Carl Craigs recent music

sodiumnightlife

Sweet Virginia
the Can thing from recently is cool, and I like Falling Up when it finally gets going. I even like the Congos thing, pointless though it may be. It just makes the original longer, which is a good thing

I have a bit of trouble with threads like this, I think because I don't really understand early-mid 90s techno. Especially the more abrasive stuff (I love basic channel). Aesthetically, sonically I find newer stuff so much more appealing. Couldn't put my finger on why though; I love rough, raw sounding music.. maybe I lack the necessary context. But I never needed the context to fall in love with jungle, or two step. The ..revolutionary arts LP is basically where I start to really like his stuff, rather than the other way round which seems to be more common.

Anyone got any ideas? Not sure where I'm going with this really. I've been trying for a long time with it, and potentially wasted lots of money buying records I don't really like much..

I know exactly what you mean Ben. I love a load of 90s techno and can quite happily listen to jeff mill's sets etc, but only for a while. There's something about the quest for roughness, for hardness that seems so utterly alien to me. Maybe its because i'm white, middle class and boring, but I much prefer recent techno , with its more considered approach to absolutely tearing the floor apart.
 

UFO over easy

online mahjong
oh really? repress bizzle.. I really like it anyway :) that makes things interesting re: post above

sodium nightlife said:
There's something about the quest for roughness, for hardness that seems so utterly alien to me

maybe! but that doesn't really explain it for me because I love ruffer-than-ruff jungle and no u-turn style 97-98 dark/hard/mechanical techstep.
 

noel emits

a wonderful wooden reason
Carl Craig's stuff might have some (deliberate) rough edges and distortion etc. but he's always been art techno. I'm not really sure I understand this - it's not like he does mindless bangers - it's Carl Craig!

At Les? Bug In The Bassbin? - pure lush breakbeat jazz techno heaven! Blueprints for broken and drum and bass.

Landcruising? - Carpenter-esque arpeggiated synth travelogues.

4 Jazz Funk Classics? - this is such a great EP. the drums might be distorted but those deep space bleeps and funk samples! Also some beautiful stuff on the other 69 records.

And the real earliest releases are the BFC things which are really blissed out / smeared sounding with buried melodies.

I guess the Paperclip People tracks are sometimes intentionally crude, but they really, really work. If anything where he's not as good these days is in using more software - with CC it was always about the mix dynamics and the sound of crunchy hardware / loosely chopped breaks.
 
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bassnation

the abyss
I guess the Paperclip People tracks are sometimes intentionally crude, but they really, really work. If anything where he's not as good these days is in using more software - with CC it was always about the mix dynamics and the sound of crunchy hardware / loosely chopped breaks.

the paperclip people is his best work, hands down. if you've ever seen throw drop in a really good buzzing house club back in the day you will know exactly what i mean. the album is bonkers, like every track can destroy a club. very unusual for dance lps. his more considered techno output is also good (at les in particular) and some of his remixes are amazing. i don't really dig bug in the bassbin tho and its influence on jungle is massively overstated.

likewise hes a patchy producer with moments of genius with his forays into jazz funk being cringingly bad. and his djing.... well, lets just say some people are better producers than they are at spinning and should maybe play to their strengths.

some remixes i love of his are "better nation" by bandulu, "flash" by green velvet (a rolling tribal bass monster that used to get played at cream back in the mid nineties before it got shit), "angola" by lusafrica and "out of the storm" by icognito (maybe the only time i've ever liked one of their tracks).

as for techno being better now (i dispute this, but i'm out of the loop these days, esp. concerning minimal) you have to remember the nineties was ten years, most of technos evolution occurred in that time. the point where i stopped listening was when everyone was on the crushing two bar loop thing (jeff mills has a lot to answer for). the early nineties, however, was by far (for me anyway) the most fallow productive phase with loads of mad ravey acidy gear smashing dances up. UR did their best stuff back then and techno quite easily shared space with 'ardkore tracks. most people agree that 1994 was a vintage year for techno.
 

