Actress / Nail the cross

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mistersloane

heavy heavy monster sound
Corpsey said:
I do like some of his tracks a lot but I was listening to ''Spalzsh'' at work today in an attempt to reconnect with him as a producer and I do find it a bit middling. Perhaps its the hype vs. the music that ruins it a bit for me. I felt/feel the same way about Burial. And Zomby, for that matter.
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Burial I never liked (shoot me) but I can appreciate what he's doing.

Zomby yeah I'd definitely put in the same category - the "how much weed did it cost to make you think that was worthwhile releasing?" category.

Fucking lazy arseholes, sniff my socks.
 
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mistersloane

heavy heavy monster sound
And to be fair, I'm being lazy too.

What fucks me off about Actress is the negation. It's like, I shouldn't do this now, I shouldn't do that now, so I'll leave it for an extra 12 beats and then cut. It's cerebrality as artistry. No heart.

It's not even deconstruction, it's just negation and there's nothing, nothing at the heart, no heart, there's nothing there of it.

And not in the punk way. ~ It's not reductionism, it's just boring.

It bores me, it annoys me, to listen to it.

There. Meander all you want for your artistic life, but don't include me in.
 
Corpsey

Corpsey

bandz ahoy
That's an interesting take on his music, I'm looking forward to his numerous fans arguing against it.

I sort of know what you mean about negation, personally I've always felt a little like this with regard to Burial - I guess I think of his quote about disguising his drums in crackle because they weren't good enough (in his opinion). The thing is his methods led him to creating something completely unique, whatever your opinion of it. Actress I don't find as distinctive necessarily. Sometimes I do hear an Actress tune and it just sounds like a fairly interesting loop, for about three minutes.

I suppose Burial Zomby and Actress are quite similar producers in that they openly display their working methods in their music - which is tied to the crackles and rough textures they use. They release tracks that sound somehow incomplete, truncated and unpolished. I remember the hilarious thing luka said re: blawan's Brandy remix about how the drums were (in his opinion) rubbish but the "classic indie judo move" was to posit loose, rhyhtmically feeble drums as a STRENGTH.

Having said all this I think all three of those producers have produced BRILLIANT tunes and I'm not against their experimentation at all. I do sometimes feel like they get overpraised for being cerebral, though, and I do think that Mistersloane hits on something I feel about actress's music by accusing them of having no heart, of being brain music above all.
 
Local Authority

Local Authority

bitch city
actresses music has a sense of being disconnected, but wanting of interaction. it literally sounds like its been made by a robot. that it sounds like its trying to reach out gives it emotion to me.

zomby on the other hand is just fucking lazy
 
C

CrowleyHead

Well-known member
Local Authority said:
actresses music has a sense of being disconnected, but wanting of interaction. it literally sounds like its been made by a robot. that it sounds like its trying to reach out gives it emotion to me.

zomby on the other hand is just fucking lazy
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I'd actually argue Actress is a bit lazy. Zomby's just obsessed with keeping it tracky maybe. You know, you start changing it up too much, you lose something and gain something.

How many versions of the Rumors "Flute Bassline" track are there, like, 4 or 5 right? He could've easily took all the variations and thrust them together into one tune, and it would've been 'shifting' or w/e. Actress tunes tend to seem like something was thrown there a little later on as it came to him, like it's being built as you speak/hear/whatever the fuck. Kind of nice, but never quiiiiiite satisfying.
 
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rubberdingyrapids

Well-known member
skimmed through the new album today. when he gets a groove going (and this album is much more like that than RIP) i think his music is best (theres one song on ghettoville with a great fat 90s house bassline, which was nice), when its falling apart and not really going anywhere, im on the fence between enjoying the tentativeness (i think this is diff to indie-dance with weak drums as actress doesnt even do much in the way of rhythm most of the time) and thinking its just a bit feeble.

did find it weird that the first track on the album is quite industrial/trip hoppy but like most of his music, im always a bit underwhelmed by certain filters and fx he uses to treat his sounds as they sound like digitally weak. im sure some people think that adds to the fragility (or whatever) of his music, but it just sounds a bit poor to me.

anyway, yes he is overrated (im still annoyed about the awful dancers he got at that gig he did for st johns church), but he is also very original. does anyone else sound like him?
 
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mistersloane

heavy heavy monster sound
and yeah, everyone with Ableton, Logic or Frooty Loops sound like him when they've had a loop on their DAW with a bit of tape distortion and listened to it for an hour and then gone to bed and then woken up and thought "D'you know what? I'd be embarrassed to charge money for this".
 
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rubberdingyrapids

Well-known member
the wire review was very misleading btw.

actress' taste in films is surprising (though not that a lot of it is from the 80s - i think i would like him to do whole albums of 'thriller' tracks and slowed down R&B loops). i expected weirder stuff in there.
 
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blacktulip

blacktulip

Pregnant with mandrakes
mistersloane said:
and yeah, everyone with Ableton, Logic or Frooty Loops sound like him when they've had a loop on their DAW with a bit of tape distortion and listened to it for an hour and then gone to bed and then woken up and thought "D'you know what? I'd be embarrassed to charge money for this".
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THANK YOU.

FUCKING *FINALLY*.
 
Slothrop

Slothrop

Tight but Polite
Woohoo, Dissensus backlash time.

So I quite like Actress, but the thing that I find a bit weird is that his music seems to fit pretty squarely in with the early 2000s techy / housey IDM thing - y'know, Splazsh wouldn't have been massively surprising if it had come out on Ghostly International or Plug Research or ~scape or something about ten years ago - but seems to get love from people who'd rather stick screwdrivers in their ears than be associated with that scene.

See also the "would you have been that surprised to hear Flying Lotus' stuff had come out on Ninja Tune in 2000?" issue...
 
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griftert

Well-known member
It's just the same old shit...style over substance...hype over reality. If folk listened with their ears the music scene would be much different.
Glad Dissensus has clocked it 8)
 
blacktulip

blacktulip

Pregnant with mandrakes
Sorry to be all negative but even the words Ninja Tune are the mark of something way dodgy. Only thing I ever liked that had anything to with them was Tried By 12.
 
blacktulip

blacktulip

Pregnant with mandrakes
Love and respect your (and everyone else's) fandom of Actress (and everything else). Not having a dig so please don't take it that way. Just a bit baffled by the worship is the more reasonable way of putting it, I guess...
 
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rubberdingyrapids

Well-known member
blacktulip said:
Sorry to be all negative but even the words Ninja Tune are the mark of something way dodgy. Only thing I ever liked that had anything to with them was Tried By 12.
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i wonder if the trip hoppier moments on the album are BECAUSE he signed to ninja tune or that it was already like that which is why they signed it. .
 
C

crackerjack

Well-known member
griftert said:
It's just the same old shit...style over substance...hype over reality. If folk listened with their ears the music scene would be much different.
Glad Dissensus has clocked it 8)
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Can someone wheel out the 'electronic music for people who don't like electronic music' line please? Then I can shout house on my snob bingo card.
 
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