Techno/House Bobbins 2008

blasphemy! abomination!
seriously,though, nice move.

yeah! no more minimal house bobbins thread!

as long as they keep bobbin'

NOT '08 YET HERETICS!

IF ANYONE MENTIONS IDM ON HERE I'M GOING TO GET BUTTHURT.

I've actually been digging out a bunch of old stuff that might once have been called IDM -- Bola, Arovane, Luke Slater's 7th Plain... it's refreshing. (And some of it, shockingly dated.)

Loscil is very under rated these days. He wrote a string of solid ambient/idm records that don't get mentioned too much around these parts.

I still don't know about the Arovane tho. I still have his first few 12's on DIN and I break them out every so often but I am not so into them. His stuff was cool because it was biting Autechre and electro but he hadn't quite gone up his own ass like Autechre had by that point. The only problem is that this stuff seems a little twee and light weight compared to a lot of actual electro that is working the same area. Scapen Te from Atol Scrap was one of my favorite things he did.

That being said, I wish I still had a lot of that stuff to look back at. I don't think I would find a lot of interesting stuff. The whole genre was marred by a lack of strong rhythm. I would have liked for some unintelligent dance to take some of those sonic and really put them to work. I suppose microhouse tried to do that, but it failed for the same reasons that IDM did.

I have also looked back at some of Marc Leclair's work this year. I did not give him enough attention when he was having his flush of fame. I have been listening to Musique pour 3 Femmes Enceintes quite a bit lately.

new Sascha Funke album is odd...

this is a very strange way to get this thread started, but fuck it -- one of the reasons i've gone back to some of this stuff is i wondered (from a producer's point of view) what avenues might have been left for dead ends that might actually offer ways to reinvigorate mxnxmxl. listening to bola's "soup" (1998), i was kind of shocked at how rhythmically weak it was -- sure, it drew from electro, but not in any terribly convincing way. mainly it's an exercise in synthy self-indulgence, which is great or dismal depending on your tolerance for that kind of thing. much of the album i found really dated, but there are a few lovely tracks on there.

arovane i think might be a little more interesting or at least relevant to this thread given his rooting in dub-techno; yeah, he had the autechre "incunabula" thing down but he also has one foot in the basic channel/pole camp. need to find the rest of my DIN 12"s -- i mean come on, they had pole, dynamo (aka torsten profrock, aka various artists, aka t++) so there's gotta be some interesting stuff in there. now if only i knew which box of vinyl it was in...

I listened to Tides by Arovane again a few weeks ago. It fails to strike me as strong as it did when I first heard it (it struck me quite a bit). I always thought it was more straight to the point than Autechre ever were, although his earlier stuff I think was quite more IDM-ish, on par with early Ae.

Re Sascha Funke: I'm in the midst of trying to decide whether "mango" (the track) is either really good or just largely ignorable. That deep bass though!

Seeing how the 2007 thread was ended right after my post (6 days early at that) I might as well ask again. Can anyone at all ID this clip, which you can stream here?

I was also hoping someone would have posted an image at the top of this thread, after spending all of 06 looking at that Narod Niki picture, and all of this year at that Paul McCartney one. But alas, too late now.

every beat on "soup" is like "doonk doonk CLANK doonk doonk CLANK", my first hip-hop breakbeat style. it was weird that bola took off in such a big way, when just about every other artist on 0161 or the skampler had much more interesting things going on. maybe he was the only one strong enough to develop albums which *hadn't* already broke?

anyway i don't think anyone's going to get a whole lot of mileage by going down that road. a lot of it *is* just exploring analog synth noises, which just about everyone in the cosmic disco crew has been doing for a few years now.

forget arovane, what about DiN "themselves"? aufenthalt and all that.

techno and house, people! not IDM!

what's the diff

i don't wanna go down *that* road precisely but say, luke slater's 7th plain, black dog/balil.... that sun electric "lost & found" is partially responsible for sending me back to a moment where the idea of genre seemed less calcified, and that's what i'd like to look into. hell, i may not find anything terribly worth preserving, but it's better than listening to yet another minus ripoff, say.

This reminds me of a semi-embarrasing experience trying to sell off my copy of Gnase by Bola this summer. While I tend to be somewhat resentful of a lot of the cynicism towards IDM, sometimes theres stuff that truly stops 'making sense' when you stop being 17.

