How do you discover dope house/techno releases?

I've been checking charts/playlists from various people on the internet and can't help but wonder how in the hell could they know those obscure stuff. So I wanna ask you guys how do you discover your favorite releases? Browsing Beatport? Reading recommendation from various websites/forums? If so, what websites would you recommend? I only know the usual suspects (RA, LWE, mnmlssgs, RC, Teleost, HIAF, ISM).

web-wise sounds like you've got lots of the big guns covered. if you want to dive deeper you kind of need to get off the internet and go to actual record shops. either that or become a well-known dj or journalist so that ppl start sending you records for free. personally i get most of my recommendations from the sites you mentioned and...ILM :(

go to a record store.

RA, LWE, mnmlssgs, RC, Teleost, HIAF, ISM

i can empathize man, good luck!!!

One great way I always use is to set up last.fm radio stations playing certain genres, and make a note of the good stuff that comes up. There are lots of useful tags on last.fm you can use to set up a radio station. Eg, schranz, dubstep, electro, heavy silicon, you name it.

discogs.com

if i find an artist i like, i find out what labels they've been on and who else was on those labels and just branch out from there.

i can empathize man, good luck!!!

― there was zarana (tremendoid), Tuesday, February 3, 2009 4:53 AM (27 minutes ago) Bookmark

was that sarcasm?

good to know that there's still a bit of mystery w/r/t this

http://mydamnchannel.files.wordpress.com/2007/12/dirty-fingers.jpg

it's so fucking easy now, every site has mp3 samples of every dope hipass new joint released 6 hours ago.. it also helps if you have friends who are into house/techno because it just multiplies your knowledge base

what is the ratio of finding a good tune from the tunes you hear? for me it's about 1:5.

1:20

but i download a lot of random torrents

discogs.com

if i find an artist i like, i find out what labels they've been on and who else was on those labels and just branch out from there.

― elan, Monday, February 2, 2009 9:12 PM (2 hours ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

this is really good advice; i've found tons of cool shit this way

this basically goes back to my early pre-internet days of getting into dance music. i'd buy a compilation, figure out which tracks i really liked, and then go search for other compilations with those same artists. and then i'd find new artists. and if enough comp tracks were dope i'd buy the artist album. but now discogs makes that so much easier!

i was spoiled when i was about 18 (2000 or so) by my mates brother going off travelling for a year and being entrusted with his technics and hundreds of the best 92-2000 berlin/detroit techno 12s imaginable which gave me a tremendous knowledge base. I suppose you can build up this knowledge base online now but you'll never have the excitement of putting on an unmarked white label and being blown away.

i tend to find boomkat or smallfish a much better way to discover music as they have a bit more quality control than beatport which does tend to floood your head with landfill minimal. boomkat does tend tend to go wild over at every half decent record (and ones on their own labels)so i wouldnt buy anything without listening but they have samples of all the tracks and reccomended.

oops, was trying to say they have links to similar releases and stuff on the same label. Ive always found the beatport reccomendations a bit iffy.

didn't even know Beatport did recommendations....like on Beatportal or something? never bother reading it.

my advice would be download mixes, try and ID stuff you like. look at as many charts by producers and DJs you like (and some by producers and DJs you just think are okay) as possible, you'll find lots of good records this way and after a while you'll get to know which people have similar taste to you or which ones yield good tracks.

check several online stores even if you only buy from one. this is really important esp across formats as the vinyl stores still have a much narrower (but sometimes more specific/exclusive) focus than say, Beatport.

look at the covers...even on Beatport I maintain you can sometimes find a good record just by seeing that it's got an interesting name/cover. plenty of the time you'll click on it and it's boring or whatever but you'd be surprised. this also works the other way, so many records with horrible covers and really stupid names...easily ignored. this is why I don't buy that it's particularly hard to buy stuff on Beatport.

