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Haze of Controversy

There’s nothing like getting some motor-mouth to stir things up, and in techno, it seems that there’s no better man than Jay Haze to do it. Apart from the fact that his studio burnt down, the interview over at  RA hardly shed any new light on Haze’s past - when I interviewed him last year, he told me all about his time on the streets and his acid dealing, as well as something that he didn’t tell RA: that he was once jailed on terrorism charges for attempting to blow up his school! What RA’s piece did highlight was Haze’s willingness to speak freely about his peers and himself. Consequently, the techno chat rooms are full of people joining in the ‘is Haze an asshole or not’ debate, but I think to indulge in such a discussion is to spectacularly miss the point. Haze has succeeded in getting people talking about him, Tuning Spork and, inadvertently, about Minus and what they do.
Depending on how you look at it, it’s free publicity and food for thought. My own feeling is that like or hate Haze -  and I do like some but certainly not all of his records  - irrespective of whether he was ‘doing’ minimal before anyone else or not, he has an opinion and he isn’t afraid to share it, and in techno, where anonymity and, if the videos and photos are to be believed, luvvy duvvyness is a key currency, people with such an outspoken attitude are worth their weight in gold…

Blotnik on the landscape

I’ve spent the past few days listening to two albums, one that has been hyped and ‘marketed’ with great skill and the other, which has been issued quietly and without fuss. So guess which one is better? That’s right, it’s not the one that the tastemakers want you to believe in… I really hope that if he reads this that Joakim doesn’t take my criticism personally, but I was very disappointed by his latest album, ‘Monsters & Silly Songs’. For those of you not ‘in the know’ (I’m obviously not ‘in the know’ either because I didn’t ‘get’ his concept), Joakim is one of those impossibly hip French producers that other impossibly hip DJs and producers always name check. A quick look at his form to date on Discogs shows that he’s released on Verstaile and Crosstown Rebels, and I even have one of his EPs, ‘I Wish You Were Gone’, a catchy enough indie dance record that borrows a little too liberally from Duran Duran’s ‘Girls on Film’ (although I’m open to correction on this).
Apart from this ditty there are a few other decent attempts at new wave/80s-inspired electronic music, like the driving ‘Sleep in Hollow Tree’ and he also gets props for the spacey ‘Three Legged Lantern’ as well as a decent cover version of the torch song standard, ‘Palo Alto’. But that’s it. The rest of his album is full of sprawling jazz self-indulgence, prog rock drums and the kind of high falutin’ conceptual pish that’ll sound great over a few tall cappuccinos but useless anywhere else. I understand that Joakim is striving to be taken seriously as an artist, but he would have impressed me much more if he had just realised his obvious limitations and put out an EP. Then he would have saved everyone – the record label, the guy who designed the rather swish artwork and the PR dude who kept emailing me for the past few weeks to impress upon me what a great album it is  - an awful lot of trouble.
The other album that I’ve been listening to a lot is called ‘Mizuage’ by the Blotnik Brothers. I’m not sure if they are brothers - when they do interviews, I bet that they claim in true electro style that they are ‘clones’ or somesuch nonsense – but it doesn’t really matter. The audience for this type of music is probably quite limited, but that doesn’t matter, because this album sounds great, especially at high volumes when you’re driving very fast. Purist, ball-crushing electro is the staple Blotnik diet, but they do a smart thing at the start of ‘Mizuage’, trying to lull the listener into a false sense of security with the comparatively mellow, Kraftwerk-inspired ‘Schlagg Prallt Auf’. From then on in, it’s distorted beats, ugly basslines and frenetic tempos. At times, the synths are so foreboding and the strings so dramatic that it’s hard not to stifle a giggle, but their point blank refusal to indulge in any kind of concession (apart from the intro, which was still pretty much a purist track) is admirable.
They also have written a ‘big tune’ - if such a thing is possible in underground electro circles - called ‘Tin Can’, which has these insane, spine tingling, anthem-like chords. I don’t want to MP3 it because it’s a really small label and I get the feeling that it’s been released for passionate rather than financial reasons. I also love the robotic artwork and the fact that it arrived without any kind of fanfare, the way music should be delivered and presented…

Lovely Big 10 Inches

Christ on a bike, that was a nasty dose of flu. At one point I was convinced I was going to sprout a pair of wings, but I survived and what doesn’t kill you, makes you stronger. Helping me through my sickness was the new 10” by the supremely talented Andy Stott. Actually, there have been a few excellent releases in this format of late - including a Maxim Daze release on Combination and Radio Slave’s EPs for Get Physical – but Stott’s release, ‘Handle With Care’, suits the ten inch vinyl platter the best. He fed us a strict diet of gurgling acid madness last year, so maybe 2007 is a time for him to chill out and reflect? Inspired by Kingston dub and Rhythm & Sound, it’s everything that dub should be - plaintive and melancholic, yet warm and human, mixed emotions stretched out over lurching, speaker-flattening rhythms. It certainly got me through my malaise better than any other record….

