This music you call microhouse....

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what sets it apart from the Basic Channel/Chain Reaction or Burger/Ink stuff going back a few years ago. I've heard some snippets on Real Audio(that might be the problem) and I'm having trouble hearing the difference. Is there any difference, except a name?

― adam schleifer, Friday, 24 October 2003 21:23 (twenty-one years ago)

well what 'microhouse' did you hear?

which reminds me, is there a thread on the stupidest genre-names?

― TomB (TomB), Friday, 24 October 2003 21:44 (twenty-one years ago)

It's way more spangly!

― Philippe, Friday, 24 October 2003 21:44 (twenty-one years ago)

which reminds me, is there a thread on the stupidest genre-names?

can you bitches stop saying Microhouse?!

― Mr. Diamond (diamond), Friday, 24 October 2003 21:49 (twenty-one years ago)

haha, that was one of my very first posts (under a pseudonym of course, what a chicken shit i was)

― JasonD (JasonD), Friday, 24 October 2003 21:52 (twenty-one years ago)

ha - I love that thread title. And it turned into a good discussion anyway so it's all good..

― Mr. Diamond (diamond), Friday, 24 October 2003 21:59 (twenty-one years ago)

what, JasonD is your real name?

― vahid (vahid), Friday, 24 October 2003 22:06 (twenty-one years ago)

Jason D@rr0W, why might you ask?

― JasonD (JasonD), Friday, 24 October 2003 22:12 (twenty-one years ago)

that was a lame joke that required a look of feigned surprise on my part to work

― vahid (vahid), Friday, 24 October 2003 22:14 (twenty-one years ago)

will the real JasonD please stand up?

― JasonD (JasonD), Friday, 24 October 2003 22:18 (twenty-one years ago)

The stuff I heard was mainly off the Kompakt label. I liked it but remided me a lot of the stuff I was listening to in 98 or 99. I pretty much stopped paying attention to techno since then.. I kinda got fed up with the IDM thing, it seemed to be disappearing up its own tight ass. Anyway I rediscovered my older deep, dubby techno stuff and really like it and that led to the whole microhouse thing. I was just surprised it was being hailed as this new sub-genre when it sounds pretty similar to my ears. Like I said though, I've only heard little snippets of Kompakt label stuff and MRI so I'm no great judge and haven't ordered anything yet. I guess in the end it's just a name, but I was curious about its origins because I liked when it was I hearing.

― adam schleifer, Friday, 24 October 2003 22:19 (twenty-one years ago)

haha that thread is hilarious in retrospect. the seattle weekly: now with 80% more electroclash bashing.

― mohammed abba (dubplatestyle), Friday, 24 October 2003 23:56 (twenty-one years ago)

the bizarre thing about that thread is that it took place over the same days TO THE EXACT DATES as this one is now doing a year later!

― jed (jed_e_3), Saturday, 25 October 2003 00:17 (twenty-one years ago)

possibly funnier is that JasonD and the person who claims the term "microhouse" might be connected... (?)

― gygax! (gygax!), Saturday, 25 October 2003 00:26 (twenty-one years ago)

oh no, who else on ILM do i know, but not know that i know?

or am i just even more dim witted today than usual and i'm missing another joke?

― JasonD (JasonD), Saturday, 25 October 2003 00:45 (twenty-one years ago)

do you know phil shereburne? for it was he, who coined it thus, forsooth.

― mohammed abba (dubplatestyle), Saturday, 25 October 2003 00:59 (twenty-one years ago)

I don't know why everyone found that other thread so sleep-inducing - or do I just enjoy/practice snoreworthy theoretical nitpicking more than other people?

― Tim Finney (Tim Finney), Saturday, 25 October 2003 05:21 (twenty-one years ago)

zzzz

― rob geary (rgeary), Saturday, 25 October 2003 06:12 (twenty-one years ago)

just kidding tim!

― rob geary (rgeary), Saturday, 25 October 2003 06:13 (twenty-one years ago)

Vahid, are you still on the 313 list?

yrs truly,
Techno Snob

― Disco Nihilist (mjt), Saturday, 25 October 2003 20:52 (twenty-one years ago)

for the record, i love theoretical nitpicking, even though i lurk more often than i post.

this may be my most useless post ever, but fuck it, i'm hungover.

― philip sherburne (philip sherburne), Saturday, 25 October 2003 21:41 (twenty-one years ago)

no mike, but i still say stupid shit all the time...

― vahid (vahid), Saturday, 25 October 2003 22:24 (twenty-one years ago)

that thread would've gone a lot easier if I hadn't responded so defensively to Tim F., esp. since he wasn't even talking to me! (sorry again, btw)

― M Matos (M Matos), Saturday, 25 October 2003 22:32 (twenty-one years ago)

hi philip,

do i know you?

JasonD

― JasonD (JasonD), Sunday, 26 October 2003 05:06 (twenty-one years ago)

I'd say that Basic Channel and Burger/Ink are certainly big influences on the artists currently producing said genre (if one doth not speak it's name...). I think m----house comes out of that music but is like that music a product of the technology that produced it. In other words, with a computer it's very easy to do very intricate and tiny edits of sounds and mixes whereas in the early 90s it was pretty much your machines and your mixer and straight to DAT.

Shared genealogy of desired results? Most likely.

― direct_program, Sunday, 26 October 2003 17:58 (twenty-one years ago)

Jason: I don't think so.