And yeah use Discogs if necessary, especially for old stuff. Tho arguably Beatport or Juno or something is just as useful as a resource since you can hear/buy a few tracks by an artist. I guess Discogs gives you the raw info tho.

look at the covers...

as shallow and judgemental as it sounds, i agree with this to the power of 5.

yeah exactly....plus you are aren't judging every record by the cover, just ones you know nothing else about

(also if you're just starting to buy things and getting into DJing etc expect to buy tons of stuff you regret or realise is rubbish when you get home or when you play it after downloading it..)

the fact that someone has bvothered to commission a decent piece of art shows theres a bit more confidence in the material compared to the period before beatport brought in the minimum sales rule and every man and his dog was starting a label with zero art

or some ms paint crud

go to a record store.

― speculator, Tuesday, 3 February 2009 04:52 (5 hours ago)

Somebody should create an animation where these words appear in giant flashing red letters that follow your mouse arrow as you scroll the thread.

not that easy in many towns these days.
certainly not for the more interesting techno releases ..

Record stores are great for finding new records. You can just walk in there, and they'll have tons of records, and usually you can listen to all of them! It's like the Itunes store, but in physical form, man!

techno is one of the few genres where the majority of good songs have terrible, cringe-inducing titles

I'm not trying to hate on the internets or come off as some kind of old school purist, but I've never discovered anything that tops going to a record store, grabbing twenty interesting-looking* records, and listening to them in-store. This isn't always possible in every town, it's true, but any other method is still second-best, at least to me.

xpost

techno is one of the few genres where the majority of good songs have terrible, cringe-inducing titles

I rarely look at (or remember!) titles these days ... especially because judging (in part) by the cover is a lot more reliable!

I'm not trying to hate on the internets or come off as some kind of old school purist, but I've never discovered anything that tops going to a record store, grabbing twenty interesting-looking* records, and listening to them in-store. This isn't always possible in every town, it's true, but any other method is still second-best, at least to me.

i like record shops as much as the next fellow but i can't see how this method is any easier than listening to stuff online...

plus in a house/techno store you often have supercilious staff to deal with

there are all sorts of probs with record stores...not that online is free of probs too.

record stores have people who work there and can talk to you about stuff so you don;t have to remember the internet so much.
where do you live? maybe we can suggest a nearby one for you?
or maybe you can say some stuff you like and all us nerds on the internet can make some suggestions.

I live in Indonesia which has absolutely zero store that sells quality house and techno stuff.

pro vinyl lobby in myopic ignorance of world audience for techno shocker

(sorry....but you know...point worth making!)

Just the other week I was buying stuff from someones unused collection. 80% of the time you're going by the cover, and especially the typeface. It's almost shocking how effective this is.

Otherwise, a lot of solid cross referencing between Discogs and Juno/Boomkat does the trick (see elan's post). I've pretty much stopped going to any blogs that function as recommendation/exposure banks, and don't really bother with charts (but then again I don't listen to as much stuff as I used to, and I prefer buying used records) Sadly, even in a major North American cities, a day at the record store will get you only so (i.e. not very) far, I'm just recalling a record store I went to in Tel Aviv, the only one in the entire city, and jesus, like 3 things were buyable, let alone good out of a few hundred records.

I just discovered a new way to discover dope stuff. Download a bunch of samples from Juno.

is there a rolling electronic music thread? if not why not.

i've been discovering stuff by reading forced exposure updates, that's how lame i am. but they turned me on to zomby and gatzigristos.

which places have the cheapest shipping to you with an ok store? japan? austrailia? or even europe?
clone.nl has good sound clips and so does flexx.be and piccadillyrecords dot something or other and juno. i never order there, but i check the soundclips sometimes.

I'm LOL-ing while crying at the fact that there's a thread here about discovering new dance music that's run to 40 posts or so and nobody actually mentioned GOING TO FUCKING CLUBS.

ooh stick it to us shut in internetters why dont you. most DJs get moody as fuck about telling people what theyre playing and then its a case of going back to the record store/internet to track it down. I can't imagine going to hear a DJ without at least having gleaned something of his style from online/paper media. You also have to allow for the fact that if you don't live in a big city the clubs will be shite

how do you discover the names of the tunes? xpost

i probably buy 2/3rds of my records online but i always enjoy the weekly visit to the shop, as much to have a bit of a yak about what's coming out, who's touring, etc as anything else. i'd imagine i wouldn't be so eager to go there if it were staffed by surly cocks. they usually throw suggestions my way for a listen, which is nice.

otherwise i have a look through the phonica and hardwax mailouts to see what's new, and listen to samples there and on juno. and listen to mixes. and look for old stuff on discogs. and go to clubs obviously. i don't really do the blogs any more, i'd probably trust the opinion of various ILMers if i know what their taste is.