Spreading disinformation

Usually, I don’t criticise other bloggers, even if I disagree vehemently with their opinions. I hold fire mainly out of respect because I know what it feels like to spend a lot of your free time writing for free for, let’s face it, for a small, specialised audience. Most the blogs I read are music-based and are maintained out of passion (I’ve got to sort out a list of links to stuff I read and recommend as soon as I get a chance) and they provide me with inspiration, entertainment and loads of food for thought.
However, on this occasion, I have to take  Philip Sherburne to task for a post that he made about about Italo. It originally appeared on his ‘Informer’ Urge music blog – the MTV download service that’s impossible to use (well for me at least: I tried installing and re-installing the software, updating my Windows Media Player and still nothing  -  and get this, it take’s Urge’s customer support service 72 hours to reply. What are they doing?). In his appraisal of French edit kings and label D*I*R*T*Y, he says the following:
“But what really makes D*I*R*T*Y cooler than any of us is that they chose this cut at all. Any wannabe Disco Stu with a Giorgio Moroder CD and a copy of Ableton Live can churn out a workable Italo edit, and that's precisely what can make the whole nu-disco scene occasionally rather dull—everyone's jacking the same sources…”
This is a gross, inaccurate generalisation, and the fact that it comes from someone who presents himself as an erudite, informed writer makes it even more disappointing. With one sweep of his keyboard, he has dismissed a whole scene that is thriving, mainly thanks to its diversity.
Off the top of my head, when I think of Italo/ nu-disco, whatever you want to call it, it’s obvious that there’s a huge difference between Steve Kotey’s cosmic, dub-heavy Bear Entertainment project, Tyrell’s high-energy pathos and Mandroid’s fusion of 808 Detroit drums and warm melodies?
If anything, the nu-disco scene takes its cue from a wider palette than say, minimal? Indeed, imagine if someone wrote that “that's precisely what can make the whole minimal scene occasionally rather dull—everyone's copying old Dan Bell and Robert Hood records…”
I’m sure Mr Sherburne, who is so heavily involved in this scene, would find this an inaccurate generalisation and would want to set the record straight: as it happens, a trawl through the archives on his site reveals that he takes Sasha Frere-Jones to task for making a similar comment about German electronic music - so how come he’s content to drop his standards and indulge in the same kind of generalisation? The fact that Sherburne makes his ill-informed comment on a widely read (if you can get it to work), MTV-sponsored site and that he sees fit to re-publish it on his own blog shows that he has no problem in spreading his disinformation around to as wide an audience as possible. Either immerse yourself in the music you write about or refrain from making lame, lazy comments about something you clearly know very little about. I’m sure you’d feel the same way if another writer appraised minimal in the same way - anyway, isn’t it just a bad copy of classic Dan Bell? Discuss…

Dave Clarke’s Footprints

I always enjoy reading interviews with Dave Clarke -  he’s one of the few people in techno who comes across as opinionated, witty and intelligent in print. In person, the Dave Clarke experience is even better – he’s great company, has a savagely funny sense of humour and anytime I’ve hung out with him, we’ve laughed ourselves silly and had some proper conversations (not ones that revolved solely around discussing the merits of obscure electro -  although we’ve done that too). What I’m saying, in a roundabout kind of way, is that I’m fond of Clarke and think that he’s a genuine character. I also think that he often gets a hard time in the press -  usually portrayed erroneously as a miserable type. I know that he also tends to get misquoted, so what I’m about to question could just be a mistake, but in a recent interview with Trackitdown, he talks about his changeover from playing vinyl to CDs to now using Serrato, in which he says: “Ecologically it also makes sense, I try to be as green as possible within the confines of my work, now I don't burn needless carbon tonnes carting around 30 kilos of vinyl every week. Vinyl is ecologically irresponsible, CDs are better and hard drives are better still on a weight and manufacturing basis. There’s no longer any need to have records driven around to stores or delivered by the postman. The winner is the environment and the DJ for having to learn new skills.”
Later on, he also says: “ I drive less and less (even though I have a penchant for V8/V12 cars) and I recycle everything I can, which is really easy in the UK, though surprisingly difficult in Holland. I think that the government should subsidise all personal renewable energy, there are millions of rooftops that don't have solar power; why not? I think the government should renationalise the railways and have decent tram systems in all metropolises that can handle them and subsidise public transport. There should be no more runways either, it seems silly to invest in all that airport infrastructure if we are running out of oil.”
The second quote makes sense – Clarke used to drive cars with big, fat engines -  but with all respect, isn’t this the same guy who has been jetting all over the world for the past decade to play gigs? It’s great that he’s curtailing his penchant for tearing around European motorways like a techno version of ‘Top Gear’ (but without Clarkson’s thinly-veiled xenophobic put downs), but in the grand scheme of polluters, vinyl is pretty low on the list of offenders. Most of the records Clarke used to play only ever sold a few thousand copies, and nearly all of the research into the fragile state of the world’s environment shows that the biggest polluters are commercial airline flights (not that this absolves anyone who drives SUVs from a special place in hell). Fly around Europe a few times a week - and Clarke has also done more than his fair share of long-haul travel to play on other continents -  and pretty soon, your carbon footprint becomes bigger than DJ Sneak’s pizza intake. I understand that DC is keen to enhance his DJing using new technology, but please Dave, don’t use environmental excuses to distance yourself from the black stuff…

