The realisation that you don't really like house music much any more...

[bassnation]

early 80s references, italo/electro, coldness, distance, irony -- all done for

if thats all there is to electro then i'd agree with you - but theres loads of inventive electro coming out of europe and the uk in particular which is total grinding dancefloor gear, nothing like the kind of boringly studied retro 80's thing. (manayst gets a special mention for his unbelievably heavy sound, i've interviewed him here: http://www.throw-uk.com/second/manayst.html)

a lot of grime & ukg tunes sound like sparse electro beats to me. the first tune that really brought this home to me was so solid "haters" funnily enough. that tune is total electro.

besides that, you've also got the really fast psychedelic detroit electro stuff, drexciya and the kind of artists on databass - as raw as it gets - total street music which of course led on to the ghetto house and booty scenes.

as far as i'm concerned this music is still essential. much rather listen to that than house music, rhythimically its miles apart.

 

[borderpolice]

early 80s references, italo/electro, coldness, distance, irony -- all done for

i totally disagree wrt italo. a magnificent genre that has not been revivaled at all, or even understood.
let me explain: italo has three features (1) the disco/electro/europop synthsounds, early italo (like peter
jacques) focussing more on disco. (2) the surreal lyrics, often explainable by the protagonists limited
grasp of english, which seem mostly about blatantly throwing signifiers at hormonally confused
teenagers and (3) a very peculiar kind of singing and vocal arrangements. It is this singing that
in my opinion is totally cool, totally underappreciated and also nowhere in sight in contemporary music. i
would love to hook up with a singer how has a feel for italo kind of singing. i would also like to know
how it evolved.

oh, and there's (4): bongos everywhere!

 

[borderpolice]

a lot of grime & ukg tunes sound like sparse electro beats to me. the first tune that really brought this home to me was so solid "haters" funnily enough. that tune is total electro.

i doubt that this is a direct elektro influence though. those beats are derived more from old skool hardcore,
dancehall, RnB (timbaland) and jungle.

 

[dominic]

a magnificent genre that has not been revivaled at all, or even understood.

i think i may stand corrected, given what you say below!

talo has three features (1) the disco/electro/europop synthsounds, early italo (like peter jacques) focussing more on disco

it's really the more obvious appropriations of the 82/83/84 sound that i'm bored with and never much cared for = legowelt, ghostly international, etc

(2) the surreal lyrics

i'm all for surreal lyrics!!!

(3) a very peculiar kind of singing and vocal arrangements. It is this singing that
in my opinion is totally cool, totally underappreciated and also nowhere in sight in contemporary music.

i think you make an interesting point here -- i.e., would probably be worth exploring with people more knowledgeable than me

oh, and there's (4): bongos everywhere!

errrr, not the italo that i'm thinking of?????

by italo, i mean the electro-disco sound -- very sleek -- "stars on 25" kinda stuff -- klein and mbo

 

[owen]

hm well i'm fine with electrohouse (despite it being awfully conservative anyway i for one like tiefschwarz lots) and electro (and its permutations into grime, grimm, r&b etc) i have a horrible fear that there'll be a turn to breakbeats and warmth and ugh- like with hip hop and kanye (ie, leading eventually to some sort of house akon)

what about the more polyrhythmically perverse end of things- villalobos, luciano, robag wruhme?

 

[ambrose]

hehe i used not to be able to stand a 4/4 rhythm but now apart from grime i dont really listen to anything else. tiefschwarz are kinda boring but in a big coked up club they seem really grinding and big big basslines. also their remixes are pretty freakin weird at times e their lost'n'alive remix.

dont know what has made the change in me, i used to only listen to stuff with breakbeats and that was pretty muc hthe pinnacle of dancefloor friendliness, but i cant listen to stuff with breakbeats really now. old electro is good when its dead slow and stuff, i love morgan geists pastiches, but the AI school of electro leaves me cold.

ts true thou,gh, that no sound is more oppressive than a booming 4/4 coming thru the walls when you are not in the mood, or just tired at the end of the night. dont wait for yr mates in the corner, just go home, spare yrself that thump thump thump.

but yeah, ive had some of the best dancefloor experiences ive ever had listening to really good house music in the last year or so. probably becasue i never liked it in the first place.

