What is the worst thing you've heard this year?

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jimitheexploder

Well-known member
Really wasn't feeling that Untold techno stuff either so boring, there was a few good bits out on Hemlock this year tho: Joe and the odd Randomer track, well mostly just 'Nah' I think... Oh thats it, I thought there was more, oh well. Hotflush has got pretty bad bar Lando Kal. 3024 was pretty awful too Trevino and John Convex are awful and I'm kinda ambivalent towards the rest Redshape and Jacques Greene. Apple Pips was kinda bad too October & Borai and at a push Behling & Simpson being the only ones worth a listen, more Trevino, and some cheesey nu-skool breaks from Phat Chex lol. Kinda sad to see some good labels get really boring.
 
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SecondLine

Well-known member
jimitheexploder said:
Kinda sad to see some good labels get really boring.
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http://www.junodownload.com/plus/2012/12/14/scratching-the-surface-the-spectrum-of-bass-in-2012/

Interesting point here about lots of these UK labels 'devolving' back to parent genres: hemlock & hotflush broadly towards techno of various stripes, night slugs towards ghetto house, etc.. With varying degrees of success I think.

It's been a long time since Apple Pips put out enough stuff of a consistent style to feel like it was really making a statement. 3024 has been shit since Martyn's own stuff stopped being good.

Exceptions to the above are Hessle - who put out some brilliant stuff but it felt like a transitional year to me, as if they're busily joining dots but the picture doesn't quite make sense yet. And Hyperdub, who seem to be a step above now in terms of volume & breadth of releases - as if they're becoming the warp or planet mu of this generation of labels. Feels like they're not really measurable by the same criteria any more.

But yeah generally I got my thrills elsewhere. Which could be as much down to personal circumstance as anything to do with the scene itself.
 
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jimitheexploder

Well-known member
Yeah some labels have had an ace year: Hessle, Keysound all of it was ace from them two, Hyperdub where mostly ace and even when I didn't like something it was an intersting listen, would have loved more from Punch Drunk and Numbers but what they did do was quality. I'm kinda on the fence with Tectonic. I dunno been like that for a while with them. Swamp 81 where alright on the whole Mickey Pearce & FaltyDL bing highlights. Boddika & Joy O being alrtight but Chunky was kinda awful.
 
woops

woops

is not like other people
The worst thing I have heard this year

and for many a long year was posted in the intelli-dubstep thread.
 
B

baboon2004

Darned cockwombles.
comment from yt on that video: "this is the most beautiful sadness i've ever heard."

Bewilderingly bad. Hipster MOR, I guess.
 
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S

sgn

Well-known member
jimitheexploder said:
Really wasn't feeling that Untold techno stuff either so boring, there was a few good bits out on Hemlock this year tho: Joe and the odd Randomer track, well mostly just 'Nah' I think... Oh thats it, I thought there was more, oh well. Hotflush has got pretty bad bar Lando Kal. 3024 was pretty awful too Trevino and John Convex are awful and I'm kinda ambivalent towards the rest Redshape and Jacques Greene. Apple Pips was kinda bad too October & Borai and at a push Behling & Simpson being the only ones worth a listen, more Trevino, and some cheesey nu-skool breaks from Phat Chex lol. Kinda sad to see some good labels get really boring.
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Hotflush has been shit for a while now. They occasionally put out a half-decent release, but their output mostly consists of some of the dullest, blandest music around (George Fitzgerald, Sepalcure, Scuba himself). Even the relatively good stuff I find hard to get excited about. Haven't heard that Lando Kal release though.

Jacques Greene was a lowpoint for 3024. I'm actually surprised Scuba hasn't signed him to Hotflush yet because his "sound" seems like a perfect fit for them.

Apple Pips I haven't really paid much attention to, but I quite enjoyed Phat Chex's "Can't Stop", even if (or maybe because) it sounds like a dubstep-techno hybrid from 2009. I have mixed feelings about Trevino. His straight-up house stuff is hit and miss, but there's always a Tweakonomics here or a Shorty there that keeps me interested.
 
