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BLOC booking

OK, enough ranting and time for some great news: this humble little site is going to be one of the sponsors of next year's Bloc Weekend in the UK. Taking place between March 14th and 16th in the Pontins holiday camp just outide Great Yarmouth, it's the festival's second installment. The line-up has yet to be 100% confirmed, but there are showcases promised from Underground Resistance and Rephlex, so watch this space (or the Bloc website) for more information. I'll be posting interviews with and podcasts of artists on the line-up in the run-up to the event - as soon as I have more news, I'll let you all know.

Dead links

It's great to see that the Guardian has copped on to this minimal lark: they're only about three years too late. Still, they're insightful enough to note, without a hint of irony, that Booka Shade make some of the best minimal around, especially the 'it's not at all like an epic Eye Q trance release by say Zyon from 1993 called 'No Fate' with some modern clicky, glitchy beats added in' 'In White Rooms'. Then there's the usual pop psychology psychobabble about people like Villalobos and those incredibly bland Romanian dudes railing against their upbringing in oppressive states by getting frazzled off their nuts. Please. Ricky V left Chile when he was a young kid and grew up in Germany, one of Europe's most liberal, forward-thinking progressive societies - that tells you more about why he is a party animal, rather than a vague memory of Pinochet's time. And those Romanian guys look way too young to have been traumatised by Ceaucescu's regime - they were probably only 10 at the oldest when the country's dictator got a bullet in the head in 1989. I'm sure the newspaper's organic parsnip-munching readership will lap it up and remind Amelie or Theodore to zip down to the local Tower in the Range Rover (or better still, log onto Amazon) to pick up Michael Mayer's last Fabric mix.
That said, the piece made more sense and was more articulate (and accurate) than this rubbish. Seriously, where do Slate get their writers from? The piece fetes the 'return of electronica' ( five years after the brilliantly insightful Alexis Petridis of the Guardian declared that 'dance music is dead': yes Alexis, the minute the phrase left your lips, it withered - the last five years have been a desert of inertia), a decade after the last wave of electronica faltered. What really rankled with me was this par:
"Besides the fact that no real artists self-identified under the electronica banner, the genre's moment evaporated because many of the accusations lobbed at the kind of electronic music on sale were more or less true. It trafficked in texture and ambience, shunning traditional songwriting techniques. It worked better in dance clubs than on home stereos, and was rarely created with album-length intentions."
I see that the guy who wrote the piece is on his way to college, and I sincerely hope that he stays there for a very long time, because it'll mean he won't get the opportunity to write this kind of drivel (or maybe he'll need to to pay his bills? Expel him already and make him get a day job!). I appreciate that the Yanks' use of the term 'electronica' is more focused on 'bands' like the awful Crystal Meth and the Chemicals and that electronic music operates in something of a cultural vacuum stateside, but what the writer is suggesting is that all of a sudden, techno music's more esoteric side died a death because no one was able to write lasting pieces of music. How about Boards of Canada, Rhythm & Sound featuring Tikiman, Plaid, As One, Junior Boys, much as I hate their more commercial stuff, Octave One, Zero 7, even Drexciya at their less abrasive - these are all acts that combined electronic production techniques with songwriting that recognised the need for substance, lyrics and melodies, and these are names that came into my find at this late time of night - I'm sure there are countless others. I have no idea how well or badly the Guardian or Slate pay their journalists to write these kind of inaccurate, lazily-researched pieces - my guess is that they are interns or juniors who are dazzled by seeing their own bylines - but there's still no excuse for what is perceived to be the quality end of the mainstream press to peddle such fodder.