Ask the other people on the dancefloor (xpost)

should be ask the grumpy looking people at the side of the dancefloor

i don't live within an hour of a dance club so...

sometimes if i'm at a club and i hear a track i don't know and i like, i might ask someone if they know what it is, and if they don't know sometimes i try to make a note in my phone of what it sounds like, and when i read my note the next morning it's always completely embarrassing.

can you give me example of your notes? that'd be interesting.

You can actually find good music on myspace by looking at the profiles of artists that you already know you like and seeing who they have in their top 20 friends or whatever and just clicking through enlessly. This is a good way to find new labels. I order a lot from Clone but more often Juno and Phonica because their shipping is cheaper to the US. Another good way to find new music is youtube, there are some people maintaining really good electronic music channels on there.

xp errr no i don't think i'll post any here....i'll just say that i don't think i've ever actually id'd a non-vocal tune this way :-/

use that track id iphone app in da club

You can actually find good music on myspace by looking at the profiles of artists that you already know you like and seeing who they have in their top 20 friends or whatever and just clicking through enlessly. This is a good way to find new labels. I order a lot from Clone but more often Juno and Phonica because their shipping is cheaper to the US. Another good way to find new music is youtube, there are some people maintaining really good electronic music channels on there.

― saudade

Yep, that approach works well for me too.

temple records in new york beat every web site. the staff were awesome and incredibly knowledgeable and helpful, they would load me up with like 15 things i hadn't heard of each time i went. i don't think that associative metadata on a website, i.e. "if you like that, you may like THIS" is quite there yet. no doubt it will be.

sometimes if i'm at a club and i hear a track i don't know and i like, i might ask someone if they know what it is, and if they don't know sometimes i try to make a note in my phone of what it sounds like, and when i read my note the next morning it's always completely embarrassing.

that reminds me an app on my phone can supposedly listen to recorded music and figure out what it is, might not have a deep dance database though, who knows.

oh xxp ice cream yah

does it work btw?

i'll try tonight, just got the phone

A fella at teleosteopathy blog used it to ID Josh Wink's "“Stay Out All Night” from a Cassy mix.

Shazam works and works well. Not so great with new techno 12"s as you can imagine but it has id'd quite a few tunes for me.

yeah the number is 2580 ie straight down the middle of your phone, doesn't always work but when it does it's a great feeling

They should just start up a call service where you have a bunch of obsessive compulsive music nerds constantly at bay, so you can call them, hold the phone up to the speaker, and get them to identify it.

1800-GET-ILM

The challenge is not to discover great new records but to have a deep knowledge and to retain that knowledge. All of the websites listed above will give you enough information to catch up on everything that has happened in minimal/deep house/whatever since 2000 at least. Anyways, my process is hell but nets results (records that are amazing and also records that are amazing and unpopular):

1. Write down every single label name you come across.
2. Start a spreadsheet with separate tabs for all of these labels. Eventually, you will need to start separate spreadsheets based on country or even first letters of names of labels from specific countries (ie Germany A-M).
3. Enter all releases for the label you plan on checking out in the spreadsheet, using Discogs or a label website as a reference. Also make a provision for entering in something somewhere that notes that you have actually heard the record in question.
4. Have a column listing your final verdict on each record.
5. Find a site that has all of this labels (google helps!) music up for preview. Record store sites are so helpful with this. And stretch out to find more shops. Unlike a physical store, there is no pressure to purchase from a website that has sound samples. Forced Exposure has lots of my money because of Beatport. Beatport has not seen a cent.
6. Listen to everything.
7. Make your notes.
8. Add appropriate titles to wantlist.
9. Repeat for next label.

