Listen to this you knobheads

[luka]

Basically that whole image-block of ghosts mists wraiths clouds smoke

 

[luka]

This is the de facto Barty-Beat thread now. He's lucky, he's invented his own one-man scene everyone said it was awful so he gets to claim ownership of the whole field

 

[wild greens]

i was sort of thinking about that. its funny how a lot of the music barty champions is, in certain ways, aesthetically antithetical to the styles most liked by dissensus. grime, ardcore, post punk, etc. are shambolic, raw, lo fi, choppy, rude. whereas so much of this stuff is ultra clean, precise, smooth, atmospheric, subtle. weirdness is seamlessly woven and blended into the “affect field” rather than guilelessly thrown in your face. (luxury weapon was the phrase for it other_life used.)

ironically a lot of the zoomer internet music that no one here particularly loves, the stuff blissblogger’s son wrote about, is more in line with the former aesthetic value set. so if you think of barty’s stuff as the next in a lineage of dissensus-approved music, does it suggests a kind of switch in aesthetic values has happened between demographics?

It's a lot easier to make glossy music now- the technology is so much more advanced than historical favourites

most grime was fruity loops led ultimately and the "raw" sound associated with that DAW was something used to it's detriment. your gliding 808 that dominates all this ghost ice cream music is ultimately a fruity loop tool now

if you're using modern production software "raw" or unpolished sounds are really something you have to strive to make now. obviously some people fetishize that ideal which is cool but it's a lot easier to make clean precise music than anything else

 

[luka]

As soon as 'rawness' becomes something you have to consciously add it becomes completely inadmissible as an aesthetic decision.

 

[luka]

even if it's in the service of some tedious postmodern point you're making about authenticity

 

[luka]

Eg the stupid crackle k-punk talks about in reference to 'hauntology'

 

[wild greens]

Of course. But there's loads of it about. A good mate of mine is into all that Lee Gamble gear and occasionally you have these little cool melodies or whatever but the self conscious distortion is a clear attempt to invoke raw sensibilities

I know there is the narrative that this stuff echoes current societal sensibility etc- oh life is chaos- but really all you're doing is finding a tape filter plug in or something, it's a false economy

But then all these ice festival tunes are folding into the same slightly effectuated template as well aren't they. Minor chords in reverbed pad, gliding 808, autotuned, slightly upset faux-Jamaican vocals

Modernity in music as a glass construct is pretty dull I think. It's like thinking of Westfield the gherkin architecture as a musical equivalency

 

[luka]

Where would you locate modernity then?

 

[luka]

That's not a rhetorical question, you have to answer it. Dissensus is a kind of futures sweepstake. You have to place your bets.

 

[wild greens]

I can't pretend to be at the cutting edge of anything but does anything your mate Barry is posting here really seem new or fresh? Not really. It's another glass facade on the thames (yes I know they are carribean)

I could draw for a million tunes like this on GRM daily. They're cool but it's not groundbreaking

 

[luka]

That's the general line here but I found being very heavily intoxicated and listening to it in a state of euphoria I came to a different conclusion. Because I don't think it is just a glass tower. Because I don't think it has the sterility that implies. I think it's haunted.

 

[luka]

Do you know slack? You feel familiar to me like I already know you, you don't seem like a new boy.

 

[wild greens]

yes i've met you a few times lol

 

[luka]

That doesn't surprise me, you don't feel like a stranger

 

[luka]

With the glass towers... They're just a physical manifestation of capital. They don't register pain or regret or anxiety or anything that falls outside that Darwinian ideology. There's nothing beneath the facade.

 

[wild greens]

personally i think london is edging towards a slower more organic and all that log drum afro stuff is part of it but isn't it yet.

the drill crystalline won't survive the post-vaccine false security that the summer will bring. the post-lockdown release will be too substantial for the claustrophobia to survive it.

but i have no evidence to back it up really.

 

[luka]

Got to go with your gut

 

[mvuent]

It's a lot easier to make glossy music now- the technology is so much more advanced than historical favourites

most grime was fruity loops led ultimately and the "raw" sound associated with that DAW was something used to it's detriment. your gliding 808 that dominates all this ghost ice cream music is ultimately a fruity loop tool now

if you're using modern production software "raw" or unpolished sounds are really something you have to strive to make now. obviously some people fetishize that ideal which is cool but it's a lot easier to make clean precise music than anything else

eh, lately i've kind of changed my mind about that. even now you don't need some fancy $800 tape emulator to get a rawer sound, you can with the basic capabilities of a DAW. the zoomer/internet sound i mentioned can be achieved through very simple, intuitive means, not really less so than the stuff barty likes. if anything i think it's more welcoming to amateurs, you'll get kids in that scene who are like 12 lol. imo, going in either direction rn is mostly a matter of assembling and messing with the right plugins and tricks. so i guess that was my original point: that maybe the pristineness and subtlety should be heard as an aesthetic direction, rather than a natural result of changing technological conditions.

 

[luka]

What Barry has done is say, it's not totally originally but he's followed through more consistently, is to say, autotune + voice is a new instrument in the way drum machine synth sampler etc were new instruments and modernity is to a large extent just the field of play opened up by a new instrument

 

[mvuent]

maybe the pristineness and subtlety should be heard as an aesthetic direction, rather than a natural result of changing technological conditions.

well it could be both obviously, but what i meant is that maybe the aesthetic direction wasn't inevitable from how the tech changed.

What Barry has done is say, it's not totally originally but he's followed through more consistently, is to say, autotune + voice is a new instrument in the way drum machine synth sampler etc were new instruments and modernity is to a large extent just the field of play opened up by a new instrument

totally, and thats why i thought making the distinction might be sort of interesting rather than totally inane. another field of play with new technology, but this time, perhaps, with a different aesthetic compass. which might partially explain why barty seemed to feel that the, you know, old heads around here underrated this music.