because i think Elektro Guzzi would appeal to way more people than read the techno threads i am starting a thread about them. they play techno with like real instruments

it is also because i can't stop listening to their album

check this out

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HozMr5Ed-o4

and probably check out their RA (which is just an extended jam.) while its up

http://www.residentadvisor.net/podcast-episode.aspx?id=212

I would love to see them live

"As a band we listen to a lot to techno, dub and experimental electronic music, but also African and Brazilian music. To name just a few artists: Jeff Mills, Basic Channel, Underground Resistance, Cristian Vogel, Carl Craig, Rhythm & Sound..."

wow that's neat!

nice

with like real instruments

i dunno, i find them kinda dry. i mean why not use synths? synths are the best instrument.

like the track but their list of influences, uh... all the way from basic channel to rhythm and sound! far out!

i dunno, they don't have to be super obscure, i can pretty much hear what they mean w/ all of those, and i guess those are very canon, and like they want to be taken as having to do with that canon, not a rock canon or whatever.

i wonder if they like the Moritz von Oswald & Mark Ernestus records too.

i do like the track though, it sounds good.

so they could have listed the experimental electronic music or the african or brazilian music they like.

lol

it's amusing actually to think about what they're trying to convey with that list that isn't conveyed by simply saying "we play techno with real instruments." are they distinguishing themselves from like big loud Chris Liberator ish? what the hell would that sound like played by real instruments, anyway?

idk, you get a fairly good idea of what they sound like whatevs

yeah, just talking nonsense. YT track is great.

actually i heard two tracks and it's interesting and kind of boring at the same time. the tracks i head, Hexenschuss & Elastic Bulb, they don't really develop sonically in the way techno does, certainly not in the way a carl craig track would, would nor do they groove hard enough to make up for the lack of development. it's just exactly the same sound for 7 minutes until it stops, Elastic Bulb ends exactly as it starts. i suppose that's interesting in itself, in a sense.

When forming the group, did you have a pre-conceived idea of what it should be?

Yes, we wanted to play techno with our instruments

they definitely totally failed at this imo but they ended up making something else which doesn't sound like techno but is still well made and is... something, i don't know what.

^^^

Liquid Liquid for the post-Basic Channel generation? Well-executed but a bit lacking - might be good live if they ratcheted up the development/intensity over time. Could do with a synth or two, lol (or if they insist, synth filter pedals to play their guitar through, to make it sound like a synth!).

They appear ont he new album by Patrick Pulsinger, which is also great house/techno made on real instruments.

features Fennesz too.

after hearing tons of people talk about how 'lacking' this was i finally checked it out. and it seemed anything but.

to an extent i sympathize with wanting to dislike bands that have such a defined schtick, but i still think they wound up with a pretty satisfying aesthetic and really enjoy this record. i think "loq pol" might be my favorite atm

the ra podcast is, well, boring. gotta check the album

I think I'll check the album after the comments on this thread.. I have been fearing they would sound like The Bays.

Why would you want techno with real instruments? When you take all the good noises and textures out you're left with some dudes playing the same line over and over again. Unless it's completely banging, what's the fucking point?

Why would you want techno with real instruments? When you take all the good noises and textures out you're left with some dudes playing the same line over and over again. Unless it's completely banging, what's the fucking point?

― Vulvuzela (Matt DC), Wednesday, 30 June 2010 11:59 (2 minutes ago) Bookmark

I think the answer to this is pretty obvious. Why would anyone make any music on real instruments? Or synthesized instruments for that matter? You can get all sorts of timbres out of a simple hand drum if you like. I haven't heard EG on their own yet. The Patrick Pulsinger album does have electronic sounds on it, but no digital stuff and it is pretty good. Electric guitar working as synth pads from Fennesz works as well as digital sound.

The EG album isn't for me. It sounds like reworking some ket-minimal using bass + drums. Pretty dry. Seems detailed, maybe I'll try again on a different set up. Looking forward to hearing the Pulsinger, is it out yet? EG album I streamed from here; http://3voor12.vpro.nl/luisterpaal/

"Why would you want techno with real instruments? When you take all the good noises and textures out you're left with some dudes playing the same line over and over again. Unless it's completely banging, what's the fucking point?

― Vulvuzela (Matt DC), Wednesday, 30 June 2010 11:59 (2 minutes ago) Bookmark"

I guess it depends what you mean when you say 'techno'. If you include Basic Channel, Gas, some of Pan Sonic/Vainio etc as Techno (i.e. techno structures, less dancefloor, more textural, more repetitive) then EG are right there.

It's a bit of a shame that the 'real instruments' are such a focus here, rather than the astonishingly listenable music they are making.

I listened to about 20 minutes of their RA podcast and confess this isn't for me - I kept thinking this what Out Hud managed to do and do better in parts of their (Out Hud's) last album.

Is the album more energetic and focused?

xp i think it feels like such a major part of how they're being sold that its fair enough that ppl would focus on this

idk i think they are sonically interesting and maybe dynamically subtle in a partic. way i'm not used to, and i think that playing w/ a basic set up is prolly limiting in a way that forces different decisions than otherwise and im cool w/ that

obv. i wouldn't care if i didn't think the album was fn awesome though

don't really get y ppl are saying its not techno either tho

I totally get why this kind of thing would appeal. Need to hear the album, but why not get into the tribal/jamming aspect of dance music once again?