Drawbacks:
1. You will never know everything.
2. You will never hear everything.
3. You will miss a lot of good releases anyways.
4. This mostly only works on newer labels (though you can always bring a notepad to the used shop to take note of older releases that you may want in the future).
5. You will get sick of music every so often and will have to take a few weeks off from techno.
6. You will start to get depressed when Germany A-M encompasses over 200 labels, especially when you realize most of these labels were started within the last 5 years.
7. You may develop or worsen your OCD.

Other Things:
1. I restrict myself to just releases that come out on vinyl. I would do this even if I were spinning MP3s. This lessens the burden!
2. I take breaks.
3. I find that the more I hear, the higher my standards; even though I have probably used this process on 50-60 labels now, my wantlist is still reasonable. When you have heard EVERY Kompakt, Cadenza, etc., it becomes easier to separate great records from the ones that merely decently represent the house sound.
4. I also try and pick an arbitrary ratio, usually about 1:5, to aim for when going through a label. If the label has 100 releases, I am trying to find the best 20. I may narrow further once it is time to purchase.

This approach may seem silly or obsessive but, as I said, I don't expect to know or hear everything. I just find that I don't duplicate my efforts by listening to anything more than I have to to make a choice.

Once I get a job it will be scary how many records will come in.

Fuck.

sounds good to me. shazam found three songs on the jazz station i listened to on the way home, the dj was playing from his own vinyl, pretty sweet.

Once I get a job it will be scary how many records will come in.

Fuck.

― Shh! It's NOT Me!, Wednesday, February 4, 2009 10:30 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark

I've found a job limits my music listening time, too, though. Such a happy, ignorant place, being poor and listening to lots of music. I never knew I had it so well.

i find the first month or so of unemployment can be very productive but once i have caught up on books i have been meaning to read, sorted through records to get rid of stuff i dont listen to anymore, and begun catching up with new music, i start to want money for more records. then i need to work again.

record stores, going to clubs, serious trainspotting (only at certain places and with people i know), DISCOGS (for serious), and...

here's a good one, actually: i discovered a lot of older techno stuff by using this ubiquitous link to 100 free mp3 downloads on emusic. then, using a different credit card, i did it again. then, using my friend's credit card, i did it again. so, i basically got 300 free tracks. almost every Underground Resistance mp3 i have that isn't a rip from the actual record is from emusic, and i have a shitload of UR.

i'm surprised that no one has said "the radio", even if they mean "internet radio". isn't the entire point of radio to play you things you've never heard before, in all their glory, and then tell you what it was?

moley mentioned last.fm, which tries to do the same thing, but i've always been kind of underwhelmed by it. maybe even "condescended to".. i often find myself thinking "they think i would like THAT??" although that may be down more to my hangups than anything else.

there must be a high-qual plain old house/techno internet radio station out there... right?

are emusic still punting 192s? i replaced my basic channel and maurizio comps about a year ago from there and they sounded like sheeeeet.

i'm surprised that no one has said "the radio", even if they mean "internet radio". isn't the entire point of radio to play you things you've never heard before, in all their glory, and then tell you what it was?

this works. i discovered my favourite chicago house record this way (m.e. "ride")

the other great thing about dj mixes is that if you know ONE track on a mix, and you like that track a lot, chances are a few other tracks are going to do it for you too, or the DJ will be great. that's how i found out about Altz - i was searching around for Mungolian Jet Set songs, and it turns out that Altz put a song of theirs in one of his mixes. i figured, wahey this mix will probablt be pretty unusual and great. and then i lived happily ever after!

altho - and i've long held to this - that unless you're a dj yourself it's more productive and enjoyable to simply have favorite djs. i mean that's their job innit, picking out the right tracks

id never heard of altz before getting super roots 10 yesterday, should i check some other bits of his stuff?

as a dj for sure - his "tight" mix is incredible. i haven't heard many of his own tracks though. mungolian jet set did an altz remix that's pretty fantastic.