Cartoon Physics/The Revenge of the Tangible

[blissblogger]

actually interviewed the Skinny Boys

they were very disappointing - sweet - but disappointing cos their records sounded like things being torn and shredded, grinding groans of low-end gristle like Sabbath and Swans in a pestle and mortar - and then in person of course they came out with all these showbiz platitudes, "we just want to entertain folks". very squeaky clean and keen to crossover.

i think their mom was with them, or maybe their uncle - she/he was their manager.

 

[Leo]

I still have my childhood slinky, sitting on a book shelf. one of my favorite toys.

 

[blissblogger]

seems to me like this way of hearing sound comes mostly from 80s hip hop. not the commercial stuff but the scratching/megamix end of things.

yeah it's mid-80s hip hop + Ecstasy = ardkore

there's a cut off point, before hip hop gets too serious and is beginning to see itself an art form (not that it was wrong about that, but...). before that there's a lot that is gimmicky and cartoony, loads of daft or mad soundst. human beatbox. scratching. also incongruous samples (as opposed to the canon of 70s black music that took over)

that side of it all goes (well, the scratching evolves into something impossibly pompous and tedious, with turntabilism)

only to pop up across the pond once more in in hardcore.*

then the ludic thing resurges in hip hop itself (unless i'm missing an obvious example, which i may well be**) with Busta Rhymes and all those great videos

he's bending his voice into all kinds of overstated shapes and contortions, and the Hype Williams videos are like hallucinatory animations

but the rhythms aren't quite keeping up with the visuals / vocals, it's not working in that cartoon-physics stretchy-bendy limbs zone


* actually in Deelite - who are very cartoony but not especially cartoon-physics-y

** perhaps ludic thing persists outside the East Coast? - like whathisname, the "i like big butts bloke"

 

[sadmanbarty]

particularly the dancing emoji and that song that one at 3:07

 

[mvuent]

they were very disappointing - sweet - but disappointing cos their records sounded like things being torn and shredded, grinding groans of low-end gristle like Sabbath and Swans in a pestle and mortar - and then in person of course they came out with all these showbiz platitudes, "we just want to entertain folks". very squeaky clean and keen to crossover.

that side of it all goes (well, the scratching evolves into something impossibly pompous and tedious, with turntabilism)

that's the really weird thing about the mid 80s era to me. if you look at the youtube comments for even the most sonically out there stuff, it's all things like "back in the days when emcees had REAL talent and didn't curse or disrespect women." it's almost like, even a lot moreso than with hardcore and jungle, no one involved actively realized how strange the music was.

this was pretty noticeable in what I've read from more brilliant that the sun about this era. the contrast between his writing style and the artist's typically very dry, pragmatic descriptions of what they were doing could be kind of funny at times.

 

[mvuent]

 

[mvuent]

if you look at the youtube comments

btw this is just as interesting as interviewing the artist in person. I'd say that while the knowledge blissblogger has gained by interviewing every notable artist of the past 30 years is impressive, it is certainly equaled--if not easily surpassed--by my knowledge of youtube comments on music-related videos.

 

[padraig (u.s.)]

unless i'm missing an obvious example, which i may well be

all the tongue flipping turn of the 90s biz, Das EFX etc (Kriss Kross!) "iggedy triggedy drippity" and so on

I mean listen to these verses they're a good 40+ % gibberish

chiggedy chiggedy check yo self before you riggedy wreck yo self

 

[padraig (u.s.)]

and arguably all the Midwestern doubletime sing-rapping that followed, the school of Bone Thugs

tho that stuff isn't really ludic

tho its canon include the all-time Chicago weed anthem, our very own "I Got 5 On It"

 

[padraig (u.s.)]

Ol Dirty Bastard had a cartoon physics voice

 

[padraig (u.s.)]

like rubber crossed crossed with the endless depths of the cosmic void

 

[padraig (u.s.)]

boogie has squelch bass the prefigures 303 acid squelch

one of the key sonic differences marking the transition from 70s funk to 80s boogie is the bass going from rubbery, popping to gluey, squelch

this is more proto-boogie but the bass sounds onomatopoetically like a cartoon characters eyes popping out of their head in surprise

 

[padraig (u.s.)]

boogie has squelch bass the prefigures 303 acid squelch

Parliament Funkadelic being a major and possibly the single major influence here (and then their acolytes, Zapp etc)

 

[luka]

that's the really weird thing about the mid 80s era to me. if you look at the youtube comments for even the most sonically out there stuff, it's all things like "back in the days when emcees had REAL talent and didn't curse or disrespect women." it's almost like, even a lot moreso than with hardcore and jungle, no one involved actively realized how strange the music was.

this was pretty noticeable in what I've read from more brilliant that the sun about this era. the contrast between his writing style and the artist's typically very dry, pragmatic descriptions of what they were doing could be kind of funny at times.

One of the things I'm really enjoying about this thread, and it's a great thread, is that it is foregrounding precisely that element of 80s hip hop and allowing me to really enjoy it again. Framing the records chosen in this way is allowing me to enjoy all sorts of things in fact. It's a great device.

We've talked a bit about this framing before, in relation to words like Balearic or psychedelic. The context you place a record in is fundamentally important.

 

[luka]

 

[luka]

Time-reel manipulation, sped up and slowed right down.

Simultaneous Time moving forward Time moving backwards

 

[luka]

This whole domain. 'Tangible'.

 

[luka]

Wacky Races is a big reference point for Barty. He uses that one a lot.

 

[sadmanbarty]

jamaican phonetic buoyancy

"rub a dub" (rubber dub), "buddybye buddybye", fathead's "oink" and "ribbit", eek a mouse's "bung bung bedda boi-oing"

 

[sadmanbarty]

bung dung dreaddie