The Function of Identity in Techno?

Zascar

http://www.beatportal.com/feed/item/the-function-of-identity-in-techno/

Hmmmm, interesting. Comments?

JoeSchmoe

I didn't read the full article but the idea of dance music being faceless is nothing new at all, not in the slightest, in fact one of the headlines "faceless techno bollocks" is a phrase that's been knocking around for 20 years, and I prefer it to be,

dance music has very few personalities, producers are not rock stars, DJs can become the face and personality of the music but the producers rarely do. they can talk about the music and production techniques and technology but beyond that they usually not a lot to say, and they know it.

JoeSchmoe

like all the hullaballo about Burial when he got nominated for the Mercury prize. Who is he, is he the Aphex twin - one of the few producers of interest for his personality as well as his music - , is he this producer? that DJ? this star? nah, just some bloke in his bedroom, ordinary people making music, let the music speak not the people

VinylJunkie

The problem is people want to be recognized for what they produce, they want the stardom and money that it brings. Few are privileged with the skills required to produce excellent music and at the same time reject the money that going mainstream offers!

We have all seen multiple artists sellout to the mainstream and on one hand I cant blame them for wanting money but then again music should be more than that. Every time an artist goes mainstream the quality of their output diminishes as a whole.

Do I think this is the future?
Id like to hope so

Will it ever Happen?
No

Executive Steve

JoeSchmoe wrote: »

like all the hullaballo about Burial when he got nominated for the Mercury prize. Who is he, is he the Aphex twin - one of the few producers of interest for his personality as well as his music - , is he this producer? that DJ? this star? nah, just some bloke in his bedroom, ordinary people making music, let the music speak not the people

Burial gives amazing interviews though, when he's talking to the right interviewer... Did you read the one on blackdown's blog?

SteveDon

Very interesting article, thanks for posting!

I struggle with the issues raised in the article, i am always very weary of over promoting myself, i just have a myspace with just the bear essential info.

I think that you have to tread a fine line between spamming and keeping your dignity, the amount of times ive got some messages on myspace, like hey listen to my track etc etc is uncountable.

I mean if you want me to listen to your track why not introduce yourself first dont just add me as a friend then instantly send me as most spam as you can muster.

The worst thing is when you can tell that they have used some auto message bot to send out numerous messages. I mean when i am sending out demos or promos i always send them out one by one just to add a bit of a personal touch to things.

JoeSchmoe

[cm]tyranny wrote: »

Burial gives amazing interviews though, when he's talking to the right interviewer... Did you read the one on blackdown's blog?

link for that?


but in fairness Steve, you write about dance music, I write about dance music, it's pretty hard to come up with something to say about producers and djs that hasn't been said 1000s of times before, their stories are almost identical, save changing the names, of influences, radio stations, clubs etc

seannash

SteveDon wrote: »

Very interesting article, thanks for posting!

I struggle with the issues raised in the article, i am always very weary of over promoting myself, i just have a myspace with just the bear essential info.

I think that you have to tread a fine line between spamming and keeping your dignity, the amount of times ive got some messages on myspace, like hey listen to my track etc etc is uncountable.

I mean if you want me to listen to your track why not introduce yourself first dont just add me as a friend then instantly send me as most spam as you can muster.

The worst thing is when you can tell that they have used some auto message bot to send out numerous messages. I mean when i am sending out demos or promos i always send them out one by one just to add a bit of a personal touch to things.

agree,i hate getting sent a track from someone i dont know without so much as a hi.bugs the **** right out of me.its happening on soundcloud too

i even cringe sometimes when i post my own links to my releases but i guess its necessary to let people know

Executive Steve

Blackdown soundboy end of year review: Burial
2005 according to Burial

"2005 - the only thing I remember properly was at 9am on the 7th of July. I was walking across London crossing from south into central London. I usually get Northern Line but had to go a different way 'cos the underground was ****ed. I had headphones on; I was listening to tunes, just lost in it but I could tell vibes around me were offkey and weird. You could feel it. So I took the headphones off and overheard people saying all this stuff. People were ringing me but getting cut off."

