IDM Mailing Archive

quoted 1 line From: Alex Reynolds <polygon@jhu.edu>

> From: Alex Reynolds <polygon@jhu.edu>

quoted 6 lines I am talking about music; in particular, social aspects of this type of

> I am talking about music; in particular, social aspects of this type of > music and its fan base. I think it merits discussion; I would like to > know other's viewpoints as well. It is very interesting to me that an > artform by mostly white artists that borrows heavily from mostly black > artists has a description that effectively states: "All other forms of > (dance) music are unintelligent."

From what I understand, the name was pulled out of a hat when a list was formed to discuss the artists on Warp's "Artificial Intelligence" compilation. It's clearly problematic for the reason you suggest, but few have adopted any alternative term to describe the aesthetic. I prefer "abstract dance music" myself. Autechre is the musical analogue to a Mondrian painting for me... It's also an artform by mostly heterosexual artists that borrows heavily from mostly homosexual artists, non? Music that is for and about a subculture is great for enhancing personal and group identity, but also gets stuck in aesthetic ruts. When the music escapes those social roots, it loses much of its ability to empower, but gains a great deal in artistic range, much in the same way that the received musics of American blues and rock'n'roll were misinterpreted and distilled down to the good ideas by the British invasion. I don't recall seeing anything pejorative about the Detroit and Chicago house roots of IDM on here, indeed, the artists frequently speak with reverence of their discovery of Model 500 (or whatever) tracks in mid-80's record bins... Darryl Roy ersatz@hal-pc.org Houston, TX <><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><> "Computers are useless. They can only give you answers." - Picasso

quoted 6 lines From what I understand, the name was pulled out of a hat when a list

>>From what I understand, the name was pulled out of a hat when a list >was formed to discuss the artists on Warp's "Artificial Intelligence" >compilation. It's clearly problematic for the reason you suggest, but >few have adopted any alternative term to describe the aesthetic. I >prefer "abstract dance music" myself. Autechre is the musical analogue >to a Mondrian painting for me...

try this on for size from the Porter Ricks interview (Frontpage magazine website c/o bleed): FP: In contrast to Thomas, Andy Melwig released extremely rhythmic music as Async Sense on Moritz Von Oswald's label Imbalance.<P> AM: To some extend we found a synthesis there -- the zone where tone and timbre and rhythm came together. With Async Sense, I used rhythm as a medium to look behind rhythm. It was a certain provocation of the ambivalence which actually is contained in all rhythmic activity. There isn't just one rhythm, there are really a lot of rhythms -- for instance rhythms neighboring on each other, and I just articulated that conflict within that type of genre. I was also really into Steve Reich at that time, whom I purposefully held back from, since I knew that he had already done similar things in the 70s. After that he didn't have a really firm rhythmic concept any more. This concept -- his thing was called &quot;drumming&quot; back then -- he brought the idea to the point with it. Also, the structures of Richard Deacon -- his sculptures are circles. He has wood bars that look like a dinosaur skeleton, just much more abstract and geometric, which create a pulsing rhythm through simple examination, simple movement. <BR> What interested me about that were the parallels between rhythm and perspective structures. Visual rhythms, sound overlapping -- that was it for me. The perception of movement really touches on the dislocation of perspective. The bass drum has always landed in a meter, which then determines as a reference point the position of the hearer. For me, it's about movement. When you stand in front of a grating and move your head minimally, then you see how it moves.<BR> 10-4 over and out good buddy. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Chris Sattinger reprogramming our reality through disco new records coming on : Synewave(jan), Subvoice(feb), Sativae(?) NEW RELEASES - DISCOGRAPHY - INFO http://www.tc.umn.edu/nlhome/m082/satti002/ChrisSattinger.html US Techno House Business Resource : http://www.tc.umn.edu/nlhome/m082/satti002/DanceLabel.html ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~