IDM Mailing Archive

RE>Old IDM... dave manning sez:

quoted 3 lines I dug through some CDs and found _(Who's Afraid of?) The Art of Noise!_

>I dug through some CDs and found _(Who's Afraid of?) The Art of Noise!_ >today and am marveling at how primitive it sounds. Not that that's bad, of >course - it's been ten years since it came out - I still find it fun.

i was just listening to it recently and marvelling at how fresh it still is. this is definitely one disc that changed my life, and bits of it are still amazing. /jon

quoted 7 lines I dug through some CDs and found _(Who's Afraid of?) The Art of Noise!_

> >I dug through some CDs and found _(Who's Afraid of?) The Art of Noise!_ > >today and am marveling at how primitive it sounds. Not that that's bad, of > >course - it's been ten years since it came out - I still find it fun. > > i was just listening to it recently and marvelling at how fresh it still is. > this is definitely one disc that changed my life, and bits of it are still > amazing.

This album absolutely changed my life. I can trace the entire development of my musical taste back to that album. It opened the mind of a willing 13-year-old to a world of strange, weird, new musical possibilities, completely apart from top-40 radio. Granted, it doesn't sound "clean," but then, the best experiments never are. It's got a sense of humor (even if you don't read the liner notes), it's got just plain strangeness, it's smooth, it's abrupt, it's got style and grittiness. My early musical diet (courtesy of my father) consisted of Elton John, the Rolling Stones and Dire Straits, and I can still remember the look on my dad's face when I played this tape for him, and it was not a look of bemusement, a look of disdain, or a look of helplessness, but a look of wonder, just like mine. And, yes, it is a fun record. But not a novelty. It's a very "important" album, at least to me, and I think it's underappreciated just how much this album contributed to the music we hold so dearly today. It was certainly ahead of its time, if not way ahead. Every time I go back to that album, there's something new in it, and it sounds like it could have been put out today. It is more than occasionally that I think, "the world hasn't quite caught up with this yet." - Adam J Weitzman INDIVIDUAL, Inc. weitzman@individual.com

Wow! I actually contributed something there. :-) I think what Adam, Lazlo, and Jon all pointed out is still true: AoN, in spite of recent embarrassments (or rather, because of them) clinch the "what the hell is happening" award. I was playing the disc at work and someone just looked at me, blinking, and asked what I was listening to. It's either a miracle or a crime that such music still turns heads after so long - a miracle that it remains fresh, and a crime that said co-worker had never heard anything like it before. Nods in this area should also go to Colourbox, if not just for "Hot Doggie" then for "Pump Up the Volume" which probably did more for house/dance music then anything before or since. On the "D" removal problem: I'm torn on this one. While I agree that sometimes I want to be ambient, there are those times when I want something to totally floor me, pick me up, dust me off, and get me moving. Front 242 *still* does it, Orbital (of course) could push me all over the planet, and the first AI release is a real toe tapper. But, as Pete, et al, have mentioned the Orb in this regard, I'm kind of puzzled. Does it have that much of a beat, or is it a *groove*? And am I just dealing in language here, or does anyone else see the difference? I mean, there are certainly beat elements, especially "Little Fluffy Clouds" and some of the mixes for "Perpetual Dawn", but I could sway to my death listening to "A Huge Ever-Growing..." and not be happier even if the Brothers Hartnoll came to my house to spin just for me. :-) Dave, who needs to go home for awhile. .----------------------------------------------dmanning@dreamland.unomaha.edu | "There's something the matter with me" dmanning@cwis.unomaha.edu | --Intermix dmanning@eworld.com .-------------------------------------------- dgmanning@aol.com

On Mon, 22 Aug 1994, Jon Drukman wrote:

quoted 9 lines dave manning sez:

> dave manning sez: > > >I dug through some CDs and found _(Who's Afraid of?) The Art of Noise!_ > >today and am marveling at how primitive it sounds. Not that that's bad, of > >course - it's been ten years since it came out - I still find it fun. > > i was just listening to it recently and marvelling at how fresh it still is. > this is definitely one disc that changed my life, and bits of it are still > amazing.

Damn straight... like that massive breakdown about 2/3 of the way through "Beatbox" -- I still get shivers whenever I hear it. And I have to think that the footsteps-as-percussion in Global Communication's "Gamma Phase" is an homage to a similar bit that shows up in that ambient suite on side two. PS: Bleep fans should check out the "Cowboyphunk" single from Hardtrax on Probe... ----------------------------------------------------------------- dave walker, detroit art services _ marmoset@msen.com freeke robot luv