IDM Mailing Archive

hELLO Glovers re: Dance/Electronic split To make such a thing is to ignore the origins which you talk of so fondlely fondly... sure Ae no Throbbing Gs/Behrmann/etc but Warp and affiliates, not to mention many others are all rave inspired rave-led..... one has only to listen to i.e. Trainer - archetype idm, sure, but fucking rave too ("Uneasy Listening" is R A V E) rave rave rave rave .... so yeah. And Ninja Tune isn't idm if your gonna make that split, nor shadder, yet you talk about them and own their records (YES YOU DO). It never occured to me that the more abstract (or not) side a hiphop would be considered idm (not that i give a fuck) but it seems odd to make a distinction like that and still discourse (cough) on hiphop (or hip-hop, or hip hop or beatz or even beats) - if anyone wants to say that Warp/Rephlex/Spymania/Skam isn't dance thats probably cos you cant/wont "dance" to it. - oh fucking blah - what IS an electronic record? or a dance one? genres are interesting (someone sed this earlier) but geeks are fucking geeky. a thrilling conclusion..... i am drunk socks x --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: idm-unsubscribe@hyperreal.org For additional commands, e-mail: idm-help@hyperreal.org

quoted 3 lines oh fucking blah - what IS an

>oh fucking blah - what IS an >electronic record? or a dance one? genres are interesting (someone sed this >earlier)

i think the answer to this question is extremely subjective. one can only label music based on their own experience of it. genres are invented by journalists (and now dotcoms) as places to "hang things"- not by musicians or record labels that love what they're doing. how many artist interviews have i read where the artists are unable to define what to call what they do????? Perhaps most of you will consider me some sort of sad bandwagon jumper. i've been intrigued by 'electronic music" since bein a little kid in the 1960's when my Dad brought home this very weird record by Badings Raajmakers (some Swedish electronic composer - i still have the very scratched lp somewhere) which was just a lot of bleep noises to demonstrate the new "stereo" and had noises switching from speaker to speaker. Lots of poings bouncing round our living room made me laugh. He also had a weird penchant for Martin Denny, while my Mom swooned over Frank Sinatra and Italian opera which to me was like the sound of chalk on a board. Martin Denny. Xavier Cougat, etc is called "batchelor pad or lounge music". my dad's probably laughing in his grave at this. i discovered the poetic genius of bob dylan who my mother described as that "shreiking cow sound". she didnt like ravi shankar either, but once woke me up at 2am cause the rolling stones were on some tv talk show in new york - she respected my passion for music i liked and encouraged it. as a kid i listened to WBAI in new york and discovered people like Cage, Stockhausen, while at the same time growing up and listening to Motown, Beach Boys, the Stones, Led Zeppelin, British Rock, San Francisco bands. My Mom was just as happy to see me go off to check out Andres Segovia or Ravi Shankar as she was to let me go see some blues band or the Cream at the Fillmore East. i will admit to being a dj during the disco insanity of the late 70's but earnestly became a fan of punk and hung out at San Francisco's Mabuhay Gardens - if one makes amplified music is that suddenly electronic? that would have been the defintion then. When punk died i embraced hip hop (around 1980) AND TG, in the nursery, Chris n Cosey, Cabaret Voltaire, Arthur Russell, Bill Laswell, Sly n Robbie, the Beastie Boys... (I remember opening with the Cabs sensoria one nite in San Fran & someone begging me to play something they could dance to like New Order!), New Order (thanx to arthur baker this could be played back to back with whodini, nucleus, etc) depeche mode remixes by adrian sherwood - my love of on-u sound brought me to explore reggae, dub (certainly electronic noodling here of the finest distortion). when i immigrated to england due frustration at noone getting house or yello, or baby fords "oochi koochi", steinski lessons, marrs pump up the volume or any of the other weird records i was playing in san fran in the late 80's (i ended up working two bars in the lower haight where you couldnt dance - just listen which was brilliant - anything from brian eno to diamanda galas to cheryl lynn!) in england i embraced all music yet found another series of genre based worlds erh words: acid house, acid jazz, talkin loud, slo motion, downtempo, house, garage, 2 step, hiphop, drum n bass, jump up, hardcore, techno, trance, ambient, radical performance poetry stuff, and even some indie=alternative in the states whatever... whatever was good to my ears, that is.... i have always tried to keep my ears open, but i have always liked what i have liked and respected others opinions on what they like..i have always despised musical racists - ie, people stuck in a rut only listening to one thing and excluding all others with the attitude that the only good music is their music...i know when i went to work in new york in 94 to help promote cosmic baby's album 'thinking for myself' i was told that "techno" was a dirty word in the US and meant 13 year olds on drugs and that i shouldnt use that word in referring to his music when talking to journalists. i thought "huh"? would i categorize two lone swordsman as techno or minimal? or idm? or electro? i dont know. to me it's all music and music that i like. i hate categorizing music, even tho i wrote an article for hip hop connection in 1989 about artists like money love recording with jazz dudes like roy ayers, stetsasonic, etc, and for want of a term to hang on it, i called it "jazz rap" some other clever journalist @ mixmag (where i was rap editor from 90-92) came up with 'trip hop' a term that personally makes me cringe (and not because i didnt come up with it) What is Amon Tobin? drum n bass, techno, downbeat, dark ambient, organic ambient, jazz? - two from column A one from column B. thank you. i couldnt even begin to come up with a label for it or any of the other artists who record for Ninja tune. How could I even begin to define what Mike Ladd and the Infesticons means to me? It's brilliant poetry, the music is indescribable and the live performance borders on punk of the highest order...I'm in awe of it's brilliance and that's NOT because i work @ ninja. in the same breathe i lean towards ntone artists. how can i describe fink, flanger, neotropic, animals on wheels, hexstatic? their music has become a soundtrack for me - great background music for sunday lounging. or the fact that i do my daily walk listening to a tape of funki porcini & 9lazy 9 tunes? It's good music or rather music - no matter what you call it. But everyone is gonna like something different. End of rant. ps: as a relative newbie on this list for 6 months i have learned more about new artists (and even been prompted to see some just from reading about them on the list) and in my mind that can only be a good thing. knowledge is power & the day i stop learning, i'm dead. --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: idm-unsubscribe@hyperreal.org For additional commands, e-mail: idm-help@hyperreal.org

