Test

Another one bites the dust

According to a number of people, it seems that German distributor Neuton will close down next week. The company, which distributes well-known labels like Tresor, Perlon and Rephlex (in Germany), looks likely to join a long list of vinyl distributors that have gone out of business since the start of this decade, including EFA, Prime, Integrale, Intergroove UK and Amato. With just Word & Sound, Kompakt and Intergroove Germany left as major distributors in Germany if Neuton's demise is confirmed, it may lead to more consolidation in the vinyl sector and will inevitably make it more difficult for both established and upcoming labels to release in that format.

Vinyl sale

I wonder will there by many or even any takers for this collection? I doubt it -  the amount of money being asked for, even the minimum amount, is way too high for even the most serious  -  and wealthy -  collectors. 8,000 records is also a hell of a lot to sift through to find the gems that undoubtedly lurk therein. Given that the owner has stated that there are some ultra-rare records, eg early Trax, DJ International etc, he would probably make far more money auctioning them off individually online, where the market for first and rare pressings is still lucrative. Unfortunately for him though, the rest of the collection will probably have to be sold down at his local second-hand record store.

What's next

So much for there being no good music about: I've been inundated with new material over the past few weeks. Here's a very brief rundown of what to expect over the next few weeks and months. Already out but still worth a mention is the excellent new Claro Intelecto record on Modern Love. It's not part of the Warehouse series, but 'Round & Round' especially appealed to me. There's also a third installment of the Hate series due soon, but I haven't had a chance to hear it yet. On the techno front, the third Seldom Felt is sure to be popular with those who liked the lean, mean second installment -  one of my favourite records of the year -  while Peter van Hoesen impresses again with his third Time 2 Express release, more sparse, bass-heavy techno. Sandwell have got a new EP out soon. They haven't told me who it's by, but it sounds more stripped back than some of the back catalogue, so that probably rules out Silent Servant and Function (but then again, you never know). Paul Mac has been releasing great music for years, but he seems to have upped the ante over the past few years. His new 'Raw Basics' release on Stimulus is one for those who like deep, locked on tribal grooves, while his remix of 'Leaves' on his other label,  Sula Muse, outstanding -  what a huge pity it's only available digitally. Lee Holman is somone who impressed this year -  and his latest release, Capacitor on Prosthetic is his best yet, not as busy as some of his previous releases, but still with the same attention to melody and groove. Rush Hour have sent me two great releases -  one I have no idea who it's by, but watch out for a huge jacking, 303 Chicago-style release on the label soon, while the other, simply called 'Cosmopolis' is epic techno wih a great remix from Yuro & Trago. I never thought I'd see Clone do deep house, but the latest Cx release is by Alton Miller with a stunning, tripped out version from Gerd. Clone are also putting out 'Mystery of Nazareth' by Marco Bernardi (in time for Xmas?) and have commissioned a, you guessed it, deep house version from Redshape. Speaking of that often controversial topic, Curle has just put out the ponderous 'America' from Efdemin's mix CD, while house of a more NY variety is catered for by Uzuri with DJ Aakmael's 'Underground'. Finally, props to Chaton for the smoked out jazz inflections of +91 Ahead on Plak. Don't forget to trim those beards guys...

MyTunes

Me in today's Irish Times on the shift from physical to digital music formats and how this varies (if at all) between generations. Enjoy!

Mixes maxed out?

How far the humble mix has come -  or has it? Nowadays more commonly known as a podcast or plain old online mix, the options available to EDM fans are limitless. I'm quite slack, yet even I am subscribed to the Fabric and Clone podcasts, while sites like Beats in Space, Robot DJ and Resident Advisor as well as my blogging compadres Mnml ssgs, ISM and LWE keep me inundated with fresh selections that span electro, disco, house and techno -  sometimes all of the above in one set. With so many great sets available for free online, what then is the point of mix CDs? Have they become obsolete? Well yes and no. The concept of the commercial mix CD came about in the early 90s when the music industry bean counters started to realise the lucrative nature of the illicit 'live' mix cassette business. Recognising a new business opportunity - no, they really wanted the DJ's fans to have access to high quality recordings of his sets, honest - the first mix CDs by Carl Cox, Paul Oakenfold and Sasha and Digweed epitomised the corporate nature of dance culture, with Oakenfold even pictured on the cover of his first 'Journeys By Djs' mix in action in a football stadium, the warm-up act on U2's tour. Little else captured so succinctly the cash-hungry attitude of the superclub explosion as the big-name mix. How different things are now. With sales dwindling and facing stiff competition from the online barrage of free mixes, it is hard to imagine who actually buys a mix CD these days, yet something that Marcel Dettmann pointed out in an interview recently made sense. In a neat reversal of trends, a development that sees the format take on the same status as the mixtape of yore, he said that his Berghain mix was his 'business card'. That's right, mix CDs no longer do the business, they merely exist to provide a profile or an identity to a DJ. Then there's the filter function: taking Dettmann as an example, I'd wager that a fair share of people who listened to his mix -  irrespective of whether they bought it or got it for free -  went on to buy tracks that featured on it. More than ever, people  need filters to sift through the glut of music, and mixes by DJs they respect provide those filters. Sure, they may face competition from free podcasts  -  from my perspective, the Steffi mix for RA and Silent Servant's ssgs podcast are as pivotal and seminal as any commercial release this year -  and it is no longer as financially lucrative or viable at all to put out commercial mixes, but in the absence of many decent artist albums, 2008 has seen a high proportion of excellent DJ releases from Rob Hood, Dave Clarke, Efdemin, Dettmann, Deetron, Steve Bug, Secretsundaze, the Wighnomys and even Hardfloor. Maybe there's still room for the modern version of the mixtape and its commercial counterpart to co-exist.

