Reynolds hardcore continuum event

[nomadthethird]

By the way, anyone who doesn't believe in the continuum is a dilettante.

I'm jibing with Kpunk much more I have to say.

 

[whatever]

k-funk is a theorist though... a mighty theorist!

k-funky at least knew how to dress for the occasion! (no comment on that other fellow's awful american shirt-n-jeans thang ) my opinion of k-p vastly improved from this alone . seems like an affable fellow ,

( secretly the only thng i wantted from this vid was to know whch one was swears )

 

[nomadthethird]

k-funky at least knew how to dress for the occasion! (no comment on that other fellow's awful american shirt-n-jeans thang ) my opinion of k-p vastly improved from this alone . seems like an affable fellow ,

( secretly the only thng i wantted from this vid was to know whch one was swears )

omg wait swears was on there? dammit now i'm going to have to wait for that whole damn thing to load again

 

[petergunn]

k-funky at least knew how to dress for the occasion! (no comment on that other fellow's awful american shirt-n-jeans thang ) my opinion of k-p vastly improved from this alone . seems like an affable fellow ,

( secretly the only thng i wantted from this vid was to know whch one was swears )

 

[nomadthethird]

I think Reynolds' contention is that the HCC isn't actually a theory, it's a real thing that exists, and he just came along and named it. He said as much in his FACT talk. I'm inclined to agree, even as a teenager I could see a clear line between rave, jungle, drum n bass, garage, 2 step, etc... before I had ever heard of Reynolds. Hearing a tune like "RIP Groove" for the first time, I could hear the jungle feel in it straight away.

Although I don't know how much it really holds up now though, or if any genre after 2step comfortably fits into it.

Anyways, here's a great gek piece on the subject, (best so far, imo) and kpunk's reply.

I don't know, this kpunk FACT piece is kinda weird too. Like this:

"Hardcore was the first properly British version of/ alternative to American House or Techno; as Reynolds points out though, the Britishness consisted not so much in the use of specifically UK sounds or signs, but in a mongrelising of House and Techno with genres such as hip hop, dub and dancehall that would not have been possible in Chicago or Detroit."

Why not? Sure, you have different cultures different places. Yes. But you also had those "sounds" "mongrelising" in the U.S. as well. Just to different sonic ends.

What is just completely overemphasized in all of these articles is the power of music writing to force innovation, or even have a minimal effect upon, musical genres and markets, along with the magical powers of Britishness to ferret out formal innovations in drum-machines and sampling that no one else anywhere ever thought of.

"This often finds support in an Anglo-American empiricist disdain for theory, which has entered into a kind of unholy alliance with a certain Deleuzean anti-theory celebrating flows and multiplicity, the two combining in a hostility towards any theoretical generalization. Sadly though this hasn’t prompted an intricate engagement with particular records, but a can’t-see-the-wood-for-the-trees platitudinous mush (‘music is music’, any discussion of context is an illegitimate imposition). "

Huh? Who exactly are these "Deleuzean anti-theory" celebrators (what kind of person who hates theory likes Deleuze, for fuck's sake?), and what have they ever written? I can't think of a single one in this country. If anything, here in the U.S., you'd never get away with making the flagrant generalizations and theoretical platitudes about entire genres of music and their status as "footnotes" to a single moment in time 15 years ago (which just happens to coincide with the late adolescence/early adulthood of these continuum writers)--here, among anybody I know who's even read Deleuze, it would be a huge faux pas to ignore the political, or local, situation of a music. Ever. It would be tantamount to academic (politically incorrect) heresy over here.

"It’s a measure of the robustness of the hardcore continuum (and its theorization) that it should still be holding on after twenty years. Yet it’s also a sign of the slowing of the rate of innovation in popular music, with British dance music, once so furiously inventive, now falling prey to the conditions of entropy which have long prevailed elsewhere. If only there could be a shattering break that would definitively relegate the hardcore continuum to the past…"

It's a measure of some kind of odd shortsightedness that some people really truly seem to believe that British electronic music won't suffer the same fate that every last other genre of music has to date--i.e., they've all eventually fallen out of the spotlight and given way to formal innovations and new genres, you know, over time.

 

[vimothy]

The Deleuzian anti-theorists jibe is just the usual intra-scene politics.

 

[nomadthethird]

The Deleuzian anti-theorists jibe is just the usual intra-scene politics.

It's one of the more incoherent things I've ever heard out of Kpunk--I kind of expect that sort of thing from Blissblogger, but not him.

Now I really want to know who all of the unholy Deleuzians are. I've never met a single one. Everyone in the U.S. likes the fucking post-fordists.

 

[nomadthethird]

The Deleuzian anti-theorists jibe is just the usual intra-scene politics.

I hope that's what it is. Otherwise it would be dangerously close to seeming like a pathetic attempt at bolsterism for "gatekeepers" the world over. You wouldn't want to have to go around trying to understand music without having educated old white men telling you what it was about, would you? I mean, even musicians are clueless as to what they might want to do without theorists to guide them along the yellow brick road.

