly racing in circles (beat / bass music) vs breathlessly running in place (4/4 dance)

everytime i read about the 20 year ninja tune box set in the paper (and this is where it always is) i get irrationally annoyed. can't stand the ludicrous significance given to divisible landmarks in the news...and the way they do this for music/arts too just cos.

i understand where you're coming from ronan (LOL "divisible landmarks") but if you think about it it's not so much observing an event as it is observing a custom or ritual that maybe plays an important cognitive cultural function.

why it's not seven years or 4.2 years is easier to rationalize than why it's hot garbage like ninja tune and hyperdub

not a typo btw

and this is coming from someone who proudly owns funki porcini and dj food albums

that superpitcher mix is dope, i recall that i could pinpoint the exact moment in one of the tracks (maybe 65% through) where it shifts from being really dark & melancholic to this sorta determination->uplift thing

I like hyperdub for the most part!

Ninja Tune was probably way over the hill by the time they released the Xen Cuts compilation. IMO the Solid Steel mix cds had some moments, but for the most part, the label's decent releases after that were all over the place stylistically and they lost focus.

I have that Superpitcher mix on CD, but sadly not on my work mp3 collection. It just did such a great job of putting different tracks in a shared context in a way good mixes do.

I listened to Today with relatively high hopes, given how much I typically love that sort of melancholic tinged techno, and my general respect for Mr. Pitcher. And no doubt it's quite well mixed (smooth transitions, excellent pacing of mood) ultimately it's quite satisfying.

It reminded me a lot of Kreucht und Fleucht, probably cause of the shared presence of the Lovefood remix, the Leuchturm remix, and Dinamo, as well as a more general Koln/Wighnomyesque sound. As with K&F (which I only heard last year) I found sound to feel quite 2005, not to say it's dated, but that, as said, this sound has definitely gone somewhere. Maybe people have been quick to cast off the squelchy chemical sound of mid 00's electro house, and the kompakt/traum/etc. sound (the more moody, subdued take on the former?) exemplified by this mix, perhaps in favour of adopting sounds that sign for deep house, etc.?

Either way, I've always been hoping Lawrence will go back to making stuff that sounds like his output from the first half of the 00's, so yeah.

And Max Mohr - Old Song = <3

So what's with this, am I still up tomorrow, cause I do have notes and stuff ready.

love max mohr-old song SO MUCH

I don't know who was supposed to go last week (deej?), but speak now or forever hold your peace, since I'm just going to go tomorrow morning to keep up appearances, etc.

i missed mine but im not ready -- you go & ill try to pick up a week next time

I ended up just choosing some things I acquired over the last few months or so, and I hope you enjoy.

SPACETIME CONTINUUM - EMIT ECAPS (REFLECTIVE RECORDS, 1996)
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_kCEVnK2uiuE/R9qDnVUSZoI/AAAAAAAAAA0/c9y7TnYd-ik/s1600/front.jpg
This is an album I acquired about two months ago, though I had kept an eye out for it for years and years. I do believe this 1996 album of Jonah Sharp remains a really interesting and engaging selection of very listener friendly IDM-qua-house (or is it the other way around?), encompassing ambient and IDM sensibilities as much as dancey rhythms, all while consistently bringing the funk, so to speak. Like his close contemporary Move D, his production is apt, subtle, and hence rewards attention, what with the careful plotted out synth work and complex rhythmic arrangements that form moody, off-kilter, and catchy jams, reminiscent, perhaps, of Anthony “Shake” Shakir’s productions. This is an album I’d recommend to most anyone, given how easy it is to enjoy, how well made it is, and how well it stands up as a full length album (also see the collection of remixes of this album, Remit Recaps, which is also really good).

CONFORCE – MACHINE CONSPIRACY (BAKED GOODS, 2010)
http://img717.imageshack.us/img717/7246/conf.png
So, I found a used copy of this quite recently released album the other day and, being only vaguely familiar but interested in Conforce, I opted to snatch it up. As the title of the opening track The Land of the Highway proclaims, this is pretty well driving music, bringing to mind a Model 500ish aesthetic most clearly cited with the 808 driven electro rhythms that feature throughout. All the same, his sound, perhaps best likened to Aril Brikha or Theorem, is marked by dubby atmospherics and a precise, moody sound design which takes on a hypnotic form, especially given the repetitive composition of his tracks. All and all it’s a fairly satisfying listen, undoubtedly subtle, with at least one raw edged banger (Intimidation) thrown in to keep things a little less monotonous and to keep listeners on their feet; I won’t deny, however, that this album is pretty monotonous and perhaps too straightforward – as apropos to its hypnotic aesthetic – and even though it felt like much of it was lost in the background on first listen, I don’t doubt it will reveal itself quite a bit more in the future.

