How do you view the progression of minimal since the clicks n cuts era

Commander Keen

Active member
A friend and I were recently discussing how we really miss this era of techno and spent a deal of time fawning over C&C comps and old Force things. I really feel like this was the paramount moment for the genre. It may just be a response to a combination of things, overpopulation, saturation, nostalgia, but I really feel like there was a steady plateau and now a decline. What's your take?
 

zhao

there are no accidents
i think limitations of sound pallette, rhythm, and dynamics of the genre(s) began to be clearly apparent sometime in the last few years.

was all about minimal dub click what have you for a long time... but recently tried to listen to some stuff and it just sounded so brittle, the 4/4 repetition so cliche and tired... especially in relation to all the reggae, grime, and central asian folk songs i've been immersed in...

but of course i will always love jan jelinek, thomas brinkmann, etc.
 

mms

sometimes
i never really liked the forcetracks stuff, very generic and the soundpallete was pretty thin, suffering from lack of dynamics and build more than minimal nowdays, also lacking atmosphere and strange rhythmic wonkiness in alot of ways. i think it's progressed, its got thicker as music, more dynamic, occasionally stranger, occasionally poppier or harder. there are tons more duff tracks but that's cos there are tons more people making it. it does need to switch up rhythmically but it's actually got more interesting rhythmically than when it started, its more colourful now tho. However like any genre a few producers stand above the rest with occasionally good output from other people.
 
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DJ PIMP

Well-known member
the stuff thats still aping that trad minimal style is really played out, but i'll gladly get down to something like gui borattos remix of eyerer & chopsticks "the haunting".

what does "minimal" mean or describe nowadays?
 

leamas

Well-known member
can't help but feel that producers like trentemoller and some of the french crew killed minimal by using it as a disguise for standard dull tech house. it's also got really trancey, especially all the m_nus stuff. some of their stuff is quite catchy. but i've been missing the likes of akufen who made really interesting and varied music. on the other hand i wouldn't say that techno is in decline on the whole, with producers like $tinkworks, surgeon, convextion, andy stott, redshape and various others making great music again at the moment.
 

turtles

in the sea
I think I agree with Zhao that clicks n cuts at it height was definitely a bit overrated. I think I'm a much bigger fan of the stuff that came before and after, so the basic channel/chain reaction stuff, all the mike inc side projects (Studio 1 is great!), brinkman, etc...then it went all bonkers with the clicks n cuts...then it went all micro, which was much better (well, microhouse kinda happened at the same time didn't it?). So yeah, I like my minimal either nicely rigid and syncopated or on the more melodic side.

speaking of which, i really like the trancier side of minimal these days! booka shade, a lot of the liebe detail stuff, ripperton, that aril brikha track on kompakt. so lush...

Who remembers the liner notes to the first clicks n cuts comp? Those were great! "we are here, and here is minimal" or something like that... :D
 

DigitalDjigit

Honky Tonk Woman
That stuff is so dated. I mean it was like 6 years ago (already?) but it feels old in a way that say, Rhythm & Sound from that time, doesn't. I bought Clicks & Cuts Vol. 3 recently and it's an old school record. I think that stuff disappeared without leaving much of a trace. I don't think any of the minimal around now really owes much to it. Kind of a dead end it was.

The way I see it is it was just one of the strands of minimal that was around at the time. Is the dry Perlon sort of stuff click'n'cuts for example? I don't think so. Or Swayzak sort of tech-house? I think Swayzak is really the sound from that time that is the most current. It's because it doesn't rely on really dry beat manipulation and is more about lush pads and melodies and straightforward house beats that appeal to more people.
 

zhao

there are no accidents
I think I agree with Zhao that clicks n cuts at it height was definitely a bit overrated.

you misunderstand me... never said clicks'n'cuts was over rated. in fact all those comps i still like a lot, especially in functional context - perfect soundtracks for pixel-pushing. still love all the microsound school of "minimal".

what i find really thin and out-dated is the majority of the dance oriented clicky minimal stuff from turn of last century or so. the bass is not deep enough, or there is no bassline to speak of. and nothing to fill the space and just endless hi hats. even more "innovative" stuff like Akufen, just can NOT listen to it now. just really grating and annoying.

the "true school" modern minimal electronics to me is Pan Sonic type music.

as a descriptor i think it has always been really lazily applied... as i mentioned before, sometimes all "left field" dance is labeled "minimal". such as Christian Vogel, who has never really produced anything that is very minimal at all.

these days it's even worse. i don't think the term means much anymore... or inversely come to mean too much.
 