"I spent the next hours like everyone watching TV, hearing rumours, telling family I was OK, then getting upset and angry. Then I walked out... you could feel in the air, the streets were empty. I began to walk three hours south back home. People were like refugees walking back, police everywhere telling us to get back at Vauxhall."

"It was weird because I've only ever seen bits of south London and the west end and you don't ever get a feel of London around you. You only usually get this when you're in a car going through it at night or something. I tried to listen to headphones on way back but couldn't."

"That day was like this big trek across my city and you could feel it like it had been hurt, you know: these were like other Londoners. It was horrible, people from work were on bombed trains, people they knew were killed. It was just ****ed. I was listening to a compilation I'd made a few days before. Just a bunch of random tunes. I'd made this CD for me to listen to on my way back into London from my girlfriend's house. It was meant to be this kind of deep nighttime London tunes."

"The compilation had some amazing tunes on it, but I didn't listen to anything for weeks after. The tunes I was listening to were various stuff. Some Digital Mystikz, Skream and Rinse mixes, but also some sort of big club tunes, like vocal things, It had this Seba and Paradox tune on it 'Move On'. I was listening to that when I first felt it."

"I've always had a love-hate thing with London but now I thought 'I love this place.' I was also like '**** these people who did this.' It was the underground, on the bus... I can't think about it. The music just got sad to me, I was also listening to 'Hold Tight London' by the Chemical Brothers - that tune runs deep for a commercial tune. All the dubstep and jungle **** became like comfort music: the sorrow just came out of it. I felt the music deeper from that point on."

"Space and my surroundings in London have got into my music a lot. I spent my whole train journey to school busting around listen to jungle. Those Photek tunes, they were like nighttime train music to me! I tried to do some artwork for a Burial album recently. I did a figure in a landscape, just standing there in London. It's part of it."

"The space in my tunes is like ... the vocal bits and sound echoing across the surface of it, across the drums... distant buildings, empty streets, a nighttime world ... and that's how London pirates sound to me. Eerie far off ... the tunes I love on the best pirates sound like that.

"A burial album would sound deep and hypnotic at the start. Just like someone picking themselves up, fixing up, getting by. The middle of the album would be proper underground more rolled out and then the end would be club tunes, like 'he made it out of there,' like a celebration of UK d&b dubstep jungle rave garage party tunes."

"But the whole thing would be sad. I can't help it. London feels sad to me, but there's uplift in there, even if it rinses you out. It's something about where I live maybe. I only know south but I know how it feels in my area, always has since I was a kid I never moved far."

"I make tunes in a room looking out of this window and I've got this mad light almost like a gaslight outside. I live next to a prison so that’s half of the view from my room, the other half is prison land. I think where gallows used to be but I dunno, doubt it. The rest is a ****ing massive dual carriage way all the way from Streatham down towards the Thames. You can see for miles all the way to the river, past the river and when it’s foggy like it was today, it’s a mad view.”

Tunes Burial loved in 2005

1. Digital Mystikz "Misty Winter"
2. Loefah - everything by Loefah
3. Omni Trio "Torn"
4. Foul Play "Being With You Remix"
5. Digital Spirit "Cool Out"
6. Plastikman "Contain"
7. Speedy J "Tesla"
8. Robert Hood "Stark Reality"
9. Skanna "All you wanted"
10. Husker Du "Chartered Trips"
11. Teebee "Let Go"
12. Chemical Brothers "Hold Tight London"
13. Paradox & Seba - "Move On"

New Burial tunes and what he was thinking about when he made
them.

1. Brutal Deluxe
"I was thinking of food, McDonalds and Speedball on the Amiga."

2. "YearOne LP"
"I was thinking about ... loads of things."

3. "Prayer"
"I was thinking about my brothers."

4. "DistantLights"
"I was thinking of the kind of **** I want to hear that isn't studioboy weak ****ing clumpy drum fake tunes. I was wanting to sound like old jungle and 2step ...."

5 - "Sarcophagus"
"It's first tune on the long lost never to be released Burial album. I was in a bleak mood, bad minded, so..."

