Ravey New York dance music - late 80s-early 90s

Benny Bunter

Benny Bunter

Well-known member
CrowleyHead said:
3)


Really this should be a section for the "Todd Terry Riff", which for all I know is actually stolen from some Chicago guy I will never respect unless it's Larry Heard/Ron Hardy. Growing up in NYC I heard this all the time but never knew who was responsible for it, or where it came about. It was a sort of ambient sonic meme, not unlike the James Brown samples I described before, or various sound effect triggers. My brain is patterned by punctuation that I've recognized and memorized over the years in order to place them again and again when they re-manifest. Genuine licks or melodic 'hooks' are like sentences and are obviously iconic, the quotation from your favorite poem. Chuck D's voice is an exclamation point. When you see it done, enough times, you understand it's usage and its utility. Semiotics of sound.

What is that riff? Energy. You don't know what the source sound is besides some sort of synthesizer buzz, but that sound communicates the grid, the sensation of witnessing the plasma orb react to your own electricity that briefly makes you feel the power of immediacy. "It Me, I'm The One." It's not the sound that electricity crackling in the air makes, the sound of thunder. Those are the echoes of the mass burning of particles within the air. We had plenty of simulations of the sound of energy prior throughout our lives, trying to nail it and get it right. This isn't the only one even! But it nails it and gets it so right that even before you've heard it finish, your brain is picturing all these images of the Surge Movement that you can convey.

Todd is God, but in a way that's personal to me. Obviously so much of what was important of East Coast house and Techno would emerge out of him. Your Armands, your Frankies, your Beltrams, your Louie & Kennys, your Todds (yes the other Todd). He had a pedigree in freestyle, and he helped out in hip-hop. He made Everything But The Girl pop off in America making a suburban mom down-tempo classic that still goes off. He's still in 2020 on Instagram threatening to pull up and rob DJs for money for stealing from his songs despite being one of the most obvious copyist thieves in dance music. A pure robber baron of the American image, and a legend to boot.
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Benny Bunter

Benny Bunter

Well-known member
Simon silverdollarcircle said:
Masters at Work were at it too. I tend to find their stuff a bit waffly usually but the early ravey stuff is ace
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Definitely, kenny dope in particular had rave tunes, gonna post some more from him later. Later MAW mostly bores me as well. The early tunes with breakbeats are the best, but not the headnoddy ones. This is a good one:

 
Benny Bunter

Benny Bunter

Well-known member
NY invented rave music but seems to have turned its back on it quite early on in favour of house. Why is that? Is it because of hip hop? TT would have killed to have become a big name producer in hip hop and work with the big name rappers but it never really worked out (jungle bros aside). Is that why? Cos practically all the elements of rave were right there since like 1988. Did they just pass the baton on to London? Someone help me understand
 
Leo

Leo

Well-known member
dunno...clubs started to go upscale after awhile, so maybe there was more money in house than rave. and as you say, the boom in hip hop may have syphoned off some producers who wanted to stay more street.
 
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