What is the appeal of minimal techno?
finelikewine
"ONCE UPON A TIME, I HAD A VINYL." http://www.discogs.com/user/permabulker 1,416 Posts
Seriously, i don't get it.Over here in Germany "Minimal Techno" is the number one club music since a fewyears. In some areas it is hard to find a venue which is playing something different. Some friends of mine (I regerade them a lot) are very into it and try to convince me of it's qualities.So far they had no luck. To me this kind of music is totaly repulsiv, cold, monotonous and boring. It seems to me like a big hoax, I can't even understand how people can bear this kind of music voluntarily all night long. They can't be all on drugs, or can they?Can someone please explain the appeal of it and show me some minimal bloodschitters? Please convince me that it can be decent music.
Comments
Not in any way meant to sway you, (cause what's the point really?) this is very good.
01. Steve Reich & Pat Metheny - Electric Counterpoint ??? Fast (Movement 3)
02. Etienne Jaumet - Repeat After Me (??me Mix)
03. Kenneth Bager - Fragment Eleven??? The Day After Yesturday Pt.1
04. Liquid Liquid - Lock Groove (Out)
05. Cymande - For Baby Oh
06. Patrick Moraz - Metamorphoses 1st Movement (Live)
07. To Rococo Rot - Testfeld
08. Matematics - Blue Water
09. I:CUBE - Acid Tablet
10. ?? - Atomit
11. Conrad Schnitzler - Electrocon 11
12. Green Pickles feat. Billy Lo & M. Pittman - Feedback
13. La Funk Mob - Motor Bass Gets Phunked Up (Richie Hawtin???s Electrophunk Mix)
14. John Carpenter - The President Is Gone
15. Yusef Lateef - The Three Faces Of Bala
16. Robert Hood - Minus
17. Raymond Scott - Bass-Line Generator
18. Moondog - Invocation
The guy said he needed to do that for about year in order to truly appreciate it.
There's days I can't stand it, there's days I think it's pure genius, takes time to get into (certainly if you're coming from an ORGANIC music background).
Bonuspoints if you like Basic Channel dub stuff.
The Beatport vortex is where all the crap 'made in 4 hours on Pro-Tools' tracks are being sold for 0.89$. Pitchforkmedia prolly has an interesting article about it written by someone who's indieband didn't quite made it in the 90s.
Try needledropping this 6CD set: Circoloco @ DC10 - 10 Years Anniversary
Typing in "Villalobos" on Soulseek will also get you some heaters.
I totally agree with you on the coldness, which is how I feel about techno on the whole, but when the minimal stuff is well executed, it has a beautiful warm, driving feel that swings between trippy, sexy and creepy or all of them at the same time.
I think Bassie pinpointed it -- it's pretty much about repetition and subtle shifts in the soundscape. I sort of look at it like sped-up ambient. Not super into it myself and, in my experience, folks who dig it tend to stay up all night and go to creepy afterhours and spending large portions of the night in expensive clubs. Oh, and...
I'd rather just put on Cybotron.
I think you're shortchanging the music by judging it's merit on those terms. Why not paint psych or reggae with the same brush while you're at it?
Ricardo Villalobos is probably my favorite house producer right now, although I think his music is less "minimal" and less "techno" than the label implies.
no "i can feel the love" shrieking vocals or police sirens
I'm interested.
According to the u-tube comments, this rip doesn't do it justice.
This is quite good and has a great dub feel but it sounds nothing like the stuff teenagers over here are dancing to.
Like I said, in my experience. To me, psych or reggae provide a much more dynamic palette -- one which can be appreciated under the influence or uninfluenced by outside substances.
I appreciate minimal techno, even like some of it. But when I take it out of its context of dark, druggy clubs, it loses some of its appeal. Take what I said as a tangent. I'd still rather listen to vintage Carl Craig than Richie Hawtin's latest.
This is a mix I made.
It's kinda old now, but still good, I hope.
d/l here - http://www.megaupload.com/?d=IA1SFHWR
http://www.shitkatapult.com/index.php?page=releaseinfo&products_id=1317
Track 6 - fenin - yellow dub
Live:
As someone who has never used drugs and appreciates a lot of this kind of music, I guess I don't get the connection. I mean, I know there often is a connection, but that's never been part of my experience. For me it's all about a long late-night or early morning drive. Or a club with a good sound system and happy people minus the drugs.
What makes them interesting is the many layers they add on top of a techno foundation -- like dub, dancehall, rock, pop. etc.
Check out anything by Gui Boratto, Robert Babicz, or David Last -- good stuff.
I have to respectfully disagree. I listen to techno cause I enjoy techno, if you want dub or dancehall, listen to dub or dancehall.
I think the beauty in anything 'minimal' is the creating of something that's eventually larger than the sum of its parts. It takes real skill to combine that with something that's inherently repetitive like techno and make something that isn't instantly boring.
all the guys from sonar kollektiv, innervisions are killing it right now.
google ame, dixon, henrick schwarz, wahoo, atjazz, etc...
a bit more house, but carl craig's rmx of the tony allen track was monster last year....he's beyond ill.
to be honest there's a big difference between "real" pioneering minimal techno - like Robert Hood, Dan Bell, Basic Channel / Maurizio etc - and the third generation stuff that is all over europe at the moment.
i would argue that much of this newer stuff isn't minimal at all. I've seen Robert Hood play a whole show off one 909 drum machine, THAT is minimal. Glitchy, sparse, click-house is the newer stuff, sometimes dubbed "microhouse", and it's not minimal at all, if anything it's maximal, it's an assault on the senses of little shards of cut up sounds, influenced by people like Plasticman / Richy Hawtin.
I went to Sonar festival the year it "broke" (ie about 3 years ago.. or 4?) and the bastard stuff was everywhere, after 1 day of hearing that music all over the place i was begging djs to play something vaguely soulful, even bananarama would appeal more than that stuff. I find it totally un-emotive and an experiment in boredom. I did go to ONE exhibit at sonar that year where they were making "minimal" on a 6 speaker-array and positioning the sounds in surround, and that was vaguely interesting. but still boring to dance too and just dull musically.
the "real" minimal has a subtletly to it which is comparable to (and often heavily influenced by) dub, and a soulfulness that IS moving. the newer stuff leaves me cold.
Thanks, this is great and one of the first tracks that doesn't bore me to death.
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