Groups with guitars are on the way out, Mr. Epstein.

[hirez]

Just about the best acid/techno in the world, ever.

Oh, and the Raymond Scott 'Manhattan Research' double CD is a corker as well.

Comments

Hmmm ... a bit Oldschool

[lazrus-armagedn.livejournal.com]

It's nicely done ... and as an excercise in updated nostalgia [1] it's really quite fun

But I couldn't listen to an evening of it, or even a whole album, I don't think ... It's ... well ... a bit Oldschool, innit? ... Same sounds, same BPM ... same structure

It doesn't even work for me as something I'd mix in with psy-trance ... it just sounds dated

Sorry :( ... I like my techno/NRG hard and fast ... pounding


[1] Now there's a concept that might bear some analysis/discussion ;>

Re: Hmmm ... a bit Oldschool

[hirez.livejournal.com]

Oh, it absolutely is about as old-school as one can get.

Y'see, it goes a bit like this...

In 88-89 my wee brother was working for a firm that did upscale home-entertainment kit (B&O gear was at the cheap end) and had brought home a 1.2M dish on a polar mount. This meant we could watch Neighbours (get me drunk even today and I'll start banging on about Nachbarn sooner or later) in German and Spanish, RTL-Veronique and Euro-MTV. The only things that stood out on said MTV, other than The Mighty Fall, were persistent adverts for some MTV-sponsored 'experimental' videotapes. One was some Godley&Creme malarkey, the other was this computer-generated thing with scratty-weeble music from another dimension. It hurt to look at unless you were off your head, but was just... Mesmerising.

It was called 'Eurotechno' by something named 'Stakker'.

Anyway, time moved on, I moved to London and got on with stuff. Then some chap moved into the place where I was staying, bringing a pile of tapes of pirate wireless from his hometown. The first one we listened to featured the phrase 'Watch yer bassbins, I'm tellin' yer...' and really was one of those epiphany moments.

When the fellow moved out, he left behind a pile of gear, including an unmarked video. "Ha!" We thought. "Pr0n!" However, it was better than that: A good quality dub of that same Stakker video. A thing which I treasure to this day.

So I guess that looked at from the outside, it is just some old squelchy acid music that doesn't do much, but as a cultural artifact for which there is a definite 'before' and 'after', it's... Resonant.

Re: Hmmm ... a bit Oldschool

[lazrus-armagedn.livejournal.com]

Oh, yeah ... I know what you mean

I still love old Prodigy and Experience-era rave ... Apart from latterday hard NRG/techno [1], nothing else in the World lifts my mood faster or makes me want to dance so much

I've been very much in mind how weird it's gonna be when (if) I'm sixty and listening to music ... saying to the younger generation (just as my grand/parents did) "You youngsters don't know what music is ... Listen to this ... That's real music, that is ... Those were the days" ... and it's gonna be rave/NRG

And playing video-games, partying hard, etc.

I'm telling you ... from my generation on, it's a whole new world ... The explosion in the pace of technological advancement sets us apart from previous generations in a way that is unlikely ever to happen again - Never again will there be a whole generation refusing to get their heads around new things that are really very simple (like computers) the way they did/do ... we adapt and absorb the new, learn how to ab/use it in ways that they just can't comprehend ...

The only comparable era I can think of is the start of the industrial revolution ... Luddites and all


But on the issue of updated nostalgia, you might wanna try listening to the Barabas & ODI remix of Wayne G's Breakdance ... a hardbag track remixed to be a pastiche of Oldskool hip-hop ... using all the sounds and styles that were so overused by the end that they killed hip-hop dead in it's tracks ... every Oldskool cliche in the bag is in there ... used in every one of the cliched manners ...

It's just so amazingly bad it's fantastic! ... and I don't even particularly like hip-hop ... never did ... But it's one of those tracks that, if you were there at the time you realise just how much effort had to have gone into getting it so perfectly cliched ... As you say it resonates



[1] Interestingly, I noticed that from '98 and '02/'03 there was the whole peak of the hard NRG/hardhouse scene ... and it was simply '88-to-'92/'93 all over again, but updated and harder/faster ... and a repeat of the old rave ethos of using any old run-down venue and throwing parties

But that's simply the next generation of musicians/DJs/clubbers who grew up listening to their elder siblings' music and recreated it when they got their turn ... ... ... Seems to be a pattern that repeats every ten years or so

Re: Hmmm ... a bit Oldschool

[hirez.livejournal.com]

I think I'm going to half-agree with that.

In that I seriously hope that ours isn't the last generation to accelerate off into the distance with some new tech to the utter bemusement of the previous set.

If that's true, then they're fucked.

I tend to think that computers have only been properly useful tools since you could connect them up to other computers without needing a metaphorical bloke in a white coat to oversee the proceedings. Since, let's say, 1998.

What I think might happen is some sudden lurch in bod-mod or gene hackery or a coach-and-four driven through Moore's law. Something that makes people my age go 'Now that's just bloody mad. I'll have nothing to do with it.'

I rather look forward to hearing "You played games in only two dimensions? With hand controllers? How primitive can you get?"

I don't want the little bastards listening to some sodding Oasis-analogue. Again.

"Go on. Piss off and invent something I can fulminate about. It's your moral duty as teenagers..."

Re: Hmmm ... a bit Oldschool

[lazrus-armagedn.livejournal.com]

I just don't think that any future development is gonna be that impossible for us to get our heads around ... We're used to technological advance ... and, furthermore, the pace of advancement accelerating ... The Human Genome Project was on the News and in the papers, for instance ... every Sharron and Barry knows about it ... They may not understand gene-splicing in depth but they have a basic grasp of something that our grand/parents just wouldn't have been able to comprehend

So they come up with direct neural intefacing ... We may not understand the exact mechanisms, but we'll have no difficulty understanding the basic principles ... and we won't be phased by it ... We may not like it, or want to make use of it ... But we'll adapt and incorporate it into our everyday lives, accepting that it's something the youngsters of the future do that we choose not to

It's not that our generation is different in our ability to grasp the concepts, it's that we're used to changing and adapting ... we're used to technological breakthrough ... it's everyday to us ... normal ... not even mundane, just (in Marcuse's terms) one-dimensional

And as far as the youth of tomorrow pissing me off is concerned ... the people of all eras piss me off now ... Far more significant about getting old, I think, is that it becomes my moral duty to become Victor Meldrew and piss off the youth ... My grand/parents' generation did it for me ... theirs did it for them ... and so on, back down the line ... I will be obliged to be cantankerous, grumpy and embarrassing at parties ... ... ... I can't wait! ... I'm so looking forward to it!

[mr-tom.livejournal.com]

*BLORP* *Squelch* *Wibble* *tshchoooom* *BLORP* Hoorah!

http://www.transambient.com: similarly bleepy white-glove music. Nice vidos if you can find 'em...

[lucifein.livejournal.com]

http://www.livejournal.com/users/lucifein/67690.html

Luci >:D xxx