 

[dominic]

i have a horrible fear that there'll be a turn to breakbeats and warmth and ugh

ha ha -- that's more or less my hope!

 

[zhao]

my guess is that Mr. Stalfox will feel differently or atleast shift his position concerning the 4 to the floor sometime in the future (6 months? 6 years?)

I mean I get bored with it sometimes too. but I also get bored with too much Grime and dancehall saturation and must have a dose of Michael Mayer IMMEDIATELY.

ofcourse anyone into mainstream funky, "deep" and progressive house/techno should be shot in the back of the head, but there's lots of exciting things happening and the genre is indeed way too broad and constantly mutating...

favorite experimental techno label right now is ONITOR.

 

[bassnation]

i doubt that this is a direct elektro influence though. those beats are derived more from old skool hardcore,
dancehall, RnB (timbaland) and jungle.

yeah, definitely - not disputing that - altough if you go back far enough with hip hop as one of grimes distant ancestors, you'll get electro (albiet the original electro rather than contemporary)

its just i was suprised to see the parallels with two previously unassociated genres if you know what i mean.

 

[dominic]

if by "house" you mean 4-to-the-floor, then yeah i'm sick of it too

but you see "house" is a feeling! -- ha ha -- not a rhythmic formula

i think that unless a dj is pushing things ahead in a serious way, as with grime djs now and certainly people like grooverider back in the early 90s, such that he's taking things hardcore, then the dj has an obligation to keep switching things up -- by which standard any dj who plays nothing but 4-to-the-floor is remiss and, to quote confucius, deserves to be shot

and this, frankly, is why i was so hyperbolic in dismissing the technical beat-matching aspects of djing -- b/c the result in the great run of cases is god-awful boring and oppressive 4-to-the-floor beat-matching -- or just as insufferable, the endless seamless torrent of d'n'b

so either: (1) take things hardcore = constantly work w/ an ear to the cutting edge

OR (2) eclecticism = balearic style or breakcore djing = many different sounds, sonic smorgasbord -- find the thread connecting different styles, times, places

and as far as i'm concerned, both approaches qualify as "house"

and no, i don't think i'll ever tire of 86-to-92 era house, so long as the dj knows the score

i.e., i heard this one guy working classic detroit techno and the harder end of chicago last week, and i found it god awful boring -- so i had to conclude that he didn't really know

 

[DigitalDjigit]

what a depressing thread...

I'll go huddle with my gently pulsing (in 4/4 time) speaker now.

 

[mms]

i'm getting into what clone, guys like dexter and putch 79 etc are doing with house and techno and labels like community library, making this drugged out warm funky italo and old disco influenced house, ultra sleazy or just electronic rollerdisco music . Clones new comp is def one to look out for music that looks forward from 20 years ago in a good way. Also dexter etc with that kind of funk influenced thing, community library and the arthur russell artful vibe.
The only electroey stuff i'm really feeling personally is that dubbed out sci-av stuff and the bunker records kind of thing, there is so much bad british stuff thats just as dull and one track as any bad current d and b .
I really think there is quite alot of interesting stuff going on in techno and house, its often not as ultra fresh as grime and dubstep etc but even in those genres there is a heap of nonsense.

 

[xero]

i'm getting into what clone, guys like dexter and putch 79 etc are doing with house and techno and labels like community library, making this drugged out warm funky italo and old disco influenced house, ultra sleazy or just electronic rollerdisco music . Clones new comp is def one to look out for music that looks forward from 20 years ago in a good way. Also dexter etc with that kind of funk influenced thing, community library and the arthur russell artful vibe.

definitely, also some of the stuff on pigna & nature records out of italy

The only electroey stuff i'm really feeling personally is that dubbed out sci-av stuff and the bunker records kind of thing, there is so much bad british stuff thats just as dull and one track as any bad current d and b .
I really think there is quite alot of interesting stuff going on in techno and house, its often not as ultra fresh as grime and dubstep etc but even in those genres there is a heap of nonsense.

