Kuedo
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Original Face
Member
Just don't hear it like the rest of you. To me, it sounds like a nice melange of things I've already heard (John Carpenter, in particular). And I expect, or at least hope for, more than that from Jamie Vex'd.
yyaldrin
in je ogen waait de wind
stumbled upon this, features some full length promo tracks: http://www.tracksandfields.com/profile/view/Planet+Mu
i loved degenerate and although yeah as the person a few posts up said this is more openly derivative than that, prob cos of the era/style he is homaging is totally my thing, im more forgiving. i suppose it would have been cool to get a vexd-style take on the more sources you can hear here. but in an interview i read he said that degenerate was more to do with roly from vexd than him so maybe thats why. and well a lot of the drums are still very much of the now though they never really dominate, its always about the synths on this album. i wouldnt mind hearing someone like el-p remix some of these tracks to make the hip hop influences more explicit.
Original Face
Member
Interesting points. Oddly, the person I'd like to remix this album is Jamie himself. But the Jamie that did the remix of Scuba's Twitch, or In System Travel, which are so inventive I find them humbling.
I have heard more of the album in full now, though, and I'm starting to warm to it - its heartfelt quality draws me in. Perhaps it's an album that'll turn out to be emotionally rich enough for it's derivative qualities not to matter. Hope so.
BTW, big up Blackdown and Jamie for a fascinating interview. The discussion around 'futurism' and 'escapism' was particularly interesting, I thought, although I'm not yet sure what to make of it.
CrowleyHead
Well-known member
My only possible argument to the drum/synth prominence is possibly an increased focus on synths due to 'trap' beats. In most of those songs, the drum tracks are all generic for the most part, and the focus is placed on synth melodies. Initially, the Kuedo stuff was still coming out of Jamie negotiating a sort of hybrid of dubstep and the more 'true-school/drum centric' "Beat Scene" post-Fly-Lo stuff... Ugh. That sounded pretentious as hell with all those tags.
So something like say, the Scuba remix, it was more based in a Beat Generation context, but nowadays I imagine Jamie's listening to more Lugerian/Aarabmuzik stuff, where the drums aren't as much of a focus.
So something like say, the Scuba remix, it was more based in a Beat Generation context, but nowadays I imagine Jamie's listening to more Lugerian/Aarabmuzik stuff, where the drums aren't as much of a focus.
Corpsey
bandz ahoy
The interview on Blackdown's blog is very interesting. It seems like there's a lot of anxiety around at the moment viz. futurism, especially (exclusively?) in dance/electronic music. Sort of reminds me of a Ballard quote I read somewhere (probably very famous) where he says that his biggest fear is that we are already living in the future, and that the future will in fact be monotonous, endlessly repetitious, ultimately very static and banal.
The album sounds very good from the clips. The first track is just gawjuz. I don't really mind that it sounds retro (which it DOES, to me). It's not as if I can't listen to old music because I've heard it before... Although I'm sure many would argue that producers have a responsibility to tread new ground.
Interesting what he says (and Crowley above) about the trap influence. I can barely hear it on those clips, I must say... I mean, I CAN hear it because he's mentioned it. And the juke influence. I just wonder - in BOTH those scenes/genres I don't really get the impression that there's much 'futurist' drive in those producers at all. It's very functionalist music on one level, and the originality you can find in it is sort of a product of catering to audience/dancer/rapper's demands and having to carve out a niche for yourself in order to stick out from the pack. And of course raw invention without the burden of 'futurism' on your back.
Finally listening to this Araab Muzik album as I type, sounds sorta brilliant.
The album sounds very good from the clips. The first track is just gawjuz. I don't really mind that it sounds retro (which it DOES, to me). It's not as if I can't listen to old music because I've heard it before... Although I'm sure many would argue that producers have a responsibility to tread new ground.
Interesting what he says (and Crowley above) about the trap influence. I can barely hear it on those clips, I must say... I mean, I CAN hear it because he's mentioned it. And the juke influence. I just wonder - in BOTH those scenes/genres I don't really get the impression that there's much 'futurist' drive in those producers at all. It's very functionalist music on one level, and the originality you can find in it is sort of a product of catering to audience/dancer/rapper's demands and having to carve out a niche for yourself in order to stick out from the pack. And of course raw invention without the burden of 'futurism' on your back.
