Studio - West Coast

[mms]

The thing I like about it most is the way in which it crossbreeds fearlessly (often in the space of one record) the coolest and most obscure dance and rock genres with the basest and most profane and untouchable (in an Indian caste-sense) disposable genres of the despised 80s--- that ability to bend cool and uncool to the point where its no longer a question of po-mo irony but genuine confusion between art-sensory delight and cognoscenti-disgust: such confusion being a genuinely and perverse ultra-contemporary sentiment outside of the historical memory-games which appear to be central to this genre.

but you get things like long guitar solos etc things which were once thought of as cool and skillfull, but post punk are thought of as rubbish, and time wasting, which is an interesting thing.
It's almost irony in the sense when people realise that (with age maybe, with the internet maybe even more) that totally single minded single genre tastes are diverse, wide ranging ad maybe very different from yours, but there is this kind of feeling if you don't accept at least part of someone else's single minded tastes you might be missing a trick, so it's cognoscenti in a way that it cooly accepts that and trys to weave those things in i guess.

i hate the sound of the electric guitar solo quite alot though, the only person i like to do guitar solos is kerry king from slayer cos he solos like what guitar solos actually sound like to me.

 

[gek-opel]

but you get things like long guitar solos etc things which were once thought of as cool and skillfull, but post punk are thought of as rubbish, and time wasting, which is an interesting thing.
It's almost irony in the sense when people realise that (with age maybe, with the internet maybe even more) that totally single minded single genre tastes are diverse, wide ranging ad maybe very different from yours, but there is this kind of feeling if you don't accept at least part of someone else's single minded tastes you might be missing a trick, so it's cognoscenti in a way that it cooly accepts that and trys to weave those things in i guess.

i hate the sound of the electric guitar solo quite alot though, the only person i like to do guitar solos is kerry king from slayer cos he solos like what guitar solos actually sound like to me.

But it is precisely this kind of subtle and sophisticated game-playing which dance music has done so well this decade, and which this exemplifies par excellence-- the way it demonstrates that the distinction between the most highly thought of categories of the past and the most abhorrent cheese is merely paper thin... in its own smooth and glossy manner this is an anarchic hauntology of sound... a radicalised jumbling of taste-categories which disrupts the idea of the cognoscenti or hipster listener whilst perversely confirming the same...

 

[mms]

But it is precisely this kind of subtle and sophisticated game-playing which dance music has done so well this decade, and which this exemplifies par excellence-- the way it demonstrates that the distinction between the most highly thought of categories of the past and the most abhorrent cheese is merely paper thin... in its own smooth and glossy manner this is an anarchic hauntology of sound... a radicalised jumbling of taste-categories which disrupts the idea of the cognoscenti or hipster listener whilst perversely confirming the same...

yes you're probably right there, but it also means you have to kinda update what music means for you emotionally too, which is a strange thing to be forced to do by something so abstract, how you feel to the music, which is something that essentially keeps it moving along for people who want that experience.

 

[gek-opel]

Yeah- its at once comforting and yet alienating- challenging because of the way it forces you to reassess your taste categories...

 

[turtles]

Gek's last two post totally OTM (*edit* make that last THREE).

It's the friction between tastefulness and cheese that makes this stuff so interesting. Especially other stuff like A Mountain of One or Map of Africa (who i'm actually not too keen on, but that's another story), or something like todd terje's edit of paul simon's diamonds on the soles of her shoes, they seem to be really going for that middle-brow dad-rock sound. And sure, though it might be a very knowing and conscious decision to make these sort of combinations, it seems like there is a genuine appreciation of the cheese as much as for the tasteful. Because a lot of it is unabashedly cheesy, certainly the heavy use of guitar solos is very indicative of this (sorry to hear about the guitar-solo hate mms, you're missing out!).

 

[turtles]

I'm gonna call "west side" as maybe the prime example of all this.

 

[swears]

The thing I like about it most is the way in which it crossbreeds fearlessly (often in the space of one record) the coolest and most obscure dance and rock genres with the basest and most profane and untouchable (in an Indian caste-sense) disposable genres of the despised 80s--- that ability to bend cool and uncool to the point where its no longer a question of po-mo irony but genuine confusion between art-sensory delight and cognoscenti-disgust: such confusion being a genuinely and perverse ultra-contemporary sentiment outside of the historical memory-games which appear to be central to this genre.