Thing is house & techno are huge catch all terms now whereas grime & dubstep are relatively tight subgenres concentrating on a particular sound - people might disagree that grime is a subgenre because of its futurism but to my ears at least its sonic palette is well narrow

 

[Blackdown]

i'm with stelfox, almost without exceptions. the 4/4 kick is such a lazy rhythmic choice and audiences are so pre-conditioned to it that it's a black hole. once it's played everyone gets sucked in.

there's myriad other issues too: "jazzy" house, the ubiquity of "funky" house, wailing vocal divas, the constrictive effect of beatmixing on musical arrangements etc etc

 

[dubplatestyle]

threads like this are pretty much why i dont post here anymore.

p.s. most dubstep i've heard is as rhythmically retarded as your average house record.

 

[Blackdown]

p.s. most dubstep i've heard is as rhythmically retarded as your average house record.

lol

 

[dominic]

threads like this are pretty much why i dont post here anymore.

b/c we're talking about the general rather than the particular? and therefore talking more from the position of punters than knowledgeable critics?

 

[Melchior]

One mof my great regrets is that I never managed to fit more old style Chicago 'Jackin' house into my musical diet. By the time I discovered dance music in my early 20s this stuff was pretty much over.

I still like house music, and the 4/4 doesn't bother me at all as long as it's used for an anchor for lots of interesting noises. Sometimes people mistake more beats for more complex beats.

One of my desires over the next few months is to listen to more of the 'microhouse' stuff that happened just after I stopped listening to much house music.

 

[kingofcars]

i agree on the clone/viewlexx/bunker/creme/pigna tip.
while it's nothing REALLY new or exciting, they manage to synthesize their influences into something that sounds sort of fresh (while avoiding the lame clubby dancefloor tropes that most recent electrohouse stuff relies on). and it's still a lot of fun to dance to.

also, on the italo tip... people shouldn't confuse italo w/ big clubby electro/italo revivalism. some of the early 80's italo is such a bizarre hodgepodge of disco, synthpop, postpunk, and proto-house - and yes, often warm, soulful, quirky, fun. really unique music. much of it just as vital as the nyc postpunky disco stuff or early chicago house...

i agree that dj's should be more daring and feel free to change tempo and rhythm throughout a set (beatmatching isn't the ONLY way to link two songs together), but i don't understand people's aversion to the four-on-the-floor kick. it's simply a rhythmic structure - no more inherently tiresome than a 2step beat, a sampled breakbeat, whatever...
i think dominic was pretty spot-on w/ his assessment "house" djing, eclecticism, etc. the best dj's imo are the one's that can string together disparate genres in a way that makes them seem and feel the same...

 

[ambrose]

i think djs should just play music that makes me freak out and wanna dance like a cretin.

i dont care if its regressive tiefschwarz pounding or plasticman dropping loads of killer grime, i want all djs everywhere to play exactly the sort of music that i want to hear at that particulr moment. at the mo "if were in love" off the roisin murphy album

all this talk of djs must innovate reminds me that sometimes people strenously innovating can be like, really boring! its really exctigin for them , fiddling around behind the decks, astounding themselves with msuscial links thru time and space, rhythmic structures bouncing off each other lalalala but sometimes that just leaves everyone on the dancefloor rushing to the bar.

remember dj speedranch for instance? ok so its not a fair comparison, but he thought he called himself a dj and that got pretty dull after 30 mins.

as for djs being eclectic, rather than innovative, i would rather hear lots of different djs play short sets (eg 20/30 mins) rathe than one switch thru the styles. i dont want a lecture, but i do want to hear different stuff, and 1 hr is more than enough to hear a dj*. i drread those flyers where its like "dj tiesto 58 hr set!!!!! oh yes how good is that!!! soooooo long!"

* i admit that this yardstick i just made up might be very differenty if you were doing drugs, but i dont know about that.