Scratcha / DVA / Hi emotions / Leon Smart

catalog

Well-known member
I saw him dj at the white hotel not that long ago, 8 hour set, and I mean, I think he loves the music. Very dedicated. I do see what you mean. It was a hobsons choice I suppose is my feeling, what can you do.
 

thirdform

pass the sick bucket
I remember you lot pissing me off in the autechre thread and I said this to troll and rile you lot up, not that I actually dislike funky — far from it! (I don't and still play Apple/Rosca/quicktime tracks) but it's so weird how you can trace the trajectory of dissensus from the hypermodernism of grime and dubstep to protection of cultural capital.

also uk funky was the most conservative uneventful banal dissensus approved music taking what was good about garage (todd edwards meets timbaland) and chucking it in the bin, only for a bad copy of xerox ibiza house. can't believe so many people fell for it just because of crazy cousinz bongo jam, finally the goldsmiths approved multicultural music i can write about with overt nods to a 'basic conception of Africa.' But we not ready to have that discussion yet.

Of course, what needed to happen is this bad facsimile of ibiza house needed to go truly weird because creative misrecognition is the lifeblood of any culture. So actually I was offering a back handed compliment there. Unfortunately or fortunately those weirdo impulses ended up in techier strains, london deep tech, the bassier/jackin wotsits they have in Birmingham and up north, the kind of planky bleep and bass influenced stuff. But I was already knee deep in pre-hardcore continuum dance music by then, detroit, acid house, industrial etc. Everyone has to get off somewhere, if the musicians do then so can the punters.
 
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thirdform

pass the sick bucket
of course the accurate response to that would be that music cannot just perpetually end up innovating upwards, such would only be a fetish of neoliberal technocracy. And that there is a form of radical subversion in house's by this time somewhat traditional formula - the attention to the small details.

But that would have to mean a reckoning with the upwardly mobile impulses in the hardcore continuum from day one.
 

thirdform

pass the sick bucket
it's this kneejerk tendancy to dismiss anything that's a bit clever or arty because its not what you think the youth are into, which is funny as fuck.

Anyway kode is not beyond reproach and I'd be the last person to defend him but if it weren't him it'd be someone else, and probably someone much less passionate.
 

catalog

Well-known member
I should also say, in reference to that conversation between kode and terror, kode says to him that he's a better producer now, technically, but his melodies on his earlier tracks were better. So it's maybe a bit more nuanced than his I said it last night. And terror agrees with a sort of resignation. I mean, that's quite standard really isn't it, that someone will do early work and it's raw and unpolished but just amazing. Then they'll learn the ropes anc what button does what, but somehow they cannot pull a world beating tune out of it.

How often do you hear that someone's early stuff is their best stuff?

It stuck with me cos it was such a frank conversation. And don't forget thst kode resurrected terrors career somewhat for a while.
 

Corpsey

bandz ahoy
I listen to his NTS show, it's becoming a routine or religious ceremony for me.

Not really up on his music tbh (although he plays good bits on his show) – always liked these 2 though


 

thirdform

pass the sick bucket
I should also say, in reference to that conversation between kode and terror, kode says to him that he's a better producer now, technically, but his melodies on his earlier tracks were better. So it's maybe a bit more nuanced than his I said it last night. And terror agrees with a sort of resignation. I mean, that's quite standard really isn't it, that someone will do early work and it's raw and unpolished but just amazing. Then they'll learn the ropes anc what button does what, but somehow they cannot pull a world beating tune out of it.

How often do you hear that someone's early stuff is their best stuff?

It stuck with me cos it was such a frank conversation. And don't forget thst kode resurrected terrors career somewhat for a while.

Actually it's not even that. It's that we want dance music to be angular, modernist and humanistic to an extent. better produced dance music sounds sterile to us, because it doesn't have a narritive outside of the club. House music production after the 2000s became amazingly four dimensional technically and it makes sense for clubs with big funktion 1 systems but what we want are skunked out basements.
 

thirdform

pass the sick bucket
which is why I became so angered in the Autechre thread. Dissensus' whole approach to grime is that of the nerd. It's extremely hypocritical for people like Luke/Corpsey/Benny to deflect away from this by upholding up a false polarity of gentrification and ruining of some eternal noble savage east london instinct. The gentrification took place for sure but that doesn't equate to you or my personal preferences. It's just unlike the Goldsmiths lot most of us don't make music but it's exactly the same lo fi fetish.

im not afraid to acknowledge the fact that dance music or London music or continuum music was the jumping off point for me. It helped open my ears up to weird free jazz, electroacoustics, industrial, the weirder ends of ragga, etc. It would be totally disingenuous of me to pretend I can talk about this music in the same way as a clubber because I hardly go out these days. And towards the end of my clubbing journey i was increasingly spending my time in obscure 200-300 basements, not fabric or coronet.
 

forclosure

Well-known member
which is why I became so angered in the Autechre thread. Dissensus' whole approach to grime is that of the nerd. It's extremely hypocritical for people like Luke/Corpsey/Benny to deflect away from this by upholding up a false polarity of gentrification and ruining of some eternal noble savage east london instinct. The gentrification took place for sure but that doesn't equate to you or my personal preferences. It's just unlike the Goldsmiths lot most of us don't make music but it's exactly the same lo fi fetish.

im not afraid to acknowledge the fact that dance music or London music or continuum music was the jumping off point for me. It helped open my ears up to weird free jazz, electroacoustics, industrial, the weirder ends of ragga, etc. It would be totally disingenuous of me to pretend I can talk about this music in the same way as a clubber because I hardly go out these days. And towards the end of my clubbing journey i was increasingly spending my time in obscure 200-300 basements, not fabric or coronet.
fam dem basements must've been LIVE though
 

Sectionfive

bandwagon house
Kode9 was giving out not too long ago that during some b2b they were doing, the photographer had ignored Scratcha all night oblivious to who he is. Quickly enough NTS brought him in for the breakfast show, The Wire cover followed along with a general buzz. He's having a moment but not without due given how long he's been ploughing a path of his own. He still got kicked out of some Peckham spot at the weekend tho!

Obvious talent for on air hosting though it underlines deeper shifts when, himself, Spooky, Charlie Dark and maybe a few others stick out using that old pirate style when radio is bigger than it ever was. We have enough po-faced DJing.
 

thirdform

pass the sick bucket
the place who kicked him out was called trola apparently.

If any name stank of alt white supremacy it would be that.
 

catalog

Well-known member
He was going off at the slackness of all the nts staff the other day, he DNGAF anymore which is why he's so compelling.
 

cossrooper

Active member
I wish there were more archives of his Rinse Grimey breakfast show from the Funky era. I wasn't into this music back then but I've heard a couple and they're all so funny and the guests and music are great. He really is a funny, smart guy and probably one of the best hosts in this music.


and no way I would know what dubstep, grime, or funky was without kode9. maybe that makes me a gentrification shock trooper but I owe him for those Hyperdub 10 compilations, which were widely distributed in the US and they only way this shit was gonna break through the noise for me.
 
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