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

[kingofcars]

The electro is in the buzzy synths, the house is in the beat that goes Boom Slap Boom Slap (you know, the disco beat with the four to the floor and the snare on every even beat). What do you propose to call it?

I think the electro is from electroclash rather than electro per se. Electro proper doesn't really have those buzzy synths.

yeah, i think the term 'electrohouse' is largely a dance scene-generated attempt to rehabilitate the 'electroclash' thing....
'electroclash' rarely had anything to do w/ electro, as well...

really...'house', 'techno', and 'electro' have all become very debased terms... often totally nondisctinct and interchangeable...

 

[DigitalDjigit]

really...'house', 'techno', and 'electro' have all become very debased terms... often totally nondisctinct and interchangeable...

Arguably that was always the case anyway.

 

[dominic]

however, there's plenty of people who play broken beats and 2-step garage-ish stuff alongside deep house, post-punk dance, reggae sounds, etc -- they may not be pushing music "forward" or breaking the next revolution -- but they keep things reasonably interesting

and in addition, there's the "shanty" house movement and the "breakcore" movement -- i.e., dj styles that criss-cross genres -- and this to me has lot more to do with house than so-called proper house djs

 

[kingofcars]

Arguably that was always the case anyway.

true...

 

[dominic]

i think the term 'electrohouse' is largely a dance scene-generated attempt to rehabilitate the 'electroclash' thing

or house "absorbed" (or "reabsorbed") electroclash -- i.e., electroclash was in bad taste -- i.e., bad taste in both good ways and bad ways! -- and so house kinda took the edge off but also tampered down the commercialism

 

[bassnation]

similarly, only a true citizen of house music knows how to identify the "good" and "innovative" in house

i've got some sympathy for that view - until you try applying it to something that almost universaly acknowledged as being a bit crap - like modern dnb for instance (insert your most loathed genre here, dnb fans).

so if i'm not part of the contemporary dnb tribe i can't have an opinion on how shite it is when its perfectly obvious? that doesn't make much sense to me.

 

[bassnation]

wahey! Tim F on an anti-anti-intellectual rampage!

i don't know what either word means but i luvvit luvvit luvvit

some how the fact you didn't know makes me feel better about not knowing either!

i was about to reach for the dictionary until dominic popped up with his definition.

 

[dominic]

i've got some sympathy for that view

just to clarify -- that was my *interpretation* of tim f's use of the term "phronesis" -- i.e., basically a transparent attempt to boost my intellectual self-esteem after my terribly embarrassing moment on the miscellaneous forum wherein i betrayed to the world that i thought "rapport" was spelled "repoire"

 

[zhao]

I don't think "electro-house" has anything to do with electro-clash. I think it's simply house producers using the pallete of robotic breakbeat/electro (i.e. 2 Lone Swordsmen).

and "breakcore" is a genre all to it's own rather than a dj-style innit? it's like another term for dark-side industrial drum'n'bass mixed with evil gabba (i.e. Hellfish and Producer)

 

[ambrose]

its also a terrible terrible name, worse than previously claimed holders of such a title "grime", "electrohouse" "microhouse" "trip hop" etc

 

[bassnation]

just to clarify -- that was my *interpretation* of tim f's use of the term "phronesis" -- i.e., basically a transparent attempt to boost my intellectual self-esteem after my terribly embarrassing moment on the miscellaneous forum wherein i betrayed to the world that i thought "rapport" was spelled "repoire"

 

[kingofcars]

hmmm...i dunno...as far as clash v. house....some stuff that's labeled 'electrohouse' (say, riton, or alter ego's recent records) now would have readily been called 'electroclash' 2-3 years ago. it's also difficult for me to view most recent dance musics sans the influence of electroclash, largely because of the impact it had here in the states, especially ny.
side note: i feel there's also a post-metro area vibe to a lot of the electrohouse stuff (esp. get physical)...taking german minimal, stripping the dubbier and trancier influences, and adding disco and new wave influences...


breakcore more or less originates w/ dhr circa 95-96. ambush and praxis records started doing similar material (very noisy, angular dnb) around 97ish, and terms like 'splatterbreaks' or 'breakcore' started being tossed around by 98.
for the past 5 years or so, though, many dj's (especially here in the states - not so sure about elsewhere) who play breakcore do it ala dj rupture - mixing in pop music, noise, hip hop, idm, ragga dnb, gabber, etc etc etc. the sonic attitude of the music lends itself to a diverse style of mixing. it's also difficult for many people to tolerate a sustained blast of white noise, distorted amens and 909s ....
considering that the most visible proponents of said genre dj in this fashion, i suppose it's acceptable to call it a style of djing...