To diverge from the IDM of this thread though - with thanks very much to the lovely House is a Feeling top 30, not only has Petre Inspirescu possibly clicked for me via the absolutely amazing Le Creme Bonjour (Well, his other stuff isn't sounding much better to me, although I heard Sadakt out, and it was quite grand, this track, though, is bonkers!) the introduction to the label Cecile has proved most valuable. After being really, really impressed by Entrada del Sol by Markus Fix, and enjoying other stuff I've since heard off that ep of his, as well as then hearing bits and pieces of tracks by Sis, which so far sound just astounding, my interest has been more than peaked, really. On a arguably not dissimal note, Etudes Elctroniques by Luciano is sounding Great. God, the whole Cadenza sounds is having a big, kind of belated growth on me.

on the subject of arovane, the 'atol scrap' lp is great. always enjoyable when i sporadically come back to it.

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/410GR0P28YL._AA240_.jpg

that comp is all about "Rushed" vs "Polynomial-C"

and "trak" and "at les" !!

the luke slater track on this is some pretty fine aquatic techno.

can you all ID this track? i found a pack of whitelabels with no info, but the song sounds familiar. i've definitely heard it before.

here is a sample: http://www.sendspace.com/file/h0ve23

that track is DJ DOZIA BLAKE - POP KULTURE #1 on josh wink's OVUM RECORDINGS

you probably heard it on wink's own "profound sounds vol 1", still one of the greatest dub-techno mixes ever

thank you!

although i don't think i've ever heard that mix

okay, so the b-side is some other track not on the original dozia release! here is a sample: http://www.sendspace.com/file/fppy7t

show me your mathemagic, V!

nvm, it's this: http://www.discogs.com/release/515159

I'm so confused about what happened to techno music over the last couple years. Even things that aren't nominally minimal sound minimal to me; sedated.

Is this really representative of what's popular now:
http://www.residentadvisor.net/feature-read.aspx?id=868

I must be getting old because it all sounds the same to me.

This is all coming from the position of being an ignorant outsider to all this, okay, but it seems like basically there's either Villalobos and a whole bunch of shit that sounds exactly like him, or else fucking blog house, and everything else is in subgenre ghettos.

If you want someone to blame it'd probably be Zip and Baby Ford, they introduced a lot of the minimalism which has slowly seeped into everything.

For good or bad thats largely up to your tastes.

But please tell me you can tell between T2 and .. I don't know Radioslave?

And if it sounds sedated, blame Ketamine.

It was literally sedated.

no ketamine, just plain old weed.

Is this really representative of what's popular now

yes, pretty much. there arent enough israeli trancers and bodzin wannabes in that list to be representative of the club situation outside of berlin, though.

(ie the list isnt quite väth enough.)

People still make actual techno techno. Not that I could tell you anything about it.

Hasn't Resident Advisor branded it's own sound a bit?

some of the stuff on that list wouldn't sell at all in most US shops.

that RA list is really varied and quite good. some of the stuff on there is not even remotely like villalobos.

the minimal = ketamine meme needs to die.

From the RA list, "'We Are Your Friends' had its doubters"

LOL. Who?

One more thing, T2’s ‘Heartbroken’ pisses me off. Its too seeped in irony, even as a Super Eurobeat fan I find this to be unlistenable.

I'd bet you all the money in my bank account that T2 and the girl singing on it were not being even remotely ironic and that I and thousands of others enjoy it completely unironically.

But I see you're a lame attempt at a troll now that I think for a second, sorry, jog on.

Yeah, the T2 one sounds different, of course. But there're strong similarities in style between like 23 of the 30 tracks on that list, isn't there? I know this is partially due to the dead ears of the outsider/non-fan, like how all music made after 1950 sounds the same to your grandparents.

not particular similarities...though since that poll is a huge amalgam of different votes the tracks that are high (and the one that tops it) are the ones that feature in every contributor's original chart rather than one everybody agreed was the best of the year.

so you can't really take such a poll to task in my opinion, it's just a spread of votes, not a decision.

The RA list is slightly better than all of the "Best of 2007" charts on Beatport.

I didn't realize, until now, that you can buy someone's entire chart off beatport.

Kinda cool that Kabale Und Liebe & Daniel Sanchez's "Mumbling Yeah" won RA's poll, although it's only 'cause it won that I worked out what it is! However I heard this track so much last year and loved it every time, it's such a great/involving/interesting "tracky" track isn't it, like Henrik Schwarz meets Matt John meet Dennis Ferrer meets Fuckpony - the ultimate deep house not deep house track.

