hacker/kittin/DJ Hell: electro performance

I just got the Futurism CD and it seems great. Particularly the Tiga & Zyntherius song.

tracer, i'm really wary of this stuff, which is why i've been reluctant to post on the (ever increasingly number of) threads about the subject. i love the "original" stuff; i -want- to love this stuff. but from the first moment, i heard chicks on speed i knew this "scene" was going to be stuffed with lame no-mark ironists, brittle clinicians, and kids dressing up in big sister/brothers clothes. (actually i couldn't have guessed in 98/99 we'd have a whole "scene" of this shit, but time has proven me a terrible a&r man. "electroclash"? eesh.) i saw that felix da housecat video on m2 the othernigth and it just made me want to claw my eyes out, all those perfectly executed little synth squiggles and the teutonic voice. i want these guys to be on some hairy, punk-rock shit dammit! it's all way too slick for my tastes (which is saying something.) "space invaders smoking grass" was fun and all, but jesus, use other ideas please.

i'll say it before and i'll say it again: if you like this sort of thing, buy the newest human league record. it's fucking great. respect where respect is due.

"Space Invaders" is great fun, and the B-side "Secret Desire" is even more so (it's in a major key!). But everything at Centro-Fly on Saturday was like the most boring dirgey electro-trance aspects of each. possible prob: each record too tuneful to be utterly wrecked goodstyle by a DJ, yet too minimal to hold its own as a track? The individual sounds and noises are great...

Which Felix video was it?

I'm not sure if I'd like the original stuff......er which is interesting, however I can't get enough of the new stuff. Perhaps I'm wrong, but I think it's the slickness of it all that appeals to me. Felix is more dancefloor than most of it though, in fairness, and there's some great remixes of his stuff too.

The Miss Kittin etc. stuff I've heard seems deliberately lo-tech, as if they're using casios from 20 years ago in order to sound cheap. The lyrics are written by people who think that "Warm Leatherette" was really clever or profound or something. (You know, sex and car crashes.) Sophomoric. Haven't decided whether that's bad or good yet; seems mediocre, but Chuck Eddy and Tim Finney like it, so I'm going to try and give it more of a chance. Nothing with the joy, beauty etc. of "Attack of the Name Game" or "Jam On It" or "When I Hear Music" or "Looking for the Perfect Beat."

I think you're misreading it slightly, Frank, because there's at least some sense that these people think of "Warm Leatherette" and its ilk as a joke. They're doing it for laughs, pretty much-- cf. "Frank Sinatra"

I think it's an area that it's dangerous to just dive into and expect to enjoy indiscriminately (see also: all music). There are the problems as outlined above, but the key is that soulless derivative repetitive smirking fashioned based music is not *necessarily* a universal diss. I mean, that shit can be executed well, yeah?

At the moment I'm really enjoying DJ Hell's "Fuse Presents Hell" mix cd from 2000, which is like a greatly expanded set of source material for what has become a very precisely located sound in the hands of the International Deejay Gigolos roster. So you get "I Feel Love" and Maurizio and Sparks, Frankie Goes To Hollywood's "Two Tribes" and sweet vocal house and Phuture's (amazing) "Rise From Your Grave". Trying to work out what the common link is - apart from quality - and it occurred to me that Hell is a cocaine producer. It's all treble sounds and big personalities. (I might pillage this for the blog so maybe expect an expanded version). And I really think that IDG are trying to engage with that... a certain experience of dancing as a culture that was *all about* elitism and snootiness and music as fashion versus music as music (of course "Silver Screen (Shower Scene)" has been picked up for a Levi's commercial. That means it's doing its job). They're obviously not serious or unselfconscious about it but I don't think their approach is ironic, or at least not just ironic.

Their relationship to the source material is perhaps more like drill & bass's relationship to jungle. A parasitic use of the source material that attempts to "take it further" to the point of ridiculousness; a collective hallucination of what the music *should* have been (notice how really the *only* eighties track all this stuff unequivocally takes its cues from is Visage's "Fade To Gray"). Which doesn't make it better, but it gives it enough stylistic breathing space that I want to give it a chance.

