Well written! I like the historical narrative you provide that lays
"indie" and electronic genres side by side. It provides a nice
alternative to the Simon Reynolds school of EDM history. Of course,
your arguments come as no surprise, but there is some power in
pointing out and naming what had remained unsaid.
good on ya,
Luis
On Sep 4, 2005, at 2:00 PM, Chris Chatham wrote:
quoted 225 lines ---An open letter i wrote to pitchfork media. I thought I'd post it
>
> ---An open letter i wrote to pitchfork media. I thought I'd post it
> here, not as flame bait but because i'm curious who else has noticed
> something similar---
>
> I have some comments about what I perceive as a site-wide musical bias
> from pitchforkmedia, and a concern that specifically your electronic
> music reviews are ill-informed and revisionist.
>
> It's clear that pitchfork media's writers come from the "indie rock"
> tradition, and by that I do not mean the tradition of independent
> musicians (stretching back to the days of jazz) but the cultural
> movement of mostly white, educated, suburban males with horn-rimmed
> glasses in the early&mid 90's who laid claim to the term "indie."
>
> At the time, their use of the term "indie" importantly only
> referred to
> music made with live instruments on independent labels. Many of the
> values were passed down from the grunge scene, including fashion. It
> was specifically _not_ used to refer to the music from the bourgeoning
> rave movement (or even the third wave of industrial music, such as
> Nine
> Inch Nails) although much of that music was also independently
> produced
> and released.
>
> Accordingly, exclusive fans of electronic music were not
> considered "indie." The thread tying together the "indie" scene was
> actually a _live music ethic_ rather than the independence of its
> musicians. This entailed the sonic artifacts of live performance,
> including instrumental mistakes, occasionally cracking voices, and
> background noise. Think Sonic Youth, or Pavement. There was a sense
> that you were "more indie" if you used crappy equipment, made crappy
> recordings on old cassettes, or had a raspy voice. Given the
> cumbersome nature of electronic music technology at the time
> (making it
> difficult to play live) and the increasing production values in the
> electronic scene, it's not surprising that electronic music was
> considered mostly outside the purview of "indie."
>
> It was during this time that most genres of electronic music were
> being
> spawned, including the special case of "IDM," which would be
> assimilated by the indie scene only years after the truly pioneering
> tracks were first released. It was easily assimilated because IDM
> often exalted the same sounds that gave indie music it's live flavor -
> sonic artifacts (e.g., Pole), the use of bad or minimal sonic
> equipment
> (e.g., Scanner), and the intentional use of noise (e.g., Aphex,
> Autechre). Furthermore, it was seen as the "underground" portion of
> electronic music. This was slightly ironic given that even at that
> time (late 90's) Aphex Twin and Autechre had probably sold far more
> records than the average house/techno/trance/breaks/industrial
> producer
> (whose customers were primarily djs). Many of these less popular
> musicians probably exemplified the ideal of the "independent musician"
> more than these IDM superstars. Nonetheless, Matador and Merge
> Records
> bought it up, and business was brisk as indie could finally claim a
> piece of the electronica pie.
>
> As the production values of rave and industrial music climbed ever
> higher, and the aesthetic continued to search for more and
> more 'futuristic sounds' (particularly in the fusion of the two genres
> with world music known as Goa and now Psytrance), popular music
> started
> going the other direction. Most people couldnt' tell the difference
> between an electronic music track produced in 2001 and one from 2003,
> because the sound quality wasn't evolving quite as quickly, and the
> rate of genre explosion had slowed. IDM labels were still doing well
> within the indie community, as evidenced by Merck records, despite the
> fact that the genre was already about 10 years old and really hadn't
> changed much since the original "Artifical Intelligence" compilations
> on Warp.
>
> Then, a resurgence of interest in 70's and 80's music led the way for
> IDM artists and ex-indie rockers alike to find "innovation" in
> replaying old cliches. Note that several of pitchfork-media's reviews
> reflect this attitude by deifying early 80's artists such as The Fall,
> Depeche Mode, New Order, Joy Division, and various New Wave acts.
> With
> the exception of indie sweethearts Sonic Youth, Pavement, and their
> ilk, the music of the 90's have been erased from the indie definition
> of "cool." IDM artists have followed suit in attempt to reclaim
> their "indie" fanbase by recreating the late 80's acid sound (such as
> the new Aphex material) and in some cases by actually reproducing mid
> 80's style synth pop (Solvent, for example).
>
> So the winds of change dictate that any electronic music still
> pursuing
> high production values, futuristic sounds, and new high-fidelity sonic
> trickery should be lambasted by the indie community as horrible,
> trite,
> and derivative music (ironic given the fact that the indie
> community is
> currently cloning 80's pop, which at the very least is trite and
> derivative).
>
> The effects of this intertwined musical/cultural history are apparent
> in your reviews. Music from the indie rock or IDM traditions are
> consistently reviewed as 'better' than music that derives from the
> simultaneous, but very different movements of rave and industrial
> music. Consequently, I am afraid that your writers simply do not
> understand those genres. Or, maybe they just have an engrained or
> subconscious musical & cultural bias against it.