6 "U Hurt Me"
"I wanted to do a tune for my brothers to hear, something different. A 'me against the world' vibe tune, but it kind of turned out an uplifting tune, not heavy and moody because that was boring me. Like a ****ing party tune, but with a sad vocal. I sort of dream they'd somehow play it at DMZ."

^^^ that's Burial's end of 2005 review, before he'd even released much music...


There's an interview with him here:::


http://blackdownsoundboy.blogspot.com/2006/03/soundboy-burial.html

Executive Steve

JoeSchmoe wrote: »

link for that?


but in fairness Steve, you write about dance music, I write about dance music, it's pretty hard to come up with something to say about producers and djs that hasn't been said 1000s of times before, their stories are almost identical, save changing the names, of influences, radio stations, clubs etc

Yeah, but the stuff i like tends to move and mutate and change so rapidly that i just view the individuals concerned as small cogs in a giant machine and just focus on the macro trends.


Article in the OP is just hype though... "ok, we fervently believe in not advertising and being anonymous techno warriors, so we're letting ourselves be interviewed by dance music's equivalent of mcdonald's (i presume beatportal is affiliated with beatport?)

Executive Steve

And there are interesting characters in dance music, they're few and far between but they do exist; at the same time however much of a character they are they're ultimately in the pubic eye because of the music so if you're going to write about them then you'd better be focusing on the music and not doing bull**** moves like asking them what their favourite colour is, or whatever

Sexy

People forget about Spiral.

brianc27

its better to be heard then seen when it comes to producing good techno

Executive Steve

brianc27 wrote: »

its better to be heard then seen when it comes to producing good techno

Agreed!

jonny68

Hardly a new thing folks this has been going on for years,there was many Hardcore & Tekno tunes that were released on white label in the early 1990's and to this day no one is any the wiser who was behind them although some people came forward and claimed they made some of the tunes, some classic tunage as well, whoever this is fair play for keeping it underground i say:cool:

jonny68

brianc27 wrote: »

its better to be heard then seen when it comes to producing good techno

i dont see why someone cannot produce quality music and remain anonymous if they so choose.

brianc27

i do see some irony in using sandwell district for an article about identity (or lack of) in techno, over the last year so so sandwell district has become the new uber coolisch label in techno, due to many of the points highlighted in the article, although in fairness to function he does elude to the labels rising popularity and on whether that is a good thing or not, the article also points to sandwells marketing policy, i wouldnt neccessarily call them anti-marketing, sure the new limited edition sandwell compilation comes in a snazy pouch with postcards and buttons, hardly anti-marteting, fair enough its limited to 100 copies, but buttons and postcards are hardly what youd expect from an underground techno label with a staunch anti marketing policy

http://wherenext.tumblr.com/ (scroll down the page)

jonny68

Sexy wrote: »

People forget about Spiral.

are you referring to the legendary Spiral Tribe?

brianc27

jonny68 wrote: »

i dont see why someone cannot produce quality music and remain anonymous if they so choose.

thats exactly what im saying

"its better to be HEARD THEN SEEN when it comes to producing good techno"

jonny68

brianc27 wrote: »

thats exactly what im saying

"its better to be HEARD THEN SEEN when it comes to producing good techno"

sorry mate i obviously read your post wrong ;)

jonny68

An example of a Hardcore tune from 1991 that is revered as an Underground Classic yet no one knows who is behind it, no name no nothing,one of many tunes made that were pressed up on white label and no other information with Hardcores obsession about keeping it underground (i admit im very much like that myself and always have been), ive got loads of white labels and the only way i can identify them is to label them like white label EP 1,2,3, and so on.

I've uploaded it here
http://www.zshare.net/audio/63444506a7ef710f/

Executive Steve

jonny68 wrote: »

An example of a Hardcore tune from 1991 that is revered as an Underground Classic yet no one knows who is behind it, no name no nothing,one of many tunes made that were pressed up on white label and no other information with Hardcores obsession about keeping it underground (i admit im very much like that myself and always have been), ive got loads of white labels and the only way i can identify them is to label them like white label EP 1,2,3, and so on.

I've uploaded it here
http://www.zshare.net/audio/63444506a7ef710f/

Is there no catalogue number in the run out groove jonny?