rolling back to the future garage/post-dubstep/alt-funkstep/intelli-2step etc thread

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alex

Do not read this.
i'm sure it's not through lack of trying? :mad: I've tried contacting numerous producers in the juke/footwork scene, it always ends up having to speak to a chain of 4 other people just to get an answer on something.
 
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daddek

Well-known member
i think slothrop nailed it, to me this is one of the strongest song/rolling fem/masc dark/light meeting point that ive experienced, since going to jungle nights in 95ish.

The point about interesting elements & narrative over attention to actual execution is, to my mind, the defining malaise of music post web2. There is an superabundance of interesting ideas, and a dearth of real executional ability. The parameters that separate the two have almost become discarded, ideas and gestures are all thats required to set the hype machine into an overdrive spasm.
the stuff we're talking about suffers a little less from it, there are real producers and a few real artists involved, its more apparent in chillwave & witch house, where its all approximated sketches of ideas, very little commitment to craft. chillwave is so marked by this, its raison d'etre is to conjure memories of when pop music was good & beautiful, by sounding like good pop music at a glance & through a diffuse cloudy haze, without needing to be it.
 
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Blackdown

nexKeysound
Slothrop said:
If the scene has a structural weakness, it's probably that it's going rather self-consciously for that middle ground rather than hitting that mix instinctively / organically, so sometimes bits feel rather bolted on - like the female vocal sample doesn't really work but it's got to be there to stop the tune feeling 'too blokey'.
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this is one of those things people say on message boards that as a producer leaves me totally baffled. how does a given element in a track feel "bolted on" rather than "organic", "self concious" rather than "instinctive". i mean, in musical terms, what does that actually mean?

*** imagines himself in front of a sampler going "right, today i'm going to use this vocal sample in an organic and non-self concious way"**

Slothrop said:
It's also why the scene suffers so much from hype - because there are a lot of people ready to get massively overexcited about someone who has an interesting mix of elements and basically fits in with the overall narrative that they want for the music, without paying too much attention to the actual tunes.
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who isnt paying attention to the actual tunes?
 
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daddek

Well-known member
Blackdown said:
this is one of those things people say on message boards that as a producer leaves me totally baffled. how does a given element in a track feel "bolted on" rather than "organic", "self concious" rather than "instinctive". i mean, in musical terms, what does that actually mean?

*** imagines himself in front of a sampler going "right, today i'm going to use this vocal sample in an organic and non-self concious way"**
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it goes right to heart of the making music, the intention-set that one has when deciding to create. Why include that music part, what is the purpose of it. was the decision to include it an open hearted one based on honestly engaging with what the tune itself is asking, or was it a cerebral one based on a a hitherto decided checklist for what makes good music. the more of the latter, less the first, the more increasingly disconnected from the reactive felt sense of engaging with the music as it forms. its a less authentically in the moment state of creativity, it leads to unorganic, unaffecting music. Humans are fantastically good at reading the patterns behind music, it's can be very apparent when a track has been coldly created from a checklist. or any art for that matter. you really dont think?
 
Slothrop

Slothrop

Tight but Polite
Blackdown said:
this is one of those things people say on message boards that as a producer leaves me totally baffled. how does a given element in a track feel "bolted on" rather than "organic", "self concious" rather than "instinctive". i mean, in musical terms, what does that actually mean?
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Stuff that doesn't quite work with the vibe of the track. Stuff that doesn't really add anything to the track. Wellying a load of extra percussion over a track that fundamentally wants to be chilled and spacey, holding back when you really want to tear out, dropping in a female vocal snippet that doesn't really add anything to the track, that sort of thing. Or more subtle stuff like using garage rhythms when you don't really feel them for dancing.

I dunno, I'm partly extrapolating from my own experience of being bad at producing, but a lot of the time if I sit down with a self conscious idea of what is the Right thing to do and what is the Wrong thing to do, I end up coming up with something a bit unsatisfying because my heart isn't really in it, whereas if I just go with the ideas that come to me and develop them in the way that seems most natural then I come up with something that's more musically satisfying, even if it isn't the sort of music that I think is The Future.

You probably don't recognise it because you don't do it. I suspect that the other people who are doing this sound really well wouldn't recognise it either. That's part of the reason that they're making great tunes.
 
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Blackdown

nexKeysound
I often find it just as productive to fight/question my natural production urges as go with them, to avoid getting stuck in a rut. Contraints are useful.
 
e/y

e/y

Well-known member
on a somewhat unrelated note, that Blake / Drake mashup thing is pretty shit. anyone else listen to it?
 
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SecondLine

Well-known member
Slothrop said:
Stuff that doesn't quite work with the vibe of the track. Stuff that doesn't really add anything to the track. Wellying a load of extra percussion over a track that fundamentally wants to be chilled and spacey, holding back when you really want to tear out, dropping in a female vocal snippet that doesn't really add anything to the track, that sort of thing. Or more subtle stuff like using garage rhythms when you don't really feel them for dancing.
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Sounds to me like you might possibly be bringing too much of your own tastes to the table - what constitutes unnecessary extra percussion, or non-essential vocal samples - and using them to ascribe motives to the producers that may or may not be correct. But then again, bad stuff in this scene (as with all bad music) does sound basically unnecessary so I can see where you're coming from.

What I took from what you were saying Slothrop was maybe more looking at the crowds/bloggers/hype machine than the producers themselves. I'ma push the boat out and use Sicko Cell as an example of this...I like the tune but I think the way people responded to it was really odd and jarring compared to the reality of the tune itself.

Obviously there's partly the effect of withholding information, the whole mystery thing. But aside from that, if you listen to it, there's no big drop [that's to its credit, making a decent tune without a whopping drop is a skill unto itself]. The 'drop effect' is carefully rationed through the tune; you could argue it's where the bass comes in, but those two 808 stabs don't really add much rhythmic momentum beyond what's already there, or deliver any melodic material like the bass does in a lot of dubstep. It's weighty, but not in a SHEEEEIT kind of way...and on the second drop the bass comes in well before the groove, again rationing the impact. Similarly the melodic line and vocal sample have their own part to play, but are always dropped in 16/32 bars before or after the bass so as not to place too much emphasis on any one structural point. The tune just kind of mooches along, adding and subtracting elements really cleverly.

But what's the general consensus on it...'BIG TUNE'. When it's played at a dance people jump up and down and shout for it at the point when they recognise it but are never quite sure what exact point to lose their shit...they sort of like the fact that it's there but can never quite martial the unified WTF which you usually get with scene anthems.

To me that suggests that all the things around the tune - the anticipation & mystery behind its release but also the 'cutting-edge' scene signifiers that it makes use of, and the ridiculous amount of internet chatter surrounding it - are actually predominantly what people are responding to, rather than its musical content. that then feeds back into the way producers/fans/writers respond to other subsequent tracks.

again, disclaimer, I'm saying this as a fan of the tune and a devotee and close follower of this scene in general.

Sorry for the uber post, but was going for specific musical analysis in response to what Blackdown was saying...
 
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gumdrops

Well-known member
just to play devils advocate, you could prob argue that all those things that make sicko cell seem deficient in many ways are also what ppl like about it so much. the fact that it doesnt appear to do much, or seems a bit inept in some ways. maybe they like it on an appreciative level, they respect what it doesnt do even if they dont 'like' what it does do.
 
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SecondLine

Well-known member
yeah I mean there's definitely a lot to like about the tune...but I think the way people have responded to it, by and large, isn't in a manner which suggests they're appreciating its restrained nature or structural subtleties.

Obviously this is a very subjective view tho
 
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