UFO over easy

online mahjong
as for techno being better now (i dispute this, but i'm out of the loop these days, esp. concerning minimal) you have to remember the nineties was ten years, most of technos evolution occurred in that time. the point where i stopped listening was when everyone was on the crushing two bar loop thing (jeff mills has a lot to answer for). the early nineties, however, was by far (for me anyway) the most fallow productive phase with loads of mad ravey acidy gear smashing dances up. UR did their best stuff back then and techno quite easily shared space with 'ardkore tracks. most people agree that 1994 was a vintage year for techno.

for sure, that's why I made sure not to say that anything was 'better' than anything else, cos I lack the proper perspective to make any sweeping statements like that :)

I'm really trying to educate myself here though, and I think part of my problem is that I'm still quite disassociated from the whole techno lineage - I've heard a lot and like a lot but it's all fragments, I don't have any sense of a continuum or anything like it as everything I hear is from different periods and probably different scenes in different places. I think what I really need is a comprehensive history lesson, but techno and house are so vast and have been global for so long that it seems a lot harder to do that than with something like jungle.
 

elgato

I just dont know
Ben, with regard to your quandry, what stuff is a good example of the kind of thing you don't connect with? cos the Can Remix love complicates the picture!

I cant believe theres so little love for cc's recent work here, the dela+gavin revelee remix from last year still leaves me gawping in a daze. I knows he's formulaic at times (no kick for ages, one filter tweaked for ages, clap, clap, clap, clap, clapclap) but

my feelings exactly, i love his old stuff, but a fair bit of his new material too. interestingly i didn't really like his new stuff that much until i went back and heard his old stuff, which is quite curious
 

noel emits

a wonderful wooden reason
the paperclip people is his best work, hands down. if you've ever seen throw drop in a really good buzzing house club back in the day you will know exactly what i mean.
Yes, yes I have.
i don't really dig bug in the bassbin tho and its influence on jungle is massively overstated.
I went to Speed quite a bit when it started and Fabio quite often played it at 45. In that context it did seem to play a big role in ushering in those early 'musical' forays. I know you a hardcore / original junglist type person bassnation but that club was one of those things that was evolving very fast in real time from week to week for a good while. Some fantastic music got played down there first. There's a bit of inverted snobbery around 'artcore' and 'intelligent' d&b - it was very exciting and necessary at the time I think, before things got too poncy and self conscious.
and his djing.... well, lets just say some people are better producers than they are at spinning and should maybe play to their strengths.
Selection and flow over tight mixing. It's fine by me - I prefer that than some robot with average records.
 

bassnation

the abyss
Yes, yes I have.

I went to Speed quite a bit when it started and Fabio quite often played it at 45. In that context it did seem to play a big role in ushering in those early 'musical' forays. I know you a hardcore / original junglist type person bassnation but that club was one of those things that was evolving very fast in real time from week to week for a good while. Some fantastic music got played down there first. There's a bit of inverted snobbery around 'artcore' and 'intelligent' d&b - it was very exciting and necessary at the time I think, before things got too poncy and self conscious.

ok i'll accept that. in fact i'll admit to loving bukems early stuff (and that first mix he did, the name of which escapes me). demons theme is mental. also one of my favourite hardcore tracks is good looking 002 - bukem and tayla "bang the drum" which i used on one of those old mixes. its pretty early but even then you can see bukems style emerging loud and clear. i remember when they toured the big house clubs though, and they'd totally confuse the ravers with their 10 minute breakdowns. maybe people just weren't open-minded enough.

Selection and flow over tight mixing. It's fine by me - I prefer that than some robot with average records.

yeah but thats my issue with craig - he could play a blinder if he didn't have pretensions to being a "proper musician" - e.g. loads of flaccid jazzy bollocks. even if he solely played his own techno and house tracks, todd terry style, that would be better. but as you know, i'm blindly predjudiced when it comes to fuzak.
 
D

droid

Guest
Selection and flow over tight mixing. It's fine by me - I prefer that than some robot with average records.

Sorry to butt in with an aside - but this false dichotomy really irks me, and its one of the most repeated opinions on DJing.

