Beatless analog synth music: what makes it work for you?

On his blog, Simon Reynolds writes (regarding the recent Bee Mask LP Canzoni del Laboratorio Cosmico): "Particularly like the Bee Mask (although a good friend who knows a thing or too about synths sez this kinda analog-whizzjizz can be reeled out by the yard... i take his point, very well --there's a real post-Onehotrix-flood-- but i do think there's enough "compositional" structuration type stuff going on here to withstand a concentrated listen)."

I have to agree here, and I think Bee Mask (particularly this record) stands out above almost everything in this vein. There's some good discussion on the Emeralds thread, but I thought this relatively newly revived sound deserved a thread of its own. I've been dipping into a lot of this stuff lately--I'm a sucker for beautiful sounding old analog synths--and while the records all tend to *sound* pretty lovely and satisfying, there are some I find myself playing repeatedly and some I never feel compelled to pull out. Bee Mask and Oneohtrix Point Never seem to have a feel for composition (despite the "aimless" flow of their music) that their peers--including Emeralds, who I like fine but who I feel may be a bit over-praised, and whose maximalism can wear on me--lack to varying degrees.

With Bee Mask, I really enjoy his use of musique concrete elements, and I think he varies the textures and densities of his compositions in ways that keep them engaging. You sense that you're *going somewhere* when listening rather than just floating, and there's a lurking creepiness and sense of dread in his best works. With Oneohtrix, there's more repetition and more looping, but the sound of his synthesizers is so distinctive and compelling--beautifully flawed, slightly melty; grainy and inviting rather than gleaming and slick.

So, what do you like in this vein, and what makes it work for you?

some of my favorite oneohtrix jams are like "russian mind" or "hyperdawn", heavily arpeggiated (to the point where it's not rly 'beatless' altho drumless, for sure). I dunno, they seem to exist in a different musical world than a lot of blissed out or bleak as fuck ambient songs that conjure up similar ~emotions~ for me. I think the precedent here is something like ashra's "sunrain".

I am listening to Russian mind right now to help me identify what exactly it is, it's almost like it's so mechanical and rigid rhythmically but it does bend out of tune, it's a feeling of panic or terror at times like the machine isn't perfect.

many years ago I tried some kind of song or piece that was kind of in this vein but it's done on a softsynth. I think something is to be said about the timbre of those old analog synths, their proclivity for not being wholly reliable to be the same note every time (whereas I know the soft synth is going to stay in tune the whole time, perhaps robbing it of that quality of mechanical failure that lends itself to feeling...old? not of this time). maybe this ties in better with all that chillwave talk bout nostalgia or w/e.

it's a feeling of panic or terror at times like the machine isn't perfect.

I like that. Yeah, it does feel like a different world, especially those rigorous arpeggiator studies on Rifts. (I had a dream last night I stumbled upon one of the original LPs that comprises Rifts in a store, but that there was no LP inside the jacket!) It feels less like he's trying to "take you on a journey" or "mellow you out" and more like the synth/sequencer studies themselves are the "point"... It also feels like process music in the vein of early Steve Reich, where you get the sense the composer sets up the piece and then just lets the wheels spin on their own (which I've always been attracted to). Bee Mask by contrast feels very much thoroughly composed, but in the vein of old musique concrete stuff, and like the more academic end of electronic composition.

The less successful stuff seems to inhabit this in-between area in which there's not enough structure to make it feel like a well-thought-through piece but not enough "hands-off-ness" to make it feel like a natural fact. With the best Oneohtrix stuff on Rifts, it feels somehow like those pieces just always exist Out There, as if each piece is playing in a room somewhere for eternity, and he lets us into the room for a few minutes to explore its surfaces before we have to leave.

ha, it's funny that u mention reich bc that's exactly who I was trying to rip off four years ago with that piece

The feeling of anxiety that those melting synths induces I think is definitely key to the music--it's sometimes a gorgeous thing, sometimes hideous, but never exactly predictable. I've always loved when guitarists play in a way that they're using tons of feedback or reverb or whatever, and just barely reining it in, like the sound is always teetering on the edge of total chaos. Oneohtrix captures that same sense of exhilaration with his synths. It sounds like flying a kite looks.