 

[mms]

the electro house i've heard (a tiefshwartz mix actually) sounded like trancey house with added breaks and bass, sort of elements of grime dubstep and breaks flattened out into a thin paste with additional breakdowns and that thin cokey soundrange. The music seemed to have alot more to do with eurotrance,which i guess is the dominant european dance style/movement than anything like the hardcore continuum .Can you tell i didn't like it yet.

what really became of electro clash ? my one visit to nag nag nag wasn't very impressive - lots of nice old songs with lots of badly made arpeggiated sort of vaguely sleazy music un-mixed in , with the ex owner of silverfish records, a once big lad called alex who is now a woman playing pretty standard techno downstairs. Its as if vitalic is the only lasting element of the whole scene really. It seemed to have potential in a way, i kinda liked the sigue sigue sputnik attitude of it all, but it just wasn't quite smart enough and revelled in its sleazyness and lazy decadence rather than creating new ways to be naughty.

 

[kingofcars]

i guess elements of the scene still thrive. electroclash in part helped usher in the disco and acidhouse revivals that are going on now...(or maybe predicted the trend of wholesale revivalism in dance music that was to come)
some of the bigger and more rock-oriented acts (chicks on speed, peaches, are weapons) simply got more and more rock-oriented. adult's last record was very postpunky...i hated it when i heard it in a record store, but maybe it's ok...
the bigger, trancier, gaudier, arpeggio-reliant aspects of the scene were pretty quickly rejected by sensible cultural censors.
i think when the scene broke down it was absorbed into lots of other sounds: electrohouse (up for debate), electrodisco, 'postpunk dance'....

and yeah, it's a shame that it was lazy, contrived, and not-so-smart, cuz the glammy, polymorphously perverse hedonism it espoused could have been interesting...

 

[Melchior]

(insert your most loathed genre here, dnb fans).

Surely you mean nu-breaks?

 

[dominic]

cuz the glammy, polymorphously perverse hedonism it espoused could have been interesting...

i think people are still trying to pick up on that

off the top of my head --

(1) superstars of love (st louis rave maestro and "polymorphous pervert" gone electro-rock)

(2) g. rizo on codek records

 

[ambrose]

i think the reason that "electro house" might sound like "electroclash" is that for me, electroclash wasnt a genre! it was a scene, mixing in sleazy electro like avenue d and larry tee, with guitar stuff, and more straight up house, albeit grinding, basic, "electro-ey" house. electroclash just seemed to be an umbrella term for a scene, more pertinent to dress sense than one musical genre. dmx krew made tunes that fitted in occasionally to the electroclash idea but he has been doing that for years and he told me in an email that he just made "pop" music, wouldnt even call it "electro"! so i dont think comparing any of this music to "electrclash" as a genre makes sense, cos it wasnt one.

ps there may be differences between a UK and US perspective here. I dont think electroclash (whatever we decide it was) really had that great an influence outside some areas of london.

 

[kingofcars]

it's good to make the distinction between the scene-based and sound-based applications of the terms at hand.
i think there's still music that is largely classifiable as "electroclash" (larry tee's productions, mostly). but i think you're right ambrose - 'electroclash' refers more to a scene that was a half-baked hodgepodge of techno, electro, new wave, and booty-bass, with touches of glam/new romantic fashion.

to bring things back to the core idea of this thread, a lot of people i know felt a revulsion towards techno, house, and even anything featuring prominent synthesizers after the electroclash-backlash. i think their feelings were more a reaction to a negative impression they received of a scene than any inherent rhythmic or sonic qualities of those musics - perhaps this is more stelfox's situation...?

 

[Tim F]

Dom you explained my use of "phronesis" probably better than I could have, although I should emphasise that I'm not saying that only committed house fans can talk about house knowledgably or meaningfully, rather that we should try to engage with the er "discourse" of the committed fans/DJs/producers of a particular style before making pronouncements on the music because they can often clue us in to what the current music is actually doing, what its effects are etc.

Case in point: you make a good argument for "real" house DJs being about playing lots of different styles, but I think this is coming from a particular viewpoint on the genre that just isn't reflective of how the music works for the majority of punters from the early nineties onwards. I mean maybe it's true of certain refined clubs with eclectic DJs, but the vast majority of house clubs will play in a much more narrow style and with a much more specific idea of the sound they want, and consequently the vibe they want to generate. Especially if you go to any gay clubs that play house (as opposed to the ones that play pop, trance, hardhouse etc.), there's a real sense of the DJs and the crowd knowing exactly what they want, the house tracks played have got to be disco-influenced but heavy, dazzling but verging on punishing if it's going to match the over-sexualised, amyl nitrate-soaked environment (paradigmatic gay club house tracks of recent years: Shakedown - "At Night (Mousse T Remix)"; Martin Solveig - "Rockin' Music"; Kristine W - "Some Lovin' (Peter Rauhoffer Mix)"). I'm not valorising this approach over and againt refined eclecticism - part of my issue with the purism vs eclecticism debate as a whole is that it seems clear to me that such things really have to be judged on a case by case basis - but I think it's important to note that there is a different and potentially very effective <i>logic</i> at work, it's not just about laziness or marketing or some other shady motive on the part of the DJ...

 

[Tim F]

BTW Simon "skerrick" is just (Australian?) slang for "speck", "hint", "morsel" etc.