IDM Mailing Archive

quoted 3 lines Can anyone offer a reason why I should think of Oval as anything other

> Can anyone offer a reason why I should think of Oval as anything other > than boring and a complete waste of time? I listened to their newest > album in a store today and found it to be INCREDIBLY repetitive and

quoted 3 lines I ended up purchasing "68 Million Shades" by Spring Heel Jack and I can

> I ended up purchasing "68 Million Shades" by Spring Heel Jack and I can > already tell it's not going to be leaving my CD carousel for a hella long > time.

Funny that, I thought 68 million Shades was boring throwaway jungle crap, whilst Oval's 94diskont was one of the 2 or 3 best discs of last year. Why, you may ask? 68 million... is just one big cliche. Yeah, they throw some extra instrumentation on. Still plays the same goddamn stuff, regardless of the instrument. diskont94, or at least the 1st track (24 minutes long) is the prettiest song I've ever heard made from cd skips and machine fuckups. It's also awesome, making use of a microtonal scale and cd clicks for a beat. --- the humble abbott arthur purvis set his hand hereto.

On Fri, 18 Apr 1997, Arthur B. Purvis wrote:

quoted 6 lines Funny that, I thought 68 million Shades was boring throwaway jungle

> Funny that, I thought 68 million Shades was boring throwaway jungle > crap, whilst Oval's 94diskont was one of the 2 or 3 best discs of > last year. > Why, you may ask? 68 million... is just one big cliche. Yeah, they > throw some extra instrumentation on. Still plays the same goddamn > stuff, regardless of the instrument.

68M Shades doesn't sound like any other drum&bass I own (and I own quite a bit). It doesn't even sound like their first or third albums. I'm not sure why you would think it's cliched, unless you're treating all drum&bass the same without really listening to it.

quoted 4 lines diskont94, or at least the 1st track (24 minutes long) is the

> diskont94, or at least the 1st track (24 minutes long) is the > prettiest song I've ever heard made from cd skips and machine > fuckups. It's also awesome, making use of a microtonal scale and > cd clicks for a beat.

This techniques been around a long time - a friend of mine, Todd Pluharski, was doing it about 10 years ago. He made the most amazing track using Dolly Parton's version of "White Christmas". It kept skipping on the "I'm dreeemmmminngminginginginging". He did some more tracks using equally bad source material, and sent a copy to Options Magazine. They reviewed it and took him to task for his simple synth tones, but praised him for his innovative use of sampling. What made this really hilarious was that the source material had no synths, and he used no sampler. If you're really into this, take the CDs that you can't give away, one of those silvery metal pens, and some laquer thinner. If you don't like what you've done, clean the ink off with the thinner. You should try out different CD players - some work better than others. You'll quickly find you can do as good or better than Opal. Che

On Sat, 19 Apr 1997, Che wrote:

quoted 7 lines On Fri, 18 Apr 1997, Arthur B. Purvis wrote:

> On Fri, 18 Apr 1997, Arthur B. Purvis wrote: > > If you're really into this, take the CDs that you can't give away, one of > those silvery metal pens, and some laquer thinner. If you don't like > what you've done, clean the ink off with the thinner. You should try out > different CD players - some work better than others. You'll quickly find > you can do as good or better than Opal.

A black "Markie" marker works as well and are cheaper, washes off with isoprobyl alcohol, too. I found that drawing a 360 degree spiral from inner to outer edge let me advance to the skipping section of any peice of "data" on the CD. I used to use a 1-beam cd player (circa 1986) so that the loops would "organically" wander around different parts of the CD. Newer CD players usually get stuck in a loop and stay there indefinitely. solenoid@europa.com <------+

On Fri, 18 Apr 1997, it was written: ]idm q: is photek minimal or just boring? i can't decide. If a song is on the boring side of minimal, I stop myself from picking the song apart and just "try to be passive" (if that's even possible) when listening to get a feel for the overall groove. Personally, I never find photek boring... Can anyone offer a reason why I should think of Oval as anything other than boring and a complete waste of time? I listened to their newest album in a store today and found it to be INCREDIBLY repetitive and stifling, every song seemed to be something along the lines of "obscured and reverbed synth line with CD player skip-clicks skip-clicking along". I even noticed a blatant sample from SAW II. Is this all one has to do to have one's own CD out in stores everywhere?...scratch up RDJ CDs, use the most cohesive but invariably out-of-synch sequences I can find, and then rake in the dough? 90% of what I heard sounded like it could have been nothing other than a mangled and skippy SAW II CD. I ended up purchasing "68 Million Shades" by Spring Heel Jack and I can already tell it's not going to be leaving my CD carousel for a hella long time. [][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][] [[ http://www.hybridgame.demon.co.uk/idm.htm : 4 IDM IT S3M MOD go here ]] [[][][][ wrecktangle sez: "Walk softly and carry a big spliff." ][][][]] [][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][]

wrecktangle wrote:

quoted 5 lines Can anyone offer a reason why I should think of Oval as anything other

> Can anyone offer a reason why I should think of Oval as anything other > than boring and a complete waste of time? I listened to their newest > album in a store today and found it to be INCREDIBLY repetitive and > stifling, every song seemed to be something along the lines of "obscured > and reverbed synth line with CD player skip-clicks skip-clicking along".

if you haven't heard "diskont," please don't say anything like this. i can agree with some of the things that you take from "systemisch," but "diskont" is a wonderful bit of orchestration, particularly "shop in store," one of my all time faves. find it! mj

egoiste@ix.netcom.com wrote:

quoted 15 lines wrecktangle wrote:

> > wrecktangle wrote: > > > Can anyone offer a reason why I should think of Oval as anything other > > than boring and a complete waste of time? I listened to their newest > > album in a store today and found it to be INCREDIBLY repetitive and > > stifling, every song seemed to be something along the lines of "obscured > > and reverbed synth line with CD player skip-clicks skip-clicking along". > > if you haven't heard "diskont," please don't say anything like this. i > can agree with some of the things that you take from "systemisch," but > "diskont" is a wonderful bit of orchestration, particularly "shop in > store," one of my all time faves. find it! > > mj

I recently bought systemisch after giving it a listen at the store. I have to say that I enjoy listening to it, it's definately not boring. I think if you find it boring then your probably not actually listening to it. You might be hearing it, but that's not enough with this recording. But I also have to add that I'm disappointed in that they seem to have recorded an entire album of fast forwarding through other artists cd's! What the hell is that? Why didn't they make their own recordings and fast forward through them? Mediation is definately a copy of a track 2 disk 2 of aphex's amb.works vol.2 in fast forward. Go ahead fast forward through it, there's no mistaking it. I recognized it the first time. But as I said I really enjoy listening to it, and despite the blatant molestation of other artists work , I feel that it is innovative and stimulating. B R E N D E N