 

[nomadthethird]

Also, the only way to really "engage" with records is to be a fanboy who owns everything that was ever released on every label you've ever heard of. (And also to be a music critic. Preferably professionally.)

You couldn't possibly be someone who likes classical music better than, say, pop anymore. That's not legal in fanboy land. You also couldn't be someone who devoted their entire existence to classical music performance for over their entire life and not be way into jungle and rolling everynight like an etard at limelight.

If you did that, it was only because you were a theory-hating Deleuze celebrator.

 

[john eden]

What is just completely overemphasized in all of these articles is the power of music writing to force innovation, or even have a minimal effect upon, musical genres and markets, along with the magical powers of Britishness to ferret out formal innovations in drum-machines and sampling that no one else anywhere ever thought of.

Heh heh, that's great.

 

[dominic]

I don't know, this kpunk FACT piece is kinda weird too. Like this:

"Hardcore was the first properly British version of/ alternative to American House or Techno; as Reynolds points out though, the Britishness consisted not so much in the use of specifically UK sounds or signs, but in a mongrelising of House and Techno with genres such as hip hop, dub and dancehall that would not have been possible in Chicago or Detroit."

Why not? Sure, you have different cultures different places. Yes. But you also had those "sounds" "mongrelising" in the U.S. as well. Just to different sonic ends.

can you provide an example?

whether or not you like much of what the hardcore continuum (or whatever you want to call it) has produced over the past 20 years-----and i personally prefer the house and techno music that immediately prefigures the first real hardcore-----it seems to me fairly incontestable that this engine has produced most of the great innovations in dance music of the past 20 years, and the only real big stateside development in dance music post-1990 was hip-hop r-n-b a la timberland in the late 90s

What is just completely overemphasized in all of these articles is the power of music writing to force innovation, or even have a minimal effect upon, musical genres and markets

this is a flagrant misreading of reynolds and k-punk, and there is even some discussion on the FACT video about how hardcore dance producers and the dance scene in general are inarticulate and theoretically mute and non-responsive to criticism (as opposed to the case with post-punk bands). moreover, to the extent that dance music becomes an internet phenomenon and its producers and consumers more apt to read and argue about music on-line, then at least reynolds would say that this is basically a bad thing, destructive of the power and aura of underground music

a single moment in time 15 years ago (which just happens to coincide with the late adolescence/early adulthood of these continuum writers)

no, reynolds and k-punk were older than that at the time. it just so happens to have coincided with my late adolescence/early adulthood, but then i am not a continuum writer, so not sure where that gets you . . . .

It's a measure of some kind of odd shortsightedness that some people really truly seem to believe that British electronic music won't suffer the same fate that every last other genre of music has to date--i.e., they've all eventually fallen out of the spotlight and given way to formal innovations and new genres, you know, over time.

errrr, that is more or less the argument that reynolds and k-punk make, and why all the fans of dubstep, grime, wonky and bassline on this forum are so up-in-arms against them!!!

(((except that breakbeat hardcore and its various descendants are but one neck in the woods of british electronic music, which may yet see great innovations in areas relatively far afield from hardcore)))

 

[vimothy]

Frustrated ambient gabba FTW!

 

[dominic]

You couldn't possibly be someone who likes classical music better than, say, pop anymore. That's not legal in fanboy land.

errr, again, i think you will find on the video that Reynolds states that he much prefers the electronic music produced by the high modernists in the 50s, 60s, 70s over the techno and idm of the 90s, and i suppose the breakcore and wonky of the 00s, that are surrounded by a kind of "progressive" or "experimentalist" discourse

and certainly reynolds' well-known ally woebot is heavily into classical music

You also couldn't be someone who devoted their entire existence to classical music performance for over their entire life and not be way into jungle and rolling everynight like an etard at limelight..

again, nobody has ever said that the etards were theoretically articulate or geniuses. what they had was SCENIUS, powered by the total collision of house, techno, hip hop, reggae, as well as the religious fervor and belief that the revolutionary drug ecstasy really did produce at the time (hard as that may be for a person your age to imagine)

 

[dominic]

I really like this take on it - a Big Bang Theory with Punctuated Equilibria. The big bang being the Energy Flash resulting from a one-off convergence of cheap digital production technology, pharmacology, socioeconomic context, which left behind the equivalent of microwave background traces of the original sounds that energise and echo in and around the 'cooling' post-rave debris of jungle, breaks, dubstep, 2step, speed garage, grime. This cosmological model makes more sense to me than the continuum idea, which is just too linear and fragile.

yeah, i think this might actually be the better metaphor . . . .

 

[dominic]

The thing about continua in physics is that they're entirely self-contained systems, i.e. there are no "rivers" flowing out of them. So this alone seems to sort of suggest that it's a limited metaphor even to the extent that it works.

it is a limited metaphor, and maybe the HM GOVTs metaphor that i quote above is more apt.

however, i think the reason reynolds has used the term "continuum" is because the system--after the founding collision of house, techno, hip hop, reggae--has been remarkably self-contained, though not entirely so, especially if you look beyond the actual music to the culture of pirate radio and what not

 

[swears]

omg wait swears was on there? dammit now i'm going to have to wait for that whole damn thing to load again

I was near the back, you might see me for a blurry spilt-second as the camera pans the room. My secret identity is safe, anyway... bwahahah!

