Hand Stamp of Approval

Here's an anamoly for 2008: the re-appearance of the hand-stamped, anonymous techno 12-inch. I know, we've been here many times before: anyone who was seduced by Basic Channel - one of my inroads into techno was the label's compilation, which had a gritty grey rendering of the BC 'logo' on a pure white background - and Schatrax or more recently, by Sleeparchive's output, will be au fait with the concept of the hand-stamped inlay as a powerful anti-image. If you're willing to go back further, punk had its fair share of hand-stamped releases, part of a DiY ethic that is still prevalent in techno music nowadays (although it could be argued that nowadays, the ultimate DiY statement is to release music on your own netlabel and to eschew physical product alltogether - see below for the counter-argument). The two releases that typify this return to basics are the latest Cyclical Tracks release, 'The Essentual' (sic) and 'Equalized Part 1'. Both were procured from that bastion of techno purism, Hardwax, and both follow a simple yet effective line in dancefloor functionalism, repetitive grooves that sound like an amalgamation of hypnotic dubby techno -  BC again raise their shadowy heads -  and a slower and more palatable take on the looped techno rhythms that were so popular at the start of this decade. In the case of the Cyclical Tracks series, we at least know that the label comes from Spain and there are artist names credited on this latest EP  -  Vera and Mara Trax. But we don't even get that far with 'Equalized', whose white inlay and promo-style stamp gives no clue about the author. Techno artists have a long, and often lucrative relationship with staying in the shadows and remaining enigmatic, but rather than merely copying UR and Basic Channel's mysterious approach, these two hand-stamped, vinyl-only releases send out a different message. In an age when it's possible to find out about and digitally acquire the work of even the most obscure producers with a few mouse clicks, both releases are afforded an all-too rare anonymity by operating outside the newly-formed distribution parameters and doing things the old-school DiY way and . 'Come and find us if you can' they seem to suggest, because music should be discovered, not force fed to its fans like a commodity.

Comments

[Ronan]

Vera and Mara Trax are doing some stuff for Oslo at the moment, I got a live set by Vera and Federico Molinari that is the next podcast for HIAF.

I don't really see that digi-labels or any other labels are force-feeding anyone though, every track you buy must be "discovered" by listening to it and deciding if you like it, whatever the format.

Also if you ask me it's not so much a DIY attitude in dance music as a self destructive one.

This is great music and they should try and get it out there to as many people as possible, even if that means playing the game a bit more than they would like.

That's just my take on it.

[Ronan]

Oh and Cyclical Tracks is on Beatport.

[Brophy]

Indeed it is great music, but obviously its authors don't believe that it should be mass-consumed, hence the limited edition, hand-stamped availability (for the equalized release). Maybe they just don't believe in 'playing the game', which is fair enough and goes back to the original point in the post about them having a DiY attitude.

I never said a netlabel is force feeding anyone - what I did say is that a netlabel could be considered as having the ultimate DiY attitude nowadays. Maybe read the post again. I don't especially like the stuff that appears on the netlabel Thinner, but apparently they have had one million downloads since they launched 4 years ago, which is a staggering number of downloads. It could easily be argued that they are the closest to the DiY punk spirit because a) they give their music away for free and b) they don't rely on distros etc to put their music out.

[Brophy]

Oh and Cyclical Tracks is on Beatport. - yipee, pop open the champagne

[Ronan]

Right...well I can't really think of any example of music being "force-fed" to somebody , so if you didn't mean net labels then who did you mean?

There was that news story about Iraqi detainees being blasted with the theme song from Barney the Dinosaur 300 times a day.

Anyway I'm not intending to have a go, just as alluring as the whole underground thing is, I know you've posted about the hassle of interviewing people who flagrantly aren't bothered before...just another symptom of that.

It's not like 3000 copies or even 10000 copies (practically unheard of) constitutes mass consumption for a record.

That's a miniscule amount of sales and I reckon every dance artist who works at their music and is proud of what they do should fight to ensure it gets the recognition it deserves, not ruin it for themselves by being too DiY.

This doesn't mean schilling or whatever either, just making your music easily available, as tons of great underground labels do.

[tom/pipecock]

Thinner have had 1 million DLs? that's wild. only one of those was by me, and that's how it will remain!

[Brophy]

Strange as this seems, most of the people I know who make this kind of music just aren't interested in 'fighting to ensure it gets the recognition it deserves'... maybe they are all complete underachievers.

by force fed I mean the way that whatever is considered hip or trendy is foisted upon people with an interest in electronic music by the self-appointed 'filters'

[Brophy]

Thinner have had 1 million DLs? that's wild. only one of those was by me, and that's how it will remain!
I'd say they got 3 dls from me, but I agree - never again!

[Ronan]

"self-appointed 'filters'"

how is a filter self appointed though? all filters exist because of their support, whether trendy or otherwise. people buy records or use stores/blogs/sites because they choose to do so, there is no coercion involved whatsoever.

[Brophy]

I'm sure that when RA or say Beatport were setting up shop becoming a filter for electronic music fans was a prominent part of their business strategy. Both have succeeded in doing this, which is no mean feat, but they certainly wanted to appoint themselves filters for the scene - no matter whether that's a good or a bad thing - from the get go. Anyway, I gotta go, I have some vinyl-only obscurities to wade through.