All: microhouse, the term, has finally seen its first mention in the New York Times, courtesy Kelefa's review of Villalobos' Taka Taka and Alcachofa. (Jess, I'm sure you'll roll your eyes.) I quite like how Kelefa describes microhouse: "If house music sounds like a skeletal version of disco, microhouse is an X-ray of the skeleton." He also usefully returns the term to mere descriptor status, taking a bit of the weight out of it, by describing it as "the minimalist sub-genre that's sometimes called microhouse."

― philip sherburne (philip sherburne), Sunday, 26 October 2003 18:31 (twenty-one years ago)

that x ray analogy is rather lovely indeed.

― jed (jed_e_3), Sunday, 26 October 2003 18:41 (twenty-one years ago)

K. reviewed Triple R's "Friends" when it came out in one of the Times's online audio features - I don't think it made it into the print version, but he definitely used the word "microhouse" then.

― locus solus, Sunday, 26 October 2003 18:43 (twenty-one years ago)

I like that description too... but it's not really true, is it? Microhouse tends to be much more lush, much more textured, much less stripped-down and brutal than trad house (or at least the Chicago strain of trad house that I imagine KS was thinking of, since the Body & Soul strain of trad house is more like a continuation of disco than a skeletal version of it...)

― Ben Williams, Sunday, 26 October 2003 19:08 (twenty-one years ago)

ha actually andy battaglia told me about the villalobos review last night and i read it in the grocery store today! it's nice to see the stuff getting covered (there was much debate last night about how much "the scene" in america exists outside of peoples heads), and i'm actually warming to alcachofa, slowly. the "big in ibiza" thing was a bit baffling though, even if he is.

― mohammed abba (dubplatestyle), Sunday, 26 October 2003 21:44 (twenty-one years ago)

new genres please!

― David. (Cozen), Sunday, 26 October 2003 22:09 (twenty-one years ago)

That Villalobos review completely made me want to buy those records - the mix and Alcachofa. Anybody got those?

― scott m (mcd), Monday, 27 October 2003 01:07 (twenty-one years ago)

From my perspective in SF, "the scene" barely exists, either in clubs or in people's heads. It's increasingly frustrating to me that this music, which works best in a club context (and when mixed in with not-specifically-"micro" tracks), so rarely gets played on a proper sound system in SF. Unfortunately, the clubbers go for cheese, the scenesters are on the artpunk tip, and lo-biz promoters like me are left with tiny rooms and miniscule crowds. But I do think that four-to-the-floor forms (though after listening to Perlon's latest, I'm not even sure that descriptor applies to them any more) are starting to make a minor comeback, at least in the press. How long that lasts, we'll see.

― philip sherburne (philip sherburne), Monday, 27 October 2003 02:14 (twenty-one years ago)

Philip, hi it's jason again. i bet we're not too far removed from each other even though i know we don't know each other. i too live in SF. i bet you know dj Anna huh?

and gygax, get back here and answer your riddle because i don't think it had anything to do with philip in the first place.

― JasonD (JasonD), Monday, 27 October 2003 08:10 (twenty-one years ago)

Also, Swayzak's debut LP "Snowboarding in Argentina" from 1998 sounds exactly like the stuff they call microhouse nowadays, at least to me it does.

― Tuomas (Tuomas), Monday, 27 October 2003 10:01 (twenty-one years ago)

From my perspective in SF, "the scene" barely exists...

Somewhat unsurprisingly, I can second that in Melbourne.

However, we do have one bar that plays microhouse called Troika; actually did an advertised launch for Smallville a few weeks back! That said, it's incredibly frustrating sitting in this miniscule space, literal hole-in-the-wall, with no dancefloor in sight and listening to club-track after club-track; mindlessly tapping my foot in frustration...

It's still mindblowing that I can regularly walk into any record shop here and pick up a swag of Perlon, Kompakt, Forcetracks/Force Inc, Soundslike, even Areal 12" for $5AUS a piece - baffling!

I guess that this stuff has been stocked prior to a huge downturn in the vinyl market; but surely there's a place for the odd Reinhard Voigt or Michael Mayer track at the odd rave?

I'm guessing this stuff must be quite big in Europe though, to justify to number of releases coming out...

― Michael Dieter, Monday, 27 October 2003 10:36 (twenty-one years ago)

Philip,

who is the guy who sometimes does friday nights at the ridiculously overpriced japanese place downtown/south beach... i met up with some friends there and heard about 1hr. of minimal house.

i just thought that JasonD's circle might have intersected with PhilipS's circle, nothing major implied here. You guys seem to intersect/crossover in more than a few areas.

― gygax! (gygax!), Monday, 27 October 2003 10:41 (twenty-one years ago)

there's fuck all microhouse in dublin,although it is getting a bit more popular

also,this thread might be a good place to ask is no one else bewildered to say the least that smallville is dedicated to roque santa cruz and yves st laurent?

― robin (robin), Monday, 27 October 2003 21:19 (twenty-one years ago)

"However, we do have one bar that plays microhouse called Troika; actually did an advertised launch for Smallville a few weeks back! That said, it's incredibly frustrating sitting in this miniscule space, literal hole-in-the-wall, with no dancefloor in sight and listening to club-track after club-track; mindlessly tapping my foot in frustration..."

Yeah I found the same thing when I went to a Kompakt night there last year (around the time of Total 4/Friends)

So *you* are the person who bought all the other cheapo microhouse sale items at Sanity and Virgin! I was gonna go back for more!

― Tim Finney (Tim Finney), Monday, 27 October 2003 23:31 (twenty-one years ago)

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