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Believe in me

There's a great interview with Thomas Melchior over at RA. In it, he discusses spirituality among other things. Anyway, it's a fascinating read, probably the best feature that the site has carried since the Rob Hood piece a few months back. Hood is a religious guy  - I know that some people laugh at house producers who 'find God' (Green Velvet seems to get a lot of flak for it), but maybe creating/producing music from a spiritual perspective means that the end result has a resonance, a depth that other producers lack -  or maybe the best music is just made with emotion and feelings and doesn't need to be tagged along to organised religion. I'm the polar opposite to Hood, an unreconciled aetheist, but I know that the music that works for me always provokes an emotion, be that happy, sad, surprised or sometimes just frustrated. However, Hood and Melchior are definitely among my favourite producers, so does their belief system give them an edge - or do they just strike a chord with that part of my personality that's in denial about religion?

The Flying Game

Last week, I unearthed a long-forgotten copy of the compilation ‘Frankfurt Trax Volume 2: The House of Techno’. Released in 1991, it features contributions from and explorations into early European techno/hardcore from long forgotten acts like Mescalinum United, T-Bone Castro and some guy simply known as ‘Vaeth’. The album has stood the test of time and in some cases, eg The Mover’s ‘Nightflight (Nonstop to Kaos)’, predated styles like electro house by a decade, while tracks from Alien Christ and Project AE hint at the ‘illbient’ scene that subsequently emerged in the 90s. Listening to it was a reminder of less cynical times, when it was possible for producers to go out on a limb creatively and blur styles - witness the proto techno-trance of Dag Tribe’s ‘No Compromise (Airport 5am – 11.59am mix)’. The title of this track got me thinking not just about the music: the early 90s also marked the first time that DJs started to travel to different countries to perform, and in Frankfurt this had a particular resonance because the Dorian Gray club, where Vaeth, Dag etc played, was housed in the airport. This was the period that techno music and travelling started to become symbiotic, and the Dorian Gray used to attract visitors like the fashion designer Daniel Poole, who would catch an early morning flight from London with his entourage to arrive at the club just as it was really kicking off. Since then, DJs have travelled more and more frequently to far-flung locations, helping, in tandem with the rise of popularity of the internet, to make electronic music a truly global sound. The advent of low-fare airlines in the mid to late 90s has also made it possible for clubbers to go for one night to their favourite clubbing destination -  it would be interesting to see how many people who travel to Berlin to party for the weekend book a hotel room: not many I’d guess. However, at some stage, probably in the next few years, this phenomenon will decrease. The rising price of oil has made commercial flying much more expensive, and eventually it will become prohibitively expensive for the average city hopper to fly, and at some stage after that, too much for the club promoter to afford. What will happen next? For those based on the continent, the scenario isn’t that bleak: they’ll have to travel by train for the most part  (my favourite method of transport, especially through Europe), but gigging or visiting other continents will prove problematic. Maybe it’ll lead to a greater focus on local producers and DJs and less of an obsession with sounding like everyone else - something that ‘Frankfurt Trax Volume 2’ achieved all those years ago…

 

 

Viva Hate

Ah, hate, the flipside emotion to love. It’s driven many people to do many terrible things, but, in the right hands, hate can also be productive. Take the new label from the Modern Love, called Hate. They claim that the first release, ‘Darkcore’, by an unknown artist, was produced in the early 90s. Sure, the spooky chords and choppy breaks recall hardcore’s pre-junglist slide into gloom and moodiness, but the production is too clean, the editing too sharp, the filtering and sound design too contemporary to be anything but a new take on 90s rave.

Hate might have a last-decade fixation, but it’s hard to place where Portable aka Alan Abrahams’s new single fits in - if anywhere at all. ‘Knowone Can Take Away The Many’ on Perlon sounds like the Lisbon-based producer’s modus operandi is like that of a malfunctioning satellite traversing the cosmos above us, relaying a mish-mash of data from the sources all over the world. ‘Release’ presents muffled, melancholic vocals – possibly from his close associate Lerato -  amid Abrahams’s trademark organ riffs, while a shanty bass adds to the sense of pathos. In keeping with the current trend of looking towards the early 90s ‘The Many’ also features muffled vocals, old school house pianos and breakbeats (remember them?!) underpinned by a denser, more throbbing bass. Despite assimilating many sources, ‘Knowone…’ is one of the freshest and individualistic records of 08 -  maybe more house/techno producers will follow Abrahams’s cue…

I fell in love with The Black Dog in the early to mid-90s thanks to ‘Bytes’ and ‘Spanners’. Then my feelings waned as the line-up changed and their sound developed in a direction I couldn’t empathise with. This year’s ‘Radio Scarecrow’ album was a return to form - although it would be almost impossible to emulate ‘Bytes’ or ‘Spanners’: if you haven’t heard them I strong urge you to do so – and now they’ve gone a few steps further again thanks to their new single. ‘Train By The Autobahn’ on Soma is a sweet techno-house affair and they (or maybe the label) have persuaded Rob Hood to do two remixes. Anyone who is a fan of Hood’s less abrasive, more musical leanings will love the fragile atmospheric flourishes of his ‘8 Mile’ version (it also prompted me to pull out his ‘Nighttime World’ album for a listen) and the DJ remix is sublime club techno, with the Detroit producer looping the dog’s melody over rattling percussion and a typical, swinging rhythm.

