IDM Mailing Archive

hobey echlin writes,

quoted 4 lines Dance music more and more lets us down with tracky albums that bounce

> Dance music more and more lets us down with tracky albums that bounce > between ever more hermetically sealed genres. (Question for house > producers: > Is disco the only thing worth sampling in the last 25 years?)

why do so many journalists hate genres so much? i'm really tired of all the carping on the "hermetic genres" that define dance music. in the journalists' world, eclectic = good, and "generic" (in the literal sense) = bad. i can see several reasons: 1) the fetishization of novelty and innovation that comes with capitalism 2) plain old insecurity - genres imply a set of rules, and a tradition, that the journalist by nature (having to be semi-versed in scores of genres and topics) will probably not know. therefore, rather than learning about the history & intricacies of drum'n'bass, say, or house music, it's easier to slag it as uncreative. thoughts? p

: Does anyone know of any IDM artists who consistently use Csound? Kim Cascone did the entire Blue Cube album in Csound (and I believe its successor, Cathode Flower, as well). Don't know if I'd exactly call him IDM (Ambient, perhaps) though. I know there are several artists on the Csound mailing list who do IDM. There are a number of 303 emulations and other such instruments for Csound out there; in fact several of them appear on the CDROM that comes with The Csound Book. -Ed --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: idm-unsubscribe@hyperreal.org For additional commands, e-mail: idm-help@hyperreal.org

On 4 Aug 2000, Philip Sherburne wrote re [idm] question about echlin:

quoted 3 lines therefore, rather than learning about the history & intricacies of

> therefore, rather than learning about the history & intricacies of > drum'n'bass, say, or house music, it's easier to slag it as > uncreative.

ALL journalism and criticism - be it of films, books, music or art - will always be the personal opinion of the writer. That's all it is. I * --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: idm-unsubscribe@hyperreal.org For additional commands, e-mail: idm-help@hyperreal.org

quoted 2 lines i can see several reasons:

> i can see several reasons: > 1) the fetishization of novelty and innovation that comes with capitalism

Though I never made the connection with capitalism, I've always been drawn to innovative sounds as a music critic. If a writer's job involves communicating to his or her audience about new and exciting sounds, why bother writing about generic music that recycles old ideas?

quoted 6 lines 2) plain old insecurity - genres imply a set of rules, and a

> 2) plain old insecurity - genres imply a set of rules, and a > tradition, that the journalist by nature (having to be > semi-versed in scores of genres and topics) will probably not > know. therefore, rather than learning about the history & > intricacies of drum'n'bass, say, or house music, it's easier to > slag it as uncreative.

Not every writer out there may know the ins and outs of every genre -- techno, DnB, house, trance, rock, jazz, rap, etc. It's almost impossible to have a deep encyclopedic knowledge about each of these. But there are many writers out there with an amazing depth of knowledge in particular areas (many of which are on this list). If you think about it though, the writers out there and the people at the labels are the ones that have defined the genres. Obviously, someone had to sit back and think "hmm, let's call this minimal techno" after they first heard Robert Mills and Dan Bell. Furthermore, it seems as though writers are the ones that get dissed for often over-applying generic boundaries. Just think of all the different types of DnB out there -- tech-step, jump-up, dark-step, intelligent, ragga, etc. Who's defining these terms? So here's my main point about why writers don't like genres....in my opinion and in my personal experiences, I spend so much time dealing with generic trash that I get pretty damn excited when I hear something new. You don't even want to know how many "Sasha in Ibiza"-type CDs that writers and retail buyers have to wade through. Even with mounds of music on my desk, I still find myself listening to stuff such as Basic Channel, Jeff Mills, The Doors, and Public Enemy at home. In an age where the market for music has become so enormously saturated (think of MP3.com and Napster's content), it's often refreshing to hear something innovative. Think of how many European techno artists that follow Jeff Mills' templates from the mid-'90s, for example. It's not as easy to be innovative in 2000 as it was in the early '80s when Juan Atkins plugged in his synth. ~Jason Birchmeier --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: idm-unsubscribe@hyperreal.org For additional commands, e-mail: idm-help@hyperreal.org

<IDM artists who consistently use Csound?> erik dahl*. terre thaemlitz. aphex-twin +/-. autechre,gescom. mego/ mille plateaux artists. m.schmickler/wabi sabi. oval. pansonic. V/VM? fizzarum? takeshi muto? asoka? +/- FYI: gerald wenzel. paul lansky. pauline oliveros. and more. ________________________________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free E-mail from MSN Hotmail at http://www.hotmail.com --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: idm-unsubscribe@hyperreal.org For additional commands, e-mail: idm-help@hyperreal.org

Well I did a search for Csound because I was intrigued. It looks a bit complicated but it's a FREE software synthesis program and here's the link if anyone is interested. http://www-mitpress.mit.edu/e-books/csound/frontpage.html Justes ashley heeney wrote:

quoted 10 lines <IDM artists who consistently use Csound?>

> <IDM artists who consistently use Csound?> > > erik dahl*. terre thaemlitz. aphex-twin +/-. autechre,gescom. mego/ mille > plateaux artists. m.schmickler/wabi sabi. oval. pansonic. > > V/VM? fizzarum? takeshi muto? asoka? +/- > > FYI: gerald wenzel. paul lansky. pauline oliveros. > > and more.

