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I'm hearing alot of very minimal techno out there at the mo. Really loving alot of it, although don't know if I'd like to spend a whole night at a club listening to it. Richie Hawtin's latest CD, Slam's latest mix comp on Resist. It's all an increasing trend for techno artists and dj's to move to this style.
I really like the tougher aspect to minimal techno - not so much into the Rob Hood on Ketamine style, but each to their own.
Is anyone else really digging this sound at the mo??
For home listening maybe but a whole night of it in a club would & has bored the arse off me on a good few occasions.
yes and no.
to me minimal can be hard... but when I mean minimal i mean a complete absense of this "wall of sound" uber compressed shit that hurts my ears (dont kill me).. old heckman stuff is a minimal to me as it gets. A few bit of hardware floating over each other with the notes & spaces in all the right places. No need to hide the mistakes or rush things with a compressor.
Did you know that if you program all your sounds/level right.. you dont actually need to have a compressor.. :shock: Not to say i dont use one but you may get my drift..
Anyway dont hit me... Some of the minimal stuff is ****ing yawn yawn yawn but DBX\Bell is the king for me... and some Vanquer stuff is lovely.
Love the "master of mininalism" himself Rob Hood :twisted:
i rekon some nights shud start out minimal and go through the motions.
i know my sets and cds are going from a minimal point thru to more heavier/tribally stuff - depends how i feel
Depends, really. On whether or not you want it to sound 'compressed'. Your opinion about programming isn't strictly correct, though.Quote:
Originally Posted by massplanck
Feeling the old DBX myself, in my opinion none of this modern stuff stands up to old dan bell/pulsinger/hood stuff (even the output from these guys themselves!).
Whether or not something is fast or slow, hard or soft, you can always tell something cool when the hook grabs you straight off. All this old minimal stuff used to do that for me, I'd be zapped in straight away - the 'new wave' of minimal gear.... well.... doesn't.
One of the best nights out I've ever had was seeing Dan Bell about 8 years or so back, it was ****ing perfect. Hypnotic and punishing. I doubt anyone would have the gall to drop anything so relentlessly minimal and robotic these days. His sets seem to have gone all jazzy now (though the quality of the music is high and I love it, it's not the same style).
A lot of this minimal stuff these days seems a bit too much about chin stroking and being clever as far as I can see. Random squirty little metal noises fiddling around with each other. I mean 'MICRO HOUSE', 'GLITCH HOUSE' etc etc.... It's just minimal techno that thinks it's more intelligent than it is.
Also, minimal doesn't just mean 'slow and quiet'. Minimal tracks can be banging too ! As far as I'm concerned myself and many of my contemporaries play and produce 'minimal techno'. It fits all the criteria, anyway, it just don't sound like 'I'm losing control' anymore.
I think these categories may have arisen cause kids nowadays don't know the old gear and to them it's NOT what they are used to calling 'techno'.
Anyhoo, that's my 5 pence worth. :lol:
not sure i've heard any minimal tracks from the past few years that can throw down with his m-plant classics.Quote:
Originally Posted by pumpinglemma
I know it isnt but you know what i mean.. uber compression of drumloops\songs hurt my brains sometimes.. no space to breath for sounds... I just like notes floating around by themselves.Quote:
Originally Posted by Just Music
Indeed. That's what I'm talking about.Quote:
Originally Posted by SlavikSvensk
i'm with you when you say that you couldnt handle a full night of it.
a full night of minimal just doesnt have the drive, but its a prefect introduction to any bangin session. build it up!!
nowadays when im buying records, id usually pick up 5 tuff records, and 1 or 2 minmal.... with the intention to try and fit them all in together.
@massplank: dont hit me, but i agree with ye on the mulitmillion layers of compressed loops and hi's. the ear gets too used to the over-indulgence of sound, and dont hit me when i say this........ when its just a few simple layers, each track and sound is more distinguished easier, giving its unique quality.
word justmusic...maybe i'm being overly cynical, but i'm just not sure there is any new exciting minimal trend right now. most sounds like a weaker version of what was being made in the mid 1990s.
@st john.. dont hit me I agree. Space is good.Quote:
Originally Posted by stjohn
I was reading Mixmag last night and they were saying how Minimal is massive in Ibiza at the moment... they said the best nights this summer were Circo Loco @ DC10 and Cocoon @ Amnesia.... both being well mininal with giuests like Hawtin, Vath, Vilallabos etc.
Theres also a goo Minimal CD on the cover.... Mixed by Loco Dice, very good stuff indeed.
I can see that set really appreciating the vibe of the stuff Richie et al are playing at the moment.
After all, the 'music' they listen to most of the time.... :oops:
Must be refreshing for them to hear something a little less trite, ie not an 'anthem' for each and every mix ?
I like a bit of minimal, but not for a whole night out. I can't see me dancing all night long to the same blip-blop loop. For me it's more of pre or after-party style of music.
I love it, cant be arsed to explain why I just do. But with everything, imo there should be moderation & variety.