Also, I'm late to the party but Ronan is right about Petre Inspirescu's "Sakadat" being amazing.

Also loving Prosumer & Murat Tepeli's “What Makes You Go For It?" - which sounds like a Martin Gore-sung Depeche Mode track circa Black Celebration. Love it when it starts going laser-jet crazy at the end. Can't wait to hear the whole album.

Jichael Mackson's "Piepe" is even better than "The Grass Is Always Greener" and less gimmicky as well. I've only heard a sample of the A side but I'm more taken with the B anyway.

Loving, loving, LOVING the "Scenario" 2x12" from Dettmann & Klock. Also came upon the "Molecule" collection of Monobox (Robert Hood) stuff which is absolutely solid.

Finally heard the (completely unrelated) International Pony album which has some pretty great moments and a handful of filler. I can see what it made it on to Phil's Pitchfork albums list.

Also Looking forward to the Prosumer-Tepali album - not so sure about difference between the vinyl and CD version - odds are will prefer the vinyl version - but then I'll have to live with a larger version of the dubious album cover.

http://www.residentadvisor.net/news.aspx?id=8972

Actually, they've since changed the album art. Now it's mostly just black with the same "Serenity" scrawled on it. I hope to talk to them sometime this month and I'll most certainly be asking about that.

The difference is that the CD version has more song-oriented versions of the tracks, whereas the vinyl versions are mostly dubs that are longer and more tracky. After a couple spins I prefer the CD for home listening.

the beardo/bobbins overlap is hard to figure

how's the rest of the raiders of the lost arp album??

that's beardoey? That's a legitimate question because I have no idea what beardo is. Sounds like old Marco Passarani shit or something.

BEARDO DISCO (finally fixed for vahid) - not idjuts / lindstrom - harvey, rub'n'tug, map of africa

alternate universe bobbins thread

i thought the album sounded too much like marco passarani, too hectic. but then so does the track you linked to, so you should probably check it out.

xxpost ha!

marco passarani is in their myspace top 4

and they are on his label

the first album didnt sound a lot like passarani though.

eh i dunno a few of these songs arent clicking but its hard to tell w/ samples -- i dig 'crashing' because of how i heard it coming into r-theme on dj dex's mix for beats in space about a year ago

so in the wake of all the buzz surrounding arpiar it seems boola is the really really promising romanian producer? i've loved absolutely everything i've heard from him so far, the highlight being his recent ep on lomidhigh organic. he has a really distinctive approach to rhythm, and a great breadth of style. you get giddy, sample heavy "trompeta" style populist hits, funky, precise minimal tools, and loose, endlessly evolving bumpy house loops; most importantly he seems really good at keeping the weirdness in line with the dancefloor. he's like if luciano took some cues from his own record box and decided to make some house tracks again.

I really like that lomidhigh organic label, shame it's all vinyl only and limited etc.

it's been very consistent so far. think they limit releases to just 200 copies which is annoying

yeah still can never understand this

on the other hand, i do admire such staunch defense of the sacred art form

partly 'cause most releases, even from "buzz" labels, are selling mere low hundreds these days. pressing more than 200 is a good way to lose money.

going back to the synth discussion up thread a polish company called D16 have done completely perfect 303/909/808 emulations which you should check out http://www.d16.pl/

that makes alot of sense, though not offering digital releases would suggest it's about more than just sales.

anyway, the newest boola release, due in january, sounds superb. one track with a looped guitar reminds me a little of thomas bangalter on the spinal scratch eps

xp

is it really that bad Phil? only 200 copies? ouch. it seems like things actually get more expensive on a per-record basis at under 1000.

sorry i missed your reply in regard to music making. i don't know fm8 well enough to help you out. i use the fm synth in logic for fm as well as my trusty olde dx100, whcih i hate to program, but which has some of the most marvelous organ patches for sounding like black box on the cheap (at least it was a cheap synth when i bought it!). ES2 in logic also has come fm capabilities.

as for hardware, i think access stuff is not bad at all but somewhat overrated. i use my roommates virus every so often and i find that by the time i come up with a good sound, the inspiration is lost.

i too drool over the cwejman, and the macbeth modular, but i doubt i will own them anytime soon (especially if i can only hope to sell 200 records if i even make something good enough to release!).

for more evolving sounds, i am looking into cheapie digital synths. the roland D50 and JD800, Korg Wavestations, and the Yamaha TG33 (you can find for $125) all make amazing sounds. all except for the jd800 are hard to program but promise sounds that have not been heard yet. the jd800 is especially warm for a digital, and will be my first purchase once i am employed again.

maybe that sprinkles track uses prepared piano hence the sonic youth similarity. she jammed a screwdriver into the strings.