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not just a program, a programming language! similar syntax to C (and therefore to Java or Perl) ... if you are into this sort of thing also check out Max/MSP (www.cycling74.com). I use Max/MSP quite a bit, it's a very visual approach to programming which makes some things much easier and others much harder. -- String Theory : Digital Music for Humans http://www.enteract.com/~yoshi/index.cgi On Sun, 6 Aug 2000, DJ Justes wrote:

quoted 27 lines Well I did a search for Csound because I was intrigued. It looks a bit

> Well I did a search for Csound because I was intrigued. It looks a bit > complicated but it's a FREE software synthesis program and here's the link if > anyone is interested. > > http://www-mitpress.mit.edu/e-books/csound/frontpage.html > > Justes > > ashley heeney wrote: > > > <IDM artists who consistently use Csound?> > > > > erik dahl*. terre thaemlitz. aphex-twin +/-. autechre,gescom. mego/ mille > > plateaux artists. m.schmickler/wabi sabi. oval. pansonic. > > > > V/VM? fizzarum? takeshi muto? asoka? +/- > > > > FYI: gerald wenzel. paul lansky. pauline oliveros. > > > > and more. > > > --------------------------------------------------------------------- > To unsubscribe, e-mail: idm-unsubscribe@hyperreal.org > For additional commands, e-mail: idm-help@hyperreal.org > >

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: not just a program, a programming language! similar syntax to C (and : therefore to Java or Perl) Oh, but if it were! Csound uses an arcane syntax which descends from assembler languages, not block-structured languages like C and friends. Loops have to be tediously constructed from goto's. There are no arrays. The type of a variable is determined by its first letter, like early FORTRAN. And the note list format was originally derived from punch cards! In short, it's horrible. But it's better than anything else out there if you want the most powerful and flexible software synthesis system around. Expect a steep learning curve. And it helps a lot if you know a programming or scripting language to relieve the tedium of creating the numeric score. Basic math skills are essential, with knowledge of DSP or acoustics a definite plus. The good thing is that there are a lot of folks out there who have come up with methods and tools for using Csound (including somewhat limited graphic interfaces), and who probably have already coded tools or instruments that do something close to what you want. Acquire and tweak until it does what you want or sounds right to you. Aside from the Csound Front Page, which focuses on Prof. Richard Boulanger's (of Berklee Music School) book "The Csound Book": http://www-mitpress.mit.edu/e-books/csound/frontpage.html there is Csounds, Boulanger's on-line project: http://www.csounds.com and Robin Whittle's introduction to Csound: http://www.firstpr.com.au/csound/ and for Linux folks, there is Dave Phillips' page (though there are also some good general (non-Linux-specific) info and links): http://www.bright.net/~dlphilp/linux_csound.html and for the software itself, John ffitch's Official release site: ftp://ftp.maths.bath.ac.uk/pub/dream/ Chasing links from these places will turn up all sorts of other stuff. Finally, here is an emailing list you can subscribe to through: csound-subscribe@lists.bath.ac.uk Csound is the Mountain That Must Be Climbed for some, and something best avoided by others. It's very powerful (and free), but the fact that it isn't more widely used is in some ways related to the difficulty of using it, and probably also has to do with its origin in academia (which costs it coolness points for many). -Ed --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: idm-unsubscribe@hyperreal.org For additional commands, e-mail: idm-help@hyperreal.org

mornin' 16 hours left on the dominique dalcan cd single including autechre remix (1 of 50) making it the rarest autechre release - if only i could find that edge of motion album..... anyhow, my mate ingmar has had to relist it due to some flaky person not honouring their winning bid from the last auction http://cgi.ebay.com/aw-cgi/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=397643494 "Extremely rare DOMINIQUE DALCAN promo C.D. "Aveugle & Sourd / Remixes", published by Island France in 1996, containing 5 tracks, being: 1. Aveugle & Sourd Radio mix -- 3’19 2. Docteur Rockit mix -- 4’27 3. Only Child mix -- 5’30 4. SNOOZE mix -- 3’26 5. AUTECHRE mix -- 8’25 C.D. & sleeve are in perfect, brand new condition! Don’t miss out on this one! It is so RARE that it doesn't even feature on the official DOMINIQUE DALCAN site." have fun benjib www.tapir.madvision.co.uk --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: idm-unsubscribe@hyperreal.org For additional commands, e-mail: idm-help@hyperreal.org

Er...? Csound syntax is actually much more like straight assembly language than like C. And C syntax is pretty different from Java too (don't know Perl), which is more like C++. You may be thinking of the excellent Super Collider, an object-oriented audio programming language available only for Mac. If you have a Mac, I can't recommend it enough for its supreme power, realtime capability, and all-around flexibility. But if, like me, you don't have a Mac, Csound is one of the best languages available for other platforms, and it's extremely portable. Just my thoughts, Peter On Sun, 6 Aug 2000 12:18:30 -0500 (CDT), Yoshi wrote:

quoted 1 line not just a program, a programming language! similar syntax to C (and

>not just a program, a programming language! similar syntax to C (and

therefore to >Java or Perl) --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: idm-unsubscribe@hyperreal.org For additional commands, e-mail: idm-help@hyperreal.org