The Future of the Past

I was just browsing through one of the many forums I use to avoid working too much (seriously, you should try it some time) and there was a debate on the new vs the old and the disposable nature of techno/electronic music. One of the arguments ran that electronic music is almost by definition disposable, that it is meant to be enjoyed, listened to and lived to in the moment, but that beyond that, it has a limited shelf life. It's a fair enough point: when house and techno first hit our shores, most of the people playing it were fixated on procuring the newest records - one DJ even went as far as to proclaim that he only played 'white label music' when asked about his preferred style.
The fact that most of the early stuff was faceless, the work of an anonymous producer more often than not disconnected from the geographical location where the needle dropped, is perhaps not as relevant nowadays, but the same claim, that electronic music is often disposable, often holds up in the contemporary environment. This time though, it's the profileration of technology and the speeding up effect that it has on the music-making process, as well as the 24/7 access to this disjointed, unofficial global factory line that often serves to render the music disposable.
Then there was the other argument on the board, namely that most house and techno doesn't age well. Certainly, the steep upward curve in technological development over the past seven or eight years means that electronic music, almost by definition, grows old faster than it used to. Having said that, I'm in the middle of a record cull at home, and while I'm remaining resolutely unsentimental about deciding that some purchases from the past sound pretty ropey when listened to in the cold light of day in autumn 2007, some of the other records have actually improved with age. Maybe it's because they are being listened to at the same time as the disposable ones, or perhaps it's because electronic music is sounding more and more homogenous- is it time for another technological quantum leap? - but these special records sparkle more than ever now. The cull only relates to post-2000 records, but at some stage, I'll go back further to sort the wheat from the chaff. However, I already have the feeling that most of the older records will be spared a trip to the second-hand shop and a new owner (or just a sad, dusty purgatory). Maybe I'm just a sucker for the analogue sound, but it always lifts my spirits when I hear someone drop an old Trax, Tresor, Basic Channel, Eevolute, Djax, Ferox record or an Italo classic in the middle of a brand new selection. It's something that all of my favourite DJs do and maybe they do so because these records transcend disposability - and sound better and better as every year passes.

Pieces in the post

I still get that childish feeling of excitement when I go to open my post, and today, when I tore open my mail, I was like a sugar-deprived six year old who has been given the keys to a sweet shop. I found compilations by Sender, Cadenza and Minus, and fresh new vinyl from Pascal FEOS, Daniel Mehlhart, Claro Intelecto - a taster for his debut album - and Matt Chester. There's also a remix package of Infinti's 'Game One' on my desktop: it was and still is one of my favourite techno records, so I'm not sure about hearing remixes of it, but at least they're by Orlando Voorn, so fingers crossed he's done a good job. One of the things I've noticed about getting digital promos is that most of them are fairly crap, and that a higher percentage of good tunes still arrive in physical format. I'm not sure if that is more to do with my own tastes, the fact that a lot of promo emails have been forwarded to thousands of people, like spam, in the hope that one or two peopel will bite, or the fact that because it is easier and cheaper to be 'digital only' means that the quality drops (I'm sure loads of people will disagree with me on this last point). Maybe it's a combination of all these factors. In the meantime, I'm going to get busy listening to the new arrivals.
Now if only that new parcel from Juno would finally show up - containing records by Traxx, Redshape and the hard to track down Tobias Freund - I'd be even happier...

Fair(mont) to Middling

I just had a listen to Jake Fairley's new album as Fairmont and I found it quite disappointing. I love 'Gazebo', but 'Coloured in Memory', the new album is like a pale version of the sweet, pastoral sound and glitchy percussion thing that Border Community specialises in. Fairley gets some kudos for using bluesy influences, trying to write some pop songs and for the lovely string soundtrack of 'All Good Things', but I'd prefer if he ditched the project entirely and focused again on making music under his own name. Fairley's work between 2002 and 2005, mainly for Sender, constitutes some of my favourite modern techno, especially the awesome 'Cold World', which Shonky and Cardini 'borrowed' liberally from for 'August in Paris' and the 'Crisis' album. If you're going to do electronic music with evocative melodies counterbalanced by grungy rhythms and clicky, alien percussion, then check out these releases. Come back Jake, all is forgiven...

Hurray!

The eminently quotable, suavely dressed and hugely taleneted Android , sorry Andrew Weatherall has started a blog. Welcome to the blogosphere, Lord Sabre!

