IDM Mailing Archive

At 09:40 PM 6/7/97 -0400, Christopher Fahey wrote:

quoted 1 line If you heard a NEW t-Power track, or a new Dillinja track, or any of those

>If you heard a NEW t-Power track, or a new Dillinja track, or any of those

guys Simon Reynolds talks about, would you be able to identlify the artist without being told who it is? You made a mistake in lumping TPower in with the soundalike drum&bass crew, dude. TPower's SETOTIM album is pretty fucking unique. In fact, TPower does his own pisstake on the sameness of the scene in the Breakbeat Science II booklet - here's a quote: "Well, if you go and listen to a techstep set you're gonna hear what sounds like an hour of what sounds like the same record with a few high points and variations. It's the same as deep house, and how much of dance music has panned out. The DJ's won't play anything that clashes with their tunes, everything's got to mix-out, it's got to be DJ-friendly music." Maybe this is the real cause of the generic nature of jungle which Mr. Reynolds so admires, and has attributed to being the genuine and immediate expression of a way of life. In my mind it's due to the overall decline in DJ skills, and it's what has kept dance music down for too long.

quoted 1 line In fact, think about how many artists there are who you could identify at

>In fact, think about how many artists there are who you could identify at

all just by the way it sounds. The list would be tiny, and it would include Squarepusher. It would not include 99% of jungle artists. 99% of jungle artists are basically just one big musician with a single agenda: to create the perfect expression of the formulaic jungle/house track. These guys make good music, but not great music. TJ makes great music. I'm pretty fucking good at identifying music based on almost zero information. My favorite is the time I identified Renaldo & The Loaf on a weird college station after hearing only one of Renaldo's songs a few years earlier. It's a little more challenging with a lot of techno, and almost impossible with the jungle/drum&bass stuff, but not totally impossible if you have the ears. But then again, most people can't tell if it's John or Paul singing on a Beatles track... I agree though that Mr. Jenkinson's bass noodling is easier to identify than most. Chill Che

Che wrote:

quoted 10 lines "Well, if you go and listen to a techstep set you're gonna hear what sounds

> "Well, if you go and listen to a techstep set you're gonna hear what sounds > like an hour of what sounds like the same record with a few high points and > variations. It's the same as deep house, and how much of dance music has > panned out. The DJ's won't play anything that clashes with their > tunes, everything's got to mix-out, it's got to be DJ-friendly music." > > Maybe this is the real cause of the generic nature of jungle which Mr. > Reynolds so admires, and has attributed to being the genuine and immediate > expression of a way of life. In my mind it's due to the overall decline in > DJ skills, and it's what has kept dance music down for too long.

I can't really relate to this "blending" style of playing music. I don't see anything wrong with spinning two totally different styles of tunes back to back, even not beat matched, as long as the transition is handled properly. In fact, it's boring to hear a bunch of similar-sounding tunes all mixed together; I'd rather have some variety in the selection. GD

On Jun 9, 6:51am, GD wrote:

quoted 6 lines I can't really relate to this "blending" style of playing music. I

> I can't really relate to this "blending" style of playing music. I > don't see anything wrong with spinning two totally different styles of > tunes back to back, even not beat matched, as long as the transition is > handled properly. In fact, it's boring to hear a bunch of > similar-sounding tunes all mixed together; I'd rather have some variety > in the selection.

I don't know what kind of dance events you go to/spin at, but where I'm from if there's a non-beatmatched mix and the tunes are real loud it sounds like a trainwreck and people leave the floor. Mixing tunes which sound simialar goes toward creating a vibe, that sense of continuity that causes the dancers on the floor to lose their sense of time and dance until they are exhausted. If there are noticeable breaks and transitions, people *will* sit down at those times. Unless its a listening/ head-nodding type of event, this is not what djs want to see. -- Mark Edward Bowen Warmed Breakdown mb@gettins.bche.uic.edu