Death’s not overrated

I must be one of the few people who couldn’t understand the fuss surrounding Audion’s ‘Mouth To Mouth’, but Mathew Dear is about to release a far more rewarding follow-up, ‘I Gave You Away’. It’s part of Spectral’s latest split EP, the splendidly-named ‘Death Is Nothing To Fear’ and it sees Dear return to what Audion does best, teasing and twisting the grimiest, dankest sounds from the 303. He’s in good company on this release: Par Grindvik, who has released for Beyer’s labels, drops ‘Casio’ a screeching slice of 90s analogue techno, updated for modern ‘floors and, best of all, Bodycode’s Exciting Ride.
This dude’s album last year was one of my favourites - it had a raw feel when everyone else was trying to make the cleanest digital sounds possible. ‘Ride’ is more of the same, creepy, Robert Hood-inspired organ riffing over a rolling groove and snippets of vocals. It’s dark stuff, but it sounds fresher than 90% of the supposed innovative minimal techno in circulation. After listening to Bodycode, what better way to treat your ears than with some Stefan Schwander productions? Repeat Orchestra’s ‘The Making Of…’ was one of the best tunes of last year, and like many of the real gems, was criminally overlooked. Schwander’s Antonelli Electr project is less clubby, but I love the evocative, otherworldly feeling and lullaby melodies on Kimbo , his latest release under this guise. Also worth checking is the flip side track, Les Beaux Arts , which sounds like an update of Carl Craig’s Psyche releases…

Music of substance

The ‘straight edge’ concept will probably be forever associated with US punk bands like Fugazi, but I’ve noticed a worrying number of sober types rising through the ranks over the past few years. At times, it seems like their game plan – an awful word in any context - echoes that of the major label /boy band model: work hard, take every opportunity to further yourself, no matter how morally questionable, and never, ever lose control.
I’m sorry, but the whole point of techno, and music in general, is the opportunity it affords the performer and listener to lose themselves, both on a musical level, or in other ‘recreational’ ways.
I’m not advocating a lemming-like abeyance to stimulants either - a quasi-authoritarian adherence to ecstasy probably explains why Tiesto is so popular or why Oakenfold got away with it for so long -  but I am in favour of performers exploring the realms of their sub-consciousness to connect with their audience. Detroit’s first wave probably didn’t have much use for stimulants - too busy stargazing to indulge -  but house music was hedonistic from the get-go: just check any account of the Music Box for proof that the narcotics played as big a role as the music.
That’s not to suggest that being out of it detracts from the music: after all, who in their right mind would prefer sober as a judge Christian rockers Stryper over the Rolling Stones or a bottled water quaffing house bore like David Morales over a gurning, topless Sven Vath? At the same time, let’s not kid ourselves: this hedonistic image is also sellable. The suggestion of at oneness with their audience in terms of partying, makes people like Villalobos, Hawtin and Vath much more human, more on the same level than a faceless, sober performer ensconced in a gilded booth.
This, in my opinion, is also the difference between someone who can exactly read and work a crowd and someone else who, although technically perfect is soullessly going through the motions. I can understand that people who make and play music want to get ahead, and that this will happen at a far quicker rate if they keep their noses clean, but sometimes you have to journey to the far side of the psyche to really understand what makes your audience tick…

Kate Gets Funke

There’s no doubt that, along with Marc Houles ‘Bay Of Figs’, Hearthrob’s ‘Baby Kate’ was one of last year’s most popular techno tracks, but, contrary bugger that I am, it failed to do anything for me (anyway, if you want an example of a ‘big’ minimal tune in 2006, then check out Adam Beyer’s strangely overlooked ‘Stereotypes’ on Cocoon). For all those non-Kate loving people like myself, Minus have decided to release a remix package. Of course, this being Minus, it’s not just any old remix release; the label has pulled out all the stops, with M*gd* and Konrad Black delivering moody, if somewhat understated versions and Hawtin himself resurrecting his Plastikman guise and Robotman (hands up who remembers the daft but brilliant ‘Do Da Do’ -  a proper acid record?) to deliver two austere, acid heavy versions that disappear down that achingly hypnotic wormhole groove that Richie pioneered before he moved to Europe.
But on this occasion, it’s the outsider who gets the props: Sascha Funke is not part of the inner sanctum: actually, the fact that he usually releases on Bpitch probably makes him some kind of alien entity, but his chilling minor-key reshape gets the hairs on the back of my neck standing to attention. Minus in trance remix shocker: who would have thought it could ever have happened?