Conceptronica

V

version

Well-known member
Another thing I've noticed is that there are people who themselves make this stuff who are like "yeah, fucking hell. hate it when people do that" as though they don't.
 
yyaldrin

yyaldrin

in je ogen waait de wind
how is anyone ever gonna write an album review or press release after the coinage of the term conceptronica? music journalism will never be the same any more.
 
V

version

Well-known member

there's a pitchfork piece doing the rounds about conceptronica which i like, am fine with, but i think the easy coinage does a serious disservice to both the dance music that precedes our current moment, and the specific ways that politics gets sifted out of culture

obviously electronic music 'about a thing', with the intention of specifically constructing a novel, conceptually rich lexicon for itself isn't new. https://www.tinymixtapes.com/features/2018-against-worldbuilding … by nick scavo is a really great history of the notion of 'world building', from stockhausten to OPN

the problem i'm sensing is that the implicit image of older dance music is vastly limited. the historical contextualisation that the piece does is to 90s IDM, and the writer basically handwaves that away with 'they were just being cheeky experimenters, no politics there'

i have no idea how someone could try to think about liberation and conceptual thinking in dance music and not take the natural antecedent to our present moment as detroit techno, rather than idm.

there's an oblique reference to underground resistance in the way the writer juxtaposes chino amobi and being "embattled" with holly herndon's utopian visions which somehow correspond to chicago house. it's so utterly shallow and belies a really weak understanding of UR i thnk

there's also a deeply racialised aspect - really consistently the dystopian aspects get attributed to black artists and utopian thinking is the reserve of white artists. of course holly herndon and jam city and sophie are looking elsewhere, but in what way are amobi, or UR, not?

techno has been an absolutely central pillar in the exposition of afrofuturism, and i feel like the ability to think of the conceptual imagination of dance music without starting at afrofuturism is reliant on such a meaningless understanding of 'conceptual' as to be pointless

going all the way back to disco and the NY loft party scene, dance music has been not only inevitably political, but attached to a set of commitments about the emancipatory power of not just the music, but the communal act of partying, and organising a space and community

'pre-conceptual' partying, whether rave or disco, is just as subject to the constraints and realities of rent and spacial management, of labour, of marketing, of racist and queer violence. i can't think about NY's disco and early house without thinking about AIDS ffs

to me, i think it strikes at a failure in figuring out how 'conceptual' gets thrown around as both a way of distancing things from stuff that 'material', both in the sense of dealing with the real in the world politics, or an unfussy dismissal of politics to deal in Just Sound

and the exact people being interviewed sorta smash that boundary to bits. my first meaningful encounter with holly herndon and jam city's 'conceptualisation' was her putting on a conference featuring guy standing and paul mason talking about ubi and left movements in europe

the 'conceptual' work that @matdryhurst has done is at its core about labour, and how to deal with the very present reality of its collapse of the bounds between what can and can't be exploited in a market of attention.

i'm scare quoting 'conceptual' because i hate how it gets used as a word to buttress against the imperative and inevitability of being stuck in the world. it suggests that when we think conceptually we're neither tethered or responsible to those we're using as subject matter.

'conceptual' music might have a new set of concerns, taken from funky philosophy books, but it is no less in the world than rave, because the rave was always conceptually laden and the philosophy books were always talking about the world as well

so yeah. i'll listen to arca and jam city in my headphones and the club too. the line at the end about not feeling free when you listen to conceptronica is probably the most telling. maybe it's just for someone else now.
 
S

sadmanbarty

Well-known member
yyaldrin said:
how is anyone ever gonna write an album review or press release after the coinage of the term conceptronica? music journalism will never be the same any more.
Click to expand...

that's a very good point.

si's- inadvertently or otherwise- called out this music to some degree. exposed it. they might be a bit embarrassed to come forth.
 
V

version

Well-known member

People esp’ young people are getting so fkin let down by politics. Why not take ideas into music? Why not ask questions via art? It’s really not a new idea anyhow, it’s been happening for tiiiiiiiime srsly...

...I grew up being told that electronic music was just basic, that it would be a passing phase ect that thinking was done elsewhere... nah

...they were just jealous cos we were having fun making it. Books on weekday pills on a Saturday - brap!

You can make it bang too... take the ideas or leave them for me. I try to always balance that in my work.. I’ve literally said this from day one. Happy to chat about boxing Or Foucault. All good.

..if concepts, ideas, frameworks push people away, make them feel like they’re ‘not getting it’ then it fails 💯 for me.. they can be a way in to stuff thats often all it needs to be tbh.
 
V

version

Well-known member
I think the test is whether you can get anything out of it without reading any of the press. If you can just buy the record and everything you need is in the artwork, titles and music then I'd say it's successful. If it can't get its point across without a press release, interviews and so on then it isn't.
 
B

blissblogger

Well-known member
version said:
I'd be interested in hearing which releases blissblog likes when it comes to this stuff.
Click to expand...

I like some of the PAN stuff a lot. The Eartheater album Isiri is beautiful (but not that concepty really - arty would be the word; gorgeous use of voice on songs like "Inclined"). Really enjoyed Amnesia Scanner's Another Life. The Stine Janvin record is cool.

Lee Gamble's done some very nice stuff - obviously the Diversions jungle-revenant hits me where I live (how could I not love a tune called "Rufige"?) but also like some of the more recent work for Hyperdub.

Initially, found Paradiso a bit overwraught / overwrought, but have come round to thinking of it as a really impressive work - in some ways the newest and least precedented in its agglomeration of sounds and influences.

Also like things by Sophie and Lotic - I saw the later live and it was pretty powerful.

Arca can be impressively intense - but I don't find myself being drawn back.

But with a lot of this kind of thing, it feels like music that is not designed for repeat-listening - it's too full-on to become "part of everyday life". So it is more like an art movie or an art exhibition - you experience it the once.
 
V

version

Well-known member
blissblogger said:
Also like things by Sophie and Lotic - I saw the later live and it was pretty powerful.

Arca can be impressively intense - but I don't find myself being drawn back.

But with a lot of this kind of thing, it feels like music that is not designed for repeat-listening - it's too full-on to become "part of everyday life". So it is more like an art movie or an art exhibition - you experience it the once.
Click to expand...

You reckon it needs to heard in the context of the live sets to really make its point?
 
V

version

Well-known member
Further thoughts on conceptronica: there's never a time when I want to play this decade's arty conceptual electronic albums. Not at the gym, not when I'm smoking, not while taking a walk, definitely not while I'm working.

I guess they're basically promo material for live sets?

-- Someone on Twitter.
 
V

version

Well-known member
"Why's everyone hating on this Conceptronica piece? It perfectly summarises all the stuff we wanna work against: this is music that thinks it says a lot but makes you FEEL absolutely nothing - academics and narcissists are everywhere, watch yourselves"

- - -

"that...conceptronica piece lol - it really reads at some points like the writer is so blinded by whiteness"

- - -

"Conceptronica as the institutional critique of dance music..."

- - -

"these kids are really putting the cON in “””conceptronica””” if u ask me"

- - -

"WHAT IF the art museum festival circuit and a Goldsmiths-level understanding of Deleuze doesn’t actually produce the most banginging of technoes?"

- - -

"with all of this talk about "conceptronica" today let's not forget the most important concept electronic music has brought us: fast breakbeats"

- - -

"I remember when the outrage over conceptronica was the outrage over wonky."

- - -

"i am conceptronica in the sense that the concept is that I make really good music"

- - -

"I would like to thank the pitchfork editor who definitely cut out simon reynolds complaining about pc culture from the conceptronica piece"
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top