thirdform

pass the sick bucket
but you're absolutely correct of course. but beyond all the crap you still want to naively believe there is something there, you know? and of course there isn't. its all the right clothes and right accents and right contacts and right haircuts types. :(
 

thirdform

pass the sick bucket
apart from going to friday prayers and doing shopping and other standard work i haven't left the house in three years so it feels like something to cling onto but.

I dunno really. you raise a good point. you can't bring these people round to our way of thinking. not even a herculean effort will remotely do it.

It's all a bit confusing really.

Sadform on a wednesday. :p
 

pattycakes_

Can turn naughty
Have been down this trail before and not really found anyone interested enough to talk about it. Always end up asking myself if maybe originality is something we could shift the main focus away from. Maybe it's not the be all end all. Maybe it's just the byproduct of capitalism and mass production. People used to be fine listening to the same old shit for centuries before this era. In many parts of the world they still do. We've been over this before, right? Songs older than anyone can remember. Replayed over and over. Still bringing the same joy. Can easily transpose this into the hippy side of my point, which is moving away from a materialist mentality and some form (not sure what exactly) of a return to some prior state of mind. I think my shroom trip confirmed all of this to me. There I was listening to old music and getting as fresh a buzz as I would having heard it for the first time. In fact plenty of the tracks I heard on that trip were new to me, but very much within the confines of the framework. So maybe the problem is us and our externally imposed need for the new. Could this be bypassed? I mean, let's face it, you hear an old classic you haven't heard for years and it catches you. Smile plastered across your face. It's part nostalgia, part just sheer awe at the work. Timeless is timeless.
 

luka

Well-known member
but you're absolutely correct of course. but beyond all the crap you still want to naively believe there is something there, you know? and of course there isn't. its all the right clothes and right accents and right contacts and right haircuts types. :(

This is what I believe. it was this way in the '90s too. RA is just Time Out magazine covering nights at Blue Note and The End and disdainfully ignoring Club EQ (or whatever) I used to feel indignant about it but then I realised being off the map, not existing in official documents, not having any papers, was part of the reason good stuff is good.
 

luka

Well-known member
There's always been an Outside. The world represented by the media is a kind of sham world. It's resturaunts where the menu tastes better than the meal. Clubs where people go to be seen and not to dance. In London this is especially extreme.
 

luka

Well-known member
I think as far as the timeless.... When life was static, and time stood still, then you had people listening to the same music for centuries. But as soon as history begins, music changes alongside it. I have at least one friend who wants to return to the Mesolithic, but how?
 

thirdform

pass the sick bucket
Have been down this trail before and not really found anyone interested enough to talk about it. Always end up asking myself if maybe originality is something we could shift the main focus away from. Maybe it's not the be all end all. Maybe it's just the byproduct of capitalism and mass production. People used to be fine listening to the same old shit for centuries before this era. In many parts of the world they still do. We've been over this before, right? Songs older than anyone can remember. Replayed over and over. Still bringing the same joy. Can easily transpose this into the hippy side of my point, which is moving away from a materialist mentality and some form (not sure what exactly) of a return to some prior state of mind. I think my shroom trip confirmed all of this to me. There I was listening to old music and getting as fresh a buzz as I would having heard it for the first time. In fact plenty of the tracks I heard on that trip were new to me, but very much within the confines of the framework. So maybe the problem is us and our externally imposed need for the new. Could this be bypassed? I mean, let's face it, you hear an old classic you haven't heard for years and it catches you. Smile plastered across your face. It's part nostalgia, part just sheer awe at the work. Timeless is timeless.

I was actually going to start a thread called 'beyond innovation' however I'm waiting for barty to come back from his hiatus as he's more clued into contemporary music trends than i am.

Basically what i was going to argue that tracks, albums and mixes can have both revolutionary and conservative aspects simultaneously. I was also going to argue that we should drop the term reactionary and use conservative, because reactionary is ultimately a political term that refers to someone who wants the restoration of the catholic monarchy and feudalism, ultimately. I don't think you can lump a 70s roots reggae purist in there, no matter how hard you try. You could probably lump in some kind of trad classical bod or the types that want to make jazz on a level with mozart (or accord white approval to it in that way.) But otherwise I think conservative is a better term.

For instance I've always argued that techstep was rhythmically far less innovative than 94, but there was initialy innovation tere, in the disembodied murky atmospheres and the basslines. even into 98/99 there were still some interesting things being done in the bass sections. I think this is a better way to holistically conceptualise music. I can thus look at some new jungle and be like, ok is this doing an interesting thing with combination and recombination of old elements?

I mean T.I 's trap music came out in 2003 right. you can't seriously tell me trap is *new* can you?
 

thirdform

pass the sick bucket
I think as far as the timeless.... When life was static, and time stood still, then you had people listening to the same music for centuries. But as soon as history begins, music changes alongside it. I have at least one friend who wants to return to the Mesolithic, but how?

Yay I don't think middle eastern or indian classical is timeless as how westerners describe it, as if some sages discovered some divine cosmological principles and wrote the manual of the music. like all things it developed in history.
 

luka

Well-known member
And the Indian at least (I know even less about the middle eastern) has improvisation as a central principle. So the sense in which it is the 'same' is fairly loose.
 

thirdform

pass the sick bucket
a lot of what seems timeless to me doesn't to others. my dad starts making fun of jungle or grime whenever i put it on, absolutely can't stand it, even the good stuff. he just thinks its mindless clattering drums with no genuine creativity or singing or proper (as in turkish) melodic content.