Finally, does the Hate project mean that the Modern Love lads are getting sick of dubby techno? If they are, no one told DJ Miles aka MLZ about it. His new single,  ‘Newanaloguecentury’ on the Manchester label features a typically spacey, echoy affair. It’s understated, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing, allowing it to ebb and flow along. However, it pales into comparison compared to ‘OneState’ on the flip side. While it too is based on just a few elements, it sees Miles take a turn down a dark alley. Gone are the layered FX, replaced by menacing bass licks and eerie, creepy atmospherics.

If you want to hear dubby techno given a sound kicking, then check out Add Noise’s third Handwerk release. Right from the opening bars on the A-side, layers of droning, noise build over a throbbing bass and heavy claps. The only respite from Mr Noise’s assault is the odd drop, but this offers little solace. The flipside track may be less oppressive or dense, but the gurgling bass flows like rivulets of blood from a scalpel. It’s the perfect soundtrack to capture a long dark summer of discontent…

 

Black beauty

There's an interesting addendum to the monthly dubstep piece over at Pitchfork, which describes the unlikelihood that the music’s producers and DJs will shift in format to digital - and which sets out the reasons why this will not happen. I realise that this subject has been done to death, but I just don't go along with the simplistic 'it's what comes out of the speakers that matters' argument. Of course, that’s what really matters, but the format is important too. We’re all too aware of the convenience and economic arguments in favour of the digital format, but having a physical accompaniment is not just desirable, it’s essential. It provides a lasting document of an artist’s travails, it looks great and it sounds superior (cue frantic, incensed posting by WAV and AIFF-loving readers). So what if it doesn’t make a gazillion dollars for the labels – it’s art, it’s niche music, it’s not meant to be profitable. If you are running an electronic music label to make money, don’t, just become an accountant. It’s also interesting to note that the relationship with this format seems to often (but not exclusively) have a direct correlation with the style of music. Electro house and mnml labels are beholden to the digital format – especially given that the latter sound’s poster boy has based his career re-launch around laptops - something that’s audible in the dreck that clogs up the majority of Beatport’s charts. Meanwhile, drum’n’bass, dubstep, techno and house – in their less trendy, less popular yet infinitely more exciting forms – as well as ‘real’ electro (eg, the music that was called electro before that word was stolen) still place  an emphasis on vinyl. What this suggests to me is that a lot more care, time, effort, passion and money are put in by the people who run labels catering for these styles and that (generally) the opposite is true in the mnml/electro house – anyone with a few part-time producer friends and a burning desire to be flavour of the month can do so.

I’m not trying to insinuate that there is a generational divide at play here - some of the most vocal vinyl supporters are in their 20s - or that the same distrust that lingers among hardware-based producers for software is felt by vinyl labels for those who don’t include the format. Let’s face it though, it would be much easier to run a net/digital label and put out a ‘record’ every week. Maybe it would be even more democratic from a cultural standpoint to do so, to unleash every recording ever made by every producer and to let the public decide. To a lesser degree, this is what is happening right now – there are countless labels springing up with the word ‘digital’ after their name, but when their wares have long since been consigned to the desktop trash box and their owners have finally joined the echelons of the salaryman classes, their physical counterparts will continue to crackle and pop their way towards immortality.

 

Death of the dance album part 2

At the start of last year, I wrote that 2007 could be the year that the dance album becomes obselete. As I type this, looking at a shelf full of great releases from last year, I concede how wrong I was. 2007 was not the year that the dance album died. 2008 is. By contrast, the adjacent shelf, set aside for this year's albums, is a lonely place, with just a few releases. Even the most optimistic person cannot deny that the first eight months of this year has been woefully short on good albums. Of course, this doesn't mean that there is no good music out there: pretty much every week of 08 has been marked by the release of a number of excellent EPs, while the internet is awash with great DJ mixes. I don't buy the argument that any given 12-month period represents a nadir for music production. However, what I can accept is that the album format has not yielded an impressive catalogue of music this year. However, it's not to late for a glut of greatness and I remain optimistic that the big bags of unopened mail in my office will yield new treasures and hitherto unexplored possibilities. Do you feel the same -  or do you think 2008 has been notable for great albums? If so, which ones do you recommend?

Back on track

You may have noticed that it has been quiet round these parts over the past few weeks. Unfortunately there was a sudden, very unexpected death in my family last month and I'm only back from being away now ( we were meant to go on holidays, but the death happened just a week before we planned to go). It's good to be writing this because it takes my mind off the sadness and sense of loss that we all feel. Like music, writing is a great escape from the real world -  so expect to see loads more posts here over the coming weeks.