Id prefer to have both - and theres absolutely no reason why a decent DJ shouldn't be able to do both. One doesn't exclude the other.
 

noel emits

a wonderful wooden reason
Didn't say it did - I didn't mean to imply a dichotomy, just that I personally don't care if the mixing isn't hyper precise if the records are really great and played in a constructive order.

Funny enough - I originally typed 'droid' intead of robot. ;)

Actually I think the most important thing a DJ can do is to read the crowd and respond accordingly*. Without this even great mixing and top tunes won't really take the people anywhere.

* By this I don't necessarily mean giving them what they 'want', sometimes you have to give them what they need! ;)
 
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noel emits

a wonderful wooden reason
the Can Remix love complicates the picture!
The Future Days remix is nice but the original is so exquisite and magical that I was seriously disappointed when it first came out. Might be easier to hear it as a distinct piece now tho.
 

bassnation

the abyss
The Future Days remix is nice but the original is so exquisite and magical that I was seriously disappointed when it first came out. Might be easier to hear it as a distinct piece now tho.

i didn't like his mix of floppy sounds "entertainment" which imo (the dub, anyway) is one of the darkest skeletal off-kilter NY house tracks ever committed to vinyl. its utterly minimal, clanking and alien - and what does craig do? turn it into an wishy washy epic odyseey utterly missing the point. when he ruins my favourite tunes he can just go away as far as i'm concerned.
 

sodiumnightlife

Sweet Virginia
I didn't mean to say techno today is better just that perhaps on balance I like it more. And I certainly have no issue with all craigs earlier stuff. I guess you just connect better with whatever you've grown up with, so where I can pinpoint cassy tracks to when i first heard them out I can't do that with older techno. I feel like i'm a digging hole here with no real point to make and am only confusing myself. Ignore me.
 

Client Eastwood

Well-known member
for sure, that's why I made sure not to say that anything was 'better' than anything else, cos I lack the proper perspective to make any sweeping statements like that :)

I'm really trying to educate myself here though, and I think part of my problem is that I'm still quite disassociated from the whole techno lineage - I've heard a lot and like a lot but it's all fragments, I don't have any sense of a continuum or anything like it as everything I hear is from different periods and probably different scenes in different places. I think what I really need is a comprehensive history lesson, but techno and house are so vast and have been global for so long that it seems a lot harder to do that than with something like jungle.

The early late 80's are well represented on these two Warp compilations
mostly UK bleep and bass, sparse and heavy on the bass. I'd say they share a lot of elements with some of the techy dubstep around
http://www.discogs.com/release/648887
and
mostly techno and house
http://www.discogs.com/release/10194
 

Gabba Flamenco Crossover

High Sierra Skullfuck
I'm really trying to educate myself here though, and I think part of my problem is that I'm still quite disassociated from the whole techno lineage - I've heard a lot and like a lot but it's all fragments, I don't have any sense of a continuum or anything like it as everything I hear is from different periods and probably different scenes in different places. I think what I really need is a comprehensive history lesson, but techno and house are so vast and have been global for so long that it seems a lot harder to do that than with something like jungle.

A very brief primer on trends in early-to-mid 90s techno then (and not definitive, so jump in and correct me!):

- lo-fi spacy disco-influenced art techno coming out of Detroit, building on what Derrick May was doing in the mid 80s. Carl Craig is maybe the best exponent of this - grab the 69 compilation called The Sound Of Music (a lot of the tracks on Food & Revlutionary Art are also from this period, such as At Les). His track Microlovr that he did as 69 is one of my two all-time favorite techno tracks. This stuff was in decline as dancefloor techno by the mid 90s, although it had a massive influence on intelligent techno, IDM and artcore jungle.

- also coming out of Detroit (though it soon spread elsewhere) - hard as nails, almost ascetic minimal techno. Namely Jeff Mills and Robert Hood. Check Hood's first two albums and the Waveform Transmissions stuff. Although some of this stuff is ace (especially Hood, who at his best was making music on a par with minimal art music composers like Steve Reich), by 1996 it had totally muscled out dreamy art music side of techno to become the dominant influence, at least as far as the dancefloor was concerned. Not good.

