I rarely post these days, so I figured I would make some end of year
notes.
Sender: idm-owner@hyperreal.org
Precedence: bulk
Musically:
Gescom's Mag at 45+3 and Bola's Triangle Cake at 33-7 make a really good
mix. (Speeds are approximate.)
Ditto for Digeridoo followed by Gescom's Viral Rival at 33+3. Of course,
it may not be that track, since the labels seem backwards. Anyway, try
the outside crunchy track on Ska010This.
Leila does some guest vocals on Jonny L's album, Magnetic, on one song
called Uneasy. Has a Photek sound too it.
The Seven Samurai (either version on Form and Function) by Photek is
quite wicked. There is nothing quite like it. (But if you think there is,
please tell me.)
Thanks to Bola for reminding this list that you can have a melody and
still make good music.
On a related note, Burger/Ink's melodies couldn't save boring beats.
(This is coming from someone who buys almost as many trance records as I
do idm, so don't try telling me about loops.)
Those Brinkmann variations on Hawtin suck...unless you're in between your
speakers. Then they cook! Even sitting across the room from two speakers
doesn't bring out all the neato things that are happening.
Get yourself some big speakers and shake the house with the first two
minutes of Neotropic's Mr. Brubaker's Strawberry Alarm Clock.
Listwise:
I think the root cause for the branching of the list subjects and the new
diversity of artists is no releases from the old guard. This list has
branched out because most of the artists who were churning out release
after release when this list began aren't releasing much these days.
Aphex, Global Communications, Orbital, Black Dog seem to all be taking
their time (or are releasing house records, or got dropped from their
label...). Funkstorung, Autechre, and Squarepusher on the other hand, are
releasing records like there's no tomorrow. Unfortunately, they often
press about 10 of them, and if you're not in on this first round, you
don't get in. Since I refuse to trainspot to unheard things, (I got
burned when Squarepusher's Big Loada lived up to its name) it's hard to
want to gamble, especially as my poor Canadian dollar has been brought to
its knees by the world markets. Please press more records you small
labels. Are you afraid of making money? If you won't invest in
yourselves, no-one else will.
Playlists:
I don't care what you played on your show. Really. If you want to
interest labels to get them to send you free stuff, set up an address
book with all the label's addresses (which Teep posted in October), or if
you just need to indulge your vanity, post it to alt.music.techno. (If
you search the archives, you will find a playlist or two of mine. I am
very sorry.)
If your show is on the web, put the playlists on the web. If I tune in
your show and like it I just may have used the web (now here's the
important part) with a _web browser_. Beside the RealAudio link, put
another that says 'playlist for (my show) of <date>'. Simple enough? No,
you will say, what do I do when I'm not on the air and people check days
later? Put your email on the site.
Happy holidays all. Here's to more good tunes in 1999.
Phil Downey