Listening list for an electronic music class
- Thread starter nomos
- Start date
There's been lots of good suggestions as far as tracks to play (along with some rubbish ones too!), so I'm not really going to mention any individual tunes.
These would be my ground rules as far as if I was teaching it (which of course I'm not):
- keep it fairly populist (not much point in playing them ultra chin-strokey digital wankery to prove your esotericness). I'm surprised no one has suggested any of the big beasts of the mid-90's (Leftfield, Chems, Orbital, Prodigy, etc.), I'd play at least something by one of them (while reading out album sales numbers!) as a way of making a point of just how big dance music was at one point in the UK.
- keep the tracks fairly short (maybe even re-edit them). I've learned (from bitter experience!) that people who don't like dance music don't want to hear six minute tracks, and they certainly don't want to sit through ten-minute meanderthons (as much as I might like that shit).
- play something Canadian, eh.
- you have to (ok, should) play something trance-related. really! it's the biggest form of dance music in the world and it's a bit silly to do a class on *popular* electronic dance music and ignore trance. plus, it's a broad church and you can almost certainly find something you like. it doesn't really lend itself to sociological analysis (beyond the fact that lots of people like their drug-taking with a side-order of arpeggiated melody), but you should at least mention it.
- if you're going to do something on techno, I'd suggest that, instead of playing individual tracks, you simply cut out a bit from a live dj mix to illustrate how it is a form of music that is really really dependent on the dj bringing it to life. maybe a four or five minute segment from a Dave Clarke set where he's really chopping the shit out of the records.
hope this helps.
These would be my ground rules as far as if I was teaching it (which of course I'm not):
- keep it fairly populist (not much point in playing them ultra chin-strokey digital wankery to prove your esotericness). I'm surprised no one has suggested any of the big beasts of the mid-90's (Leftfield, Chems, Orbital, Prodigy, etc.), I'd play at least something by one of them (while reading out album sales numbers!) as a way of making a point of just how big dance music was at one point in the UK.
- keep the tracks fairly short (maybe even re-edit them). I've learned (from bitter experience!) that people who don't like dance music don't want to hear six minute tracks, and they certainly don't want to sit through ten-minute meanderthons (as much as I might like that shit).
- play something Canadian, eh.
- you have to (ok, should) play something trance-related. really! it's the biggest form of dance music in the world and it's a bit silly to do a class on *popular* electronic dance music and ignore trance. plus, it's a broad church and you can almost certainly find something you like. it doesn't really lend itself to sociological analysis (beyond the fact that lots of people like their drug-taking with a side-order of arpeggiated melody), but you should at least mention it.
- if you're going to do something on techno, I'd suggest that, instead of playing individual tracks, you simply cut out a bit from a live dj mix to illustrate how it is a form of music that is really really dependent on the dj bringing it to life. maybe a four or five minute segment from a Dave Clarke set where he's really chopping the shit out of the records.
hope this helps.
Chef Napalm
Lost in the Supermarket
Excellent suggestion. I know that was the aim of my list.Pearsall said:
Another good point. Re-editting is a tricky business, though. You'd be better off to shoot for your own mix, swapping tracks at around the 3 minute mark.Pearsall said:
Max Graham (Airtight, Shoreline, Bar None) and/or Delerium would be examples of decent Canadian Trance. Other than that, you're sort of stuck with the pop-rave of Love Inc. and BKS, the remains of the Stickmen-tech-house collective, or the Vancouver industrial-art-rock of Skinny Puppy and their ilk.Pearsall said:
Pearsall said:
just to de-rail the thread here slightly, I'm always surprised that no-one around here, even in a devil's advocate position, attempts to mount a defence of trance... surely it's ripe for re-appraisal, I can't help feeling that in 10 year's time it will be seen in the italo/chicago/detroit/newbeat/etc lineage of critically-ignored but later re-discovered vibrant sources of sonic pleasures. Granted, the sound seemed to stall at a certain level of perfection-cum-bland-formula cul-de-sac, but occasionally you hear a teen-euro-diva-cheese-trance number, and wonder if these mini-symphonies of arpeggiated detuned synth riffs and ravetastic e-uphoria are where the "ardkore continuum" (groan) is really at?