Finally listening to this Araab Muzik album as I type, sounds sorta brilliant.
this, for me at least, is exactly why i keep returning to it. and im yet to get bored of it actually.
the trap rap influence is there, but the synths are what steer the album really, its never rhythmically weak like a lot of post dubstep (far as i know, hes not even listening to dubstep anymore?) but unusually for a dance producer, its almost like he came up with the melodies first (then again this also seems a characteristic of a fair amount of post dubstep, its just the melodies here are really stirring), drums later. im sure thats not how it happened, its just that the drums are quite simple, not hard enough to dominate like in hip hop, or to guide a rapper, but solid enough to let the synths float on top which makes it like a kind of glacial cousin to 'hood ambient' (stole this from someone else) stuff like aarabmuzik. i like how hes used juke too, its not really to the fore or anything, but its obv if you listen out for it.
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CrowleyHead
Well-known member
I now want to make a hundred t-shirts that say "Hood Ambient".
It's funny; there's this interesting middle ground of stuff like Jamie and Zomby taking influence from modern rap beats, but then the sort of younger producers involved with the 'based' aesthetic repurposing IDM and overly reverbed ethereal boom-bap into hip-hop.
To me, THAT'S more interesting than most dance music, even when it's actually not.
It's funny; there's this interesting middle ground of stuff like Jamie and Zomby taking influence from modern rap beats, but then the sort of younger producers involved with the 'based' aesthetic repurposing IDM and overly reverbed ethereal boom-bap into hip-hop.
To me, THAT'S more interesting than most dance music, even when it's actually not.
http://www.factmag.com/2011/09/27/kuedo-a-certain-sentiment/
Anyone read this yet? More interesting thoughts from him.
Anyone read this yet? More interesting thoughts from him.
CrowleyHead
Well-known member
http://www.factmag.com/2011/10/03/fact-mix-288-kuedo/
And, he's got a fact mix that's threatening to be a great one, based on the first few tracks.
And, he's got a fact mix that's threatening to be a great one, based on the first few tracks.
you
Well-known member
dude - wheres that Ballard quote from??
thomasplanetmu
Member
The whole album is available to listen to here:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/musicblog/2011/oct/10/kuedo-severant-album-stream?newsfeed=true
http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/musicblog/2011/oct/10/kuedo-severant-album-stream?newsfeed=true
thomasplanetmu
Member
Oh and its coming out on cassette as well.
http://www.planet.mu/discography/ZIQ309
http://www.planet.mu/discography/ZIQ309
Corpsey
bandz ahoy
I would sum up my fear about the future in one word: boring. And that's my one fear: that everything has happened; nothing exciting or new or interesting is ever going to happen again ... the future is just going to be a vast, conforming suburb of the soul.
Interview (30 October 1982) in Re/Search no. 8/9 (1984)
http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/J._G._Ballard
Apparently.
Corpsey
bandz ahoy
Actually I think it just further underlines the retro nature of the music/packaging of this Kuedo project, despite the claims of 'futurism'. I think he talks about this in his interview with Martin and probably in the Fact interview too - the fact that his 'futurism' basically amounts to images/sounds nicked from 70's/80's notions of the future (not intended as an insult, btw. I think the music/packaging is great!).
It's ironic/fitting, really, that 'the future' becomes, in this age of 'retromania', of (often unconsciously) post-modern recycling and stitching together of old ideas and images to create a sort of momentary freshness, ultimately just another retro cliche, even if it is (as he rightly points out) an emotionally - even spiritually - powerful, endlessly interesting one.
I dunno, I think he made some good arguments for his music being 'futuristic' in some way in those interviews. He said he likes listening to music which 'sounds like the future' - I think referring to the production of 'coke-rap' and Juke - and aims for that in his music; but when I listen to Kuedo I don't really hear anything as WTF as in those genres (particularly Juke). I hear 80's electro with a bit of juke/rap production styles thrown in. I don't think it has to be more than that, incidentally - its great music because its very simple and beautiful.
Corpsey
bandz ahoy
I think when he uses the word 'futuristic' he's really referring to a quality which evokes these fantasy images of space-ships, dystopian landscapes etc.
It just becomes slightly confusing when he invokes juke or Lex Luger style rap production as 'futuristic' inspiration because these genres generally don't seem to be shooting for that kind of futurism at all. The 'sound of the future' element to those genres is more a sense of ''I've never heard anything like that before'' not ''I've heard something like this before, but it makes me imagine a sci-fi future''.