Personally I'm looking forward to Felix Da Housecat's remix of Brandy's "What About Us" (forthcoming, apparently) - not only because stylistically they'll fit hand in glove, but because it's the union of the two most empty, vapid pop styles on the planet. Yay!

it's all about the dancefloor. personally i don't really partake of listening to this stuff at home but in a club...!!! after 15 years of mostly faceless house music, it's refreshing to have some dance music with a bit of personality, attitude and bundles of energy. obviously as with any genre, the best stuff is in danger of getting smothered by hordes of wannabes / bandwagon jumpers and indeed gigolo is in danger of kicking the arse out of it by releasing too many mediocre records.

however, i think the cream of the crop is truly invigorating. artists such as adult obviously have a deep love of 80's electronics and as more producers who grew up in that era start producing, it is inevitable that they are going to revisit their early influences. thankfully they aren't shamelessly rehashing the past but using it as a template and enhancing it with more up to date production techniques. i agree that some of it veers towards bad trance but my main gripe is in the rhythm dept. artists such as throbbing gristle had primitive beats as they were limited by the machines of the day. i'd like to hear the sounds in these records fused with slightly more innovative rhythms.

ha, as i type this there is a tv advert playing for 'electric' - a comp of new wave electropop from the 80's and earlier one was on for soft cells greatest hits. truly mainstream.

Your experience in the club wasn't trance, it was badly dull same-y prog house. I've said it before and I'll say it again - this stuff doesn't HAVE to be that bad, but when you get a bunch of snarky DJs who think they are more "underground" for playing more boring crap that all sounds the same, that's the kind of night you have.

All the recent tunes about the posh life, decadence, etc -- especially "Silver Screen" -- remind me of A Number of Names' "Sharevari."

I'm assuming you consider this A Good Thing, Andy? (I do.) While I do enjoy the sound of a lot of this stuff, and I can admire the craftsmanship involved, a lot of what I like about electro-pop and synth-pop is, well, the POP - the toweringly fantastic songs and hooks. The sounds themselves are cool for a while, but they're not quite enough for me to stay interested for very long.

I'd just like to add that this beef is based pretty much on hearing only Miss Kittin stuff - I'm unfamiliar with pretty much everything else that's been mentioned on the thread.

Miss Kittin on record is classic, dance music live = shit. It's really that easy. Now on to the interesting discussion: Tim's Hell-as- cocaine producer. Totally on the money. It's even spelled out on American Gigolo with Vitalic's storming 'You prefer cocaine' which has this neat rush-like quality with that metallic/machine supra-human feel to it.

Btw Tim: is 'Fuse presents Hell' a mix-cd? I need it. :)

Yeah Miss Kittin is fun, but I'm always surprised at how she's used as a standard-bearer for this stuff or, even more inappropriately, for the return of personalities-in-pop generally. She's so obviously a gimmick.

(plus what would be the point of her performing live? Couldn't they just use a mannequin and play her pre-recorded vocals through the speakers for the same effect?)

Yeah Omar, 'Fuse Presents Hell' is a mix-cd and it's great. And for people like Clarke who want proper pop songs, maybe try Luke Slater's new cd 'Alright On Top', which basically bolsters huge Numanesque synth basslines, tough 4/4 beats and the occasional quasi-industrial breakbeat onto gloomy New Order-ish pop songs written and sung by Ricky Barrow. It's not quite as good as Barrow's best stuff with The Aloof ('Sinking' - a much more intriguing mixture of post-punk pop, dub and techno) but it's a lot of fun.

What about Miss Kittin as opposed to Green Velvet? Her french accent and always-deadpan vocals make her an easy target, but otherwise, her role in the mix is not unlike Velvet's monologues. Of course, aside from saying things like "suck my dick, kiss my ass" she's more predictable that Green Velvet's odd narratives, but I've never found him gimmicky so I'm still on the fence about Kittin. Maybe it'd help if she weren't becoming a subgenre staple, as she is.....

(gimmick not meant as a put-down) Maybe the difference though between Kittin and Velvet is that Velvet really *makes* his songs, whereas Kittin is pretty much a Nico figure floating on top. For this reason I'd class Peaches (who dominates her stuff) with Velvet rather than with Miss Kittin.

But I agree Green Velvet is as much an integral part of this as anyone else; being a bit quick off the starting blocks should not be a barrier to inclusion.

I might be way off the track, having not really much of this 'electroclash' (avoided like the plague might be more accurate).

