How much of the love for Kompakt is due to people actually making a real effort to like track based dance music cos it's on Kompakt?

*runs off with trousers around ankles*

Also I should have just said micro-house generally, really. (not kompakt)

I Lost track of Plastic City around the time of the second Timewriter LP - are they still putting out good stuff?

I still like the pop ambient stuff; it is predictable but solid.

As far as Kompakt being the techno that it is cool to like, yeah I can totally see that in the indie world. Then again, they are also one of the most consistant and well branded electronic labels out there. Not everybody is a specialist, and the average listener is not going to spend 10 hours a week searching for the cream of a very over-saturated genre.

Not prog house as we know it maybe, but could this be the macro people have been suggesting is on the way?

(xpost) i actually dont think they are that consistent, but maybe that is more true with the 12"s (which probably arent bought by indie kids) as opposed to the cds, which are mostly great.

Also I'm the type of person that generally makes a like/dislike decision upon first listen, usually within 30-60 seconds. I never put extra effort in if I'm not immediately engaged in some way.

I'm still approaching this with expectations to have a hit-and-miss/like-dislike experience with the stuff.

So far I've been pleasantly and enjoyably surprised. I love the more out-and-out fun stuff like Baby's On Fire (Superpitcher), Love to Love You (Tobias Thomas/Superpitcher), Jackpot KO Kompakt remix (Tocotronic). Its tracky but its also pop, discoey, bouncy.

But other more "serious-faced" tracks like Stealing Beauty or Softmachine don't strike me as anything special. There's a thousand other similar records out there.

Is this what you meant?

it really shows up the fact that while kompakt works as track based music,it also really works as stand alone "songs",something my other favourites (eg jeff mills tracks) don't do nearly as well...(not to imply for a second that they should)
i mean i listen to pannik and the start it up unmixed cause i love them so much and am into that sort of music,but anyone i know who has heard the jurgen paape track off total 3 loves it to bits,even people who don't really like dance music...

so yes it is the dance music for people who don't like dance music,but don't hold that against it,it also works really well as dance music,and has probably introduced loads of people to "proper" dance music...

But yeah to some extent I was assuming I might not like this or it would be noodly or weird, when it's just really good house/techno music.

track, not tracky

Still, what I said. and i prefer all my dance music as tracks, its allows me work out weird juxtapositions.

A good part of that lies in the writing and production of the music, but I think a lot of it also has to do with the mastering. I can remember the debates people used to have over the hard swedish records that were big in 97-98 and how people would say they were better because they were pressed on heavier vinyl, engineered better and were mastered a lot louder than the domestic techno records of the time. At that time those records were objectively better in the technical sense, as far as recording technology goes they were recorded and pressed better than anything coming out of North American at the time. Six years later the only people how remember Cari Lekebush are washed up techno geeks who possess a bad tendency for nostalgia.

I am probably an idiot because I am the only person on ILM who is not heaping praise on microhouse; but it just isn't gritty enough for me. I remember when the Swedes were winning the findelity wars, and today it is the Germans. I know they are making the cleanest and best sounding records, but I don't think that necessarily benefits electronic music. I think it should sounds a little ghetto and rough around the edges.

Philip Sherburne will probably come in here and write circles around me because he is a great writer, but my gut instinct is telling me that the pendulum is going to swing the other way. I probably sound like a jackass for bucking the conventional ILM wisdom on this, but I am betting that in a couple years people will catch on to what I am saying. Also, I know no one is arguing about the sonic quality of these records per se, but the *sound* sound of the recordings is my biggest issue with the genre. Anyway, I appologise for hijacking this thread with an ot rant, but I am done now for real.

however, i think listeners are more sophisticated these days than when all that compressed swedish stuff was around. those records sounded HUGE but there was very little substance in the grooves. i think the difference with a lot of microhouse is that there IS substance. there are more ideas in 4 bars than in a whole cari lekebush doublepack. some of it does sound too pristine and clean and i think kompakt can be particularly guilty of the 'big sounding record' syndrome but on the other hand you have farben, pretty much the whole perlon roster, luciano, ark and several others who have a lot of filth and roughness in their grooves.

And that is fair, it is not like there is nothing else going on in those records besides the production. I think that dance music is everybit as much about how a record sounds as to how well the music underneath the production is written. The production style is a turn off for me. If a dance record doesn't *sound* good to *my* ears I don't really care what is going on in it.

Wtf, Larkin fan?

I don't think I've been alone in saying this for over two years now: There is no Kompakt sound; the label is too diverse. Given their last year's worth of releases, the statement has more validity than ever. There's a Kompakt sound as much as there's an Astralwerks sound.

As for the cleanliness of the tracks, I can think of at least a dozen off the top of my head that are just a tiny bit more pristine than "Chicken Noodle Soup" or "I Can't Kick This Feeling When It Hits." For starters: Voigt & Voigt's "Was du Willst," Reinhard Voigt's "Kontakt," the two Mikkel Metal 12"s, everything by Dettinger, etc. Those are all quite silty.