Reasons to be cheerful part 3

There's an interesting discussion going on over on RA in response to Philip Sherburne's final 'Month in Techno' column of 2008 for Pitchfork. If you're too lazy to read the comments -  which  I nonetheless urge you to look at as they are more considered and less snarky than most net chatter - there seems to be a sense of gloom or mild despair hanging over those who write and document this music about the way the whole scene is going. I understand where this sentiment is coming from as it's  very, very difficult to make and release music these days without some other form of financial support, while as for most of the music that's being released... it's not that it's bad, it's just that it's so average, a far worse crime in my book. However, as the year drags to an end, I feel quite differently to some of the posters. So much great music has come out in the past 12 month and the times I've been out, either to play or to party, I've felt that the energy and passion is still there. As for the lack of inspirational discourse, I would disagree on this point too. There are loads of excellent outlets online, both mags and blogs, where people at the coalface can express their views and engage in (often passionate) discussion about their likes and dislikes. Compare this to the situation even five years ago, when the top-heavy hierarchy of the print mags still ruled, and it's hard to deny that the situation has improved. It may sound glib, but anyone who has doubts about electronic music should just 'get out more'. With economies collapsing everywhere and mass unemployment looming, pretty soon, there may not be much else to do.

Putting the Bootleg In

I'm usually a fairly chilled out person, but today, I'm angry. Why? Because I've been taken for a ride. Played like a fool. Have been told bare-faced lies. I acted in good faith when I was researching that recent piece on bootlegs. I let the shops that were selling them have their say. One of the owners hung up on me -  thanks Piccadilly, that guarantees I'll never buy a single item from you again, what a great piece of advertising for your shop. However, I feel much angrier with Phonica. Its boss, Simon Rigg, was decent enough to take the time to talk to me, to reassure me as a customer (that's where I bought the records) and as a journalist that his store had made a genuine, honest mistake. He gave me some interesting insights, but more importatntly he promised me that Phonica would no longer sell or stock these dodgy products. Naively, I believed him. I assumed that he was a music lover first and a businessman second and that he would act in good faith. That was nearly two months ago. I was keen to see if people liked the piece, so the other day, I checked the comments section on RA. I was really flattered by some of the responses, but then someone posted that Phonica was still selling the records. If you follow the links, you can see clearly that they are still for sale and worse still, the poster claimed that the shop had actually gone and re-stocked the bootlegs. What does this say about Phonica? Given the opportunity to come clean and send the bootlegs back to the distributor who supplied them, they seem perfectly happy to lie to me about their plans, appear to be unfazed that there is an article on one of the biggest electronic music websites that points out that they were selling dodgy stock, and despite the possibility for all the bad, negative publicity that it could generate, they proceed to sell and stock the bootlegs. One of the people who contributed to the piece said that in such a small scene, you can live or die by your reputation. As far as I'm concerned, Phonica's actions (or lack of actions) means that they are dead to me. I will never shop with them again, I advise anyone I know not to shop with them and I urge anyone reading this site not to shop with them. Of course, in the interests of fair and balanced journalism, it is possible that there is a legitimate explanation for all of this, and if there is, I'd love to hear from Simon Rigg, either here or on RA's forum where the claims were made. Maybe I'm being naive, but surely Phonica wouldn't try to fool me for a third time.... would they?