I bought myself that Louis Guillaume Soulpoint doublepack for Christmas.
Also got: Johannes Volk --"Internal Structure"
Kassem Mosse --"Aqueous Haze"
Name and Relucto--"Spawn of Spoon EP", the samples of this one sounded good but the whole thing is a bit left-field and seems very British and tripped out. Worth a try I suppose.

so if a buzzy vinyl release is selling around 200 copies what are the figures for digital sales? these days i usually only buy vinyl if its a must-have (collector/rare or artwork-fetishist or high-quality pressing mode) because vinyl simply takes up too much space and now that you can buy lossless formats it is just too easy to get high-quality music.

reviewed that new moodymann here if anyone else has thoughts

so if a buzzy vinyl release is selling around 200 copies what are the figures for digital sales?

Pressing 200 does not equal only selling 200. That record could probably sell more if they actually pressed more copies. That is an old Detroit trick. Back in the day people would press 500 copies and only give the distributor 300 copies. It made people snap up the release because it was exclusive and allowed the producer to let the remaining 200 trickle out at ebay prices. The days of 2,000 pressings are over but people are still selling vinyl. A friend of mine put out a record on a small bedroom label on a marginal distributor and sold 300 with no press or promotion.

From what I've read on the mnml board it all depends on how a release charts in it's first week. If a release gets charted by a few big names you are looking at maybe 500-600 downloads in a week and then it trails off immediately. If you are on a small label then you might be looking at 50 downloads. It all depends on the labels profile and who supports it. The problem with digital distro is that finding good music is like looking for a golf ball in an oncoming tsunami of weekly bullshit. Beatport has made it worse because labels have to do 300 dollars a quarter in order to maintain their account. The more shit they can put out the better their numbers are for the quarter. The other odd thing is that back catalog doesn't seem to sell, if music is older than a week it just doesn't sell anymore.

I don't particularly care for beatport but they are the largest. Their whole business model is greasy as fuck. A small label cannot sign with them directly so you have to go to an aggregator in order to get into the marketplace. What that means is that beatport is taking 40% from the jump, then that money hits the aggregator and they take 20-30%, then the remaining money hits the label and they take half, and then the artist gets 15-20% of the actual sale. The producer sees about 30 cents of the 2.50$ download. It is like the major label system all over again. You can make money as an artist and label but you are going to get fucked in the process.

The reason the Detroit house cats are not jumping on digital is because vinyl is still way more profitable if your music is good. You make way more money selling a 1000 records than you do selling a 1000 downloads. Especially if you can sell the last few hundred directly to your fans at retail prices. The only catch is that you have to have a vinyl buying audience and you actually have to make great records. Some of those guys have both so it doesn't make any sense to hand over 70% of the money to 3rd parties.

For smaller labels you usually do a mix of vinyl an digital. You sell 300 records, barely break even after pressing and shipping costs and then clear a few hundred on the download if it gets support from bigger DJ's.

The producer sees about 30 cents of the 2.50$ download.

That should read 50 cents but you get the general idea.

Speaking of DJ Sprinkles, he grouses about the same issue here:
http://www.comatonse.com/writings/utopiaofsound.html

it all reminds me a bit of avant jazz. i love that music but some of those guys seem like they are or were releasing like 5 albums a year. because each one sells so marginally, there is no compelling reason to only release the absolute material. David S. Ware knows that there are a few thousand people who are going to buy anything he puts out, so why bother putting out only one album and trying to promote it to an indifferent world, when you can put out 5 and have your fanatics buy them all up.

absolute best material

That was a really informative post, and to be honest I'm surprised you don't see, or last not as of yet, much talk about beatport-hegemony in the digital market. The Wal Mart of dance music mp3's, perhaps.
And I'm glad I've finally seen someone put the bass and superstructure joke to good use.

That was a really informative post, and to be honest I'm surprised you don't see, or last not as of yet, much talk about beatport-hegemony in the digital market. The Wal Mart of dance music mp3's, perhaps.