DJ PIMP

Well-known member
It seems pretty fashionable to slate minimal right now, e.g. Jay Haze on Resident Advisor...

I’m not into the M_nus parties. Especially in Berlin, M_nus parties are extremely overhyped. I mean they’re very boring parties. It’s very boring for me to go and listen to these guys now. Back three years ago it was nice, we would all play together, and now it’s just that I like a little bit more soul and funk. They have none. Zero soul and zero funk.

What I've heard of his material was pretty dull.
 
Oh good I will be in fashion then ;)

Going to see Robert Hood this weekend, that's more my idea of good minimal techno.
 

DJ PIMP

Well-known member
the 4/4 repetition so cliche and tired...
the first music i fell in love with was hiphop in the 80s... then ravey stuff c91, jungle, techno, etc... jungle in a big way (all sorts of things since), and at the time, there was nothing more boring to me than 4/4. as time has worn on i have come to love the humble 4/4. effortless would be how i describe it now... almost nothing sounds better to me than a nice syncopated house/disco/techno beat.

but i do simply adore someone like max romeo, who has gorgeously organic timing.
 

straight

wings cru
i suppose minimals on its third or forth incarnation now. there is a definite influx of boring highlighted mixmag tech house djs moving into the area and its exploded here in manchester over the last year (girls at the nights and everything now). i know most of the guys running the scene here and most of their musical tastes are very conservative, they still delve into old prog tunes and outside of techno theyre into crap indie. theyre good guys but the clicks and cuts era means nada to them, when talkin to them they pretty much thought that it was still a very young music and i had to point out the document that really defined the movement overground (to my ears anyway) of minimal was DE9 closer to the edit and that came out 6 years ago. it took me quite a while to warm to the new kompakt school of minimalism, i was a fan of the stark old style wierdness and it made a lot more sense in dark gloomy england but after a 6am moments in barcelona im completely sold.
i think its the norm that as producers age and egos grow they move away from mix tools, big name artist albums now seem to be appearing weekly (gui borrato, the field, hug etc) and without melodies all the clicks can meld together into one. this isnt always a good thing though as in the case of recent albums like robags wuzzlebud and the last mikkel metal record fell seriously short of the mark.
It seems to be a trend in a lot of electronica to be trading the hard lines and dots of the early 2000s for warmer washes of colour. taking for example the new alva noto record, http://www.boomkat.com/item.cfm?id=30796 previously the epitome of the sines and click aesthetic hes moved into (admittedly still very minimal)fuzzy washes of organic melody
 
S

simon silverdollar

Guest
It seems pretty fashionable to slate minimal right now, e.g. Jay Haze on Resident Advisor...



What I've heard of his material was pretty dull.


his Fuckpony stuff is really good, i think, if quite self-consciously retro.
 

straight

wings cru
jay haze is one of my favourite minimal producers too, i dont see that he means to knock minimal as whole, more about m_nus lacking funk. hazes material has always had a nice soulful bounce to it, smiley wierdness. i love contexterrior and his textone netlabel, its a shame there doesnt seem to be many new releases recently. not sure about the more afrocentric stuff hes knockin out though
 

DJ PIMP

Well-known member
re the haze quote, yeah, he was talking specifically about m_nus, but thats pretty much the cream of the trad minimal labels in terms of hype and history? so if another minimal dj is saying its boring then its a reasonable bell-weather for where things are at.

or not, i dunno.

hawtins own stuff i do still have time for, his tracks generally aren't that dynamic, but his sound has always been sew tite.
 
i completely missed the original c&c scene, unless you count the odd Pan Sonic album, but funnily enough i got curious recently and bagged a copy of the first clicks_+_cuts compilation on e-bay. this is the 3x vinyl issue. i got it for a fiver. there were no other bidders. haven't listened to it really closely yet, but immediate impression is that things were quite a bit more abstract then..the newer minimal techno is a bit more bangin'. innit. but i'm into it. gonna check some more of the Pole/scape axis soon...
 
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