'feeling' as style?

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Thinking about Tom Middleton from Global Communications, Cosmos etc. My three favourite tracks of his are "14:31" (I think that's the number, can't remember exactly), "Take Me With You" and the GC remix of Lamb's "Gorecki". Three styles right there - gauzy ambience, taut drum & bass and pumping house respectively - but all 3 seem united by the feeling which they generate. In this case, it's a sort of beautiful and bottomless wistfulness, a bittersweet enormity of emotion that threatens to swallow the listener/dancer whole (the Lamb remix precipitated the closest thing to an out-of-body experience I've had while dancing, and for the record I wasn't on drugs or even intoxicated).

This is kinda intriguing - I'm not terribly familiar with Middleton's overall body of work, but it seems that Middleton's use of mood, rather than style, forms the consistent basis of his work. His work is wildly divergent but unified by its emotional content. cf. Aphex Twin, who deliberately traverses genre boundaries in order to create music with a diverse range of emotions.

So: what does this mean exactly? And which other other artists do this?

― Tim Finney (Tim Finney), Monday, 25 November 2002 06:33 (twenty-three years ago)

I always thought that sort of thing was damned annoying. And it happens in every school, not just IDM, but music all over the place. Shit. Look at most classical composers. You have the happy daisy guys, the bold fanfare guys, and the kings of sadland. Tschaikovsky couldn't get away from his inner Conan, even on the Nutcracker. It's great because even the pretty folk dances he lifted for it still end up sounding like somebody getting ready for a fight.

Rock kind of has the blues to blame. Techno/IDM has the 'I just play on the black ones' minor key thing. But ultimately there's just a lot of people out there who have no use for anything but (favorite type of chord) and/or (favorite type of progression).

GC is a great example, BTW.

― Tom Millar (Millar), Monday, 25 November 2002 07:02 (twenty-three years ago)

His work is wildly divergent but unified by its emotional content. cf. Aphex Twin, who deliberately traverses genre boundaries in order to create music with a diverse range of emotions.

Funnily enough, I used to think much the same way about RDJ's work. Obviously there are exceptions (Windowlicker, for example), but a lot of the time I think his splenetic drill'n'bass stuff and his more ambient material are united by a kind of melancholy, melodic undertow. Some of the stuff on Druqks and RDJ album and the two SAW records in particular.

― Matt DC (Matt DC), Monday, 25 November 2002 12:43 (twenty-three years ago)

tom middleton pays more attention than most to wringing specific emotions out of his music. he's just about the best producer in any genre right now. coincidentally, your top 3 middleton tracks would be very similar to my own. one you must here, though, is his incredible mix of the path's "praying" on junior.

― michael wells (michael w.), Monday, 25 November 2002 12:47 (twenty-three years ago)

His mix album is a similarly meticulous piece of work.

― Ronan (Ronan), Monday, 25 November 2002 12:56 (twenty-three years ago)

Tim, what you describe is often a major criterion in realizing which artists/albums I love, maybe because I'm so fickle and uncommitted to styles as necessarily underlying baselines. I think it especially applies to mixes made which, upon seeing the tracklist, reek of "eclectic" choices, but upon hearing, sound startlingly united (-> your blog entry on Miss Kittin/Ellen Allien mixes working outside designated boxes. Also: Avalanches). Of course the DJ sandbox tends to encourage disparity, w/ studio producers/artists it's a bit different.

"Genre-breakers" often gets a quick slap in the face, usually w/ the words "would-be" preceding. All styles --> All moods --> No style/No mood. W/ a band like Portishead though, the feeling is so concentrated and clear that I sometimes wonder if itd have been better exploring more styles than spy chords and gritty breaks. You know, since it could be the adhesive carrying the sound through potentially more interesting formal/stylistics paths (or why I love Mezzanine).

Subjective identity constructed connektor-set style out of incongruous established forms (auteur genius), or daft wishy washy po-mo dilletantism (dabbler monkey). So what about.. say... when Photek went house/triphop on Solaris. Did his (anti?)-feeling shine through, lots said hell no. What about Beck. Or Jim O' Rourke. Reynolds called him a gadfly. Is this because there isn't a prominent sense of consistent feeling.

― Honda (Honda), Monday, 25 November 2002 13:31 (twenty-three years ago)

the neptunes: style as feeling as style

― bob zemko (bob), Monday, 25 November 2002 13:59 (twenty-three years ago)

foshizzle my nizzle, it's the big neptizzle

― Honda (Honda), Monday, 25 November 2002 14:02 (twenty-three years ago)

I don't think GC is quite Moby-esque about his chord progressions, but it's possible his grand genre-spanning trick is overlaying sonic/melodic motifs, his talent for which maybe rivals Orbital. On "14.31" it's the overlapping synth tones set against the steady clock pulse; on the "Gorecki" mix it's the delicate, spiderweb interplay between the breakbeat and the simple bassline (obviously), but also the slow slow strings in the background and Louise's flowing looped vocals; on "Take Me With You" it's the main riff and the bleepy counterpoints. On many of these tracks you hear a single element being used for a period, and while it may have its own definite emotive content, when it is then overlayed with the other elements, the effect is not emotive addition or even multiplication, but emotive squaring.

Matt: Yeah I can see what you mean, and maybe 'divergent' was too strong, but I always sense that Aphex's stylistic shifts are very deliberately chosen in order to alter the emotive content (even if we're just talking different brands of meloncholy/wistfulness) of his music. Ha it's interesting to note that Middleton was originally sort-of part of Aphex Twin!

Michael: I will look for that track.

Honda: great post! I want to say something about it but I'm feeling too tired at the moment.

― Tim Finney (Tim Finney), Tuesday, 26 November 2002 12:07 (twenty-three years ago)

Ha it's interesting to note that Middleton was originally sort-of part of Aphex Twin!

What? I now have visions of Tom Middleton bursting out of RDJs chest like an alien. Although it'd be way cooler the other way round.

I'd add Bjork to this list, over the last few releases at least.

― Matt DC (Matt DC), Tuesday, 26 November 2002 15:31 (twenty-three years ago)

He worked with Aphex on Analogue Bubblebath I think.

― Ronan (Ronan), Tuesday, 26 November 2002 20:07 (twenty-three years ago)

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