- Also massive at the time was the tuff, ravier euro-techno sound being created by benelux producers, of whom CJ Bolland was the most visible. Unashamedly big-rig dance music, these tunes had tight, chunky production and more crowd-orientated arrangements than the american/uk techno that preceded them. Although it was written out of 'proper' techno for being too populist, Bolland pretty much wrote the book on hard 4/4 electronic dance music and his influence is all over hard house, hardcore techno, schranz and other hardcore populist styles. I've been coming back to these tunes a lot lately and there is some wicked music in there. Labels to check are R&S and Touche.

- Closely allied to the low countries euro-techno sound was the big, open-sounding techno coming out of Germany in the immediate aftermath of reunification. In contrast to the fretful minor-key melodies of Detroit techno, or the clanging anti-melodies found in a lot of Uk and Belgian tracks, this German techno had cosmic, anthemic melodies influenced by Tangerine Dream and 80s euro-disco. By 1993 this was being called 'trance-techno' and by 95 it had split off into trance, a completely seperate genre, helped by the goa/hippy scene that had no use for hard, dystopian techno. Music: check the album Kitchen by Sun Electric and the first Alter Ego album (both wicked techno albums), the Trance Europe Express compilations, and the general 92-95 output of the Harthouse/Eye-Q labels.

- also worth mentioning is the back-to-the-303 movement, spearheaded by Richie Hawtin's early tracks as FUSE. Key areas for this were Holland (Unit Mobius, Shiver, early Djax) and the American midwest (Communique and all thier associated family of labels, plus the Drop Bass Network). No coincidence that both of these are also key regions in the development of gabber, and the new acid at it's most industrial and banging segued pretty neatly into the gabber soundworld.

The overriding point here is that prior to 1995, most DJs would play records from all of these factions within a single set, as well as tougher deep house tracks and even some breakbeat. The factionalism hadn't really started yet.

What happened next... 'Proper' techno got noisier and more monochrome as the 90s progressed, until most techno tracks were just rhythm loops, often with wilfully substandard production. 1998 was when the quality really dropped - that was the year that I pretty much stopped buying dancefloor techno. I used to rave to techno of this stripe all the time 10 years ago, now I can't hardly listen to it. Hairshirted dance music made by angry young men.

The abandonment of melody and sensuality in techno opened the door for people like Isolee to make complex, crisply produced digital psychedelia, and lay the foundations for what is now called minimal. Key factor here is the use of computer recording, which was becoming more widespread in the late 90s, with the first soft synths starting to appear. As an aside, a lot of the roughness of 90s techno came about purely because producers were using budget hardware - which makes the phatness of Bolland and the german producers all the more impressive. And so much of the problems in late 90s techno came from producers' luddite fetishization of this roughness as a mark of authenticity.

For various reason, all the back-to-the-303 producers had pretty much stopped making music of that sort by the late 90s. The scenes that had been hammering those records, such as the UK squat raves, had to start making thier own tracks instead, which is where the Liberators and the Stay Up Forever label came from. Although they only took the most banging, blaring-est punk techno elements from thier predecessors, which is why I still prefer the early 90s tracks.

By the millenium, a lot of techno producers had taken the 90s blueprint as far as they could. There was a concerted effort to find ways of getting melody, emotion and sexiness back into the music. The whole electro/italo/new wave influence that contemporary techno has came out of this - you won't find that in 90s techno at all (I remember getting the first Dopplereffekt 12" and playing it over and over, I just couldn't figure out why people would make music this way. It was totally out on it's own.)

I love a lot of the nouveaux disco stuff but when I listen back to those 90s tracks there's a kind of raw futurism that's been lost somewhere. Once you've opened the Pandora's box of 'retro', it's very hard to get that spirit of rushing into the future back again - you're always making music with a backward glance. Bassnation said up above that 1994 was a vintage year for techno and I'd agree with that - for me, great music happens when producers are riding a fine line between satisfing thier own progressive agenda, and feeding the short term needs of a genuinely popular subcultural movement. It never happens for more than a few years, but from 93-95 techno was in that sweet spot.
 