Hawtins set on fri at sankeys, was minimal but built up to harder stuff, best set ive ever heard tbh, yet people i was with wasnt impressed.
i don't mind some of the "modern" minimal like hawtin and villalobos and those cats play, but i can't handle an entire night of it, frankly.
and my main gripe is that most people i am hearing play the stuff, are boring ****ing djs. it's like, ok you can beatmatch. brilliant, now would you make the mix go somewhere please?
i can't be bothered with listening to the same ****ing bleep bloop for 8 hours...aaaaghhh...like chinese water torture...
minimal :love:
the less in it the better to me ;) i love all sorts of minimal techno, minimal house. infact if its minimal chances are i love it :lol:
why complicate tunes with all sorts of shit cluttering it up, one nice catchy hook is all you need any more just gets in the way ;)
[quote="djshiva"]
and my main gripe is that most people i am hearing play the stuff, are boring **** djs. it's like, ok you can beatmatch. brilliant, now would you make the mix go somewhere please?
[quote]
with ye on that!! i only like playing minmal stuff if i have a djm600 or summin. it can make it all the more interesting
check the Jerome Hill micro mix posted in dark/exp forum. he well able to mix it up!
Minimal (it would seem to me) is somewhat the new electro – in a good way though. Producers who have been at it for a while are getting more exposure and it's creeping into a lot of other's material, with some going so far as to start up new labels – Beyer's Mad Eye and Carola's Domino for starters. Thankfully it hasn't been as obvious or annoying as the electro revival, but I'm left to wonder how long this new interest will last.
There seems to be two camps: those producing/dj'ing absolutely stripped down, bleepy-bloopy weirdness ála Akufen, Hawtin; and those who have taken their formerly densely mixed sound, stripped it down a bit and upped the quirk factor, such as Beyer and Carola. It's minimal-ish.
A whole evening of Basic Channel and John Tejada might be best enjoyed at home surrounded by crushed velvet pillows, but I think with the amount of new minimal and "minimal-injected" coming out lately you could easily make a good night of it – it's really up to the DJs.
there's a time and a place for everything. I love it all.
That is spot on my man, do you mind if i use this for my sig? lolQuote:
Originally Posted by Just Music
I saw BC live last year and the last thing I wanted was crushed velvet pillows. I was stood in the dj booth screaming and shouting my arse off, totally unlike me :oops: :lol: . They were only on an hour but I could have done with another 6
Anywho, Hood & Dan Bell are the ones for me. All this new euro-style mnml which is being released is getting plain daft. It's not mnml, it's tech-house imo
My biggest gripe about the new "minimal" fad isn't really about the music but the people. The majority of the people getting on the bandwagon are super elite and have no clue or history about techno or electronic music in general. Right here on BOA you'll find a lot of hard techno heads who appreciate minimal just as much as any other form of techno or house. If you go out to the trendy wine-techno hangouts or places like mnml.nl, those new DJ/producer types will frown upon anything that isn't the newest poker flat or akufen cut.
hahaha, spot on :clap:Quote:
Originally Posted by Dustin Zahn
uber-chique.
I like minimal. When its sone right its very crafty.
That said, a lot of the tripe comin out at the mo' is just bleep-blop using one machine and is boring as bat-shite. I havent heard many good tracks that are currently floating around in this fad.
mnml.nl is a bit like that.....
i posted in the 'LIVESETS' asking for a few mixes, recommended or otherwise....... and the mod just deleted the thread straight away.
:dontevengothere: PAT RAFTER!
i dig the occasional minimal set here and there, also spin a bit of it myself sometimes, im not too picky
cool... can't say I've heard anything live by them, so the only thing I can go by is the studio recordings. I do play some of the maurizio stuff out though.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Stella Boy
Spot on man. Could not have said it better myself. Yeah not a big fan of the chin-stroking stuff either. A bit too devoid of any attitude..
Quote:
Originally Posted by Just Music
i realise this minimal thing is creating a really trendy scene, but if i'm being totally honest, i like it alot but. i don't love it. and just cause it's trendy doesnt mean i'm going to love it. but i do like it. alot. in the car - i LIKE it -cause it's something different.
but i really would like to see this develop into something harder.
slam's mix got me cause it was harder.
richie's was almost progressive. still really good though ;)
yeah, there's some very interesting stuff coming out here right now. we all need to keep our eyes on it imho
;)
so...its not bangin.........
but you have to admit. if you were at a festival, big tent style..... and DJ XYZ was playing a 4 hour set.
He starts of with some ****y-tekke minimalistic sh*t unitl t - 3 hours. then by the time t -2 hours is about.... everything is all upbeat and driving, funky as f*ck..... by the time the t- 2 and t- 1 arrive, the place is just bangin .
then the whole place goes north...for the summer!
its good stuff most the time, but everyman and his dog is jumping on the minimal applecart and it shows in the productions those who've been there from the start and those who are trying to get a slice of the pie so to speak
bleep block
chizz
schoomp schoomp tack
drip drip drip drip
bleep block
chizz
schoomp schoomp tack
drip drip drip drip
Yeah Tony thats what i was thinking man!!Quote:
Originally Posted by SummerOfSam
:lol:
I think minimal is amazing, but its more reliant on a good system.
