Crisp / Clean / Clinical

V

version

Well-known member
The first stuff that comes to mind is very electronic, very digital sounding. Mark Fell, Alva Noto. That sort of thing. But then I also think of some of Steely Dan. There's something refreshing about it, like a mint or cool air cutting through a stuffy room.

 
  • Like
Reactions: sus
luka

luka

Well-known member
steely dans music is meandering and their voices are muzzy so thy dont count
 
V

version

Well-known member
High frequencies are an integral part of it. A lot of the Raster Noton sort of thing's full of snaps, pops, bleeps and crackles. Needles and cutting edges.
 
  • Like
Reactions: sus
luka

luka

Well-known member

The tyranny of 130

Saw Lena and Vladimir at Lux on Saturday, it was fucking rocking. I really love what they do. Not just chuggy stuff, some really hard. Just too busy by the end but that's not their fault obviously. The warm up guy was more chuggy.
www.dissensus.com
 
V

version

Well-known member
luka said:
streamlining
Click to expand...

Minimalism and reduction's associated with hygiene. With music in particular, fewer elements usually makes for an easier, clearer mix as there's less competition on the frequency spectrum. Everything has its place. The same goes for those Berlin graphic designer sort of apartments with one plant, a few of those cube-shaped shelves and all white walls.

luka said:
Very clean isn't it. Antiseptic. Like flicking through an architecture magazine.
Click to expand...

Lots of black and white. Straight lines. Frames. Outlines.
 
V

version

Well-known member
version said:
Minimalism and reduction's associated with hygiene. With music in particular, fewer elements usually makes for an easier, clearer mix as there's less competition on the frequency spectrum. Everything has its place. The same goes for those Berlin graphic designer sort of apartments with one plant, a few of those cube-shaped shelves and all white walls.
Click to expand...

That being said, reduction isn't necessarily clean. Beckett's a great reducer, but I don't feel any hygiene in him. The result of his reduction's the sense of a panicking animal backed into a corner.
 
luka

luka

Well-known member
a lot of excitement in music is the sense of sound being pushed past its limits, voices cracking and that, excitement causes that kind of fraying at the edges, nerves overloaded
 
V

version

Well-known member
luka said:
a lot of excitement in music is the sense of sound being pushed past its limits, voices cracking and that, excitement causes that kind of fraying at the edges, nerves overloaded
Click to expand...

There's some overlap with the '98 / '99 drum & bass thread here as the tightening up and stripping down that came with the late '90s seems to be what Simon and others are lamenting.
 
WashYourHands

WashYourHands

Cat Malogen
version said:
Space is clean.
Click to expand...

Decluttering

First world woes, file next to obesity, etc. YT channels popping up like fungi, advocating the benefits of a streamlined life. Marie Kondo reckons you should bow to your socks and thank them! It's all a bit fucking la-la. On the other hand, I've always had this aversion to having too much...
www.dissensus.com

 
WashYourHands

WashYourHands

Cat Malogen
he laid all the pregnant females out to show annulling of breeding, that’s dedication

just noticed we’re in the music section, had to drop mass rat death in somewhere
 
DLaurent

DLaurent

Well-known member
Some of Jeff Mills stuff is pretty cold, so I don't listen that much, but has the ET style going on.
 
WashYourHands

WashYourHands

Cat Malogen
Crisp you could apply loosely to any form of clarity, top end trebles specifically and crunchy ultra hi-digi definition (although forms of clarity is already covered)

Clean implies un-muddied linear lines - tonally or harmonically - appealing to both texture and contour

Clinical infers precision and accuracy, maybe even cold detachment from emotion

All the above could be wrong but here goes before a nightmare team meeting so no YT’s:

Crisp - Adrian Sherwood productions, all of his peaking super-crispy trebles to fullness of low-end, not at home but sure Discogs has them all

Clean - I have to justify dropping Betty Cantor-Jackson in due to her ability to record live concerts as well as, if not more adroitly, than anyone ever has and you rarely hear her name positioned in sound engineering lore. It’s a broad term, clean, so sticking to a non-Diss-ensian craftswoman

Clinical - first thought SND too for abstraction of meaning while maintaining clinical elements, it’s not always a personal go to but my god when Fell nails it he brings all such terms clearly into aural view. Criticism is it can often sound too clinical, almost inanely so like geometry meets geospatial exercise in numbers programming. All the Afx rip offs. Tons of musique concrète. Dockstader for tones which meet all of the above criteria. Xenakis too if the sum totality of his onslaughts is considered appropriate

One of the singular complaints about so much contemporary dross is the propensity to drape everything is shimmery reverb and maximalist ‘yes this is amazing’ whateverdom when aspects of the o.p are both present enough and absent enough to hide the lack of meaningful heft
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top