But.... how different is it to the kind of electro that people like Anthony Rother, Le Car and Ectomorph were producing throughout the late 90s? Because for a while it seemed like that stuff had the potential to really take off (although as a dance genre scene, and without the kind of style media attention Miss Kittin gets).

But the problem was always once you heard the stuff in a club - a dj playing electro is fantastically fun, interesting and danceable for 2 hours. But not for 4, and definitely not for 6. I don't think it has anything to do with 'trendy hijackers' or 'irony' but much more to do with the fact that the stylistic boundaries of electro are so rigid and fossilised that it is simply impossible to keep it interesting for long periods of time. In order to qualify as electro music has to use sharp, exaggerated breakbeats without a heavy kick and have a cold sci-fi feel - how much room for manoeuvre is there? It's just about the only style I can think of that prescribes both mood and structure, which is a recipe for tedium. All the most interesting genre music prescribes either one or the other of mood and structure, allowing more variety.

The thing that I find a bit strange is that Miss Kittin has been around for quite a while (isn't 'Frank Sinatra' from 1997 for christsakes?), so fashionable my arse.

Maybe the difference though between Kittin and Velvet is that Velvet really *makes* his songs

Shocking Tim, this would be the least interesting aspect of comparing the two ("she doens't write her own songs youknow" ;)) Now Peaches vs Miss Kittin vs Green Velvet as a difference of American vs European vs Alien view on sex in electronica, that's another story.

Jacob, I think you are right on about the style limitations of the genre. I also think part of the problem is that this list, and most of the people that are buying into these records do not actually know about electronic music. I am not trying to be haughty or condesending, it is just that electronic music is an ultra-specialist genre and finding quality can be a full time job.

Tracer, the reason you think this stuff is shite is because it is shite. This is what happens to electronic music when it stops being weirdo fringe music, and starts being cool. Dj Hell and IGD are trying to make this stuff cool and market it to hipsters. Those hipsters are going to make electro as boring and souless as the sweater-wearing post-rock ship they just sunk.

Electronic music is supposed to be weird and ignorable, that is why it is so great. You can do anything you want because nobody is watching. When you try and take ideas that come from this underground and try to market them as the next trend, it will always fail. It simply cannot translate. All these trendy electroclash groups will fade because they are trying to take real electro and bastardize it with all the boring rockist conventions that are necessary to make this stuff accessable and populist.

If you want to hear hot electro, buy Viewlexx records, Ersatz Audio, Interdimesional Transmissions, Direct Beat, and anything Drexciya related. If you see a record that has been licensed by Emporer Norton, run like hell. I still cannot figure out what all these Felix Da Housecat people are on about. It is like saying that Stone Temple Pilots were the best Seattle band.

I guess I don't really insist on the pop being there, but a lot of this stuff just doesn't cut it for me musically the way Drexciya does, for example. Granted, I've only heard 'The Quest', but it kills me - walking around late at night with "Wave Jumper" in my headphones = fucking classic. It's tough and alive in a way I feel like a lot of this Emperor Norton stuff isn't. That stuff often comes across as vapid, self-satisfied, over-signifying, just sort of there.

"Shocking Tim, this would be the least interesting aspect of comparing the two ("she doens't write her own songs youknow" ;)) Now Peaches vs Miss Kittin vs Green Velvet as a difference of American vs European vs Alien view on sex in electronica, that's another story."

Omar, you *know* I don't give two, um, figs about who writes the songs. I mean that Green Velvet dominates his work to an extent that it's difficult to imagine the music and the vocals separate. In comparison Kittin's whole MO makes her seem like an elaborate foil for the discretely created music. It's irrelevant whether she writes the lyrics, music, both or neither - all I mean is that her performance is less integral than Velvet's.

Your question is the more interesting one, though.

In comparison Kittin's whole MO makes her seem like an elaborate foil for the discretely created music.

Tim, would you say the same thing about, say, Dana Siciliano and Matthew Herbert? Her soulfulness and jazziness are a foil for Herbert's super-complex bed of glitchy, splurty house? I think her voice and style is much more integrated into Herbert's songs, but maybe the comparison holds up at least to some extent.