Sonar this year with Richie finishing up was incredible. Broody, dark and funky at the same time, but the bass just slammed at you. Played nearly a third of his set with the EQs cut, but when the bass kicked back in my lord it formidable.
I can't fail to be impressed by someone rocking a crowd at 120bpm with so few noises, when others fail at 150 with all the crunch in the world.
Think you've hit the nail on the head there, sir.Quote:
Originally Posted by MARK EG
There's always room for more bump and grind. You can apply this rule to anything in life, really, unless you're making flat frictionless surfaces that is (read into this what you will ;) )
Also, how come a schranz record can do NOTHING for 6 minutes and not be classed as 'minimal' ? If you got a recording of someone screaming down a mic for six minutes I'd call it minimal, even if they were screaming REAL loud.
'Minimal' stuff nowadays seems to have a lot more smarts, production wise, when compared to a lot of the churned out 'hard' techno I'm currently hearing. Seems like the description 'hard' is chucked at anything that's fast and 4/4 with distortion on it. That's not the recipe for hard in my book. There are other ingredients. You can even use different ones entirely. Strange that things should become less innovative when the ability to become more so has been handed to us on a plate, at least technologically...
Maybe this is what you're driving at, Mark ? In that music excels when it is both for (and by?) the brain AND the body. A lot of techno these days is very predictable. In my book, this means it's not techno. No matter how 'hard' it is.
Let's look FORWARD !
Haha your minimalist ****ers! Where is the Boom Boom Boom Boom?
We need more Sven! throw some more East Germans on the fire!!! more steam i tell you!
Its interesting that peeps think it has to be "just like hawtin does it" to be minimal. Then they proceed to chees it up to the point where you just end up with bleep, blop, plop and no guts.
Minimal is a very tricky thing to do properly and I consider it a very evolutionary stage of a producers path, not to be taken lightly or just jumped on like some sort of band-wagon.
It can be fast or slow, hard or soft.
Read a good essay once on the link between techno and abstract art.
Basically said that the less is more approach was evidence of mastery of of more complex forms.
You can only reduce to minimalism and abstraction when you know exactly what you are doing.
Otherwise you actually do sound like a bunch of bleeps and wibbles.
Wow - that makes it sound really, really snotty.Quote:
Originally Posted by Jay Pace
how so?Quote:
Originally Posted by dodgyedgy
my mates wer at cocoon this year when sven vath didnt turn up and said james holden managed to make the whole night more minimal than prog which he normally plays. good on himQuote:
Originally Posted by Jay Sanders
hes another one on the minimal bandwagon,hardly plays prog no more so it seems. to be fair though from listening to some old progressive house cds the other week there isnt really a huge difference between the 2 genres.Quote:
Originally Posted by doc12inch
Yeah ive heard alot of good things about Jame sHolden recently... his productions kick ass!!!
Remix of "The Sky Was Pink" by Nathan Fake is outstanding.Quote:
Originally Posted by Jay Sanders
It just stinks of the Elitism and self congratulatory bollocks and you can only do this if you are the best, nonsense that rears its ugly head sometimes. I just happen to believe that music can be written by anyone with a passion , rather than what the essay (essay...!) says - you have to know what you are doing?Quote:
Originally Posted by Jay Pace
I understand what the essay writer is talking about, minimalism in art is an interesting concept. But when those who comment on the scene, like the essay writer is doing, try to place boundaries on who can and cant do it, depending upon percieved ability.
Im probably going a little overboard, but it gets my goat. Its the whole "Ubercoolische" philosophy that really makes me want to vomit.
Easy badger, that's not quite what I was getting at.Quote:
Originally Posted by dodgyedgy
Any form of art can be analysed, and techno is no different.
What they were talking about was that techno has a rawness, simplicity and beauty that can be paralleled with abstract art.
I'm not into being wanky for the sake of being wanky, but I really like reading what people were trying to do when they make minimal music.
Same as knowing the ideas behind paintings by Mondrian or Kandinsky make them that much more interesting.
Just as you can reduce abstract art to "just a bunch of squares and random blobs" you can reduce minimal techno to just a bunch of bleeps.
You could level the same criticism that "my five year old could do better" at a lot of minimal stuff.
Its not elitism, I just think that especially with minimal there is a lot going on beneath the surface that isn't that obvious. Its not virtuoso performance screaming "look how clever I am" with every over produced second of it, the talent lies behind it. It's much more subtle.
Sorry, I couldn't think of any other way of saying this, and am aware that this probably sounds really poncy. Incidentally the essay was on the inside of a CD cover. Can't remember which one, but it was a brief 4 page inlay on techno's history, and it stuck in my mind because I liked the parallel.
I'll get me coat.
:doh:
I think what you're trying to say is that in order to do minimalism well, you need to know what you can take away without losing the essence of a piece.
Or to emphasise the essence.