The new black

When I was in Berlin recently, I noticed a doublepack in a black gatefold sleeve in the new releases section in Hardwax. It piqued my curiosity, so I grabbed it for a listen. Continuing this theme, the inlays were also black and there was no information about the artist or the label. I asked one of the guys behind the counter about the release. Apparently, it was the latest in the Pom Pom series -  the 32nd release  so far - an anonymous techno project, which is believed to be the work of one of the guys who works in the Space Hall record store in Berlin. I have since had a listen to some of the other releases online and while they're pretty good, this doublepack is the best (of what I've heard) of the series so far. 'A1' is based on a heavy, surging bass and spooky, spacey synths,  'A2' has an off-beat and is more DJ-friendly, yet the same eerie textures are prevalent. It sounds like the author is influenced by early German electronic music and has spent time checking out industrial music -  something that's audible on the layered 'B1', where the kick is muffled, only half-heard and 'B2', which consists of droning, atmospheric sound scapes. 'B3' sees Pom Pom get his groove back on, a tracky affair that builds gently and gradually, while 'C1' could be his/her Sahko tribute, consisting of subsonic blips and bleeps and rumbling 808s. 'C2' has what is being called a 'Berghain' sound, a combination of primal bass rumblings and layered, dark textures and 'D2' follows this quasi-grungy direction. However, the real suprises occur on 'D1' and 'D3', the former being a playful Bell-Akufen-style minimal house workout, replete with vocal sample, while the latter has a disco groove -  albeit one that's caked in a layer of black grime. It goes to show that if you seek, you can still stumble upon some surprises...

Bootleg Camp

Me on the bad old phenomenon of bootlegging raising its ugly head again for RA, inspired by my own record shopping habits and some informative posts here....

Triumph of the Bland

The meek were meant to inherit the earth, but it seems like the bland have taken over electronic music. As minimal drowns in a sea of self-indulgence, Jonny D is being hailed as the hero of the hour, house music's new school saviour. This, we are told, from the Guardian's music blog to Resident Advisor to every online outlet where a cursory browse through Beatport and a broadband connection combine to form an informed opinion, is his time. The same places also inform us that this is the "year of the DJ tool". The last time I heard that phrase being used so frequently was the late 90s, when loopy techno, an infinitely substandard xerox of Jeff Mills' Purposemaker series, was popular. Everyone was making loopy techno, but only a tiny handful of releases sounded interesting or even vaguely challenging (it would be interesting to see how many of that small minority stood the test of time -  perhaps very few). The rest sounded like what would happen if you stuck your head into a washing machine on spin cycle with a African guy chanting in the background -  in short an uninspiring, painful experience. I don't mean to disparage Jonny D unfairly -  I'm sure he's a decent guy and his interview at RA suggests that he does what he does for the right reasons -  but his popularity is symptomatic of a general acceptance of dull, watered down electronic music, the triumph of the bland. Jonny is, if the media and blogs are to be believed, riding (and in some cases steering) a wave of fresh house music from Germany. Seriously though, has anyone actually listened to this stuff? Most of it is flat sounding, poorly mastered, like early 90s US tribal house with all the richness and rumble of those heavy, heavy drums squeezed out, sanitised for easy consumption. Without getting bogged down in the software vs hardware, digital vs vinyl debate yet again, these tracks, irrespective of whether they were made using a laptop or a bank of Rolands, are just badly produced. Of course, there are some very talented exceptions in this sphere -  Cassy, STL, Kassem Mosse and the resurgent Move D - but the championing of the mediocre means that genuinely talented house producers like Patrice Scott and Aroy Dee don't get the recognition they deserve. My feeling is that people who play, listen to, write about or just consume electronic music have become too lazy and complacent. From my own perspective, I see that the language used online and in print has changed in recent years, descending into unquestioning, over-enthusiastic endorsements or lazy, hackneyed descriptions - have a look at some of the writing on Beatportal for example - even though RA and voices like Sherbune and pieces at FACT and Wire as well as a small group of blogs still question, debate and dissect with style. When the bland tones disappear, as happened recently on mnml sggs, when the frankly godwaful Onur Ozer mix CD was slated, the dissent is attributed to malicious 'haters' and not critics with a passion for music who are being honest enough to call a DJ out over a lame mix. But I digress: the same unquestioning attitude is prevalent among consumers. Maybe technology and digital media have made music easier to find and consume. It's also possible that people have got used to listening to software-made music with no oomph, but these are only theories. The truth is that there is a huge volume of electronic music with soul, depth and feeling still being made. 'Orbitalife' will invariably be voted track of the year wherever you turn, but you owe it to yourself to at least explore the alternatives...