I also think part of the problem is that this list, and most of the people that are buying into these records do not actually know about electronic music

yawn. Jeez I once thought Reynolds was a bit over the top when he called Detroit pietists fascists but now I'm not so sure with all this talk of cultural purity, realness and ignorant masses. Talk about nazi logic.

and anything Drexciya related.

you mean those fashionable Japanese Telecom and Dopplereffekt records released on IDG? Or do those records lose their worth once they're not released in the People's Republic of Detroit?

Tim, I was pulling your leg a bit. I wonder though why Miss Kittin is singled out as a target by the electro boys. Is this some subconscious ethos that has been sublimated by listening to Kraftwerk's 'The Model'? "Nein, thees iz out ov zee question. Zee ladies will not touch zee keyboards."

To repeat: I really like Miss Kittin. I really do. All I'm saying is that I'm confused by attempts to make her the litmus test for the movement as a whole when she sounds so tangential (in a good sense) on her own records.

Clarke - the Herbert comparison is interesting. I'm not really sure actually... it's a good question though as I've been listening to Herbert's new cd of remixes Secondhand Sounds and allowing himself to work with pre-recorded vocals - cutting them up, looping them, doing typical remixer stuff - sounds almost liberating in the context of the (usually) straight vocal peformances on his albums. I guess maybe Herbert's music and Dano's vocals are much more interdependent. Whereas you could imagine Miss Kittin and The Hacker recording in separate countries and swapping tapes. There's nothing to say that their tracks *aren't* already bootlegs, if you know what I mean.

WE NEED ELECTRO + MARACAS in order to have SEX

The Royksopp What Does It Feel Like remix is really fantastic. It turns the whole song upside down. They change it from a limousine driving champagne drinking throwaway song off Kittenz and Thee Glitz to this dark drawn out electro track. And then their strings and xylophone make it seem like one of those cheesy movie scenes where some painted trashy model is looking in her mirror smoking a cigarette. You can see the streaked mascara for gods' sake. It's really something.

Nazi Logic, Omar? That is a bit over the top isn't it?

Here is something from the 313 list that breaks down exactly what I was trying to say. Please let me know if this this makes any sense to you, or if it makes you feel the need to call more names.

(snip) This entire 'electroclash' revival seems like an older person's version of being a raver. Though the electroclash style doesn't require the baggy pants and glowsticks, the electro version does require a wardrobe, haircut and certain attitude. It doesn't surprise me that this is booming in NYC. A city that is a revolving door for fads,fashions and anything seeming European.

I'll never find the 'look' or the superficial things that go with this music sexy. Sue me for not liking mohawks or a good line o coke. I guess my discussion is, why does an entire 'look' have to be tied in with this music? In most of the press coverage I've seen of this music, the clothes and seemingly snotty social circles ala Less Than Zero etc., are covered right along with it.

Underneath, is the music that boring that it needs a pretty wrapper or is it just finally a music style combining the art/fashion world that has run parellel with music for so long?

I always liked Adult. but IMHO many of the other acts at the Electroclash party stunk. I much prefer the 'electro' of Clear than women who need show me their boobs and be in mini-skirts while they sing a cover of 80's ballads (yes, W.I.T.). They're like an electronic Brittany Spears trio. If Adult. and such were the bricklayers of this movement (which shouldn't even be put near the world 'electro' IMHO) it seems like many others are going in a completely different direction talent wise (like W.I.T.-who also completely demise what women have gone through to get respect in the music industry btw). Or perhaps I'm just taking it all too seriously.

/rant ended. diana

dianalynn80@yahoo.com

(Snip)

mt

Yeah over-the-top sometimes hammers the message home. ;) No hard feelings I hope, i just don't like that sort endless defensive rhetoric which frankly doesn't do Detroit any good at all.

The thing is (on that 313 quote) who cares about how other people consume music? I give a shit about some assholes in New York and what they think electro is about. Jesus, clubs have been overflowing with people like that for ages, when did Diana wake up?

This thing about electro requiring a wardrobe is bollocks too (probalby a joke by DJ Hell taken way too serious by some folks). You'll find a certain crowd of so-called fashionable people in every city trying to hijack certain forms of dance music and then protect their little new clique with this wardrobe ethic and door policies. Well let them have their little club, that whole mechanism of club elitism is worthless, a pathetic social game that should have stayed in the 80s.

