IDM Mailing Archive

/derek wrote:

quoted 3 lines Most of the "critiques" of the new autechre album sound just like what=20

> Most of the "critiques" of the new autechre album sound just like what=20 > non-idm people would say. "there's no melody or words, and it's just=20 > strange sounds plopped together."

This review in the recent Wire by David Toop is worth a read. I've cut the first 2 paragraphs which were just a bit of historical scenesetting.. If you've got minimal time, start at the fourth paragraph. - - - Along with Oval, Microstoria and a few others I can't remember, they pioneered the move away from harware to software. Begone the MIDI network of keyboard pads, 909 beats, black metal boxes and all that 'purchased from shops' crap. Enter: bitcrushing, comb filters, Gaussian curves and granular synthesis. Preferably cracked. A few years down the line, such arcane devices and practices are now overunning musical practice, and we arrive at Confield, a trajectory punctuated by numerous tracks seemingly named by consulting the publicity leaflets lifted from a pharmaceutical representative's briefcase. "Kalpol", one of the tracks on Incunabula, will evoke unavoidable images for parents who have nursed small children, of disturbed nights spent negotiating the fragile surface tension of a pink liquid named Calpol as it quivers on a 5ml plastic spoon. That balancing act aimed at killing the pain of innocents, often achieved in remote regions of hypnagogic trance, may not be so far from Autechre's music. "VI Scose Poise" (a pocket description of administering Calpol) begins by sounding like a Max Eastley sound sculpture, a rod dancing on a metal plate, its shivering erratic impact shadowed by digital blurring and multiplication. Bass notes and piano figure, the latter enveloped in just a bit too much reverb for my tastes, slip underneath the mechanical dance and hang in illusory air. "It is so difficult to link the life to the work," wrote Gaston Bachelard in The Poetics of Reverie. "Can the biographer help us by telling us that the following poem was written by Verlaine was in prison at Mons: 'The sky is up above the roof, So blue, so calm'." Whatever, it's all a long way from "Smerphie's Dance". And at the same time, not. There are beats that punch their way to the front of the mix, there are the noises of deep space, though that space is a mental space shared with the workings of a computer, rather than dark vastness penetrated by meteors, circling satellites, little people with unnecessarily large almond eyes. There is even a track, "Eidetic Casein", that could be The SOS Band as heard from another galaxy far, far away. A slap bass pops out of the mush, Slave, Stone or Kleer, forever 1981, poking a callused digit through thick encrustations, a swarm of flies popping in hot lamps, melodies melting in humid vapour. These struggles, rhythms contesting transformative processes, melodies floating within scratchy soundfields (or confields) of cumulative furring, rusting, decay, can be irritating. I wonder about Autechre's grasp of structure. Is it random, conceptualized, haphazard, confused, meticulously mapped, 'don't give a fuck'? Does it convince? Does it matter? There's a useful comparison to be made with (the inspiration of) electroacoustic music, old school, the narrative development of its melodramas, bangs, curvilinear swoops and operatic shocks, and this digital era electronica in the post-techno and Techno style, so lopsided, or continuous sliding forward motion with acceleration or incompatibility the only obvious indicators of drama. Consciously undeveloped in its development, still making relationships between drums, bass, chords, melody. Perhaps Francis Fukuyama was half-right, or a fraction right, or slightly unwrong, when he wrote his ridiculous book. History has ended. At least in these circles. The 60s street battles of Tokyo, Kent Square, Paris and Grosvenor Square or the anti-fascist confrontations of the 70s may be echoed in the anti-capitalist actions of Seattle of the City of London, but a studious withdrawal is the norm. Hack out the plan. "Lentic Catachresis" sounds like the description of a post-RSI, post-ME condition, a cataclysm of neural responses hatched in stasis. Mind on fire. Joints ablaze. World gone to shit. Fucking adverts. Blitz in the head. Blink response critical but no capacity for spunk. Lost in noise. Paraplegic. "Cfern" is just plain annoying. Shut those drums up. They hurt. I won't listen to it again. Horrible. A pity it's the second track, but this is an album that improves as it goes along. "Pen Expers" collapses over its own clumsy feet, kicking up sand grains in clouds, reminiscent of a Larry Heard reverse-the-whole-track from way back in the days, title forgotten or maybe not even written on a white label. Yes, there are traces of Chicago and Detroit in here, distilled in test tubes, not yet reduced to a clear liquid. "Sim Gishel" stomps through bitcrushed smudges of dragged chords, vestigal traces of a ruined song. "Parhelic Triangle" returns to sound sculpture. A loop of rhythm fed through a reverse industrial munch unit, robotic model, suspended bells struck by the flapping wings of trapped pigeons, their vibration resounding in the otherwise deserted factory. "Bine" fidgets uncontrollably, enclosed by the sound of drains, itching to peck its way out, life running backwards through a small aperture in a monochrome stream, evacuated into wastelands and flood. "Uviol" begins its journey as electro-boogie for a music box, losing heart and pace, drifting in confusion, beats squeezed into narrow frequency tracks, groaning, bursting into boils and disturbing Cronenburg growths of new flesh, dying on its twitching sticks. About new language (in speaking of which don't expect a proper sentence), somewhere between Professor Stanley Unwin and Bob Conning, the voicebox extracted with tweezers and scalpel by spectral assistants, then replaced in delicate surgery by unstuffed folders, toolboxes, 'Read Me's and install icons. Frizzled, spent, bent. --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: idm-unsubscribe@hyperreal.org For additional commands, e-mail: idm-help@hyperreal.org

On 26 Apr 2001, at 7:33, matt wrote:

quoted 4 lines ... begins its journey as electro-boogie for a music box, losing

> ... begins its journey as electro-boogie for a music box, losing > heart and pace, drifting in confusion, beats squeezed into narrow > frequency tracks, groaning, bursting into boils and disturbing > Cronenburg growths of new flesh, dying on its twitching sticks.

:-))))) Oh yes, typical Wire fare at its (questionable) best. I find myself re- reading Wire articles paraghraph for dense and anal paragraph a few times over, trying to fathom out what the heck is actually being said! Did you type all this out, or was it up somewhere on the web? If you went to all the trouble of inputting it, thank you very much - lots of the graphic imagery made me chuckle. I * --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: idm-unsubscribe@hyperreal.org For additional commands, e-mail: idm-help@hyperreal.org

some weekzz ago, someone asked about an discog of st germain? I wazz wondering if he/she had succesfully found what he/ she wazz lookin 4. I compiled some bitz and bytes, but i'am not certain on all data, so any comments would be great. M. link beta-version: http://www.freespeech.org/promoozz/music/disco/disco_stgermain.html --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: idm-unsubscribe@hyperreal.org For additional commands, e-mail: idm-help@hyperreal.org

Ok tnx, i guezz i 've read the tracklisting of the FC sampler 3 (1999) wrongly. Just looked again, and noticed my mistake...: track 5 : aqua bassino track 6 : deepside Must have token the wrong credits as i don't know aqua bassino. I 'll change it tonight. tnx again, M.oozzuzz One remark though: the Aqua Bassino releases are *not* produced by Ludovic, but by Jason Robertson. They have nothing to do with StGermain. SayVegin --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: idm-unsubscribe@hyperreal.org For additional commands, e-mail: idm-help@hyperreal.org