Mark Fell, Rian Treanor, Gabor Lazar

[luka]

i cant stand dj sprinklesc absoulutely disgusts me

 

[Simon silverdollarcircle]

Is it any weirder than jungle? Didn't people struggle to dance to some of that at the time?

I guess for me, a big thing is: is this music intended to make people dance? Is it designed with that in mind? And, in the appropriate conditions, will it cause people to lose their shit on the dancefloor?

Jungle I would say is "yes" to all three. Even tho it might me difficult to dance to, it was precision tooled with an understanding of what would make its audience dance. That fundamental impulse runs through everything.

With stuff like mark fell, yeah you can dance to it. But the connection isn't as strong. It is not precision tooled to make a particular dancefloor audience lose their shit. It is a personal expression, with sits at one remove from any dancefloor. And that, for me, is a big difference.

Stuff like jungle was serving a need, of a particular community of people who go to raves. Stuff like mark fell is not serving the same communal need, but is drawing upon music that has previously or currently served such a need.

 

[linebaugh]

I guess for me, a big thing is: is this music intended to make people dance? Is it designed with that in mind? And, in the appropriate conditions, will it cause people to lose their shit on the dancefloor?

Jungle I would say is "yes" to all three. Even tho it might me difficult to dance to, it was precision tooled with an understanding of what would make its audience dance. That fundamental impulse runs through everything.

With stuff like mark fell, yeah you can dance to it. But the connection isn't as strong. It is not precision tooled to make a particular dancefloor audience lose their shit. It is a personal expression, with sits at one remove from any dancefloor. And that, for me, is a big difference.

Stuff like jungle was serving a need, of a particular community of people who go to raves. Stuff like mark fell is not serving the same communal need, but is drawing upon music that has previously or currently served such a need.

Im from the states and outside the culture here- can you expand on jungle as dance music? I imagine if I was to play that first mark fell/DJ sprinkles song or the third Gabor Lazar song from versions comment to a group of similarly unindoctrinated Americans it'd be much more likely to get them to dance than my favorite jungle tunes. Jungle, to me, seems more like a heady pursuit- its erratic and busy and always shifting and the pulse of the rhythm isn't as physically felt as the four on the floor rhythms of versions examples. But I can also see all those qualities of jungle striking a chord with the hyper active facets of rave culture, I just don't know anything about that.

 

[Leo]

regardless of how it's dressed up intellectually, Americans tend to need a meat-and-potatoes 4-4 beat to get dancing. barty used to go on about how people in the UK are wired differently, able to get with weirder dancehall and other rhythms that don't click as naturally with Americans.

 

[linebaugh]

That must be it. The few dance things I've been to have all been 4 on the flour, even the artsier stuff.

 

[version]

@Simon silverdollarcircle

I'm not convinced it's that clear cut. There's plenty of personal expression in jungle and people do dance to Lazar, Fell etc, so the personal/communal dichotomy feels a bit forced to me. I dunno about losing your shit being synonymous with dancing either as that would rule out stuff like deep house.

 

[linebaugh]

Think IDM may have warped our perspective a bit too. I imagine aphex twin was many americans entry into electronic music, and what he was doing with drum programming in the 90's strikes me as very similar to jungle, but I wouldn't call it dance music. We were warped by our first exposure, possibly.

 

[linebaugh]

Not that there aren't wacked out erratic dance scenes in America, Im just speaking to what I think is general feeling of the uninvolved.

 

[version]

There are plenty of people dancing here.

 

[Leo]

the difference is it's got no soul, no heat, no sweat. unsexy, clinical.

glitch vs. groove. I like both styles.

 

[Leo]

the fell/sprinkles stuff is different because Terre is bringing some soul to it.

 

[version]

the difference is it's got no soul, no heat, no sweat. unsexy, clinical.

That isn't the same as it not being designed for dancing though. There's no room for gabber or Jeff Mills at his hardest if that's the criteria and people lose their shit to both.

 

[luka]

There are plenty of people dancing here.

those arent real people theyre holograms

 

[Simon silverdollarcircle]

Gabber is absolutely precision tooled to make that particular audience lose their shit to

 

[Simon silverdollarcircle]

Dance music has to come from a community of people who want to dance together

 

[version]

Gabber is absolutely precision tooled to make that particular audience lose their shit to

Yeah, but it doesn't conform to what Leo was saying about being sexy and soulful.

 

[version]

I don't think any of these generalisations really hold water when you can pull up a vid of people dancing to the stuff that apparently isn't dance music.

 

[version]

I get the gist of the argument as there's obviously a certain amount of intellectualising that comes with this stuff and it's got one foot in academia and the art world, but some of the tunes still bang.

 

[Leo]

That isn't the same as it not being designed for dancing though. There's no room for gabber or Jeff Mills at his hardest if that's the criteria and people lose their shit to both.

I just drawing a rather obvious distinction between what could be termed traditional dance music (house, disco) and more intellectual forms. gabber gets the floor moving, but that's more reminiscent of headbanging than a steady grooving dance floor.

 

[version]

Gabber isn't intellectual though. It doesn't fit at either end of this spectrum yet still exists as dance music.