Chef Napalm
Lost in the Supermarket
I, for one, will admit taking slightly guilty pleasure in tracks by Chicane/Disco Citizens/Norm Breyfogle, Max Graham, and Binary Finary. I'm not sure it's ready for re[dis]covery yet, tho. Think Disco in the mid-to-late 80s. Just too much hate about.dHarry said:
dHarry said:
well, I, for one, love trance. well, I don't like the Ferry Corsten/DJ Tiesto cotton candy end, but I love large swathes of the rest of it, from the Noom/Time Unlimited mid-90's German stuff to UK acid trance like Choci and Lab 4 through to the more recent slower European stuff like Tracid Traxx and whatnot (well, within limits). Sonically, hardstyle is way more within the hardcore continuum than, say, grime (which everyone tries to shoe-horn in, although it doesn't really work imo).
no huge trance guy am I, but is "Stella" by Jam & Spoon considered trance?...'cos that's really right up there with the best of 90's dance music, in my opinion...and didn't I read somewhere that one of those guys died recently?...like in the last three days or so?Pearsall said:
seems like "trance", on its own, is a pretty great genre (who wouldn't want to be in a trance?...anybody remember "Fall Into A Trance" by Critical Rhythm?) that's been given a bad name by the scene that's developed around it (much in the same way that "chill-out/downbeat/Ibiza" stuff has been co-opted/ruined by the Buddha Bar/Hotel Costes contingent...
DigitalDjigit
Honky Tonk Woman
Yeah...the sound of trance these days has very little to do with trance as it was understood in '92-'94. This new trance used to be called house back then (with some genre modifier probably). I don't think that old trance stuff every came under attack so I didn't see a need to defend it but for the record I will state that it is some of my favorite music. Those epic 12 minute analogue synth lockgrooves...
Your Djax-Up-Beats, Eye Q, Platipus, Harthouse etc. Of course that stuff is going to be "rediscovered", the 20 year wheel just needs to make another quarter-revolution.
Your Djax-Up-Beats, Eye Q, Platipus, Harthouse etc. Of course that stuff is going to be "rediscovered", the 20 year wheel just needs to make another quarter-revolution.
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Eye Q, eh?...I imagine that Sven Vath must have been considered Trance back in the day...I rated his Accident In Paradise pretty highly when it came out...(it was more of an ambient trance, tunes like "Drifting Like Whales In The Darkness", etc.)...of course, I haven't listened to it for eons...the other Eye Q artist I really liked was 16b, whose Music From Other Rooms or whatever it was called was about the most intelligent deep house I'd ever heard...(he didn't get trancey until the follow-up How To Live 100 Years, really hypnotic tech-housey stuff)
nomos
Administrator
Re: Pearsall
Yeah good point about trance. If I manage to get as far as the late 90s I'll definitely work it in.
There's some later Prodigy on their listening list so we'll talk about the North American "electronica" thing and Big Beat.
As for something Canadian, I was thinking that 'Dubplate Pressure' by Mystical Influence would be a good one for condensing several junglist strands in one track. Suppose I could play a bit of Plastikman as well, though I'm miffed with him for sicking his lawyers on Plasticman.
Yeah good point about trance. If I manage to get as far as the late 90s I'll definitely work it in.
There's some later Prodigy on their listening list so we'll talk about the North American "electronica" thing and Big Beat.
As for something Canadian, I was thinking that 'Dubplate Pressure' by Mystical Influence would be a good one for condensing several junglist strands in one track. Suppose I could play a bit of Plastikman as well, though I'm miffed with him for sicking his lawyers on Plasticman.
