The tyranny of 130

[pattycakes_]

@third, I said you can attest because in previous discussions, I think in dematerialisation or maybe ambient jungle you were talking about this same shit reminding you of things you experienced in your youth.

 

[thirdform]

it's just circle of life innit, some junglist beats remind me of turkish music.

I'm discovering stuff that is *new* to me always, all the time. that's more important to me.

but after a while those new things can become recombination of older ideas, or recontextualisations. i don't think that's avoidable.

The thing is dance music evolved faster than any other pop music before it. so it's not really right to use the pop style of authenticity and songs to judge it.

this is also why mags like RA always get it wrong. they pay lipservice to dance music being a 12 inch singles/eps culture but actually don't understand how the ramifications are totally different. like droid said senius and auteur at the same time.

 

[UFO over easy]

Ive been banging on about this to my long suffering associates for about a decade but the thing that pushed me over the edge was my annual excursion to a roots dance last weekend. Here is music that sounds amazingly avant garde, is wonderfully diverse both rhythmically and harmonically, varies wildly in tempo and carries lyrical, social, cultural and political weight... and you can dance to it, you can even dance to it at 130bpm!

Now perhaps its not entirely fair to compare what is essentially the pop music of a nation with a genre (or genres) of dance music, and sure, not everyone likes reggae, that's fine, but the question I'd ask is what is the opportunity cost here? If millions of people reduce their sensual, escapist and hedonistic impulses to the mechanistic thud of a kick drum what does this do to their appreciation of the potentiality of music?

Put a flea in a box and it will only jump as high as the box once it's released. We can do better.

so it's not a tempo you object to really, and it's not a genre either - it's a particularly linear subset of one, that even then might only exist as a unified thing in your imagination. you're comparing a lovely experience you had at a party that sounds explicitly tailored towards your taste to dry big room techno raves and a few skimmed through boiler rooms the 'youth of today' have broader taste than ever i think






130!

 

[droid]

lol. I was hoping you'd chime in.

I listen. Thousands of sets from all across the spectrum every year, and the roots dance was just the latest in a long line of examples. I'm not saying there aren't creative people doing great things, because there always will be, and I appreciate the unifying aspect of continuity from a DJ's perspective, the ability to draw upon such a deep heritage in a set.

But let's put it this way. Is there any genre or associated set of genres which has relied on the primary structural feature of a single drum pattern at a (more or less) single tempo for at least 35 years? The only parallel I can think of is rock, and even rock had more variation in rhythm and speed. And if there was would we describe that genre as anything other than deeply conservative?

Nice touch with the Tiger tune btw. My achilles heel.

 

[droid]

I was at a techno party a few months back. Probably the biggest one in Dublin in years. Loads of nice people and good music, but of course, 4 to the floor all night... except there was a live room with a DJ filling in between each act, and he dropped a jungle tune during intermissions (it was the Don Rosco on the decks).

Now clearly Im biased, but it felt like each tune made the ceiling ascend. So much space and air. Birds escaping a cage.

 

[luka]

The thing about Ben is he's so devoted to drugs that fucking anything will sound good. For the
Rest of us who have to be more circumspect of course it will be a bit different

 

[luka]

Now of course I love droid but I have to admit when I met him he forced me to listen to drone all night but he accidentally let slip 30 seconds of hardcore and tbh it made the ceiling ascend. This window onto a better world with more energy and life.

 

[luka]

Droid has said 130 bpm is a necessary precursor to fascism therefore any defence of 130 is a vote for Hitler. Unst unst unst unst.

 

[thirdform]

130 is a bit too slow for most techno tbh it needs to sound like you're caught in a coffee grinder in a washing machine


there's a purity of intent in a lot of techno which is harder to find in other genres. when dnb does it it tends to sound greyscale and remind you of the glory days of jungle. dnb can't have a purity of intent. the bumpier house can, marc acardapaine style gabba can. too much eclectism is the surefire way to creating schisms in dance music, that's just how the mechanisms of cultural and social capital work here. in a less commodified world this wouldn't probably be a problem. like me and luke said who economises first? the ravers or djs. hard to say but both do.


also droid i get sick of techno people dropping marvellous cane hitman or dj ss lighter or a tune on good looking as if they are now suddenly self-proclaimed experts on jungle. i mean, maybe this is because i've listened to hundreds of jungle sets granted, but my mates who play techno and jungle have deep crates of both...

