>>>>> "dd" == Dennis Donohue <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
dd> My favorite Surgeon track is definitely "La Real", off of his
dd> label counterbalance (CB02). I love what Tony is doing
dd> recently, the counterbalance stuff is great. I've heard a lot
dd> of coments on this list about how he, (and other people
dd> playing similar music - dubbed "boom-boom-boom") have no
dd> "groove" or "funk" to them. I would have to dissagree. To
dd> me, this is the stuff that gives me that rush of energy. This
dd> is what gives me inspiration to dance.
At one point I'd written Surgeon off as someone whose only talent was
making derivative copies of _Waveform Transmissions, v1_-era Jeff
Mills. I really liked "Badger Bite" and "Magneze" but was disappointed
by how distorted and repetitive _Communications_ and
_basictonalvocabulary_ were. So I set his stuff aside for a while.
Eventually, I heard his remix of Mogwai's "Fear Satan", which was all
shimmering ambient drones and chimes and absolutely unlike anything
else I've heard by him. It's beautiful. It's certainly better than
anything Mogwai have done on their own.
Last year, on a whim, I picked up _Force + Form_ and was absolutely
blown away. Techno's history is littered with concept albums, but for
whatever reason, _Force + Form_ works far better for me than almost
all of them (with the possible exception of Plastikman's _Consumed_).
The album is a totally coherent musical statement and has absolutely
pristine production, and is the best mixture of dance and head music
I've heard in a long time. The music is complex enough to be
involving, but simple enough to be completely propulsive and
danceable. In fact, that album (oddly enough) is what rejuvenated my
interest in techno and got me to rejoin this list after a several year
absence. And I'm totally jonesing to hear some folks in SF play that
sort of complicated, polyrhythmic minimalism on a loud sound system.
dd> I think, if you are going to compile a list of music like this
dd> that is influential, you would have to include Adam Beyer and
dd> Marco Carola (at least), if not Gaetek, Christian Smith and
dd> joel mull.
I agree that they've been influential, but I'd disagree if you were to
argue that that's a good thing. Those folks were large part what
pushed me away from techno. The whole Scandinavian banging sound was
too raw for me; what I like about Surgeon is how pristine his recent
material sounds (and his basslines _do_ have soul, if you pay
attention to them). If it's going to be raw, it needs extra soul --
something Jeff Mills and Mad Mike understand very well, but the folks
on Primate don't (in my opinion, natch).
The folks I have clumped into Surgeon's constellation include James
Ruskin, and Oliver Ho. All started from roughly the same point
(unvarnished love for Mills' and Young's variety of uncompromising
minimalism) and all of them have developed a more intricate, tribal
sound over the past few years. Sometimes it gets difficult to tell
Ruskin and Surgeon apart (on record; I've never seen either of them
DJ), which is sort of a problem for me, but I'm not sure why, because
I really love the music.
Along those lines, on another whim I picked up Karl O'Connor and Peter
Sutton's _Against Nature_ on Tresor recently, and its much the same as
the aforementioned and is also really, really good. So I guess I have
to add Regis and Female (which means we now have the entire Downwards
roster here, doesn't it?) to the list of folks who are doing
interesting things in this vein. It's much less harsh and distorted
than the old Regis and Female stuff, and I'd almost be willing to bet
money that Surgeon lent a hand in the studio during the making of
this. Most of it is pretty banging (the Tresor site wants us to
believe that it's "industrial", but 30 second chunks of found sound do
not an industrial record make), but "Under Skin" is the sort of
wrenchingly pretty instrumental interlude that wouldn't be out of
place on a Derrick May or Jeff Mills record.
I should see if Harald is interested in updating his Tresor
discography. They've been putting out the goods recently.
Does anyone here have any opinions on Tobias Schmidt's _Dark of
Heartness_?
ob313: Only three years late, I finally picked up the Derrick May
_Innovator_ comp today. It's really, really nice to have all those
self-evidently seminal tracks in one place. :) I have no idea why it
took me so long.
Forrest
. . . the self-reflecting image of a narcotized mind . . .
ozymandias G desiderata [EMAIL PROTECTED] desperate, deathless
(415)558-9064 http://www.aoaioxxysz.com/ ::AOAIOXXYSZ::