Chef Napalm
Lost in the Supermarket
Ever since I read that I've been kicking myself. How could I possibly forget Hawtin and +8?autonomicforthepeople said:
In an effort to redeem myself, might I also suggest some John Acquaviva.
wonk_vitesse
radio eros
what are you trying to teach your students, no one seems to have asked this?
Playing 'important' tracks means nothing if you haven't got defined concepts of why they're important. Dance music get's messy because it's clearly not just about the music and technology
The overiding point about electronic music of the last 25yrs is that once it was the reserve of electro-acoustic/electronics academics/composers is now reshaped with public proliferation of cheap, easy to use gear. What happens next?
Playing 'important' tracks means nothing if you haven't got defined concepts of why they're important. Dance music get's messy because it's clearly not just about the music and technology
The overiding point about electronic music of the last 25yrs is that once it was the reserve of electro-acoustic/electronics academics/composers is now reshaped with public proliferation of cheap, easy to use gear. What happens next?
90's trance - mmm - lets flash back - first came the germans engineers like Pete Namlook and Thomas Heckman (spectral Emotions / Trope / Drax) / & hard white label acid trance clasics like 'flying over frankfurt' & Labworks coming out of the Euro Acid Techo thing. Many of thoses makers turned to gabba. UK picked up the trail many groups like TIP & Dragonfly(both mainly enginerred by Simon Posford) / Platapus / Eat Static / KLF / 808 etc. The 'soft' euro Trance thing then happened (i.e. eyeQ) with good stuff like 'eath nation', but imho trance and pills never got on too well, but some of the ambient of this time is exceptional (i.e. recycleOrDie & FAX). The trance thing then went pysedelic and global, centerd round Isralies, S.Africans, Aussies and Brits exchanging DATS in Goa - I lost track of the scene about 1996 after Mike Ink(5yearsOn Acid.
other labels/groups of note:
Spirit Zone
(x-dream)
Café Del Mar( Energy 52) - clasic Ibiza Trance
Age Of Love(Age Of Love)
Hallucinogen(S.Posford)
(Koxbox)
Stardancer(Red Planet)
(Blue Room)
(Flying Rhino)
. other labels/groups of note:
Spirit Zone
(x-dream)
Café Del Mar( Energy 52) - clasic Ibiza Trance
Age Of Love(Age Of Love)
Hallucinogen(S.Posford)
(Koxbox)
Stardancer(Red Planet)
(Blue Room)
(Flying Rhino)
DigitalDjigit
Honky Tonk Woman
Ohm, no mention of Air Liquide? There was a healthy american trance scene too. A lot of the Plus 8 stuff is quite trancy and Exist Dance are simply amazing.
Lots of people not mentioned.. Oliver Lieb(harthouse) for one. As for the US. well I personally found that they didnt get it. Certinally not on the west cost where I lived for a bit in the early 90's, raves were very tame compared to europe and the amoount of white labels being released poor. (I played out and collected during that time in the US & UK). There are exceptions as you mentioned and to add to that I do think that Detroits try at Trance (Redplanet) with StarDancer(Martian) is a very fine moment.
UK/euro Trance has never had particulairly good standing due to is crap effect on endless pop tunes in the charts in the 90's. KLF's 'What Time is Love'12" or "3am eternal"(i foget) is possibly the UK's first Trance track and at the same time the dreadfull radio edit was a big pop hit.
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in the big picture of early electronic dance music trance is more of an after thought... Acid House UK & US with its Gay, MDMA (and African so woebot says) roots and the pirate radio 'rave/deep house' scenes are far more influential..
UK/euro Trance has never had particulairly good standing due to is crap effect on endless pop tunes in the charts in the 90's. KLF's 'What Time is Love'12" or "3am eternal"(i foget) is possibly the UK's first Trance track and at the same time the dreadfull radio edit was a big pop hit.
--
in the big picture of early electronic dance music trance is more of an after thought... Acid House UK & US with its Gay, MDMA (and African so woebot says) roots and the pirate radio 'rave/deep house' scenes are far more influential..
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