You see it, but it is only just starting. They really fucked up big time with the way they handled their affiliate program. Their were people who were driving sales on beatport and were using that as their business model. Once Beatport got to a certain level they just cut off the whole program and never even bothered to notify the affiliates. I think somebody on here blogged about it but I don't know who. If that person wants to explain in more detail they should because I am sure they know more than I do.

People in the business are muttering, not publicly of course, but nobody wants to hand over 70% of the gross for basically server space, some bandwidth and pay pal. I've been around long enough to see Watts, Pinnacle, Syntax, EFA, Neuton and a bunch of others bite the dust. If I have learned one thing in the last 15 years it is the dance music is fucking volatile and nobody is untouchable.

Nobody wants to spend hours digging through shitty lo-res audio for 2 good tracks lost in a sea of dross. Beatport has a decent interface but crappy audio and a complete lack of quality control.

The place that I like is http://www.dancetracksdigital.com/

I go to the front page and the first thing I see is Deep Space by Model 500 and that new Ron Trent joint on Future Vision. I don't like everything they have but I also don't feel frustrated and annoyed which is how I feel when I use Beatport. Everything is a 1.49 rather than 2.49 for the same file as beatport. My only complaint is that they are light on wave files, it seems like just about everything is 320kbs. I would pay a premium just to have the option. I still cant get my head around buying mp3's, it seems as absurd as buying movies on VHS. I still DJ 100% vinyl but if I were to give up on vinyl I would probably use this shop.

Do any of you guys DJ in public with downloads and is there a quality difference between 320kbs or the same track as a .wav?

The other odd thing is that back catalog doesn't seem to sell, if music is older than a week it just doesn't sell anymore.

What's your citation for this? I just checked Beatport and practically every single one of the top ten tracks is over a week old, 3-4 weeks old mostly.

Plus I know from experience that stuff often bumps into the high parts of the chart quite late.

The reason the Detroit house cats are not jumping on digital is because vinyl is still way more profitable if your music is good. You make way more money selling a 1000 records than you do selling a 1000 downloads. Especially if you can sell the last few hundred directly to your fans at retail prices. The only catch is that you have to have a vinyl buying audience and you actually have to make great records. Some of those guys have both so it doesn't make any sense to hand over 70% of the money to 3rd parties.

This is pretty loaded. Can you tell us what "have to make great records even mean". Plus the Detroit house guys are selling digital, Omar S, Patrice Scott etc, more and more are selling both vinyl and digital now.

In any case do you really think a label going digital damages its vinyl sales? This has yet to be proven really. I think those Detroit labels could sell 1000 vinyls and 1000 digital because they're only beginning to realise the huge audiences they could have outside of the vinyl market.

the problem with digital distro is that finding good music is like looking for a golf ball in an oncoming tsunami of weekly bullshit.

I'm sorry too but I also disagree with this.

Firstly this is just as much a problem with centralised record stores like Juno, where the principal is exactly the same. And secondly anyone who is serious about DJing can pick and choose what to listen to, and it's their duty to inform themselves enough to do so. There are more records but there are also far more filters and far more info sources.

I don't believe Beatport is perfect but I also don't believe it has too much stock, or that such a state of affairs is possible. There's no excuse for not informing yourself to the point where you don't have to click on tons of records you end up thinking are utter crap.

What's your citation for this? I just checked Beatport and practically every single one of the top ten tracks is over a week old, 3-4 weeks old mostly.

My citation is the label owners over on the mnml board. Beatport is their bread and butter so I take their word for it. From what they say their stuff sells for a week and then drops off.

This is pretty loaded. Can you tell us what "have to make great records even mean". Plus the Detroit house guys are selling digital, Omar S, Patrice Scott etc, more and more are selling both vinyl and digital now.

Funny, I couldn't find any Sound Signature or Moodymann records on Beatport. I could find stuff licensed from 3rd party labels but nothing directly from those labels.

This is pretty loaded. Can you tell us what "have to make great records even mean". Plus the Detroit house guys are selling digital, Omar S, Patrice Scott etc, more and more are selling both vinyl and digital now.

This totally sounds like Ronan hiding behind a pseudonym. Take everything posted on that blog that you are too depressed to write and then exchange it for the non-retarded version of dance music.

In any case do you really think a label going digital damages its vinyl sales? This has yet to be proven really. I think those Detroit labels could sell 1000 vinyls and 1000 digital because they're only beginning to realise the huge audiences they could have outside of the vinyl market.

