Thirdform's List!

[other_life]

like this somatic responses tune im realising makes even the very best boards of canada completely irrelevant

 

[Trillhouse]

Great list, as expected.

22) Patrice Rushen - Look Up

look up and forget me sax. great clockwork rhythm at the beginning as well. the other one i like is called remind me. but this one seems more appropriate for the thread.

Patrice got some jams.

 

[other_life]

21) Johnny Clarke - King In the Arena

tubby dub of this also wicked. norf london reggae anthem for corpsey. wistful and breezey.

 

[luka]

this can problematise the latent ableism in the dissensus framework. Not ableism as discrimination, but ableism as a subconscious value set.

Ive recognised for some time that this is your implicit challenge to the forum, and especially with regard to the framework that Barty and myself tried to construct. I've been trying to think through the implications for at least a year without making much progress.

Of course we all start from where we are, necessarily, and I don't think that should be displaced or denied, but equally I do know where you're coming from here. It's a useful critique and new perspective.

I expect web eschatologys list to raise some of the same issues actually.

 

[sadmanbarty]

If I may be not a bit controversial (and this is directed at absolutely none of you, well, maybe a bit blissblogger) dare I say it this can problematise the latent ableism in the dissensus framework.

i can attest to this. when me and luke hung out with blissblog there was a bloke walking across the road with a walking stick and blissblog just ran over to him and kicked it clean out his hand.

 

[sadmanbarty]

there was another guy in a wheel chair and blissblog kept putting a stick in between the spokes of the wheels.

proper dennis the menace bizznizz.

 

[thirdform]

Ive recognised for some time that this is your implicit challenge to the forum, and especially with regard to the framework that Barty and myself tried to construct. I've been trying to think through the implications for at least a year without making much progress.

Of course we all start from where we are, necessarily, and I don't think that should be displaced or denied, but equally I do know where you're coming from here. It's a useful critique and new perspective.

I expect web eschatologys list to raise some of the same issues actually.

part of me doing this list was also to buck the trend in contemporary club music where identity deconstruction is equated with jam city-ing out rnb or weirding out dancehall vocals or Americanising grime.

I understand where this impulse is coming from and I fully support the queer scene doing this however at the same time I do tend to hold back and resort to more classic forms like female rnb, disco and diva house, as well as more traditionally straight coded forms like oldskool rap. this is a compelling argument against the list, one i have much time for. however:

As a race conscious brown person I'm very very wary of people suddenly jumping on Skepta to show how woke they are, this without having heard 'Disguise' (for those who don't know by now, an unapologetic transphobic tune) the most blatent and egregious example. Now I'm not saying that noone should listen to Skepta but don't play that shit tune anywhere near me. But I do tend to worry that a lot of people in the UK have to be sold something as experimental for them to take it seriously, and this is by no means restricted to the outdated concept of the techno purist. i mean, they obviously do still exist but they are a few sad blokes on We're Going Deep and Discogs.

There's this whole 'I studied afrofuturism' at university discourse doing the rounds and I'm just like I thought the whole point of afrofuturism as traditionally understood was to escape these sorts of constraints and constricting boundaries. It's like Timbaland as the be all and end of black techno after detroit (something a university prof would say) it's not really accurate, and I hope that not focusing on Timbo has opened up other avenues of exploration, though of course I'm having a conversation with Timbaland through the list from the get go.

I also find it kind of weird that people tend to apply identity politics to their listening. this is 'a straight tune' or this is 'a gay tune.' Like, undoubtedly those aesthetics exist, and it would be foolish to deny them, but part of why I didn't include any Cardi B in the list is the same reason I soured from Thug. It's the need of white music heads (not talking about anyone on this forum) to differentiate themselves from bro rap and reintegrate hip hop into the rock cannon. it's dishonest, if I'm being honest. and not a bit paternalising and racist. otherlife and treelethargy alluded to this in the other thread. i was discussing this with web eschatology and we came to the conclusion that rap subsuming emo or emo subsuming rap (depending on how you look at it) was an ambiguous development at the best of times. Emo was an embarrassing phase white people should have grown out of.

 

[sadmanbarty]

My tentative answer is social isolation.

i wanted to mention this earlier, but didn't know if it'd be a bit tactless without you being explicitly forthcoming about it.

it's very much something that pervades the list.

compare it to craner's list or my post-grime list and there's a distinct lack of much of it being situated in a social context.

 

[sadmanbarty]

If I may be not a bit controversial (and this is directed at absolutely none of you, well, maybe a bit blissblogger) dare I say it this can problematise the latent ableism in the dissensus framework. Not ableism as discrimination, but ableism as a subconscious value set.
!

i'd love to explore that. have instance of it explained to me.

one ironic thing about that is how third actually champions clubbing and even dancing over say me or luke. our egos are too big/fragile to find much enjoyment in clubbing.

like when hamas build tunnels to circumvent israeli air power. me and luke can't win with good looks, dance moves or big muscles, so we choose being all cleaver and funny instead. the club is the wrong battleground.

 

[sadmanbarty]

I also find it kind of weird that people tend to apply identity politics to their listening. this is 'a straight tune' or this is 'a gay tune.' Like, undoubtedly those aesthetics exist, and it would be foolish to deny them, but part of why I didn't include any Cardi B in the list is the same reason I soured from Thug. It's the need of white music heads (not talking about anyone on this forum) to differentiate themselves from bro rap and reintegrate hip hop into the rock cannon. it's dishonest, if I'm being honest. and not a bit paternalising and racist. otherlife and treelethargy alluded to this in the other thread. i was discussing this with web eschatology and we came to the conclusion that rap subsuming emo or emo subsuming rap (depending on how you look at it) was an ambiguous development at the best of times. Emo was an embarrassing phase white people should have grown out of.

this was what i was trying to get at with the tommy lee sparta bit on post-grime list thread. trying to champion the sonic innovations of your young thugs et al. without all that gross cultural baggage they carry.

