Can You Feel It vs. The Final Frontier
Benny Bunter
Well-known member
It's the bassline that I love more than the preacher man vocals but when did it come
out? 86 or 87 or something, so I can forgive that cos the bassline is so good
out? 86 or 87 or something, so I can forgive that cos the bassline is so good
Benny Bunter
Well-known member
The bass and those synth chords over the top of course, the template for so much to come
padraig (u.s.)
a monkey that will go ape
if I voted my heart, Final Frontier all the way, it's not even close
a towering pillar of electronic music, right up there with Stockhausen or Voodoo Ray or whatever else you'd care to name
morning after tune for posthuman cyborgs dancing on the ashes of the old world with the eerie mix of melancholy and elation that that implies
still sounds like the future and probably always will
BUT as a Chicago boi 4 life I had to vote Can You Feel It. doing otherwise would just feel wrong.
(that's nothing against Can You Feel it btw tho there's plenty of other tunes, including several of Larry Heard's, I'd pick to rep Chicago over it)
a towering pillar of electronic music, right up there with Stockhausen or Voodoo Ray or whatever else you'd care to name
morning after tune for posthuman cyborgs dancing on the ashes of the old world with the eerie mix of melancholy and elation that that implies
still sounds like the future and probably always will
BUT as a Chicago boi 4 life I had to vote Can You Feel It. doing otherwise would just feel wrong.
(that's nothing against Can You Feel it btw tho there's plenty of other tunes, including several of Larry Heard's, I'd pick to rep Chicago over it)
padraig (u.s.)
a monkey that will go ape
also, don't want to totally rehash an argument I'm sure has been had plenty of times
but I'd push back pretty hard against UR as po-faced
the early stuff especially is, mostly, very functional dance music, whatever else it is
pretty sure that charge is far more true of (a section of) their fanbase - esp in the 90s-00s? than them. in fact feels like a ca. early 2000s argument (tbc I wasn't aware or involved in such arguments at the time, but from what I've read/the vibes I get), when people cared a lot more seriousness and idk, credibility. also UR were the first ppl (I think?) to do the militant faceless techno thing - as an auteur whole, rather than just making anonynmous records I mean - and a million people have done it since (mostly minus the militancy) which has probably considerably diluted the impact of the original and made it seem like more of a po-faced affectation I guess - whereas UR was firmly rooted in a local, historical context in Detroit and more broadly America.
the inward, bedroom aspect of worldbuilding is true, but that's more of a Drexciya thing than UR proper, which does have some level of worldbuilding I guess but nothing approaching the Drexciyan level of detail, where Lardossa etc could practically be a D+D campaign setting (which sounds amazing tbh)
but I'd push back pretty hard against UR as po-faced
the early stuff especially is, mostly, very functional dance music, whatever else it is
pretty sure that charge is far more true of (a section of) their fanbase - esp in the 90s-00s? than them. in fact feels like a ca. early 2000s argument (tbc I wasn't aware or involved in such arguments at the time, but from what I've read/the vibes I get), when people cared a lot more seriousness and idk, credibility. also UR were the first ppl (I think?) to do the militant faceless techno thing - as an auteur whole, rather than just making anonynmous records I mean - and a million people have done it since (mostly minus the militancy) which has probably considerably diluted the impact of the original and made it seem like more of a po-faced affectation I guess - whereas UR was firmly rooted in a local, historical context in Detroit and more broadly America.
the inward, bedroom aspect of worldbuilding is true, but that's more of a Drexciya thing than UR proper, which does have some level of worldbuilding I guess but nothing approaching the Drexciyan level of detail, where Lardossa etc could practically be a D+D campaign setting (which sounds amazing tbh)
linebaugh
Well-known member
Both of these songs make you wish you had 100 others that felt just like them. I actually have a playlist with Can you feel it in it and can you feel it only because I could never find anything else that scratches the same way. same for the final frontier, albeit very different feeling .
The Final Frontier is one of the tunes I was talking about when Luke and I were discussing whether it's possible to bust out of the modern tempo without stepping away from modern technology and I said there's music that can do it for me.
It's like a portal spiraling out from your head or whacking on a VR headset and instantly being transported to deep space or sea.
Some of the Drexciya stuff has that effect too. This one...
It's like a portal spiraling out from your head or whacking on a VR headset and instantly being transported to deep space or sea.
Some of the Drexciya stuff has that effect too. This one...
IdleRich
IdleRich
When I came back from Dusseldorf I went round my friend's place on Friday... three of them there been on it all night. One was a gay guy, Portuguese, starts asking me about El-b - a subject about which I obviously know less than nothing but I thought was interesting.
Benny Bunter
Well-known member
I do like some of the later el-b stuff but his best stuff was definitely when he was in Groove Chronicles. I think he used to hang around in the studio with Goldie and the metalheadz guys when he was learning to produce.