I don't think I ever said that selling digitally lowers vinyl sales. I re-read my post it seems to read like I said that they are successful enough to not HAVE to hand over 70% of the gross to a 3rd party. If I am making a full time living on vinyl why would I complicate my life for table scraps? They don't NEED Beatport so they don't bother.

Firstly this is just as much a problem with centralised record stores like Juno, where the principal is exactly the same. And secondly anyone who is serious about DJing can pick and choose what to listen to, and it's their duty to inform themselves enough to do so. There are more records but there are also far more filters and far more info sources.

I don't believe Beatport is perfect but I also don't believe it has too much stock, or that such a state of affairs is possible. There's no excuse for not informing yourself to the point where you don't have to click on tons of records you end up thinking are utter crap.

What am I going to do, go to your blog for info? If I had to listen to your picks I would be too depressed to write about music as well.

I suppose if all music is the same and that there is no difference in any of it so you might as well have as much as possible. I guess I just have to wait for the next trend to follow and then I will have something to write about. If I just read up on all the cool shit I wont have to use my ears when I walk into a record store. I just have to walk into the store with a list and I will pull up nothing but the hottest shit that will have to be replaced by next weeks hottest shit and then the hot shit from the week after.

why does detroit have to enter every single argument on house and techno these days? we are all aware of the ideological stance certain us producers/label owners take towards vinyl, distribution of their music, who gets to hear their music etc, making it slightly easier to swallow when moodymann limits his latest ep to however many releases, or puts out a frankly extortionate one sided vinyl, or that keith worthy refuses to go digital or whatever (for what it's worth, i have yet to buy an mp3, i am just as much a sucker for vinyl as any one else. however if i was djing more regularly i would definitely consider djing with at least cds as well as vinyls)

the label originally being discussed is based in denmark, been going for less than 3 years, and has been fairly high profile over the last year (support from all the big names, something that the label is obviously pretty proud of judging by some of their promo graphics (to be fair i think they have stopped this now)). i can only see it getting more popular over the coming months.

i may well be wrong, but to deny digital releases seems to me to be a lame attempt at aligning themselves with that moodymann rhetoric ("techno mysticism" or whatever) and less about the state of record sales

and easy on the ad hominem up there.

Display Name seemed perfectly reasonable and civil until he starts talking to Ronan

Take everything posted on that blog that you are too depressed to write and then exchange it for the non-retarded version of dance music.

i normally wouldn't comment on the bickering that goes on here, but this is ridiculous. wtf is your problem?

What am I going to do, go to your blog for info?

um, yeah, read blogs, talk to people, peruse threads on here and other message boards... i'm sure you get an idea of which records/labels to check out and which to pass over somehow. just because you don't like Ronan's blog doesn't mean that you can't research to help yourself filter through digital music stores.

wait, local garda is ronan?

i think so...

there is a ton of moodymann on beatport

some of his albums are on there, being released on peacefrog, but there's no kdj or mahogani music (meaning the original 12" mixes for most of his tracks aren't available digitally).

I think this has already been posted above, but it is worth reiterating... the issue with the claim that there are too many records is that nobody can agree on which records are the ones that should not be released. the only solution is for producers to have higher standards. i don't know to what extent that is possible, though, as it is hard to distance yourself enough from your own productions to admit that something is crap unless it really is. and most records are not crap, but merely decent. i am sure most producers can recognize their own "1/5" records, but not necessarily whether something is only "3/5" instead of "4/5", ie good enough to release but not good enough to really be special. my personal solution is to, after coming up with what i think is something decent, immediately listen to something really classic and then walk around town trying to see if i can remember my own track after hearing something that is a stronger record. if i can remember, then i keep working on it. and yet, even if i happen upon something that is just as memorable as, say, "televised green smoke" or even "can you feel the beat" by lisa lisa, and find a way to release that record, someone will consider me as having added to the problem anyways.

that being said, the process of sifting through everything that is out there is exhausting. the problem i have with filters is that i cannot accurately judge whether they are correct or not until i know just as much as them, which means i have to listen to as much as they do, which means they are not filters. there are definitely certain djs and certain artists whose work i mostly loathe but who have put out one release that i adore. if i gave up on this person or label, i would have saved myself sorting through 20 crappy releases, but i also would have missed out on a gem too. as someone who aspires to dj and who aspires to be good at it, meaning. at least partially, possessed of a compelling perspective borne of a deep knowledge of music, the idea of missing out on a gem is anathema.