 

[sadmanbarty]

me and third are at some point going to do a joint 'young thug was rubbish all along' onslaught. we keep dog whistling each other with it.

"cut down the tall trees"

 

[thirdform]

I was going to mention that. I think, counter-intuitively, in the sounds and in the structures of the music, you share more with Craner in terms of taste. but of course in choice of songs and cultural positionality you are closer to me. It's kind of confusing. I wasn't quite sure what to make of it when i thought about it on the bog. nearly laughed out loud. i was like, i can't fucking post that with a straight face and not get ruthlessly cussed out.

 

[luka]

i'd love to explore that. have instance of it explained to me.

one ironic thing about that is how third actually champions clubbing and even dancing over say me or luke. our egos are too big/fragile to find much enjoyment in clubbing.

like when hamas build tunnels to circumvent israeli air power. me and luke can't win with good looks, dance moves or big muscles, so we choose being all cleaver and funny instead. the club is the wrong battleground.

I've always been very aware of thirds discomfort with or even hostility towards some of the things we try and do, particularly if we frame them as objective in some way. I think most recently of his objection to some binaries we were setting up and saying he wanted to think of a way to work without binaries (I was sceptical about whether this could be done)

There probably is some sense in which we work with notions of health, sexual, psychic, emotional, physical etc as this subconscious value set. Again this is clear in the debates I've had with third over the last couple of years concerning the 'zone of fruitless intensification" and our obvious unease with one another's positions.

That just to scrape the surface and open up the discussion.

Similarly I get the sense with web eschatology (and I'm about to simplify things, possibly in too crude a way) that he finds our focus on music which is agressive, testosterone crazed, sexually 'normative' bumptious, overbearing, uncomplicated
To be Basically distasteful, and that it crowds out and shouts down more hesitant, thoughtful, ambivalent, voices. Things which code, I suppose, as, variously, arty, intellectual, indie, experimental or even unapologetically nerdy.

 

[thirdform]

this was what i was trying to get at with the tommy lee sparta bit on post-grime list thread. trying to champion the sonic innovations of your young thugs et al. without all that gross cultural baggage they carry.

yeah i mean looking back on it i went to a pretty racist state school that of course advertised itself as one of the most anti-discrimination, diverse and multicultural schools in London. in the sense that there was a conscious effort to treat the black and brown kids like a pest, spray them with enough weedkiller that they wouldn't just die but go away completely leaving no trace. priming enough people for Oxford. it was an interesting dog eat dog environment. you could see the jump from year 11 to sixth form become much whiter almost over night. I think, that gave me an antipathy towards most alt rock though of course I had to go through a weirdo art prog phase in uni because again, the only societies were rock society and indie dance society, and i thought at the time I'd rather hang out with the metallers than the 100% silk hipster disco/house massif. at least the metallers like comical breakcore, rowdier end of grime, a lot of that really hardcore dnb from europe, skullstep they call it, wobblestep etc etc. genres with endearing charm that i dabble in from time to time.

 

[sadmanbarty]

. Things which code, I suppose, as, variously, arty, intellectual, indie, experimental or even unapologetically nerdy.

that's the appeal to a lot of the post-drill keef i think.

that he's taking hyper-internetty styles of music and presenting as though it's proper music for proper men.

 

[luka]

I was going to mention that. I think, counter-intuitively, in the sounds and in the structures of the music, you share more with Craner in terms of taste. but of course in choice of songs and cultural positionality you are closer to me. It's kind of confusing. I wasn't quite sure what to make of it when i thought about it on the bog. nearly laughed out loud. i was like, i can't fucking post that with a straight face and not get ruthlessly cussed out.

The most incongruous sections of your list ( I think Barty pointed this out ) were all the Craner-Soul records. A substantial chunk of the list was made up of Craner soul. Not what I was expecting.

 

[luka]

I'm about to eat some baked beans (not any sensible food in the house) and I can't stop thinking about third going on about 'baked bean cum' All the time, constantly. Thin, sugary, lurid orange cum tasting like beans is how I imagine it.

 

[luka]

English men being synonymous with baked beans cum.

 

[thirdform]

I suppose I do champion a particular form of clubbing that isn't about flashy looks or chatting up birds, or more contemporaniously social networking in the real world. making industry connections. a form of clubbing that has almost disappeared with even jagermeister and smirnoff colonising the classic makeshift warehouse party set up.

Which explains why I haven't gone to a club for three years now. everyone has to be on good professional terms with each other because the culture has become so insulated. ironically corporatisation hasn't opened it up, it's closed it up even further. before there was at least the idea of the dissensus or the vanguard. now it's the middle class inverted rebellion of your parents VIP parties. If we're going to do that, however, why not studio 54? It seems awfully dull otherwise.

 

[sadmanbarty]

the repulsiveness of english sexuality.

every sexual story having to end in some horrifically scatological or emotionally damaging way.

horrible, acne-riddled weasels from bermondsey running their finger under your nose in an effort to boast and there just being this pungent scent of bacterial vaginosis burning your lungs.