TS: Microhouse - Clicky/Poppy vs. Smooth/Gliding

Nah, not that often jed. Just Junior Boys and the fact they are better remixed.

Kompakt's not really microuhouse? And all this time I...

now that is not right!

To thread - Microhouse is a spectrum within which people most oftenly sight kompakt (possibly through their key role in the distribution of most of the labels).

Kompakt, Playhouse and Klang all have completely different sounds to my ears. They get bundled into Micro, but I would more argue that Microhouse is truly the clicky stuff (hence the name?!). So for me Micro is early Trapez (has gone of the boil and Traum is too dreamy), Music Krause, maybe Dumb Unit.... it gets difficult.

Anyway - I could warble about this all day.

Yes, the labels have different aesthetics. None are like Kompakt. If you like the dreamier stuff, go near Traum next.

Me too! Hence the thread...(sigh)

superpitcher + scritti politti / Timbaland + Hall and Oates = Junior boys

anyway - sorry about the derailment!

Re-boot!

Re-boot!

Run: C:\Muzik\Microhouse\Subgenres\ReDefinition\2004-06-07

But I see it more as shuffly-stompy vs. glidy-IDMy. Maybe.

I have no idea.

"By around 2000, this new sound known variously as 'glitch', 'microhouse' or as we named it 'whorehouse' (after a track by Akufen called 'Whorehouse New Process') had reached critical mass"

Do people talk about glitch anymore?

HOWEVER: Traum is definitely one label I've overlooked for too long. Just ordered Tour de Traum from FE - hope it's as good as it sounds on BoomKat

I can't see what I did wrong - rather than asking us to go off on impromptu lines of shite about defining Microhouse genres, can you ask something a bit more easy to go with.

What is your problem with the finding of clicky-micro when you want swooshy micro? I always find it pretty obvious which of the two I'm going to get, and I will check the 12" before buying it to get an idea of the "is it cack" factor.

nader - It's a brinkmann mix of Traum. You can't really go wrong.

Secondly I don't have a "problem" outside of everything being ladeled into the same stew and called microhouse, that and a lack of turntables.

I'm more of mixed and/or compilation CD type of chap and finding samples thereof (to preview, as it were) aren't terribly easy to come by (not a big advocate/fan of file-sharing).

BoomKat, however, seems to do the best job of providing one with a fair indication (i.e. samples) of where a disc's headed.

Its pretty strange, also, the way someone like Brinkmann is almost always excluded from discussions of the genre (not that i am saying you were excuding him, im saying the opposite).

_e_x_a_c_t_l_y_

And I think that's why I had consider(ed) an artist like Akufen "glitch" from the word go and yet with an artist like Herbert in the tangential mix I can also see the deconstruction/reconstruction aesthetic progress from "glitch with beats" to microhouse. It's just how the others, the Kompakts and Traums, fit into the model.

Anyway I think this is tendential rather than a strict category breakdown, and there's multple axes upon which a spectrum could spin; trying to put everything in one camp or the other is exceedingly difficult. Traum is "micro" but doesn't really click and pop, plus it's tech-trancey enough to be smooth/gliding anyway. Areal aren't usually "clicky" but unless they've changed heaps they're certainly not smooth. Kompakt has run the gamut in every direction.

I'm more interested in how certain attributes to given tracks seem situational or tendential. When I first heard Scsi-9's "Just Married" in the middle of Sami Koivikko's 100 Minutes mix I was like 'what the fuck is this great tune?' thinking it would be Perlon or Areal - and then it turns out that it comes from Digital Russian which I'd always (maybe somewhat erroneously) always considered to be among the cleanest microhouse ever - in Koivikko's mix the track sounds wonderfully dirty and bottom heavy.

am i alone in thinking that brinkmann is actually a pretty awful producer. yes, he has done some stunning tracks but considering the amount of music he produces, his batting average is low, low, low.

as for trapez - riley seems to have lost the plot! he'll be putting out a peace division 12" next! and that limited label is SO annoying. what is the point? there are a few great tracks but i NEVER end up playing them out as it is imossible to remember which track is on which 12". i've never been too into traum but i think philippe cam is an unsung genius and that dominik eulberg 12" is my favourite stoopid record of the month.

Trapez has gone pretty awful since the mid-twenties (Caulfield, Rahn and Dialogue were the last good ones) and has shown no sign of coming back - I still listen to them, but the expectation of buying them is no more. As you say, there are a few gems on the limited edition ones, but it is nightmarish to remember where the hell the one you want is unless you come up with some method to label the sleeves (I haven't!), and even the limited ones are pretty hit-and-miss.

I have only dipped into Traum through the Interkontinental comps, and picking a few bits here and there (I seem to remember that there was a good 12" earlier this year - name escapes me) but I wouldn't trust is as a label on sight, I will often peruse what they have out.

At the end of the day, all the labels are like this. The unoquivocal kompakt love on here is misguided to my mind, though it is a great label.

are there any of these labels that folk here buy (rather than leech of soulseek) religously without hearing the releases first? personally, i buy every perlon and playhouse release unheard as i am that confident i will like them. i've only been let down by them once or twice. also, i kind of agree with ___ on the kompakt love on ilm. don't get me wrong, i do love most kompakt releases but i don't think they are all as great as one might think if you'd never heard them and only read about them here.

I had high hopes for Cadenza after release number one, but was let down on the second release!

dumb-unit has passed me by somehow. i shall investigate forthwith.

i just got robag's lp. so far so good.

As you say on Cadenza, it takes quite a while. Dumb Unit is on about release 9, but I would seriously run with it myself. I shall get some to you.

I felt Matos' delineation was exactly spot on (clicky/poppy vs. smooth/gliding) and thought it warranted its own discussion/expansion.

Thank you, Matos.

So - will this triangle be equilateral?

Matos's original opposition was formulated to explain his personal preference, but it's a bit of a mug's game to try and form an objective scheme, at least one with objective qualitative distinctions.

Kompakt is notorious because, especially with its mixes, it tends to cover all these bases (albeit some more than others); it stands in for the internal contradictions inherent within this genre in a way that Perlon, say, doesn't. Also (at least until the great dance distribution meltdown!) it was by far the easiest label to find CDs by (I think it's Playhouse now).

As one of the former, rather than the latter, it can give a different opinion (especially on the quality). I mean - when kompakt put out a compilation, it strangely seems to have the better stuff they have put out on it...

How many tracks are on a Total? 10 or so? Plus a few new specials?

However, Tim, I've read several of your microuhouse-related blog entries and must agree (it's solidarity, brotha!) that the all-encompassing borders of what fits within the general(ized) microhouse scheme certainly allows for sustained interest and is unquestionably part of its charm.

If all of microhouse sounded similar it would amount to one subgenre of, for argument's sake and in the very high-level hierarchical sense, house, and lack the musical space for innovation and invention we continue to hear from one label to the another.

http://www.ongaku.de

Yep. That's my disco discovery o' the week.

I know, I know. A little slow on the uptake.