Mixed blessings

It seems like the limitless availability of free mixes and podcasts hasn't stopped labels from putting out mix CDs by DJs and non-DJs alike. This month, both Gui Boratto and Booka Shade are putting out mixes, even though they're producers and live acts, while mixes from well-known names like Bug and Villalobos - although his Fabric CD is an unusual mix/artist album hybrid - also appear. Meanwhile, Agoria is the latest person to put together one of the 'At The Controls' series and other selections from Alter Ego, Secretsundaze and Andrew Weatherall, in punk/rockabilly mode show that labels' appetite for releasing the format has not yet diminshed. But how well are mix CDs selling? Anecdotal evidence suggests that sales have dipped in the past few years, undoubtedly hit by the availability of free sets online. Last year, I was writing a feature on a well-known European DJ who was releasing a new mix CD, his first in 4-5 years. The label manager told me that a few years ago, the label could have expected to sell 15,000 to 20,000 copies, but that in the current climate would be happy to shift anywhere between 7,000 to 10,000 units. That was nearly 12 months ago, and there can be little doubt that in the interim, broadband penetration in the US, Asia and Europe has increased. In the past, the mix CD format acted as a filter, a way for fans and aspiring DJs to check out what tunes their favourite DJs were playing - and then to buy them all. The format was (and hopefully still is) a way for small labels to earn some extra revenue through licensing and was also a guarantee that any of the featured tracks on a mix would sell more copies thanks to the patronage of a well-known name. Nowadays, while licensing still brings in some welcome cash, the filtering effect has become more dispersed and fragmented, with online offerings joining the taste-making hierarchy. Beats In Space and Cybernetic Broadcasting are just two examples of small, independently-run websites with large, loyal followings because their owners, Tim Sweeney and I-F (as well as all the other 'robots' who play on his station) have become destinations for anyone interested in the respective styles that they support. Certainly, support from a big name will help an obscure artist, but judging on the nature of the mixes commercially available this month, a big name is no longer enough to guarantee success. Many labels have twigged that it could make better business sense to employ a popular producer/act - both Booka Shade and Boratto fit this bill - get a well-known DJ to present an unusual side to their tastes - in many ways, Weatherall's 'Lo Fi Sci Fi' is the inspiration for his recent Swordsmen albums and should be seen as a 'raw material compendium' - or to bastardise the format, and I mean that positively, as Villalobos has done. Otherwise, labels might be looking at lean times ahead.

The half truth is out there

I was reading this piece about the birth of rave - surely a promo for Oakenfold's biography, due soon - and while I vehemently disagree with what Rampling and Oakenfold go up to later on in their careers, there is no doubt that the fact that they were in Ibiza at the right time and at the right party meant that the course of popular music was changed forever. Electronic music is like any other style: those who follow it love nothing more than hearing tall tales about its main proponents as well as some good old fashioned myth-making. We're all familiar with the one about the story about the UK journalist who was sleeping on Derrick May's couch while he was recording 'Strings of Life'. The only thing is, May was alone when he made the track and said that when he was finished, he sat in his flat for at least a day stark naked, crying to himself as he replayed the track again and again - so discredit the testimony of up to at least 40 UK journalists who have been lunching out on the story ever since (not that you'd believe a journalist anyway!).
Then there's the great (true) story about a group of Dave Clarke fans, five lads from the UK who followed him to every gig he played at for a few years. You guessed it, they were called the Dave Clarke Five. However, these acid house tales are exactly that, stories that are over a decade old.
What are the modern techno scene's tall tales, half-truths and events that changed the course of music in more recent years? I have a good few (mainly unprintable) stories which I'm saving for a later date and another project. Many of the tall tales nowadays seem to revolve around Sven and his Ibiza/YouTube antics - Sven having a poo in a corridor at Space and getting beaten up; Sven falling asleep on a beach and getting sunburnt, Sven 'partying' with Richie, etc - but what of the mythical events that marked a sea change in electronic music? The German invasion of Sonar from 05 onwards and the beach parties they threw - was this significant? How about the re-opening of Berghain and more recently Tresor? Maybe all the major changes are now technology-driven - the availability of broadband, Ableton, Serrato/FS/Traktor, Beatport? What about the music itself - who or what style has shaken things up and had a huge influence? I'm throwing this one open to the floor as it were: I'd love to hear from anyone who reads this blog to give me their opinion about what the big changes have been and a few urban myths wouldn't go amiss either...

Prodding around

Satire at its best, enjoy.

The State They're In

Pipecock and friends on it as ever with some incisive posts on how crap Aril Brikha has become (but I still think that 'Deeparture' was a classic album), how record shopping in 'real' as opposed to in 'virtual' stores will always win out (check out the promo letter from Marcus Mixx!) and yield some rare gems and an insightful post from my fellow countryman Aidano on how techno is a lifestyle or more importantly, a belief choice, no matter how old one is. Interestingly, he echoes comments made a few years ago by Jeff Mills who admitted that he was making music for an aging audience. There's also a critique by Pipecock of the new 'Kings of Electro' compilation/mix from Playgroup and Alter Ego that I pretty much agree with. Without sounding too pedantic, I'm not sure how anyone could get away with calling a mix that features classic tracks from Rob Hood, Maurizio and Psyche an electro jam - but despite that, it was great to hear 'Amuck' by Low Res once again. The site also has an interview with A Guy Called Gerald*, which I haven't had a chance to read yet. Seriously though -  do these guys never sleep?!

*edit: I had a chance to read this over the weekend, and as the author also pointed out by email, it's not actually an interview with Gerald, but an overview of his work and his recent perfomance at DEMF. Still, it's well-written, insightful and worth a read.