I think the live band format is, beyond just a gimmick or a way of making it more palatable to people with drum-machines-have-no-soul type biases, interesting given the self imposed limitations here. When with abelton they could make tracks like this with virtually any sound imaginable, there's something interesting about working within parameters pretty strictly consigned to a few given instruments.

I think of this Rob Hood quote about how when he was starting he had only a few pieces of gear and he needed to squeeze blood from those few machines. I think that sort of blood squeezing is missing from a lot of music, hence why so much abelton etc. techno is criticized as sounding effortless, perhaps.

yes, and of course you get a different feeling from live playing than from perfect lockgrid electronic sequencing.

drum-machines-have-no-soul type biases

one of the cars in my apt complex here has not only the "DRUM MACHINES HAVE NO SOUL" sticker but another one saying "ONCE THERE WERE SONGS"

can't figure out if it's genius satire or

enjoying the album more than the podcast, fwiw. album tracks have more specific moods/sounds.

Xpost: Sounds like dude's gastank could use some sweetening.

one of the cars in my apt complex here has not only the "DRUM MACHINES HAVE NO SOUL" sticker but another one saying "ONCE THERE WERE SONGS"
can't figure out if it's genius satire or

A few years back I went to a music festival in the UK headlined by Luke Vibert and Four Tet, and I think Four Tet was doing some publicity for the Musicians' Union, who adorned the merch desk with bunch of irony-free stickers reading "keep music live", which was notoriously their slogan in the 80s for a campaign of "synths and samplers aren't real music like the hairy 50-something covers bands which make up 98% of our membership, maaan"

anyhow I quite liked that youtube and I like the concept too so I am interested to hear the album

listening to moto guzzi "hexenschuss"/"elastic bulb" single, and i'm struck by how little this sounds like techno to me. it sounds like rock music. in part that's a product of the tones & timbres, but it's also (i expect) a product of group physical interaction. people can't really play in perfect sync the way machines can - they're always subtly pushing against each other and the rhythm. this is more evident in music that's spacious, beat-driven and not crazy fast. there's a muscular, almost brutal quality to the groove. it feels like work.

makes this music very different from proper techno, which has a weightless, disembodied inevitability. it doesn't seem like the product of work or even of human action, something that had to be forced into being - it feels like a quality of the environment. i can see why people might criticize some techno as "effortless" (i.e., uninspired), but the quality of sweatless, featherweight perfection is, to me, one of the most interesting and compelling things about electronic dance music. and elektro guzzi have none of that.

not criticizing EG, mind - i like this stuff quite a bit. just saying it doesn't feel like techno to me.

"it sounds like rock music" = bone-deep rockism. it sounds like funk.

liquid liquid comparison otm

"muscular, almost brutal quality to the groove"

people apply these descriptors to techno all the time, just sayin.

yeah, i know, and if you limit the context to techno as a whole, they accurately describe certain strains/sounds/producers within it. but i'm talking about a different kind of physicality, not the brutality of sounds, but something subtle that arises when fallible but highly skilled & trained meat bodies try to create something quasi-mechanical. there's a weird balancing act between the idea of perfect machine rhythm and the best possible human approximation of it. it creates a tension, and the tension creates ... something, a unique sort of intensity.

i'm not prizing "real musicians" over producers/programmers/composers, just pointing out that there's a difference in process, and process leaves fingerprints on product.

sounds like Can

yeah liquid liquid otm, but i think in the context of "rock bands exploring dance textures" or w/e they sound v. subtle, contained and are way more focussed on groove. Also, you could drop this in the middle of all the names listed at the top and they really wouldn't sound out of place.

EDB saying what i was trying a lot better also

Think this would be more interesting as a concept if "real instruments" didn't just mean guitar-bass-drums. Yawn.

Again, try Patrick Pulsinger - not just limited to guitar/bass/drums (didn't realise this was what EG were doing). I think the album's out soon.

Think this would be more interesting as a concept if "real instruments" didn't just mean guitar-bass-drums. Yawn.

except that the guitar and bass don't sound at all like guitar and bass?

I think the fact that it's guitar, bass, and drums is kind of the point?
Those being the overused, overstandarized stock instruments of the better apart of oh so much music, it's a kind of making interesting of the banal.

I should also mention I haven't heard much EG, just parts of the podcast.

listening to moto guzzi

http://www.motorcyclespecs.co.za/Gallery%20%20A/Moto%20Guzzi%20V65%2082%20%20.jpg

listened to the podcast: it felt neither lacking nor boring, quite good actually.

listening to moto guzzi

Let's not forget this

I only know the kimono ep, but sonically speaking, it's very similar to Elektro Guzzi, incidentally.

Can't wait for my copy of the new Pulsinger to arrive, sounds awesome.

Don't really get Pulsinger myself, but that's another story.

Wasn't this Seafeel's territory a long, long time ago? I seem to remember them being described as "analog dub" with the gimmick being that it was played on 'real instrument' and not on sequencers.

From what I've heard of Seefeel (Quique and Succour), I wouldn't say they are very similar to EG. Quique is more of a repetitive shoegaze record with some dub basslines. Succour is much more minimal and electronic. Fittingly released on Warp.

yes those two bands could hardly be less alike tbh but i can see how desciptions of EG could lead you to that impression.