RICHIE HAWTIN – DE9: CLOSER TO THE EDIT (M_NUS, 2001)

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I finally bought this this summer, and am thusly curious as to where this mix stands 9 years later, now that Richie’s an easy target (though not without good reason) and mid 00’s Minus serves as a prime exemplar of the mnml now written off as mediocre – a fleeting fad that we’re better off without (not that we ever really liked it to begin with, so its erstwhile biggest proponents say); moreover, Final Scratch and unconventional computer-made mixes have become commonplace, leaving people like Richie at a loss as to how to next “revolutionize” DJing. So does this sound dated, or more importantly, sound like a gimmicky and inchoate moment amid a myth of techno(logical) progress that people like Richie map out for themselves? Nah. I find it’s easier to get swept up in counter discourses and forget that this stuff sounds good, is sequenced well, and is ultimately quite listen- and relisten- able. Granted, I was raised on early 00’s microhouse and pre-mnml minimal techno/house*, share this sort of meticulous and perfectionistic personality, and love the idea of mixes with several dozen different tracks in them, so I urge against the sort of easy and reactionary dismissals of microhouse and 00’s minimal techno/house that would overlook a rather pleasant mix like this.

*I still think the turning point in all this was the dropping of techno/house from minimal techno/house

JAMES MURPHY & PAT MAHONEY – FABRICLIVE 36 (FABRIC, 2007)

http://i85.photobucket.com/albums/k75/Mike_Kamp/fabriclive0.jpg

I just bought this this week, partially thanks to the exceptional Peter Gordon 12” DFA just released (two of its tracks bookend this mix), and because of the increased attention I’ve given to disco over the summer. This mix obviously stands in stark contrast to something like DE9, given their respective territories and ideals, as the premise here – if there is one, which there isn’t – is the basic idea of two guys just stepping to the decks with a bunch of great records. Accordingly the mixing is a lot more casual (galloping kickdrums or the sound of a record nudged forward aren’t repressed, just as immunity from awkward transitions doesn’t here exist; none of this is to say, though, that the mixing is by any means bad as that would be totally untrue) and the 24 records that comprise the mix’s consistently interesting 71 minutes are indeed quality stuff (which substantiates the pedagogical attraction this has for ignorami like myself). All in this is a very nice source of early 80’s disco (with some ace contemporary jams thrown in), nicely condensed and well sequenced, and which should serve well for many late night one man bedroom parties.

that james murphy fabriclive is easily one of my favorite releases... maybe ever. definitely of the last 5 or so years. i like it to the point that i need to start keeping myself in check whenever i feel like pulling it out- surely there are other disco/boogie mixes worth scouring as much as i have this one? it's starting to even influence my record-buying habits to an insane degree, i think i own something like 1/2-2/3 of the tracks on it- they're surprisingly easy to find

oh man, REMIT RECAPS is all-time status.

TRIANGLE music 4 eva

simm city - OST
iform - velocette
twister - move d
vertigo - kobat
kairo - subtropic
string of pearls - autechre

^^ all classic

for me the emit ecaps aesthetic isn't so much of an anthony shakir vibe as somewhere between infiniti and morgan geist's work on clear record - intimate, detailed, gleaming toy clockwork techno

braggin'

agreed on DE9 sounding good but i think what ultimately let me down about mixes like that was that a dozen mixed-together microhouse tracks invariably sounds like one microhouse track. you lost all of that galloping mashed-together energy of something like "decks, efx and 909"

something about that whole concept kinda leaves me a bit cold for similar reasons, maybe cos i thought around the time de9 came out a lot of the tracks i liked could stand to being played alone for a few minutes rather than spliced together. kinda why i've never really had much interest in hawtin, i like when i know what the tracks are or when they are allowed to stand out a little. also what's the point of the tracks if they're being used as tools to that extent, it's not really a mix anymore is it?

You're right, it's not really mix proper, which is incidentally why I explicitly wrote "sequenced well" instead of "mixed well". From my perspective, though, I've always been attracted to the idea of creating something new with mixes, of making things unfamiliar, which I guess goes back to that Jeff Mills line about how with techno you scream because you DON'T know the track being played, etc. It took me a really long while before I could appreciate stuff like Michael Mayer mixes (i.e. to realize he wasn't mixing like that because he was lazy); it also doesn't help when your formative DJ-witnessing expereiences was largely from a dude that spins of 4 decks.

Also, I'd put the Carl Craig and Herbert mixes on that list too.

Nice one on the Laurent Garnier mix as i lost my cd years ago

I was kind of at my peak of being a techno dj (as in spending money on records, going out to parties, playing gigs, calling myself a 'techno dj' etc) when de9 was about to come out and I was anticipating it heavily. I think I expected it to be kind of like the platonic ideal of a techno dj mix. When it actually came out and it just sounded like a thousand shades of grey, I remember being, not so much disappointed, but taken aback that my theory about what would make a good dj mix had some holes in it.

I think we should revive this thread again

I actually bought the Garnier mix a few days ago because of this thread. Will give belated feedback after I've listened to the whole thing.

I think we should revive this thread again

I used to love that Garnier mix although not as much as his fantastic 1995 Essential Mix (which you can download here if you haven't heard it)

The first mix of is just bonkers.