quoted 5 lines genres are invented by journalists (and now dotcoms) as places to

>genres are invented by journalists (and now dotcoms) as places to >"hang things"- >not by musicians or record labels that love what they're doing. how >many artist interviews have i read where the artists are unable to >define what to call what they do?????

while i think this is true to an extent. . .it cannot be said that genres are *completely* artificial and imposed by extra-musical forces. i mean, when i sit down to write a tune i will often think about genre. i too have been involved in many genres over my (admittedly shortish) musically conscious life (i'm 26, and let's say that i began to "think" about music in spring 1986 when i bought AoN "Invisible Silence"). since then i've jumped head first into many genres, and declared each to be the lost mother Ur-tounge of music (hip hop, metal, EBM, acid house, techno, belgian hoover tracks, uk 'ardcore, the whole new school ambient thing and idm, drum and bass, and finally whatever slop i'm into now). i like to think that i have matured, at least in the sense that i no longer think that whatever i'm into now is the great white hope of music. yet, at the same time, these genres were incredibly helpful in giving me the lexicon to think about music. sure, i could have been some musical savant who just naturally arrives at whatever semi-informed conclusions i would have arrived at, but that didn't happen. by comparing and contrasting differing musical styles i've learned SO MUCH about what music is. i can talk for hours about the differences in what Cosmic Baby (great example) and, say, Remarc brought to the musical table in 1994. i get invigorated by these discussions, and the whole "thesis + antithesis = synthesis" thing just gives me a boner. perhaps i'm just a jaded postmodernist crap artist, but i absolutely appreciate the differences in genre as something to examine and (possibly) cherish. i understand that Ninja Tune is based on the "melting pot" ideal, which is absolutely fantastic and probably one of the reasons that i consider it to be the best label in the world right now. but you can't say with a straight face that Vibert (whom i love), Roots Manuva (whom i don't), Burnd Friedmann and others on NT don't think about genre. Friedmann, a wonderful example, uses genre as a diving board to explore whatever fancy he has at the moment, be it jazz, dub, or pop. maybe if he wasn't doing this he'd just be making whatever electronic music he deemed appropriate (the musical savant thing), but he CHOOSES to align himself with these conceits, and i think the reasons for him ding so are obvious. personally i love this. hell, i'd love to see him explore tejano or black metal or appalachian folk, just to hear what a new perspective on old thinking can do. anyhow, i really wish i could boil down this stupid post into something simple and to-the-point. what i'm trying to say is that genre/formalism is a double-edged sword. it's not uniformly evil or good. i'd hate to think that the fact that journalists can option to use these labels does dilute their usefulness to honest musicians and appreciators of music. i will continue to use these labels, and if it makes me some kind of brainwashed robot then so be it :P </self-righteous> ------------ 1642 try 621 ------------ --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: idm-unsubscribe@hyperreal.org For additional commands, e-mail: idm-help@hyperreal.org