I recognised a couple of people in the audience just from seeing them around clubs/bars in Liverpool, don't know who they are though. Might say hello if I see them out.

 

[nomadthethird]

can you provide an example?

whether or not you like much of what the hardcore continuum (or whatever you want to call it) has produced over the past 20 years-----and i personally prefer the house and techno music that immediately prefigures the first real hardcore-----it seems to me fairly incontestable that this engine has produced most of the great innovations in dance music of the past 20 years, and the only real big stateside development in dance music post-1990 was hip-hop r-n-b a la timberland in the late 90s

The better question is can I think of any music made in the U.S. that *wasn't* a "mongrelisation" of the genres that kpunk mentions in the article. It's hard to think of any.

this is a flagrant misreading of reynolds and k-punk, and there is even some discussion on the FACT video about how hardcore dance producers and the dance scene in general are inarticulate and theoretically mute and non-responsive to criticism (as opposed to the case with post-punk bands). moreover, to the extent that dance music becomes an internet phenomenon and its producers and consumers more apt to read and argue about music on-line, then at least reynolds would say that this is basically a bad thing, destructive of the power and aura of underground music

Uhh, did you just read the direct quotes from the FACT article about theory being an important "component' of music? You're not even responding to what I actually said (I never said that the internet didn't have something to do with music post-1994), you're just assuming that I completely disagree with the idea of a "continuum", which I don't and I never said I did. I just don't think the metaphor always holds as well as some people think it does, which is what I already said--which you may have realized if you'd actually read it.

no, reynolds and k-punk were older than that at the time. it just so happens to have coincided with my late adolescence/early adulthood, but then i am not a continuum writer, so not sure where that gets you . . . .

Simon says himself in the video he was there, and very into the whole scene.

errrr, that is more or less the argument that reynolds and k-punk make, and why all the fans of dubstep, grime, wonky and bassline on this forum are so up-in-arms against them!!!

(((except that breakbeat hardcore and its various descendants are but one neck in the woods of british electronic music, which may yet see great innovations in areas relatively far afield from hardcore)))

ERRR no it isn't, the argument kpunk makes in that article is that in the U.S. there's some sort of "anti-theory" contingent that doesn't "engage" with music quite as well as he and the continuum believers apparently do.

 

[nomadthethird]

errr, again, i think you will find on the video that Reynolds states that he much prefers the electronic music produced by the high modernists in the 50s, 60s, 70s over the techno and idm of the 90s, and i suppose the breakcore and wonky of the 00s, that are surrounded by a kind of "progressive" or "experimentalist" discourse

and certainly reynolds' well-known ally woebot is heavily into classical music

What does any of this have to do with what I said? Nothing.

again, nobody has ever said that the etards were theoretically articulate or geniuses. what they had was SCENIUS, powered by the total collision of house, techno, hip hop, reggae, as well as the religious fervor and belief that the revolutionary drug ecstasy really did produce at the time (hard as that may be for a person your age to imagine)

I disagree. And please don't patronize me about fucking ecstasy, I've taken it dozens and dozens of times.

 

[padraig (u.s.)]

sure, so simon said he stopped paying attention, not that it was dead.. (though the implication is strong enough).

(a) it's his loss that he couldn't be bothered to find a radio.
(b) it rather undermines his credibility on the genre that he actively and deliberately stopped paying attention, doesn't it?

has he been trying to pass himself off as some kind of authority on grime tho? also perhaps the implication is yours? though I can understand why you'd be frustrated given that it's music you're still covering & promoting.

anyway the main thrust was that it stopped being interesting to him when the desire to go mainstream on its own terms faded. which seems mostly true, besides Dizzee any mainstream success has been quite compromised (tho, even Dizzee - also I'm not saying that compromising is necessarily a bad thing) & doesn't even seem to have much to do w/the quality of the music itself.

 

[padraig (u.s.)]

"Hardcore was the first properly British version of/ alternative to American House or Techno; as Reynolds points out though, the Britishness consisted not so much in the use of specifically UK sounds or signs, but in a mongrelising of House and Techno with genres such as hip hop, dub and dancehall that would not have been possible in Chicago or Detroit."

Why not? Sure, you have different cultures different places. Yes. But you also had those "sounds" "mongrelising" in the U.S. as well. Just to different sonic ends.

What is just completely overemphasized in all of these articles is the power of music writing to force innovation, or even have a minimal effect upon, musical genres and markets, along with the magical powers of Britishness to ferret out formal innovations in drum-machines and sampling that no one else anywhere ever thought of.

you're perhaps misreading this - the point isn't that mongrelisation & innovation weren't taking place or that they weren't possible but that the particular mongrelisations & innovations of ardkore were tied to a place/time that couldn't be replicated elsewhere. though I might also point out that some these innovations were in fact not thought of by anyone else before they come out ardkore & jungle.

who's overemphasizing the power of music writing? aren't all the ppl attacking SR & the HCC actually imbuing his work with a much greater importance than he himself?