Totally. I think what's considered "acceptable" changes a lot over time anyway. It often takes somebody like Erol Alkan or Daft Punk or whoever to make/big up a record that reassesses people's tastes. Besides, there are only a small number of people (hipsters, if you will) that actually give a toss about these boundaries anyway. I'd like to think that I'm turned off by stuff that's done to death and completely critically accepted rather than music that's thought of as naff. I mean, I consider this a fantastic pop record:

 

[Chris]

Some great points on this thread...

I wonder what conditions in the last 5 years have contributed to the popularity of all these beardo/space/hippie influences lately (not just in disco, but folk, psych, some noise, etc)...

Is the timeliness of it all simply a matter of these styles having been neglected for so long that they just sound really fresh right now, or is perhaps the hippie-ish, new-agey tone a reaction to (or a retreat from) the current mainstream consumer culture, the war, environmental anxieties, po-mo indifference, even the limitations of hipster "cool" and cynicism, etc... kind of an earnest, anti-cool, very inclusive (style-wise), post-hipster hipsterism?

Or maybe to some degree it's even a side-effect of hipster irony... Hipsters plundering their dad's (70's) styles... growing beards and wearing aviator glasses and runners shorts, listening to soft rock and cheesy disco, etc... and suddenly thinking, "hey, this is all kinda cool actually." :slanted:

 

[Gavin]

I really couldn't get into Studio, but I do love this comp:

 

[gek-opel]

Some great points on this thread...

I wonder what conditions in the last 5 years have contributed to the popularity of all these beardo/space/hippie influences lately (not just in disco, but folk, psych, some noise, etc)...

Is the timeliness of it all simply a matter of these styles having been neglected for so long that they just sound really fresh right now, or is perhaps the hippie-ish, new-agey tone a reaction to (or a retreat from) the current mainstream consumer culture, the war, environmental anxieties, po-mo indifference, even the limitations of hipster "cool" and cynicism, etc... kind of an earnest, anti-cool, very inclusive (style-wise), post-hipster hipsterism?

Or maybe to some degree it's even a side-effect of hipster irony... Hipsters plundering their dad's (70's) styles... growing beards and wearing aviator glasses and runners shorts, listening to soft rock and cheesy disco, etc... and suddenly thinking, "hey, this is all kinda cool actually." :slanted:

Reading interviews with Lindstrom he actually *loves* the cheesy yacht rock stuff. The clever bit is how they make these interconnections... to a certain extent it reflects the current state of the consolidation-centric music scene and the endless historical re-issuing and re-cataloguing/re-appraising of the past, which we can also see in the earlier dance/rock disco punk revival, which consisted equally of archival stuff being re-discovered, and then an entirely new set of acts taking that influence on (although the end results were quite a bit less interesting and jarring in my opinion).

Some mixes (from the ILM thread on this topic...)

http://anothernightonearth.blogspot.com/2007/07/press-play-5.html
http://www.sendspace.com/file/gij3p0

 

[dominic]

It sort of reminds me of Out Hud but less sarcastic.

last time i heard the guy from outhud dj, he was playing nu-cosmik/nu-balearic stuff, as well as 86/87-era chicago house

 

[dominic]

i followed some of gek-opel's links posted upthread

and i lucked upon this gorgeous selection of balearic classics =

http://www.trackwerk.net/mixes/Hardway Bros Bathing Machine.mp3

by the hardway brothers???

Ronny & Renzo - Big Smack & Flies
Verity Smith - Summertime (Flash Faction Dub)
Badly Drawn Boy - Promises (A Mountain of One Instrumental)
The Smiths - How Soon In Dub (Bootleg)
Mari Boine - It Ain’t Neccessarily Evil (Mungolian Remix)
Mott The Hoople - Bastard (AM01 Edit)
Herb Alpert - Rotation (Alternative Version)
Audio Deluxe - 60 Seconds
The Lovers - Bring Your Chaos
War of the Worlds - The Heat Ray (Hardway Bros Electric Edit)
Sly Mongoose - Bad Pulse (Padded Cell Remix)
The Dynamics - Music (Dub)
Pepe Deluxe - Captain Carter’s Fathoms
Dolly Parton - Jolene (Mindless Boogie Edit)
Turbo Crystal - French Girl (Escort Remix)
Hall & Oates - ICGFT (Rico’s Re-Rub)
Luke - Heaven’s On Fire
Lindstrom & Prins Thomas - Mighty Girl (Remix)
Tomboy - Something (Extended)
Wild Rumpus - Musical Blaze-Up (Rub N Tug Bitches Remix)
Waldeck - Make My Day (Parov Stelar Mix)
Pierro Fidelfatti - Oceans (Hardway Bros Life Aquatic Edit)

