IDM Mailing Archive

1995-08-27 16:30Christian BartholdssonErkki writes: >picked this up from the latest issue of that British >trend Bible, The Face

From:: Christian Bartholdsson <chris@Minsk.DoCS.UU.SE>
To:: <idm@hyperreal.com>
Date:: Sun, 27 Aug 95 18:30:42 +0200
Subject:: Re: IDM as the new Prog Rock?

Erkki writes:

quoted 3 lines picked this up from the latest issue of that British

>picked this up from the latest issue of that British >trend Bible, The Face... And oh boy, is nothing sacred >for those shameless hacks...? ;)

quoted 1 line T H E N E W P R O G R O C K

>T H E N E W P R O G R O C K

Great article, I agree completely with what's being said. But I don't think Underworld and Moby are very good examples. I mean, where the hell is Aphex Twin? - chris@minsk.docs.uu.se <http://www.update.uu.se/~chris/>

1995-08-27 16:56Erkki RautioHi, picked this up from the latest issue of that British trend Bible, The Face... And oh b

From:: Erkki Rautio <trerra@uta.fi>
To:: <idm@hyperreal.com>
Date:: Sun, 27 Aug 1995 16:56:47 +0300 (EET DST)
Subject:: IDM as the new Prog Rock?

Hi, picked this up from the latest issue of that British trend Bible, The Face... And oh boy, is nothing sacred for those shameless hacks...? ;) ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- T H E N E W P R O G R O C K Prententious concept albums, overblown performances, bad hair. So what's new? It has been hailed as the nadir of British youth culture. Its fans favoured long hair and its heroes even longer solos. Impenetrable to outsiders, elaborate in its instrumentation, highly serious and simultaneously highly silly, it was "meaningful" music to the point of meaningless. They called it prog rock and it could surely never happen again... or could it? *** MIKE OLDFIELD Rock, only more so. Dramatic, overreaching, with tendency towards gigs in daft places - Edinburgh Castle, for example. Wrote new theme tune for _Blue Peter_ in 1980. -> FUTURE SOUND OF LONDON Techno, only more so. Self-dramatising, overreaching, with tendency to do gigs in daft places - down phone lines, for example. Now mixing Barbra Streisand into their DJing sets. *** PINK FLOYD Sheep, Battersea Power Station and outer-space references from space cadets. Big on environmental resource-draining shows and unnecessary quadruple albums. Might have taken drugs. A while ago. -> THE ORB Sheep, Battersea Power Station and outer-space references from space cadets. Big on environmental resource-draining shows, and unnecessary quadruple albums. Might have taken drugs. *** GENESIS (PETER GABRIEL PERIOD) Stadium-amenable rock/art synthesis. Singer dresses up as shrubbery and talks in riddles. Firmly part of The Establishment. Have ended up with Knebworth residency. -> UNDERWORLD Stadium-amenable techno/art synthesis. Singer wears daft outfits and talks in riddles. Firmly part of the Electronic Establishment, they will be playing the Megadog Goes Knebworth gig in 2001. *** GENESIS (POST PETER GABRIEL) After the band lose their frontman, satirical lyrics and musical experimentation give way to adult-oriented rock. The group get rich quick and are loathed by the press for ever more. -> THE SHAMEN When the band lose their lynchpin member, social comment and musical innovation are shelved in favour what Mr C calls adult-oriented pop. The band become wealthy but are shunned by the press. *** MAGMA Outrageous French exhibitionists, led by Viking-like Christian Vander and obsessed with visions of the apocalypse. Obligatory pompous song title: "Mechanik Destructiw Kommandoh". -> MOBY Over-the-top techno performer and abstemious Christian vegan, renowned for his environmental fears. Obligatory pretentious song title: "God's Face Floating Over The Water". *** HAWKWIND Perennially-touring crusty outfit with cider-swigging, soap-avoiding following. Terrible album covers. Baffling continual success in inverse proportion to genuine talent. -> EAT STATIC Perennially-touring crusty outfit with cider-swigging, soap-avoiding following. Terrible album covers. Baffling continual success in inverse proportion to genuine talent. *** RICK WAKEMAN Believes concept albums are great. Constructed musical version of _The Myths And Legends Of King Arthur And The Round Table_ performed as an ice spectacular with a 45-piece orchestra. -> SVEN VATH Created techno concept album reflecting the three sides of his personality, "The Harlequin, The Robot And The Ballet Dancer". Last seen dressed as a raven at the head of Berlin's Love Parade. *** JETHRO TULL Ludicrous preoccupation with flutes, beards and standing on one leg. Appeared in the Rolling Stone's "Rock'N'Roll Circus". Opened a trout farm now it's all over. -> BANCO DE GAIA Ludicrous preoccupation with obscure folky instrumentation. Hardy Nepalese hat-wearing favourites of techno circus Megadog. *** GONG Hippies reinventing themselves as the rock vanguard after too much acid. Far worse than you'd think - noodling psychedelia and unbridled progness courtesy of Steve Hillage. -> SYSTEM 7 Hippies reinventing themselves as the techno vanguard after too many Es. Noodling ambience and unfocused techno courtesy of Steve Hillage. *** (by Gareth Grundy and Susan Masters; from _The Face_ No 84, September 1995, p. 153) -------------------------------------------------------------------------- ERkki Tampere, pHinland trerra@uta.fi

