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Date: Mon, 20 Dec 1999 12:50:29 -0500
To: idm@hyperreal.org
From: "Allen, Gordon" <gordona@innovaction.com>
Subject: IDM D.J.s
hi,
are there any IDM D.J.s out there who beatmatch their records? i'd like to
hear from some of you - your experiences, philosophies, etc. personally, i
started out as an IDM 'crossfading' DJ, and later picked up beatmatching
skills by buying a wackload of techno records. now i'm matching my IDM
records, but haven't had that many opportunities to play this to a captive
crowd. i think that IDM that's more electro or minimal techno-based would
be the easiest to beatmatch, and to get people dancing. but i'd love to
hear from someone who has thrown something really strange into their set, to
hear if people responded or stopped and scratched their heads.
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My 0.02 - it's difficult to actually DJ this stuff and do it well (simple
crossfades don't count in my book, even ambient DJ's will do more than that,
layering and using effects and eq's), only a few folks I know of like
Mixmaster Morris and DJ Lovegrove (Sonic Soul, DC) can pull it off on the
technique tip and spin interesting records at the same time.
From my own experience, it's kind of unrewarding to be an idm DJ in that you
can't pull off a lot of the "tricks" that work so well with other
styles...scratch-style mixing usually disturbs the flow of the track unless
it's subtle, and doing stuff like dropping out the bass or tweaking the eq
just isn't as effective as when you're working with bass-heavy, 4/4 rhythms.
And while fluid beatmatching is prolly the best mixing style with this kind
of music, it's often difficult because tracks have odd rhythms or sound so
dissimilar it's nearly impossible to make'em blend well.
On one hand, I love this music for that very reason and it's a challenge to
spin it out. But on the other, it's hard to play idm to a crowd and get any
kind of reaction other than a trainspotting neck craning over the decks. I
kind of got jaded about all that a year or so ago, stopped buying as many
straight-up idm records (the music also started to bore me), and playing
more electro/techno/deep house sounds. Somewhat more engaging to actually
DJ, and certainly more effective when you play it live to a crowd. So it's
kind of a catch 22, some of the best music can be some of the most boring to
spin as a DJ. Any other idm jocks (Lance, Teep, etc?) have opinions on
this?
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