 

[dominic]

i could see a lot of ambient house getting revived in this neo-balearic craze

for instance, audio deluxe "60 seconds" above

but also this wonderful new york-to-japan label comatonse recordings

 

[Gavin]

last time i heard the guy from outhud dj, he was playing nu-cosmik/nu-balearic stuff, as well as 86/87-era chicago house

Makes sense, the bass sounds seem like they would fit together well.

 

[MankyFiver]

i could see a lot of ambient house getting revived in this neo-balearic craze

for instance, audio deluxe "60 seconds" above

but also this wonderful new york-to-japan label comatonse recordings

isnt that terre thaemlitz, the guy responsible for those theory heavy glitch/noise ambient things about gender etc

though i believe he used to do deep house at first, so it seems he's doing more of that now

 

[dominic]

the one track that i'm really digging is evidently un-released???

i.e., mari boine vs. mungolian jet set -- "it ain't necessarily evil"

and as for early 90s ambient house, what about stuff like . . . .

neutron 9000, "love's got a feeling"

ashley & jackson, "the sermon"

both rather cheesy and have that hippy pop feel

 

[dominic]

isnt that terre thaemlitz, the guy responsible for those theory heavy glitch/noise ambient things about gender etc

though i believe he used to do deep house at first, so it seems he's doing more of that now

yes, the one and only

i think his glitchier stuff is on other labels, like mille plateux

and though there's lots of way far out-there experimental music on comatonse, the label has had its share of nice "house" releases in an ambient vein that fits in well with current cosmik/balearic trends -- e.g., the chugga productions

 

[Guybrush]

Interviewed on Swedish telly

One of them is a pretty well-known photographer:

What are you listening to at the moment?

Hawkwind, Lindström, 3rd Mynd, Alan Parson Project, Ashra, Peter Gabriel, Magnus Uggla, The Oscillation, Can, Baldelli, Öppna Kanalens nattmusik and The Chills.

What inspires you?

Pandean pipes, liquorice and grass [meaning ganja, I think]

 

[Tim F]

Glad to see there's a Dissensus thread on this stuff now. I kept meaning to start a thread on Studio in particular. When I first heard them the first thing they made me think of was Simon R's complaint somewhere that all the post-punk revivalism had somehow forgotten that some post-punk (e.g. parts of Remain in Light) were so eerie and otherwordly and *pretty*.

Yes the Mungolian Jet Set vs Mari Boine track is astonishing, that and their remix of Ronny & Renzo really positions them as the crazy avant pop geniuses of nu-balearic as much as cosmic disco.

I kind of think that if Lindstrom & Prins Thomas are the Daft Punk of cosmic disco (and balearic even, they kind of presaged this whole development with their album for Eskimo), then Mungolian Jet Set are Basement Jaxx.

 

[dominic]

i've investigated mungolian jet set the past couple of days, and most of their stuff errs too far on the side of cheese -- but perhaps i'm close-minded -- and yet they clearly have some kind of "genius" about them, in line with wagon christ perhaps (and to me wagon christ is NOT a good producer b/c of these sorts of excesses)

but if mungolian j.s. can manage to reign themselves a bit, and craft wonderful poppy twists and turns -- as they do to stunning effect on the mari boine track -- then sky is the limit . . . .

as for lindstrom, aside from "i feel space," and indeed even more so than that track, which is ultimately a bit too euro trance-y (and i say this despite loving it), the song that i really like by him is "music (in my mind)" -- which i suspect i have on re-release, as it's FEED 001 -- but "music (in my mind)" is pure balearic pop genius, nothing to do with cosmik disco -- so there you go

(((rather embarrassed to confess that a lot of this stuff has been right under my nose, in terms of djs pushing the records and musicians getting remixed, and that i've only recently begun to take notice . . . . perhaps b/c i depend too much on dissensus for tips on music, and dissensus has been asleep on the balearic trend)))