>
> Take, for example, the review of Juno Reactor's Shango (which, by the
> way, I would agree was a bad album):
> http://www.pitchforkmedia.com/record-reviews/j/juno-
> reactor/shango.shtml. I understand that the reviewer was partly using
> this album as an opportunity to be funny, but even a shallow analysis
> easily uncovers the bias inherent to the "indie" view of the
> electronic
> music genres descended from rave and industrial.
>
> First quote:
> "The broadly-browed, deeply eye-socketed industrial types at
> Metropolis
> would adore me if this review were written in a hyperbolic, gushingly
> adoring fashion. They would colonically irrigate me with their
> gladdened tongues if I professed undying affection for Juno Reactor's
> fifth album."
>
> As it turns out, I know that the people at Metropolis records would
> definitely not even have thanked you for giving them a good review,
> and
> they might indeed forget to send you any more records to review. So
> I'm not sure where this writer got his information, although I suppose
> I'm forgetting it's not a serious review but rather a comedy routine.
>
> "With their hard-earned soundtrack cash, they've employed Steve
> Stevens, Billy Idol's old guitarist, to doodle Hispanically on
> Shango's
> opening track, "Pistelero." The song has been fashioned so that your
> industrial disco can get you all high-plains-drifting and Sergio
> Leone.
> You can be a body-popping, cheroot-chewing, Clint Eastwood poncho-
> wearing fool. Listening to such malarkey, let alone dancing to it,
> will
> not make you attractive. In fact, you'll be considered a prize tit,
> unless you're blessed with a scrumptious bod and are unfeasibly well
> hung."
>
> At the time pistolero was released, it was a ground breaking track.
> This predated David Thrussel's attempts to use spaghetti western
> sounds
> in danceable electronic music. This had actually never been done
> before and was quite innovative. The fact that the reviewer
> concentrates on the effect of this track in a "live setting" such as a
> dance club reveals a misplaced frame of reference: only indie music,
> not rave or industrial, is firmly situated in a live setting where one
> can act like a "prize tit" and have it matter. The setting of rave
> and
> industrial music was always the theater of the mind. Part of the fun
> of raves and industrial parties has always been the fact that you can
> dress up in a bizarre costume, dance around like a tit, and it really
> doesn't matter. This reviewer clearly does not understand either a)
> the musical innovation of this track or b) the greater context of
> electronic music. Why was such a nonexpert picked to review the
> album?
>
> "But lobbing him into the midst of fully Quantized, sequenced beats
> isn't going to allow him to shine like Steven Scales did on those
> early
> eighties Talking Heads' releases."
>
> Again, the praise of early 80's music is apparent. The reviewer also
> incorrectly capitalizes "quantized" and shows a lack of knowledge of
> danceable electronic music's primary technique: polyrhythms.
> Overlaying quantized beats with shuffled or non-quantized rhythms is
> what gives good electronic music it's "swing" and funk. But I
> wouldn't
> expect a professional record reviewer to know that.
>
> It's also worth saying that David Byrne has always been electronically
> produced and has certainly used his fair share of drum tracks
> quantization.
>
> "Removed from the soundtrack to a Hollywood holiday blockbuster, the
> ham-fisted brutality Juno Reactor exhibit is openly clumsy and,
> initially, bloody amusing. But brutality can be beautiful. Alec
> Empire's Curse of the Golden Vampire proves that one doesn't have
> induce belly laughs, ear-ache or dyspepsia to make the ugly appealing"
>
> Again, notice the bias toward the darling of indie's acquired genre,
> Alec Empire, who never really produced anything that hadn't been done
> by industrial noise artists before him (try Panacea, Winterkalte or
> Esplendor Geometrico).
>
> "While industrial bands sound stuck in Orwell's 1984, and their albums
> resemble gruffer-than-thou remakes of Depeche Mode's Speak and Spell,
> pioneering techno artists are presently casting aside the obvious and
> investigating the clicks and cuts of digital accidents."
>
> CURRENTLY? What decade is this reviewer living in?
> Pole "investigated" these clicks and cuts in 2000, Haujobb did it
> before them with "99," Uwe Schmidt did it as industrial group
> "Lassigue
> Bendthaus" on the Cloned EP in the mid 90s, Warp records did it in
> 1993, and Zoviet France/Dead Voices on Air did it in the late 80s.
> This reviewer is clearly uninformed about current electronic music
> trend - no one would claim that the investigating of clicks and
> cuts of
> digital accidents is a 'current' trend. Anyone currently doing
> that is
> at risk of legal action for plagiarism.
>
> I'm sure that I could find additional examples of your site's bias,
> but
> I am tired of writing. If you have questions, please feel free to
> ask,
> particularly about how you might acquire knowledgeable electronic
> music
> reviewers.
>
> Best of luck in doing justice to music you don't understand,
>
> Chris Chatham.
>
>
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