Is there any recent electro stuff that isn't camp/kitsch/cross-dressing?

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Without wanting to sound generalistic. Where's the tough hard-as-nails stuff?

― dog latin (dog latin), Sunday, 28 March 2004 19:59 (twenty-two years ago)

WHITEHOUSE

― Ian Johnson (orion), Sunday, 28 March 2004 20:01 (twenty-two years ago)

i suppose the cheerleading might put it in the kitsch category a little but michael forshaw's "cheerleaders" is pretty hardcore.

― don, Sunday, 28 March 2004 20:02 (twenty-two years ago)

metal urbain/metal boys/etc

― jack cole (jackcole), Sunday, 28 March 2004 20:19 (twenty-two years ago)

dog latin, check out some Polarius -- it's the guy from Legowelt but minus the camp vibe, more of an early Chicago house vein. Still got plenty of electro feel, though...

― Sean Thomas (sgthomas), Sunday, 28 March 2004 20:27 (twenty-two years ago)

I don't know if Ellen Allien is considered electro or not -- her music sounds like a lot of the intrumental things people have played me that were lumped into that genre, but I know that taxonomy in electronic music can be very catholic for some.

Anyway, her "Berlinette" CD of last year is some good stuff with no camp/kitsch/transvestism involved.

― Nom De Plume (Nom De Plume), Sunday, 28 March 2004 21:28 (twenty-two years ago)

Areal Records!

― Tim Finney (Tim Finney), Sunday, 28 March 2004 22:34 (twenty-two years ago)

jack otm, and there's dead combo who have a record coming out on output imminently. also check out mu (output/tigersushi), although i wouldn't call it tough as nails.

― lauren (laurenp), Sunday, 28 March 2004 22:50 (twenty-two years ago)

Whitehouse is pure kitsch.

― Stephen Boyle (SBoyle), Monday, 29 March 2004 17:29 (twenty-two years ago)

OTM.

― latebloomer (latebloomer), Monday, 29 March 2004 17:42 (twenty-two years ago)

meta: why is the majority of electro so camped up?

― dog latin (dog latin), Monday, 29 March 2004 17:45 (twenty-two years ago)

I'm confused about what electro is these days and what you're asking for. When I think electro, I still think electro-funk which goes something like Planet Rock->Model 500->Drexcia->lots of new stuff especially coming from the midwest or holland. I don't keep up but you probably want Le Car or the electro that Underground Resistance puts out, or stuff from the Bunker, Clone etc, though some of this in the last few years got a bit more new wave/italo, it's still serious, no costumes or whatever. If a little bit of sci-fi is what you mean by camped up, Electro was camp to begin with. Afrika Bambaata's costumes, Warp 9's laser guns etc.

― Dan Selzer (Dan Selzer), Monday, 29 March 2004 17:52 (twenty-two years ago)

Yeah I was a bit confused by the title, I know people who talk like this and they mean Rotters Golf Club/Andrew Weatherall/Decal type stuff, I don't know.

― Ronan (Ronan), Monday, 29 March 2004 17:55 (twenty-two years ago)

Rotters Golf Club/Andrew Weatherall/Decal

i think this particular scene is sort of hibernating. a lot of artists rushed to put out albums in time w/ the electro boom so you got a lot of samey product that nobody heard. did anybody check out the carl finlow album? the psylocity album? the scape one album?

a lot of the support for this music was from the breaks scene, and i don't know if people into breaks really buy albums. in america breaks compilations are obscenely priced, and nobody's going to pay $35- for a rotters golf club compilation, etc. i'm noticing a lot fewer breaks comps in stores so maybe that money's dried up, too.

finally some of the major artists that run labels like andrea parker, anthony rother, dave tipper, ed dmx, etc. all seem sort of burnt out on electro. i know anthony rother is just doing john carpenter-style film music now (same with dopplereffekt), the others i mentioned probably have better things to do than throw away money on specialist electro labels.

the hague is still putting out good music, for now anyway.

― vahid (vahid), Monday, 29 March 2004 18:04 (twenty-two years ago)

so i think the quick answer is that it's gone away because it was propped up on 1) the breakbeat scene and 2) a few very influential artists and both 1 and 2 have gone away.

― vahid (vahid), Monday, 29 March 2004 18:06 (twenty-two years ago)

Also it seems a fairly puritanical distinction to me, the camp/not camp one, I mean Legowelt or the countless other artists making just slightly camp electro are still quite hard.

― Ronan (Ronan), Monday, 29 March 2004 18:09 (twenty-two years ago)

vahid, ronan...I don't know too much about all this new stuff, as I've said I mostly own old stuff, but maybe this thread needs a real beginners guide to straight up electro, as opposed to all the neo-italo-disco-style over substance stuff that came out on the heels of electro-clash. It does make sense that people would move on from electro though, Le Car->Adult. for instance, just a desire to be more poppy or whatever, though I never heard any neo-electro that was as good as the old school. You listen to stuff like Newtrament or Warp 9 or Jonzun Crew and it's hard, it's funky, it's futuristic, it's fun, it's poppy, it's new wavey etc etc.

When the electro revival started in the mid 90s I was just getting educated in electro of the 80s, and I found a lot of the stuff that was coming out around 95, like DMX Krew, Elektroids, stuff on Clear to be not nearly as good.

― Dan Selzer (Dan Selzer), Monday, 29 March 2004 18:11 (twenty-two years ago)

but even that's 10 years old now!

― Dan Selzer (Dan Selzer), Monday, 29 March 2004 18:12 (twenty-two years ago)

clear = sort of a red herring for "electro" revival. the early clear stuff thoroughly referenced electro, but it was really more part of the small, fleeting post-"artifical intelligence" british scene experimenting with "micro" sounds.

there's some crossover between clear and ferox / evolution / peacefrog etc. but you wouldn't ever really hear clear played out with drexciya or dmx krew or i-f, i don't think.

memory lane: the seminal electro revival document.

― vahid (vahid), Monday, 29 March 2004 18:29 (twenty-two years ago)

Oh I don't claim to be any authority, far from it!

― Ronan (Ronan), Monday, 29 March 2004 18:31 (twenty-two years ago)

The Ying Yang Twins!!!!!

― chuck, Monday, 29 March 2004 18:34 (twenty-two years ago)

but saltshaker is kind of camp!

― Ronan (Ronan), Monday, 29 March 2004 18:37 (twenty-two years ago)

krunk cups, kinda kitschy.

― vahid (vahid), Monday, 29 March 2004 18:39 (twenty-two years ago)

The camp/not camp seems to be a three-way breakdown. Those that consciously reference the 80s = camp. Those that pursue a electro/house hybrid = camp (house as an integer in such formulas usually results in campness floating on the surface of the solution). Those that make "serious" electro eg. electro-tech, idm-electro or electro-breaks = not camp.

Basically if the robots sound like humans or sexy they're camp, if they're just robots they're not. I'm not sure why anyone would particularly prefer the latter.

― Tim Finney (Tim Finney), Monday, 29 March 2004 21:29 (twenty-two years ago)

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