[Ronan]

yes they wanted to become filters but they didn't appoint themselves did they? people came and chose to use them.

just make sure the vinyl only obscurities aren't actually on beatport

[Brophy]

but if it's part of their business plan then they set themselves up as filters, so yes, they did appoint themselves

if they are vinyl only how can they be on beatport - bleedin' sap..

[Ronan]

just like cylical trax was vinyl only eh?

so by your logic, every single record store, blog and website "sets themselves up as a filter" and is thus "self appointed" and force feeding people.

for a guy who drones on about "DiY punk attitude" as if it matters in 2008, you sound like an idealistic hippy.

[Brophy]

so by your logic, every single record store, blog and website "sets themselves up as a filter" and is thus "self appointed" and force feeding people - no, I never said that and it's not my logic, you're jumping to assumptions. Obviously RA and Beatport want to become filters for the scene and thus appointed themselves to this role. I really doubt a small record store would have the same strategy, but at this stage, we're really splitting hairs, aren't we?

for a guy who drones on about "DiY punk attitude" as if it matters in 2008, you sound like an idealistic hippy. - Ronan, there's really no need to personalise these discussions or descend to insults. If you want to discuss something, that's cool, but name calling and making flame-style posts is a very quick way for people not to listen to you or to totally avoid you.
I find your overall tone quite aggressive and pretty ignorant. If you keep behaving in this way, I won't bother replying to your posts, but I will leave them on the site so other people can see what your behaviour is like. If you want to have a fight, please take it somewhere else, I'm really not interested, life is too short.
I know you want to get some kind of reputation as a commentator about techno and house, but seriously, you are going about it the wrong way. All you're doing is pissing people off. One thing I learned early on was how small this scene is. I'll leave it at that...

[chrisdisco]

on thinner, only one or two from me. but then agian, i guess it adds up...

and i do agree with brophy on the whole filtering issue. the coercion is ultimately structural. while individuals do have a choice about which people/sites/stores to listen to, the industry and the scene is structured in such a way that certain voices are more influential and thus, more likely to hold sway over individuals. sites like RA and beatport and blogs like all of urs do, to some degree, attempt to establish themselves as filters.

and for those actually interested in the artists that began this post, there is this new promo mix:

http://below20hz.net/mixes/robert_johnson_podcast_08022008_vera_und_federico_molinari.mp3

i must admit, i wasnt completely won over by it, but a lot of others seem to really like it.

[Sunil]

I think this topic ran way off point from the original one being made. Thankfully releases such as the ones Richard mentioned, represent the faceless aspect of techno that became one of its most alluring characteristics in the past. The whole air of mystery that surrounds certain electronic artists and labels is one of the few things that occasionally reminds you of the DIY style ethic that can still exist, even if it's in a much smaller capacity than 10 years ago for instance.

In a time where 'underground' to the core artists spam the hell out of all their newly found friends on Myspace etc. every 5 minutes, I think it's pretty refreshing to see other labels like the one mentioned in this thread, going out, making their shit, putting it on record.. and leaving it at that. Remember too, this is ALL some of these guys want to get out of it… and that to me is pretty admirable. They might “deserve” more recognition in terms of people knowing their name and booking them for a gig, but that isn’t often their objective. Not everyone wants to be fully in and part of the machine.

I think the fact that a label or artist can put out a record with no info on it, and still gain attention speaks volumes for the quality of the music, and serves as a much greater statement. It's a great sacrifice to make, and possibly a far more satisfying result to the people responsible. Electronic music will always need a bit of "Whodunnit?" to keep things more interesting or intriguing. Anyone with the balls and talent to step up and just let the music do the talking, deserves props… on a number of levels. There are obviously good marketing opportunities in faceless/mystery projects like The Tuss and Redshape for instance have recently proved… all these things contribute to a greater scene one way or the other though. Without cool slabs of vinyl and the mystique that accompanies some of them, this would be one terribly boring music scene.

[B]

Interesting conversation...I hate to kick a dead horse but the whole 'filter' discussion is quite interesting...It really touches on issues of free market capitalism and consumer freedom of choice. I don't think Ronan should have made his statements personal but he does have a point on the idea that RA and Beatport are huge because people really enjoy their 'product' and keep pinging their website...its the consumers that appointed them a filter. Just like more underground heads appointed Hard Wax, Test Industries, Infinite State Machine as their filters. Ultimately I'm cool with both worlds but like to support everyone's right to choose their own filters!

[Ronan]

"I find your overall tone quite aggressive and pretty ignorant. If you keep behaving in this way, I won't bother replying to your posts, but I will leave them on the site so other people can see what your behaviour is like"

"ye bleedin sap" is an insult utterly unrelated to the argument and it's also the first one on this post?

so leave whatever you feel on the site.

[dave anderson]

Mmmmm, Schatrax. Mmmm, Basic Channel.

Bluespirit!

There's something very purist about the obscure, perfect labels that came, handstamped and obscure, dropped a limited number of near-perfect 12s on us, and vanished before they released one dodgy one.

I'm not a completist about label collecting, but for these three, I made an exception...