Alfons

Way of the future
thanks for that post GFC :) really interesting and informative

2nded! Really informative, explains a lot and makes a lot of things which I had thought about explicit. A couple of questions:

Where does the minimalism of Basic Channel, Maurizio, Rhythm & Sound etc... fit into this outline? And can the current minimal stuff also be seen as a reaction to the hard loop based stuff of the late 90s? Where did the first detroit strand kind of thing go as the 90s progressed?
 

Gabba Flamenco Crossover

High Sierra Skullfuck
2nded! Really informative, explains a lot and makes a lot of things which I had thought about explicit.

Cheers :). I'm not setting myself up to be some kind of expert on techno, but I was buying a lot of records, going out dancing a lot, and generally keeping close tabs on the scene during this period.

I've also ignored techno-as-listening-music for the sake of clarity, although the better producers always dabbled in both camps.

Where does the minimalism of Basic Channel, Maurizio, Rhythm & Sound etc... fit into this outline?

Basic Channel was like a concerted, slightly self conscious effort to move the sound in a certain direction by a big producer, like what Mills/Hood were doing. Mauritzio had made and engineered loads of techno records prior to doing BC. It took a while for the BC influence to percolate into techno - initially it was more deep house people who were creaming over thier tracks - but from 96 on you got loads of weak BC ripoffs coming through. Again, software synths and computer recording opened the floodgates (it's difficult to get the BC sound using just hardware). It kind of meshed with the glitch-house thing - lots of men in thick glasses making dance music you can't really dance to. Funny cos BC at thier best are very warm and organic, and the original BC tracks absolutely rock on a big system - Mauritzio is a legendary engineer, whatever you think of his production aesthetic.

Interesting to muse on what the historical intentions of BC were with respect to the 'big techno' of harthouse etc. That proto trance stuff always seemed to me to embody a huge optimistic 'YES!!!' coarsing through german culture in the years immediatly after the Berlin wall came down - whereas Basic Channel's music is crackly, fragile and haunted. When I first heard M7 I thought it sounded like the echos of tanks and artillary circulating through the tunnels under Berlin for 50 years. But no-one from Basic Channel has ever spoken about the music in those terms, and in any case ther ewas all kinds of techno being made in Berlin at that time, so maybe it's easy to read too much into that.

And can the current minimal stuff also be seen as a reaction to the hard loop based stuff of the late 90s?

A bit, maybe, in the sense that minimal fully embraces the possibilities of software composition whereas hard loopy techno had a massive 'keep it real' attitude to not using software. But I think minimal is more about producers coming out of glitch and IDM, who had that sense of texture and that off-beat approach to melody, and trying to make that work in a more accessable and dance-able way. I stopped buying electronic music completely for about 5 years for 2002-2007, the time when minimal really got going, so I'm not the best person to ask about that.

What's really fascinating me at the moment is Schranz, which is like a bouncy gabba version of all that bone hard 90s techno. I only heard of it recently, apparently DJ Rush started the whole thing. All the loopy techno producers absolutely hate it with a passion, even though it's blatently a slightly faster and better produced version of what they've been doing for years. Brilliant microcosm of the cognoscenti vs. hardcore dynamic right there :D.

Where did the first detroit strand kind of thing go as the 90s progressed?

Into IDM and armchair techno, mostly. Lots of UK producers like Kirk DeGeorgio and the Black Dog stayed on that tip, making some beautiful but pretty undanceable music. You can hear the ghost of those tracks in minimal today but the skeletal, fragile nature of it has gone. The magic of those tracks was in producers reaching far past the limitations of thier equipment. If I can just put on my Detroit rhapsodist hat for a moment, that style evolved as a fragile little ecosystem away from the big bad world - it was always transient, and once techno became a genuine commercial force in the early 90s it was doomed. The music since that has most resembled first wave Detroit techno has been ambient hardcore in 93-94 and proto dubstep in 2004-5 - they were both somewhere between the last embers of an old scene and the first rumblings of something new.
 
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