My mum thinks darkcore is funny though :)
 

thirdform

pass the sick bucket
And the Indian at least (I know even less about the middle eastern) has improvisation as a central principle. So the sense in which it is the 'same' is fairly loose.

Pretty similar. it's improvisation but not free improvisation you still have to improvise in terms of melody and fairly constant rhythms.
 

pattycakes_

Can turn naughty
In the same way jazz is based around a recognizable 'head' and then goes off into conversational improv based on that head. Maybe no-one ever played the same solo on Caravan or St Thomas but it still hits those familiar spots where both the in the know crowd and the musicians are very much in familiar territory. Unless they go way out and it ofc becomes avant garde. But most traditional musics from around the world follow this same tradition. Its something intrinsic to us as a species. Certain cultures get off on precision and exaction. Others like repetition with plenty of variation. But ultimately they're playing the same stuff over and over. It's the familiarity that ties it together. No culture outside of the 20th c ever based itself around true avant garde freedom. At least none I'm aware of.

This is timelessness to me.
 

chava

Well-known member
Have been down this trail before and not really found anyone interested enough to talk about it. Always end up asking myself if maybe originality is something we could shift the main focus away from. Maybe it's not the be all end all. Maybe it's just the byproduct of capitalism and mass production. People used to be fine listening to the same old shit for centuries before this era. In many parts of the world they still do. We've been over this before, right? Songs older than anyone can remember. Replayed over and over. Still bringing the same joy. Can easily transpose this into the hippy side of my point, which is moving away from a materialist mentality and some form (not sure what exactly) of a return to some prior state of mind. I think my shroom trip confirmed all of this to me. There I was listening to old music and getting as fresh a buzz as I would having heard it for the first time. In fact plenty of the tracks I heard on that trip were new to me, but very much within the confines of the framework. So maybe the problem is us and our externally imposed need for the new. Could this be bypassed? I mean, let's face it, you hear an old classic you haven't heard for years and it catches you. Smile plastered across your face. It's part nostalgia, part just sheer awe at the work. Timeless is timeless.

You are correct. I snoop around this forum just to watch how far neomania can take you. Innovation is not relevant anymore, keep that to the entrepeneur types. We need a conservative (not nostalgic) approach.

And btw: If you lot listen to techno/house for rhythmic 'complexity' you have missed the point. If you really want rhythmic complexity in techno listen to the sequences/effects (if its good), not in the literal beat/bass-trickery. Like Terrence Dixon, even some Surgeon trax.
 

pattycakes_

Can turn naughty
I have at least one friend who wants to return to the Mesolithic, but how?

There's no turning back the clock. There's no recapturing. Can't put lightning in a bottle. But I think psychs are our way to tap into the consciousness streams that we seem to have forgotten the further away from land and nature we have progressed. This is is the timeless shit that was a running thread throughout all time. Imo it's easily reconnected to and holds the key to so many things I think we're all striving for right now. Breaking out of the matrix or whatever you want to call it.
 

thirdform

pass the sick bucket
And btw: If you lot listen to techno/house for rhythmic 'complexity' you have missed the point. If you really want rhythmic complexity in techno listen to the sequences/effects (if its good), not in the literal beat/bass-trickery. Like Terrence Dixon, even some Surgeon trax.


i agree with this, however there is some rhythmically complex techno, like dan curtin, titonton/early morgon geist etc...
 

thirdform

pass the sick bucket
There's no turning back the clock. There's no recapturing. Can't put lightning in a bottle. But I think psychs are our way to tap into the consciousness streams that we seem to have forgotten the further away from land and nature we have progressed. This is is the timeless shit that was a running thread throughout all time. Imo it's easily reconnected to and holds the key to so many things I think we're all striving for right now. Breaking out of the matrix or whatever you want to call it.

I just really hold back on the cult of drugs that people really get into you know. mental illness runs deep through my family, many others. I'm willing to fuck my brain up, i wouldn't wish it on my worst enemy though. I don't recommend that people take drugs, psychs or otherwise. I know the consequences, the good-to-great ones and the very very bad ones.
 

thirdform

pass the sick bucket
Like some people will have mindblowing acid trips with very little anxiety. might even be amazing trips.

It doesn't mean they are psychosocially in that social context ready to move on. they could keep chasing the ineffable, the indescribable. in proto-neolithic times that might have been fine but in todays high tech world you're resigning to a life in a hospital.
 

pattycakes_

Can turn naughty
That's why I made the point earlier of it being guided and with goals like it used to be as opposed to 'just do your own thing maaan.' The hippy movement didn't work because there was no real guiding light at the end of the day. Mostly just indulgence as we are wont to do. There needs to be some framework. We respond and work well with that. It's innate. Plenty of room to move around inside and change and start over too. But yeah I agree with you, and have suffered terribly because of drug induced mental issues but I own that and feel like it was for a greater good. Ie me facing shit I needed to face. If I'd had better friends or wiser people around me I would have dealt with this a lot quicker than I have. And in the end its a test. I bet not every single ancient tribes kid came back fully formed after their rite of passage. Its not for everyone. I bet there were plenty of casualties. But I'm not saying literally 100% of people would have to take psychs. Maybe just stronger minded people who were in positions of leadership for a start.
 
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