qwerty south
no use for a witticism
the missing link between oompah and techno
"Why do bankers love techno?"
- Thread starter blissblogger
- Start date
They may love techno, but...
shakahislop
Well-known member
i went to see fjaak and bergheiner (i think) ben klock do their thing a couple of weeks ago and it was quite boring
pattycakes_
Can turn naughty
Europeans killed techno
I remember Larry Heard playing the Skyy Club! I didn't go though 😭
WashYourHands
Cat Malogen
I did!
Of course, because you went to see the shittest techno.
This Is A Man With No Clue.
This Is A Man With A Clue, But I Saw His Armin Van Buuren A State Of Trance Compilations In His Closet At His Mansion In Lancashire.
sorry. that sounded nastier than initially intended — i was laughing! it will make sense as the joke it is when you read the post to patty below. but yeah berlin techno is by and large boring and has a stranglehold over dance music. Even the Americans have to conform to it to a degree because all the rave conversation now happens around Berlin. it is what it is by now tbh. not much to be done about it. The only country which could match Germany would potentially be England, (I'm not including the rest of the UK because of the lack of the racial/class raver/producer tension which leads to all good dance music) but clubbing is just too expensive for people to make a regular weekly habit out of it so the closure for property tycoons was and is sadly inevitable. Again it's sad but when these places aren't turning a profit. Even somewhere like Fabric, which is hell to be in, with its semi-superclub vibe wasn't making enough of a profit to be of value to the councils.
shakahislop
Well-known member
i mean you're not wrong. i don't know much about techno other than listening to it and getting a lot out of it when i'm out. that night part of the problem was the music which was as you say boring. it felt like everyone was standing around trying to get into the tunes and there was a level of frustration i think because there wasn't anything there to get into. except lights and the massive pounding bass. all the energy in the room with nothing to latch on to. night never achieved liftoff.
It's of course a fine balance, this minimal art of almost nothing. when its done right its exhilirating, but most of the stuff coming out today is undisciplined. It might be minimalistic, but only in terms of having a big bass and a huge kickdrum. it's not minimal in the true sense of the word, to leave empty space as funk and work with that.
It is in general too funky for the dissensus worldview, which is based more on hooks and high octane instantaneous impact — a repressed poptimism, as it were.
pattycakes_
Can turn naughty
It's almost impressive how they managed to take techno, a music that once revolved around invigorating the dancer, and took everything out of it that did that, and replaced it with something so dissociative, dematerialized, and vacuous that it now does the exact opposite.
An energy vacuum.
That's what happens when you let shit get run and gentrified by middle-class whites. There I said it.
Sever the roots of where you came from at your peril.
An energy vacuum.
That's what happens when you let shit get run and gentrified by middle-class whites. There I said it.
Sever the roots of where you came from at your peril.
i mean you're not wrong. but I'd say that todays techno has more to do with progressive house and trance than anything chicago, detroit, nyc or London.
to add to my point above, i was quickly scanning through this, and it sounds exactly like one of those global underground hmv prog house comps from the early 00s.
This aussie label seems to be big in hipster techno circles. Not good really.
pattycakes_
Can turn naughty
that's what i'm saying about severing roots. you end up adrift until you totally fade away. berghain is a ghost ship.
mostly a snoozer.
i'm not saying middle class whites shouldn't participate at all. there's loads of examples of good middle class musicians, the issue is when the wrong ones take over and try to shape the scene in their own image, which brings us back to the adrift thing. gentrification. let's never forget that this music was always for the streets, the warehouses and basements. even though the Bellville 3 were all pretty middle class, their music was being played in underground environs and that's a huge part of what made it so invigorating. fucking state of what it's all become with tabitha and olly doing their little bumps draped in comme des garcons bdsm club gear and limited edition givenchy crocs. fuck outta here
pattycakes_
Can turn naughty
surgeon has enough good shit in the bank to allow him some forays down the boring live modular route. plus he's getting on now.
yeah don't disagree with any of that. I just feel like its too much effort to keep up with the latest techno now for diminishing returns. In fact I think I realised this about 5 years ago that always keeping up with new music like people on certain forums do means you don't get to cherish what you already have.
Which doesn't mean I don't listen to, discover or purchase new music, I'm just less obsessed with the new thing because I'm in my 30s now. no point of that sort of approach after 25 really. Before that it's good to be a kind of hipster (as in the original meaning of being hip to pop culture)because your taste is still very much developing. Of course my taste still develops nowadays but my values are now fairly entrenched so I'm unlikely to have drastic unpredictable swerves. I don't think, for instance, I'll ever get into singer songwriter music, or 00s landfill indie unless something totally extraordinary happens and I have some kind of earth shattering world resetting experience.
Which doesn't mean I don't listen to, discover or purchase new music, I'm just less obsessed with the new thing because I'm in my 30s now. no point of that sort of approach after 25 really. Before that it's good to be a kind of hipster (as in the original meaning of being hip to pop culture)because your taste is still very much developing. Of course my taste still develops nowadays but my values are now fairly entrenched so I'm unlikely to have drastic unpredictable swerves. I don't think, for instance, I'll ever get into singer songwriter music, or 00s landfill indie unless something totally extraordinary happens and I have some kind of earth shattering world resetting experience.