R

Roshman

Well-known member
Agreed on Hotflush. The Jacques Greene 3024 release seemed uninteresting till I heard him play it at the start of his set, then it made sense. However the output from him this year, seems far away from the whimsical sounds he was producing the year before.

I highly rate the Untold Change in a Dynamic environment releases. Motion the Dance and Overdrive are particularly sick. Not sure why he's getting the flack for that.

Either way your all liars if you think anything Jacques Greene / Trevino / Untold or EVEN SCUBA produced was the worst thing you heard all year. I was hoping people would talk less about mild disappointment and more about absolute travesties against music / sound. (granted I started the topic lightly, I hoped it would escalate rather than flatline)
 
C

CrowleyHead

Well-known member
Let me see... Oh yeah, TNGHT.

Seriously, Hudson Mohawke has become the most generic filler producer ever. I already feel a certain way about his contribution to "Mercy" being A BLATANT LIFT FROM KUEDO. But this project is absolute crap and now has helped us sink a little further into really embarrassing behavior in dance music's relationship with modern rap. I don't even want to blame Lunice, because he's always been a decent guy with a specific taste, that has very little to do with the corpsulent MUCK that record was.

Obviously "TRAP" was a big fucking slap in the face for a person like me this year, but I'm also embarassed by:

*how truly tedious 'pure' dubstep is, and how everyone's glad to pat Mala on the back for such a paper-thin record.

*Grime Nostalgia is fun, but there's obviously some real issues if the best releases of grime are going to be Slew Dem comeback singles and a compilation of old Ruff Sqwad beats.

*Godspeed! You Black Emperor came back, proving middle-class white people still need a soundtrack for when they climax into each other during middling sexual escapades, and took press time away from an actually great Swans LP.

*The hyper-fanatical fascination with 'gay rap' as a relief from the social critique and responsibility critics would have to find in looking at real rap.

*Metal pretty much sucked a lot.

*A lot of formless people making 'pop', and being really tedious.

*A lot of 'pop' failing to reach proper emotional heights or demonstrate craft.

*Hyperdub developing a case of role conflict; "Do we push our generic house records? Or our middling synth-driven weirdos?".

*Water Borders seems to be the most unliked Tri-Angle groups so my dream of a possible 'afro-futurist industrial' sound remains a dream until it finally happens.

*Millions of tedious, borings acts all mucking about who I just can't be bothered to list off who all "SEEM TO SOUND LIKE SOME PAST ERA", but actually just sound like fluff.

That should just about cover it.
 
C

CrowleyHead

Well-known member
e/y said:
smh
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I LOVE those middling synthy weirdos! But it's not direct music, y'know? I just wish Hyperdub wouldn't like.... just have their two defaults they like to deploy. "Oh, Critical Interest week, let's announce a new Laurel Halo thing. Okay, now they say we're distancing ourselves from the dancefloor, let's go with a new DVA thing."
 
S

SecondLine

Well-known member
CrowleyHead said:
"Oh, Critical Interest week, let's announce a new Laurel Halo thing. Okay, now they say we're distancing ourselves from the dancefloor, let's go with a new DVA thing."
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that's such a weak analysis of what hyperdub have been up to this year
 
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R

rubberdingyrapids

Well-known member
Motion the Dance and Overdrive are particularly sick
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yep.

not sure about hyperdub. they have to expand what they do. it cant just be dubstep or uk funky related stuff forever. that said i dont really love a lot of their more 'diversifying' material, i think things like ossie are a bit soft, boring and bland, and great as it is for producers to be able to develop themselves with albums, a lot of hyperdub albums from guys like cooly g and dva and terror would make far better EPs if someone was able to trim the fat or select their best tracks rather than let them do it by themselves. they are going to be the new warp though. cant be long until they sign a guitar band (i think kode 9 would probably sign an interesting one at least).

and boddikas swims is a million times better than anything on the idoru album.
 
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