Funk is Cancelled.

[padraig (u.s.)]

Drexciya being - for me - a resolution, if not endpoint, of many of these tensions

tighten up vs loosen up, funk vs anti-funk, funky vs fonky

submerged in their depths, an inversion of the star child's heights, 1989 A Merman they became

 

[padraig (u.s.)]

Flailing towards (submerged) boogie from far, far leftfield:

that is fucking tite thx

 

[padraig (u.s.)]

killer 70s spasm psych-funk from Ravi Shankar's nephew

the breakdown right after 2 minute mark always gets me, also tablas + trap set is dope

 

[pattycakes_]

 

[pattycakes_]

@third almost no one I played with was German. Couple of African dudes and some spanish/italian/south americans. Maybe one kraut. Berlin's International innit.

 

[thirdform]

P-F are of their time in some ways but in others they exist outside time like Sun Ra

yeah they were pretty goofy, sometimes in a pretty fucking corny way, it's not a secret (also, what's wrong with being goofy)

they also inspired hella people, ain't no one fetishizing nothing

waypoints on the Afrofuturist mythology continuum (simplified) Space Is the Place->1983 A Merman->Mothership Connection->Welcome to Drexciya

Oh, i like them, didn't mean to express disdain there, I just think they are music that you can't constantly revisit in 2019. very much of their time in quite a few senses for me yes. I just think people who go on about p-funk in 2019 (less so zapp) are basically telling porkie pies to cohere a sense of connoisseurship over the masses. yes p-funk might have had quite a bit of influence over 80s black electronic music but it was by no means *the only influence* even within the funk/soul/jazz/disco continuum, even if we extract from European stuff.

Sure they inspired the belleville three and even the second wave of detroit, and maybe even some people in chicago.

But in the UK they were very much a collectors band and were not really played on the boogie/electrofunk scene. English detroit techno heads pretending to always be into them is a bit of self-serving mythologising, in the same way that certain junglists were huge king tubby fans when they were 8 years old, ok then m8.

 

[pattycakes_]

Am I allowed to like PF, third?

 

[thirdform]

Drexciya being - for me - a resolution, if not endpoint, of many of these tensions

tighten up vs loosen up, funk vs anti-funk, funky vs fonky

submerged in their depths, an inversion of the star child's heights, 1989 A Merman they became

ahhhh but also:

 

[thirdform]

Am I allowed to like PF, third?

no from now on all you can ever ever ever listen to is merzbow. we've declared it to be so. a rather severe punishment for bringing your bourgeois cosmopolitan value set into this stinking cesspit of British exceptionalism. we all feel violated now.

 

[thirdform]

I'd be interested in hearing the least funky music people can find.

I can obviously cheat and say drone, indie rock, etc etc, but if we're talking with prominent beats it's definitely flashcore. a delightfully cybernetic mix of late 90s french speedcore and acousmatics a la xenakis/bayle.

this is what psytrance would sound like if it was made by a bunch of methheads. and that's where my value set differs with luke's, barty's and patty's (yes you all belong in the same box, tough luck) they are ultimately goa trance at heart. sublime cascading waves on anjuna and vagator with people talking about mind expansion and stroking each others genitals. add some flutes with a white Portuguese rasta in a binti serving chai at 6 AM to come down from the lsd trip for extra garnish. whereas me it's robocop married to islamic eschatology.

 

[version]

I can obviously cheat and say drone, indie rock, etc etc, but if we're talking with prominent beats it's definitely flashcore. a delightfully cybernetic mix of late 90s french speedcore and acousmatics a la xenakis/bayle.

this is what psytrance would sound like if it was made by a bunch of methheads. and that's where my value set differs with luke's, barty's and patty's (yes you all belong in the same box, tough luck) they are ultimately goa trance at heart. sublime cascading waves on anjuna and vagator with people talking about mind expansion and stroking each others genitals. add some flutes with a white Portuguese rasta in a binti serving chai at 6 AM to come down from the lsd trip for extra garnish. whereas me it's robocop married to islamic eschatology.

This is like an entire genre made up of blown out and sped up Shaka dub sirens.

 

[version]

This stuff seems to be completely ignored by places like RA and Boomkat but I bet if you took the same tunes, put them out through Death of Rave or PAN and attached some conceptual framework then they'd be all over it.

 

[version]

1983 A Merman

You ever heard the demo? Very different to the final recording.

 

[thirdform]

This stuff seems to be completely ignored by places like RA and Boomkat but I bet if you took the same tunes, put them out through Death of Rave or PAN and attached some conceptual framework then they'd be all over it.

I know Conor from boomkat is into this stuff in quite a big way but overall yes I know what you mean.

 

[padraig (u.s.)]

You ever heard the demo? Very different to the final recording

no I'd never heard that, thanks

it sounds like a demo. I do like how he basically just handwaves the whole middle section "OK, here's where it'll be quiet and then kind of crazy for like, 10 minutes".

I firmly think if a song is good - nb only talking songs here, not tracks - it'll still sound good on an unaccompanied acoustic guitar (or piano or whatever)

 

[padraig (u.s.)]

1983 A Merman is more about the mythology tho, especially in dissensus terms where most people aren't truly into guitars

idk if the Drexciya guys ever listened to it as children or teenagers, or if they did what they thought

and unlike Drexciya - tho, not unlike P-Funk - there's a healthy does of white hippiedom in there, Atlantis way down beneath the ocean where I wanna be

but Jimi flips it ofc - a black man turns on his back on a dying earth (speaking of apocalyptic fantasies) and takes The Journey Home to Neptune's Lair etc

not merely escapism but active flight from a dystopia. which Drexciya then brings all the way back around to the active creation of a different kind of utopia.

why I have always found Drexciya so fascinating, even all the faceless techno mystery (which was before my time anyway) and incredible quality of the music aside

to refashion the impossible trauma of the Middle Passage and all that followed into this equally impossibly creative counternarrative

I just, idk, I can't even articulate. the level of creative genius it takes to transcend even for a moment the insane toxicity of American racial history + race relations.

 

[padraig (u.s.)]

it's like Sun Ra, Jimi, the P-Funk crew, etc all feeling around the edges in a way

but Stinson and Donald, they fucking did it man. it was accomplished.

 

[pattycakes_]

That's soul, padraig. Strength to rise above despite the reality.

 

[bassbeyondreason]

Nice Sun Ra/P-Funk triangulation on this:

 

[thirdform]

That's soul, padraig. Strength to rise above despite the reality.

christ you're gonna harp on about this shit aren't you incessantly. by soul must be transcended we're not talking about strength through adversity we're talking about the dethroning of the artist. dance music cultures in all forms a good example of this unartistic 12 inches and 45s. this is why im so annoyed about many white techno fans and drexciya, they only like them because they released albums that the intelligentsia like and hence they identify with an *personality* rather than the collective unity. they won't talk about chance/k-aleksi or jay denham whatever. obvs I'm not bracketing you here, you know ur shit...