1995-08-28 04:06Kent WilliamsAphex Twin == Mark Bolan??? Actually RDJ seems uncontaminated with pretention -- the prete

From:: Kent Williams <cadsi.com!kent@elvis.cadsi.com>
To:: <idm@hyperreal.com>
Date:: Sun, 27 Aug 1995 23:06:26 -0500
Subject:: Re: IDM as the new Prog Rock?

Aphex Twin == Mark Bolan??? Actually RDJ seems uncontaminated with pretention -- the pretentious things he says are so completely over the top that they must be ironic. Aphex Twin == Gary Glitter??? Sorry, I didn't sleep much this weekend. Listened to a VCS-3 hideously torturing an 808. For about 6 hours straight. -- "I AM PROBABLY THE LAMEST CHARACTER EVER KNOWN TO MANKIND, THE HUMAN RACE, OR THE WORLD IN GENERAL. EVEN IF YOU SHIPPED ME OFF TO JUPITER, I'D KILL OFF ALL THE ALIENS BECAUSE THEY'D DIE OF EXPOSURE TO LAMENESS." - Scott Koladich, in a fit of abnegation. kent.williams@cadsi.com [Kent Williams/CADSI/2651 Crosspark Rd/Coralville IA 52241/(319)626-6700]

1995-08-31 16:26Erkki RautioZaph Mann wrote: > Erkki, this is hillarious, but also has a lot of truth about it! I'm st

From:: Erkki Rautio <trerra@uta.fi>
To:: Zaph Mann <zaph@zetetics.org>
Cc:: <idm@hyperreal.com>, <trerra@uta.fi>, <mitch@teleport.com>, <kozak_mark@tandem.com>, <robin@interramp.com>
Date:: Thu, 31 Aug 1995 16:26:04 +0300 (EET DST)
Subject:: Re: IDM as the new Prog Rock?

Zaph Mann wrote:

quoted 4 lines Erkki, this is hillarious, but also has a lot of truth about it! I'm still

> Erkki, this is hillarious, but also has a lot of truth about it! I'm still > chuckling at the links here. But I liked some prog rock, e.g. Pink Floyd's > Atom Heart Mother, that PF ran out of ideas and became preposterous is also > true, and the same will likely happen with many of the IDM heroes.

Well, I think the bad reputation of the progressive rock derives mostly from the Punk days, when it was fashionable for the group like Sex Pistols to wear "I Hate Pink Floyd" T-shirts, and for every rock critic who didn't want to be called an old fart to slag these bands publicly as much as they could. I'm not going to defend the biggest and the most bloated dinosaurs of these prog bands since they probably deserved everything they got from these punks and rock critics, but I think under the "progressive" moniker some of the most innovative music of the time was made in the first half of Seventies. That so, I think, if we count in with the prog genre some records of the bands like King Crimson or the solo albums of Brian Eno and his collaborations with the Crimson guitarist Robert Fripp; or the whole "Kraut Rock" genre in its entirety, consisting of such bands as Can (even John Lydon admitted they were a big influence for his Public Image Limited!), Faust, Amon Duul, and also Kraftwerk and Tangerine Dream as their fellow countrymen and contemporaries. I think there was still some innovation and freshness left with all these bands keeping experimenting; in contrast to those mammoths like Emerson, Lake & Palmer trying to create their pompous, bloated, totally laughable "orchestral" rock (any closet ELP fans out there with flame-throwers? ;). But talking about the analogy between prog rock and IDM, it may be that the whole techno genre has reached this same stage, as was with the bands of the late 60s and early 70's when psychedelia became progressive rock; the acts creating pompous "concept albums" and the large record companies marketing these bands as their big time hit products with world-wide marketing campaigns, and so on. And against this development the whole Punk movement was born. So, what could be the solution if we were to prevent this same thing to happen with IDM/techno/ambient (as it has already happened with some cases, as _The Face_ story may have/may have not proved)? Or is that necessary at all, or should we just let the music to take its natural paths; the market men marketing what they want to market, the underground going still more underground, and the kids listening just what they want to listen? And is this kind of discussion relevant at all, or should we just stick to the Aphex trainspotting...? ;) Dunno, maybe I'm going to spin my "Piper at the Gates of Dawn" once again ;) ERkki Tampere, pHinland trerra@uta.fi

Re: IDM as the new Prog Rock?