i don't think that this whole vinyl vs mp3 issue is going to be resolved within the context of how it is being discussed. some see mp3s and digital distribution as inherently more democratic, allowing more people more access to "discourse". there is truth in this. on the other hand, there is a marxist interpretation that sees mp3s as another level of alienation, the rendering of labor as spectral. as T.T. says in the essay, the labor of making music ceases to exist and, more importantly, the laborer, who in this case is more a member of the petit-bourgeois, cannot factor the costs of capital investments into the cost of the product produced by labor (imagine a candymaker who cannot factor the cost of bulk chocolate into the cost of the candy he makes). in this interpretation, what radiohead did was not revolutionary; it was more the equivalent of a sweatshop worker driving down the cost and value of labor. after all, whoever is willing to work for the cheapest amount automatically sets the value.

anyways, a lot of people who consider themselves somewhere on the scale between left and center politically either reject this argument or believe it in principle but not in practice. what is more, i would argue that, at least since the beginning of this decade, these sort of appeals to marxist/post-marxist principle have completely lost the perception of being in any way revolutionary or progressive. on a global level (in the West), a technology-forward hyper-democracy totally circumscribed by a "benign" capitalism is seen as utopia, and anyone who protests comes off as a reactionary. if you figure out why that is, and what can be done about it, then you may find the key to beatport's destruction. if not any arguments against beatport or the glut of music that is out there will automatically be read as anti-democratic, as telling a bunch of excited and willing participants in culture to give it up.

I seem to be somewhat in the minority that I have really enjoyed a lot of the music I have heard in 2008!

I used to buy vinyl but I don't really have the space for it (and I tend to move around a lot). I don't have any form of record player and for quite a long time I would continue to buy vinyl and take it home to my parents every once in a while and digitize it so that I could play it! It took me a while to let go of the idea of 'vinyl as object' (though tellingly all my vinyl remains at parents rather than for sale on ebay) but it pretty much opened the door for me to letting go of the idea of possessions at all in a strange way. Now when I buy a book, I read it, and then I give it away, this would have seemed strange to me once but now it seems perfectly natural for me.

I buy music on wav/mp3 now. Reading Display Name's info about Beatport I don't like the sound of that model and don't feel too good about that - although I rarely use Beatport itself, and have used Clone, Juno and Boomkat amongst others. For those that prefer to buy digitally it would be good to hear the best places to do that from (the label/artist themselves ideally..but if not)

As for filters well I don't really read so much online so I guess its more what I hear played out and of course some of the varying opinions on this board/thread. I probably miss out on a lot of good records but that is ok I don't need to hear everything, I have heard some records I really loved this year:)

in reference to the cult of objects i think there is an issue here where the defenders of vinyl like me either appear as commodity fetishists or at least appear to be getting close to that mentality. i am not particularly attracted to the object itself, only its use. the way i can justify having a big collection of records to myself is that i intend to play them out, to use them as tools to create a hopefully powerful and ephemeral experience that cant be duplicated, objectified, etc. pure use value.

I assumed everyone knew I was Local Garda...anyone who reads ILE anyway. I'm in as Ronan now cos I don't have a cookie for Local Garda on this computer...anyway, it's no particularly big secret I just started posting as Local Garda cos of a dumb joke thread on ILE and then continued, about 4/5 months ago.

I don't really see how you answered my points Display Name. Whether or not you like one blog versus another has zero to do with me pointing out that you should be able to inform yourself about what you do like enough to use Beatport relatively hassle free.

As for what people on mnml said I have to say I think actually looking at the Beatport charts is somehow more reliable a method of judging Beatport than hearsay. Look at the top ten right now and you'll see most are 3-4 weeks old.

If that's still a short peaktime for records then let's have a discussion about that, but it's not a week, that is simply not correct.

I think if there is such an issue then it's to do with visually displaying the amount of stock that Beatport brings in. It can be quite hard to find older stuff if you've missed out on a few weeks of releases.

I think DJ/sales Charts are very useful for this, it doesn't matter who the DJ is, I tend to check these after missing a few weeks just because it's a more efficient way of filtering through what's been released.

Then there's listening to mixes, reading message boards etc.