 

[UFO over easy]

But let's put it this way. Is there any genre or associated set of genres which has relied on the primary structural feature of a single drum pattern at a (more or less) single tempo for at least 35 years? The only parallel I can think of is rock, and even rock had more variation in rhythm and speed. And if there was would we describe that genre as anything other than deeply conservative?

I'm still not clear as to what the argument is. If it's just the truism that boring techno is boring, then I agree. There's loads of very conservative big room techno out there, with all the established tropes that we know work in these big spaces. It's a gateway thing for lots of people. Could I make a case against reggae by talking about all that horrible generic modern steppers that comes out every week for white dreads in the south of France? Very little variation in rhythm, speed, sound or approach there.
Do you remember the conversations about dnb in the mid-2000s? We all knew there was some good stuff happening, but it was so drowned out by the majority of the deeply conservative music coming out that the options in London were to either give up, or go to half empty Wednesday night parties which were 90% the DJs and their mates. The difference now seems to be that there's enough demand for different approaches within a broad techno-ish framework that people can support themselves, and there are actually good parties to go to where you can hear all sorts of music, across a wider range of tempos and styles than I ever remember hearing in clubs when I was younger, in a single night. There are huge European festivals where you can hear techno, zouk, house, gqom, kuduro, drum n bass, kwaito, grime, dubstep, industrial etc etc played in the space of a day to big crowds of gurning kids in sunglasses. Unthinkable ten years ago.

 

[droid]

Well thats good to hear, but would you question the basic premise that the vast majority of parties and DJs are playing 4 to the floor at around the same tempo?

Could I make a case against reggae by talking about all that horrible generic modern steppers that comes out every week for white dreads in the south of France?

I... dont think this is a thing, or not a significant thing anyway, but yeah good point, UK steppers is by probably the most musically conservative and dull form of reggae, it would indeed be awful if this was the dominant sound, mainly because its basically 4 to the floor at 140!

 

[UFO over easy]

Well thats good to hear, but would you question the basic premise that the vast majority of parties and DJs are playing 4 to the floor at around the same tempo?

i would actually - 110-145 with 4 to the floor as the anchor would be hard to argue with but stylistically can be vary wildly varied within that. the actual role of the 4x4 kick is playing is similarly varied within that too. there are more people in techno playing broken stuff, and stronger scenes for things like dnb/garage etc than there were ten years ago as well. boring techno is huge but it's not coming close to drowning everything else out.

I... dont think this is a thing, or not a significant thing anyway, but yeah good point, UK steppers is by probably the most musically conservative and dull form of reggae, it would indeed be awful if this was the dominant sound, mainly because its basically 4 to the floor at 140!

haha, fair enough. it's what the juno category for 'Dub' seems to consist of most weeks!

 

[droid]

110? Really? Ive been hearing a fair amount of stuff in the low 120s, but cant recall hearing many 110 sets.

5 years old Beatport stats - but i cant imagine the trends have changed much.

 

[pattycakes_]

nice chart, shame it doesn't go up til 2019

 

[droid]

You requested it so...

 

[luka]

This divide is largely to do with whether or not you like dance music qua dance music. With the exception of hardcore and jungle I never have. Whole nights listening to that rigid pulse. It's not for me. I'd rather go to an r&b club. To me it's more fun. But dance as its own thing is not for me. Club culture, DJ mixes, all that stuff, not interested.

 

[luka]

What I do suffer from is not getting to hear music loud often enough. That's the great thing about clubs of whatever type. Hear it at the volume it's intended to be heard. Oh, there's bass in this song, never realised...

 

[sadmanbarty]

droid's been on a tear it seems.

 

[UFO over easy]

110? Really? Ive been hearing a fair amount of stuff in the low 120s, but cant recall hearing many 110 sets.

two tangents - the balearic thing came around again, harvey is bigger than he's ever been, headlining festivals.. and the slightly more niche chuggy thing people like lena willikens do has also been influential. we're not talking headlining giant techno events, but she probably plays 100+ shows a year, a lot of them quite big, all over the world. until 4 or 5 years ago you're only going to be hearing that stuff in tiny bars, if ever.

 

[pattycakes_]

yeah, the chug has been big for a good few years now. specially with the hipper end off the youth