I was disappointed with all of the Kompakt compilations this year to some extent, but this alternate Total 5 that I just threw together laid all my worries to rest with the quickness:

01 DJ Koze - The Geklöppel Continues
02 Ferenc - Yes Sir, I Can Hardcore (M. Mayer Mix)
03 Phong Sui - Wintermute (Burger Voigt Mix)
04 Justus Köhncke - Weiche Zaune
05 Heib - Entdeckung der Langsamkeit
06 Magnet - Rising Sun
07 M. Mayer/Reinhard Voigt - Bring It Back
08 Reinhard Voigt - Kontakt
09 M. Mayer - Privat
10 Voigt & Voigt - Was du Willst
11 Joachim Spieth - Ich

The only two tracks that seem all that similar to my ears are "Rising Sun" and "Privat."

Did a similar thing with Playhouse's 2003 releases, and the results were almost as good. Say what you will about the '99/'00 glory days of that label, but I don't think they've ever been better. (Admittedly, this might have a lot to do with a deeper roster.)

Do me a favour and check the following, who have left Kompakt in its dust:

Pleite - Pleite (aka. Donacha Costello) (Trapez)
Mathew Jonson - Typerope (ITISWHATITIS)
Krikor - Pas de nom (Karat)
Hundara San Froder - (Voltmusik)
Rework - Like Me (Playhouse)
Noze - Noze EP (Circus Company)
Andres - Andres LP(Mahogani [not German, yet still magnificent])

Totally agreed on how great those records are (with the exception of Krikor, which just didn't hit me), however. Andrés is in my top ten albums list for '03; "Typerope" is in my top ten singles list, as is Jonson's Perlon 12" with Luciano. 240 Volts is fast becoming one of my favorite labels -- I will forever be a sucker for that stark, sleek sound.

Still, I don't see how any of them are any more (or less) groundbreaking than recent Kompakt.

01 Glove - Going (To Hell)
02 Isolée - Lost
03 Captain Comatose - $100 (Captain Comatose 12" Mix)
04 Funky Transport - Hot Water
05 Ricardo Villalobos - Bach to Back
06 Spektrum - Freakbox
07 Melchior Productions - Taste for X
08 Fabrice Lig - Meet U in Brooklyn
09 Losoul - Slow Like
10 The Visitors - No Under on the Ground, Pt. 2
11 Max Mohr - Pop Roger

My tops:

Einmusik, "Devotion" on Minimal Allstars, Radical Rhythm (Italic 038) - fat, brassy, lazy trance

Misc., Rocket Skating & Rocket Skating Remixes (Sender) - really punchy and almost rockish in an Alter Egoish way -- and proof that Mike was correct, upthread, in predicting the dirtification of microhouse. It retains micro's rhythmic detailing but fills in the spaces with overdriven frequencies.

Thomas Andersson, "Numb" from BAS 12" (Bpitch) - powder-dry and strangely melancholic, with a huge walloping low-end

...and there's plenty more where that came from...

The production was CLEAN and I would be love to hear it on a real system as it was my car stereo just made me hungry for the real thing.

Baby Ford's Basking in The Brakelights is also consistently excellent all the way through.

[a]pendics.shuffle's The Lavender Neglect (Orac) and Peter Grummich's Look Inside (Boot) are also getting much deck time 'round here.

The other CHOON I have been meaning to mention and blog about is Decomposed Subsonic's "Atlantic View" (Ware 45), which is this ENORMOUS, almost trancy house track that I've been mixing with Alan Braxe's remix of Bjork's "Alarm Call," for whatever reason. Anyway, it's totally pumping and huge and I'm betting that Ronan will love it.

these along with some of the recent boxer releases are like a micro take on the black strobe sound but this time full of funk rather than that plodding electro house sound. they sound outrageous in a club.

my top micro track (for playing in clubs) of recent weeks has been - dominik eulberg's 'die rotbauchunken vom tegernsee'. his other releases have been pretty straight tech but this one is just nuts. breakdown of the year!

just ordered a boxer record (from sonic groove, so assuming my order fills).

much more micro than any of the above, but the new musik krause, "rambazamba," is ridiculous -- a big clattering samba school done MK style. really banging. i mean, it's "micro" in that it uses small, truncated parts turned up LOUD. whereas the sender and areal releases don't leave any white space at all -- they just fill everything in with keyboards.

word, that misc. 1-sider is nutso, even though it's just yet another variation on the theme. misc. CD out soon, though i have yet to listen to it. guess i should do that!

not all the boxers are good but pretty much anything by frank martiniq and the last one (can't remember the artist) are great.

that 'rambazamba' is super. though it nearly cleared the floor when i played it out. philistines!

completely agree about that dominik eulberg single on traum (i think it's 48).

also the donnacha costello color series are well worth checking. i just made a mix that's got a few of them on it.

ahem. we have alot of his stuff at work on the D1 label, some is good actually.

yeah, the donnacha costellos are pretty damn good. i only know the purple and pink ones so far, but 3 more just arrived yesterday.