As "Ssh" said, nobody can agree what shouldn't be released or what is the "dross" on Beatport hence they should continue to offer large quantities of stock and only lose what is selling nothing.

there are definitely certain djs and certain artists whose work i mostly loathe but who have put out one release that i adore. if i gave up on this person or label, i would have saved myself sorting through 20 crappy releases, but i also would have missed out on a gem too. as someone who aspires to dj and who aspires to be good at it, meaning. at least partially, possessed of a compelling perspective borne of a deep knowledge of music, the idea of missing out on a gem is anathema.

This is true but surely the current climate is easier rather than harder in terms of "keeping up". It's just that "keeping up" feels more possible/attainable and so people feel more compelled to do so.

In the past the hegemony of vinyl distributors in certain cities was a farce, people had so little choice as to be hugely swayed towards supporting certain labels. I always cite Soma as the example of this, as they were carried on a major distributor in Dublin and hence there'd be piles of all their releases in HMV etc...

I suppose if all music is the same and that there is no difference in any of it so you might as well have as much as possible. I guess I just have to wait for the next trend to follow and then I will have something to write about. If I just read up on all the cool shit I wont have to use my ears when I walk into a record store. I just have to walk into the store with a list and I will pull up nothing but the hottest shit that will have to be replaced by next weeks hottest shit and then the hot shit from the week after.

if all you can do is caricature arguments into whatever strawman you have in your head then why bother...just don't get butthurt when your "factual" post is called out for its deliciously gooey prejudiced centre

the other thing here just about using online sites, I think people often undervalue the worth of looking at sites you don't buy from, all of these are filters too, anywhere where music is sold/discussed/charted/rated, all potentially filters.

the idea that beatport is vast, full of dross, and impossible to negotiate very clearly contradicts the idea the current climate has given birth to these moronic hordes who download records blindly based on "A LIST".

On one hand you're saying "it's too hard", on the other you're saying "it's too easy".

xpost i totally understand that the possibility is greater to keep up than it was, but i dont think this is all a perspectival trick. there ARE more records, and, as stated, there are more good ones to sort through to reach the great. i truly think it is harder. again, i am not siding with those that are siding against you, ronan, but i do feel something has changed.

i do think beatport is easy to use, and one of the best resources to figure out which vinyl i am going to buy. i am surprised i havent been banned given that i have spent thousands of hours there and then spend all of my money elsewhere.

As for what people on mnml said I have to say I think actually looking at the Beatport charts is somehow more reliable a method of judging Beatport than hearsay. Look at the top ten right now and you'll see most are 3-4 weeks old.

29th December probably not the best point in the year to use your method either though.

They really fucked up big time with the way they handled their affiliate program. Their were people who were driving sales on beatport and were using that as their business model. Once Beatport got to a certain level they just cut off the whole program and never even bothered to notify the affiliates. I think somebody on here blogged about it but I don't know who. If that person wants to explain in more detail they should because I am sure they know more than I do.

Todd Hutlock covered that in his Worst Ideas of 2008 column, as it definitely applied to LWE. You pretty much hit the nail on the head: after months of sending them interested buyers, they suddenly discontinued the program without even sending out a mass email to provide a head's up. Instead affiliates received a notice from the third party affiliate site saying we'd been removed, possibly for breach of contract. It was RA's news story on shuttering the program that clued me in. One of Beatport's VPs emailed me after (presumably) reading an irate comment about the news story to suggest we still work together. Then he fell off the face of the earth and has yet to resurface.

For DJs like myself who use mp3s (to answer your question, Display Name, wavs do sound a bit fuller and more dynamic than 320s, but not so much that most audiences can tell), Beatport is sort of unavoidable because of how large their selection is and the exclusives they secure. I would love to work more with Juno Download/WhatPeoplePlay/maybe DanceTracksDigital, but I suspect I'm going to keep coming back the Beatport for one thing or another.

i don't dj out, but i have found that even 320 mp3s are very harsh on the ear in a way that lossless digital formats are not. i suppose that on a decent system the harshness can probably be fixed up a bit.

thanks mt that is all very useful information about how the beatport business model works.

a decent system reveals the differences between formats more clearly as opposed to covering them up.

right, but they are ways to play tricks with eq, fullness, brightness and whatnot, which is what i was referring to.

they = there

... it's like listening to a dude in a leather jacket w/ wraparound chrome shades walk down an wet alley at night with steam shooting out of the vents.

― moonship journey to baja, Wednesday, June 4, 2008 12:56 AM (twelve years ago)

I still think about this description from time to time, always in hope of finding something that truly lives up it.