jeff: an intelligent analysis, and to an extent i agree with everything your saying...my mind is still open and sure we still need genres - regardless of the fact that we dont like labels, we have to use them as well and try to come to some agreement...fatboy slim & coldcut may both be termed electronic(a) in the states, but for me it's like apples & pears... and i liked your term "slop" just to clarify: my comments represented my personal opinion and experience, and was by no means intended to represent the "ninja view" - the most exciting thing about ninja is that everyone has a strong opinion about music and is extremely passionate about it & respects everyone's right to say what they think... At 12:19 pm -0500 22/10/00, Jeff Shoemaker wrote:

quoted 61 lines genres are invented by journalists (and now dotcoms) as places to

> >genres are invented by journalists (and now dotcoms) as places to > >"hang things"- > >not by musicians or record labels that love what they're doing. how > >many artist interviews have i read where the artists are unable to > >define what to call what they do????? > >while i think this is true to an extent. . .it cannot be said that genres >are *completely* artificial and imposed by extra-musical forces. i mean, >when i sit down to write a tune i will often think about genre. i too have >been involved in many genres over my (admittedly shortish) musically >conscious life (i'm 26, and let's say that i began to "think" about music >in spring 1986 when i bought AoN "Invisible Silence"). since then i've >jumped head first into many genres, and declared each to be the lost mother >Ur-tounge of music (hip hop, metal, EBM, acid house, techno, belgian hoover >tracks, uk 'ardcore, the whole new school ambient thing and idm, drum and >bass, and finally whatever slop i'm into now). i like to think that i have >matured, at least in the sense that i no longer think that whatever i'm >into now is the great white hope of music. > >yet, at the same time, these genres were incredibly helpful in giving me >the lexicon to think about music. sure, i could have been some musical >savant who just naturally arrives at whatever semi-informed conclusions i >would have arrived at, but that didn't happen. by comparing and >contrasting differing musical styles i've learned SO MUCH about what music >is. i can talk for hours about the differences in what Cosmic Baby (great >example) and, say, Remarc brought to the musical table in 1994. i get >invigorated by these discussions, and the whole "thesis + antithesis = >synthesis" thing just gives me a boner. perhaps i'm just a jaded >postmodernist crap artist, but i absolutely appreciate the differences in >genre as something to examine and (possibly) cherish. > >i understand that Ninja Tune is based on the "melting pot" ideal, which is >absolutely fantastic and probably one of the reasons that i consider it to >be the best label in the world right now. but you can't say with a >straight face that Vibert (whom i love), Roots Manuva (whom i don't), Burnd >Friedmann and others on NT don't think about genre. Friedmann, a wonderful >example, uses genre as a diving board to explore whatever fancy he has at >the moment, be it jazz, dub, or pop. maybe if he wasn't doing this he'd >just be making whatever electronic music he deemed appropriate (the musical >savant thing), but he CHOOSES to align himself with these conceits, and i >think the reasons for him ding so are obvious. personally i love this. >hell, i'd love to see him explore tejano or black metal or appalachian >folk, just to hear what a new perspective on old thinking can do. > >anyhow, i really wish i could boil down this stupid post into something >simple and to-the-point. what i'm trying to say is that genre/formalism is >a double-edged sword. it's not uniformly evil or good. i'd hate to think >that the fact that journalists can option to use these labels does dilute >their usefulness to honest musicians and appreciators of music. i will >continue to use these labels, and if it makes me some kind of brainwashed >robot then so be it :P > ></self-righteous> > >------------ >1642 try 621 >------------ > >--------------------------------------------------------------------- >To unsubscribe, e-mail: idm-unsubscribe@hyperreal.org >For additional commands, e-mail: idm-help@hyperreal.org

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i think the discussion of musical labels is extremly pertinent here, as IDM as a genre does not really exist in the UK.....it is an american 'invention' (presumably to seperate autechre from chemical brothers. i'm not sure why there was this need....perhaps because of the failed 'electronica' revolution of 5/6 years ago and the lack of interest in such music shown by the US public in general (criminal considering the heritage of chicago, detroit etc) ..if i remember correctly, much of the popularity in such music now stems from the influx into the US (although not physically) of british artists (mainly on warp)..it was from this time that the term /label IDM was established personally speaking every individual artist/band is in their own genre (although this might get confusing when attempting to find/buy records) _________________________________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free E-mail from MSN Hotmail at http://www.hotmail.com. Share information about yourself, create your own public profile at http://profiles.msn.com. --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: idm-unsubscribe@hyperreal.org For additional commands, e-mail: idm-help@hyperreal.org