[can't post long messages for some reason, on to part II]

[continued]

I distrust all attempts to call this music anything else then electro, again typical boring social behaviour: "your music is not real electro", "our music is something new not the boring old electro", etc.etc. But as electro it must have a will to diversify, get infected and be changed. I find purity very boring (A.Rother is a good example btw with his carbon-copies of Kraftwerk).

As for European. That's interesting. Do these people really have an obsession with anything European? It does fit, since let's face it electro is European folk music (UR admitted as much with 'Afrogermanic', Felix da Housecat instinctively knows this), has been that way for more than 20 years.

So Michael a humble retort without any name-calling. Interested to know what you think.

At the risk of just flat out repeating Omar's comments...

1) the moment people start complaining that a certain music betrays the "true spirit" of its (actual or alleged) ancestry, I become interested. The music isn't necessarily better, but it's usually more interesting than any equivalent conservation/ preservation projects occurring in opposition. (interestingly though I don't hear any real opposition between, say, Adult and Jake Mandell on one hand and IDG on the other... I can very well imagine Ersatz Audio getting the whippin' that IDG gets if it had a similar-sized profile).

2) taking the uglinesses of a culture or scene surrounding a musical style into account when assessing that music is a legitimate method, but applying it as a matter of course potentially isolates the listener from some great music (eg. uk garage). I don't need to come to grips with the reality of the cocaine'n'fashion culture to enjoy IDG and associated artists; I can quite easily imagine its shallowness, and I can derive a perverse enjoyment from that shallowness in my head that would be impossible to do in real life.

And anyway, the idea that the majority of IDG's audience genuinely identify with that culture is as likely as the idea that Peaches' audience is primarily made up of guys who want to have sex with her.

Yes I'd never realised what a hipster I was........

Totally oblivious to this "scene" until now, really.

Christ, what is music without cocaine and fashion anyway?

What is music without cocaine and fashion?

Answer: Elvendrums

Heh

Let's not forgot that the first Detroit techno record was entitled Charivari and inspired by Italian disco. Or that Derrick May and co got their start DJing Detroit yuppie parties with dress codes.

Let's also not forget that Felix Da Housekatt has been making house music for God, must be 15 years now. He is Mr. Authentic. I know Chicago is outside the 313 area code, but really... Comparing him to the Stone Temple Pilots is way off-base.

Mind you, I don't like much of this nu-electro shit either.

I first heard miss kittin when at the punter listening tables in Temple Records, on a Ladomat comp... "1 2 3 4" with Golden Boy is like perfect pop, jaded and optimistic, hard and sparkly, "live" and totally canned all at once... and it really seemed like she was in on her own joke... "do you like girls? / you have to know about fashion too / And that's the way it is" -- into fashion but annoyed by it; loving the energy but wary of the scene -- i don't detect these start- stops in her anymore, hesitancies and conflicts which drew me to her in the first place. most of it is the music. 1 2 3 4 is so joyous and desperate, the bassline churning up and around the most expertly amateur plinky arpeggios. maybe i'm foolish for expecting this again, i don't know. (btw i LOVE the wardrobe req's -- it's FUN! most dance clubs etc have unspoken dress codes that are boooring, and actually the show i saw at centro fly was very within the bridge-and-tunnel norm of shiny shirts with top button down on the men and low-rider jeans for the ladies; it's not a patch on what people wear to Motherfucker or Kitch-Inn or even Tiswas at Don Hill's which is VERY let-it-all-hang-out-but-impress-me-too, kind of Duran Duran vs. Dexy's Midnight Runners (yes i know you're scared off now that's the POINT))

I suppose it all depends on where you shop/shopped and what you read/read. Will it be some nice shoes from Ciabittino, or will it be crusty jackboots from the Salvation Army? Do you read L'uomo Vogue? Or do you read Flesh World?

And er, as geographically biased as I'd like to think I am not, I have trouble believing that Ersatz would release something as horrid as that Crossover record.

I never been to America - but I would much rather spend a week in Detroit with a music soundtrack of Carl Craig and Adult, than being stuck in the Southern States/ Bible Belt terriority where everyone worships Creed, listens to country & western and dodgy AOR/ Classic Rock is the norm.

Aside from all the people who listen to hip-hop, of course. Dirty South!

Can you imagine wanting to have sex with Peaches?

Yes. She's quite adorable in a non-predictable way (at least I like the photo on the kitty-yo website).