IDM(ish) thread
- Thread starter jasperb
- Start date
Gabba Flamenco Crossover
High Sierra Skullfuck
Added to which are the problems of virtual studio technology. It seems to me that most music prior to 1997 which could be classed as intelligent dance music - eno, E2E4, arthur russell, early detroit stuff, etc - is shaped to a large extent by the limits of the gear it's made on. Whereas now producers get sucked into a vortex of endless possibilities.
I've got a nascent theory that virtual studio technology was a fucking disaster for techno - by giving producers the means to conduct an epic journey up thier own arseholes, just as cultural snobbery about the direction of maistream dance music made it seem like a good idea. The best producers in this field seem to impose technical limitations on themselves - Basic Channel being the obvious example.
And I hate IDM too. And 'electronica'. What's wrong with calling it techno?
Commander Keen
Active member
Man, i'm in the same boat as you. Maybe a bit earlier. Remember Boulderdash? Bauri? Astrobotnia?
Dare any of you to listen to any of that now.
yep wasted sunday has something special about it too as do bits if not all of astrobotnia.
listen back to alot of the mille plateaux stuff and it's lost it, the force trax stuff as well, but then half the point is to fall into these 'moment's' alot of golden period metalheadz stuff sounds like dry music for testing car steroes nowdays too.
i would say some of the MP stuff lost it. some of it is still relevent I think - the tribute to Gautarri still stands tall, all the clicks n cuts I still enjoy from time to time, Frank Bretschneider albums still sound very good, and I will always have a soft spot for all that "electric ladyland" industrial hiphop. and of course, all but 1 or 2 of the Ritonell releases I consider timeless.
mouse on mars still sound OK for the most part.
sahko is not IDM but I love so much on that label
and to give back some props to Warp, I accidentally heard the first A.I. comp the other day, which is where all this started I guess, and it still sounds good!
as does Skam's 1491 or whatever it was called. solid.
but the likes of Plaid are pretty much worthless (save that track they did with bjork)
Guybrush
Dittohead
I agree completely.
Thanks for this, great album, but more noise rock in some respects that IDM?
it does cross to other genre related sounds for sure... that gigantic, mega-distorted "beat" on that track... the guitar-ISH textures... the laptop details... the doom laden mood... not this, not that.
brings to mind, in terms of genre defiance and also use of textures and rich tones with digital trickery, that band... god DAMN it! why can't I ever remember their fucking name??? one word, half acourstic improvisation - half studio processed, all tight as hell... members are active in european improv... I can see the album covers...
and there's also Nudge, whose half acoustic half digital sound is also convincing, if not as powerful or compelling.
hmm isn't this where the problem lies firstly in some ways.
while swears says were in a weird non time where anything goes i wish that was true, but genre conditions are tied down so much it's meritable when someone breaks them, even though they've just been invented to more or less collect together music which has similar sets of sounds or tropes.
For instance i've heard of times where buyers in chain stores buy records in due to how many they will sell within that genre, if the record doesn't seem to easily fit into a genre it is an anomaly that doesn't get stocked.
It's like in-built marketing marketing analysis, music fans naturally playing the kind of games that marketing experts by restricting their levels of possible enjoyment and in some ways the success of music. Its not even as if i'm making a case for dillietantism, just some air.
brings to mind, in terms of genre defiance and also use of textures and rich tones with digital trickery, that band... god DAMN it! why can't I ever remember their fucking name??? one word, half acourstic improvisation - half studio processed, all tight as hell... members are active in european improv... I can see the album covers...
Polwechsl? You've raved about them before, sounds appropriate.
Another one in this line of non folktronic (euugh) digital/guitar/noise kind of interaction would be the KTL album of late last year, which was a lot less melodic than this, being a Peter Rehberg/Stephen O'Malley collaboration (and therefore with the exeption of the brooding first track quite horribly harsh). I think the use of subtle almost late post-rockish melody on "Theory of Machines" keeps it hyper listenable no mater how harsh the textures...
I actually think Swears was arguing for a kind of musicological version of k-punk's "mors ontologica" where everything has already ended... I don't know how much the marketing niche problem affects more experimental music though. To some extent you could argue that since it is unlikely to sell vast numbers of copies anyway, and that the consumer base interested in it are more omnivorous by character, it would be unlikely to have a massive effect on genre twisting music. The real problem to my mind comes not from the lack of interaction between sub-sub-genres of fairly underground sounds but rather from the lack f interaction between the subterranean sounds and the pop mainstream, the lack of narrative. That to my mind seem far more dangerous...
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Do you mean In Memoriam Gilles Deleuze?
I think Plaid have made some fantastic music - Rest Proof Clockwork and most of Not For Threes and Double Figures are great. Endlessly inventive, playful, melodic, daft, deep; it's IDM (if it is IDM?) you can love!
Martin Dust
Techno Zen Master
It's techno...
brings to mind, in terms of genre defiance and also use of textures and rich tones with digital trickery, that band... god DAMN it! why can't I ever remember their fucking name??? one word, half acourstic improvisation - half studio processed, all tight as hell... members are active in european improv... I can see the album covers...
Or Radian. Whose album rec.extern is important for many different audiences, both post-rock and electro-acoustic improv. They're Viennese but worked with John McEntire on this and another recording. It's an outstanding record, for sure. There was a thread on Radian once but it didn't get very far, got tangled up in talk of Load records if i recall correctly.