boxedjoy

Well-known member
I can't actually think of any r&b DJ/set where I've been impressed by the mixing itself, which is odd as it's often music explicitly for dancing and club play, albeit in a way different to traditional house/techno/disco
 

thirdform

pass the sick bucket
Like from a technical point of view, a lot of US deep house from 92-93 is way way better produced than hardcore-jungle. So the skeptics are write. But they fail to see that these other priorities like underproduction and sample collage can also be valued critically and thoughtfully by non-art school types.
 

thirdform

pass the sick bucket
I can't actually think of any r&b DJ/set where I've been impressed by the mixing itself, which is odd as it's often music explicitly for dancing and club play, albeit in a way different to traditional house/techno/disco

well im not going there for the mixing, i just don't want to pay 10 quid to get in, 30 quid on drinks only to hear a facsimile of 1 xtra at top volume. i think that itself is more repetitive than dance music. i suppose if you are there for girls i can see the appeal of that utilitarian style but clubs have never really been that thing for me, maybe cos of my visual impairment, so usually it's been something i do with the football lads and lasses - in comparison to raving which is deep down dirty initiates stuff..

If I want to hear songs without proper mixing (and i very much rate that for many genres) I'd rather go somewhere like 100 club or somewhere in Peckham to hear afrofunk or jazz or whatever. at least then you're guaranteed that you might hear something new. Or the channel 1 nights, of course.
 

thirdform

pass the sick bucket
there's actually not much to bond over in a club-bar setting if you don't have eyesight. whereas football in the pubs is a different type of comversation. it's good though as the london electronic scene is dominated by Spurs and Liverpool fans. The Scousers i've always had a mutual respect for and they've always been very reasonable with me as a gooner, even when they have been the better team. It's a competitive rivalry. I appreciate it, it's necessary. the cunts from N17 though are just delusional arrogant dickheads, (even when they are the nicest people in the world who i would trust my life with, just don't want to know about their opinion on the game.) Now they are blowing smoke up the arse of mourinho even though he's dead and Levy is an absolute Miser. Though granted he was so incompetent last season I'm almost waiting for him to sign Messi, pay his legal fees and stick him together with old josé. Now that would be a trainwreck for the ages.

But yeah i tend not to talk about that stuff in the raves, it's more geek talk about machines which make funny noises or certain records.
 
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boxedjoy

Well-known member
It's that difference again isn't it. Clubbing vs raving. Similar but not interchangeable pastimes, really.
 

thirdform

pass the sick bucket
It's that difference again isn't it. Clubbing vs raving. Similar but not interchangeable pastimes, really.

a good rave can be psychedelic without drugs, though getting caned can intensify the experience. clubs can only become psychedelic through getting absolutely out of it.
 

boxedjoy

Well-known member
7) Slow, 2016


In 2015 I'm asked to go work in a different town ten miles outside of Glasgow in a different direction from where I am. I leap at the chance: it's a really nice team and I get a good vibe from it. My instincts are completely right, and even though it's not at all the work I ever thought I would fall into as an adult, it fits with my priorities - steady income, people I can easily get on with, no pressure to take it home with me, and it allows me to get back into having a proper social life. D is staying with me all the time already so we decide to rent a flat nearer the city where we can both get to work easily and it takes the pressure off financially.

The novelty doesn't ever wear off. I've never been able to just jump on a bus and be where I want to be in fifteen minutes. I'm able to go to things I would never have been able to before, all kinds of experimental gigs and performance shows that would previously have been off-limits to a working class guy from outside the city.

Free Pride is a now-annual event that positions itself as a riposte to Pride and its commercial capitalism. Pride has never appealed to us - too basic, too tacky, too in thrall to brands and sponsorship, too white and cis-male and middle-class. In 2016 they hold the first Free Pride and we decide to go out of curiosity. Because it's just the two of us, we get really drunk really quickly. Drinks in the house, cans on the bus, drinks at the bar.

I don't know what we expected Free Pride to be like. Inclusive, safe-space policies, gender-neutral toilets, a ban on drag queens (some claim they're troubling for trans people, I respect the decision) - we knew it would be serious and slightly academic but would it be fun? The DJ is a local guy and he's playing vocal house and soulful r&b remixes. Lots of Rihanna acapellas and jazzy chords. Fun enough but not exceptional, and in our drunk, open mindset we hit the dancefloor hoping it picks up a bit. It doesn't quite take off - most the crowd seem a little too po-faced to have proper fun. Not even the C+C remix of Mariah Carey motivates this crowd into a bit of life.

He's obviously worried about the lacklustre reaction. So it's time for a crowd-pleaser - Kylie's "Slow." It's one of my favourite Kylie hits - it makes me think of a Kompakt record played at the wrong speed, the tempo not quite catching itself, with Kylie herself being commanding and sexy and enchanting.

One of the most under-rated pleasures of dancing is the physicality of it. Your own movement, the movement of people around you, the casual and not-so-casual brushes against each other. Sexual and emotional subtexts burning underneath. Watching people dance, matching them, interpreting sound through yourself. Here I am, in a place that feels particularly safe, very drunk with my excellent boyfriend, and a great pop song becomes even greater, a tool of expression, disco as a language of giddy thrills, skip a beat and move with my body.
 

Corpsey

bandz ahoy
Not being contrary here but I can't even imagine how you'd dance to that song. It's quite liderally too slow.

But you see I cut my teeth on 170bpm drum n bass. If i'm not gesticulating like a rabid ape I don't consider it dancing.
 

Corpsey

bandz ahoy
I do love some kylie songs btw although now it comes to it i don't think i've ever had a dancefloor moment involving kylie (other than dancing to the locomotion as an infant).
 

boxedjoy

Well-known member
There's one I've got mentally drafted for later about tempo but SPOILER I have struggled with jungle whenever I've heard it out, I've yet to have that epiphany. Again this is an age thing and a geography thing - any time I've heard it in the wild (very few and far between) It's either been as an experiment at lights on time or it's been some awful Pendulum song at a student night where I might as well be moshing
 

boxedjoy

Well-known member
There are loads of great Kylie songs and I really want to defy the stereotype and not love her but it's too hard. But this is a thread about dancefloor moments and not just my enthusiastic poptimism
 

Corpsey

bandz ahoy
There's a famous quote from ILM that was posted here about not being able to dance to jungle.

We used it as evidence that they should be prosecuted for harbouring war criminals.
 

boxedjoy

Well-known member
But it IS hard. It's either too fast and exhausting or you go half-time and it feels sluggish. I love a breakbeat at 140bpm but jungle is different, I just have no sense of it. I understand this 100% a reflection of me and not jungle itself
 

Corpsey

bandz ahoy
A dancefloor moment i'll never forget was standing under the balcony at Nottingham Rock City with my good pal dizasta jumping around like a madman to this being played through the Valve soundsystem. I'd done at minimum 3 pills and the entire balcony was vibrating like we were in an earthquake.


It was truly the stuff Paradise Garage dreams were made of.
 

Corpsey

bandz ahoy
I sort of admire/love the snotty aspect of jump up drum n bass. It's like the complete emotional and intellectual opposite of Giles Peterson.
 
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