wonk!!!!!!!!!!!

[crime]

I'm reading your post a few times now and still am not sure if that's directed at me? Make yourself clear here.. Am *I* the type of person who creates bandwagons for people to jump on?

The bandwagon bit wasn't directed at you, just the use of these terms "Wonky", "Tribal" whatever..

I mean, firstly, that mp3 link doesn't sound to me like anything I've heard on miditonal, it was actually half decent, showing a bit of restraint and subtlety on the sounds, not just hitting a keyboard, hitting record and saying "wow man, arn't I experimental", which to be quite honest what so much of that kind of stuff sounds like these days, and what made me hate being lumped in with the whole "wonky techno" thing, like around the time when a load of loons on too many drugs from east germany basically tried to replicate brown by august but at 160 bpm with no thought or imagination...

What I don't get though Sunil, is that it seems you are saying that people like Landstrumm and Vogel, and more "serious" people in this supposed "genre" make "Wonky" music and "serious" music, where is their line? What I mean is, which Neil Landstrumm trax are "serious" and which are "Wonky"?

by making a statment like that, you are yourself saying that "Wonky" is a derogatory term..

To be honest, 3 or 4 years ago I didn't so much mind being associated with the term, it was just when loads of people went out and decided that they would go and try and make "Wonky techno" (instead of setting out so make some genre that seems unknown these days called "Music", dunno if any of you have heard of it, it's pretty good actually) that it all went to shit, same as every sub sub sub genre on the techno scene, look at the tribal thing, I'm not the biggest ben sims or adam beyer fan, but I have to admire some of their early productions, but then once the remanipulator remix came out everyone and his dog was trying to cut up samba records, but doing it really really terribly..

personally I think if you listen to something like "Shake a snake" next to Landstrumm's "inhabit the machines" (which was from 9 years earlier I might add), there is no comparison..

which is the originator, and which is the second rate 10 years later copycat but done very badly?

I'll hold my hands up and admit I've done my fair bit of plagurism of Landstrumm, Vogel & Dancemania, but I did it with the utmost respect for the originators, and I am currently striving to push my own sound forward in a way I feel is unique..

Not going "oh lets find a wacky synth sound, and lay it on top of over distorted drums which we MADE funky by putting 75 % swing quantise on" (by the way, swing quantise, does not make your beats funky, being able to program does)

The problem I have with the term WONKY (WANKY anyone?) is it groups together some very talented musicians dragged down by some very poor imitators.. Sorry if I have to rear my ugly head every time someone comes out with the W word, but when my name is mentioned next to it, I think I'm entitled to an opinion...


and @ Tiptoe, sorry if you feel like you opened pandora's box somewhat with this thread, to make up for it this is IMO the direction you should be looking in.. some of it will be very hard to find and possibly expensive, but very very worth it:

http://www.discogs.com/label/Sativae
http://www.discogs.com/label/Mosquito
http://www.discogs.com/label/Scandinavia+Records
http://www.discogs.com/artist/Subhead

http://www.discogs.com/artist/Cristian+Vogel
http://www.discogs.com/artist/Neil+Landstrumm
http://www.discogs.com/artist/Tobias+Schmidt



some newer stuff:

http://www.discogs.com/release/607177
http://www.discogs.com/label/Feinwerk
http://www.discogs.com/label/Input+-+Output+Inc.
http://www.discogs.com/artist/Jason+Leach

also, if you want a regular lowdown on a lot of the new stuff that's coming out check here:
http://www.fun-in-the-murky.com/mt/

sorry for moanin :(

[Sunil]

What I don't get though Sunil, is that it seems you are saying that people like Landstrumm and Vogel, and more "serious" people in this supposed "genre" make "Wonky" music and "serious" music, where is their line? What I mean is, which Neil Landstrumm trax are "serious" and which are "Wonky"?

by making a statment like that, you are yourself saying that "Wonky" is a derogatory term..

No, I said that their tracks have more stain power. To be brutally honest I never saw Landstrumm as 'wonky', I saw him as an experimental techno producer and someone whose music always interested me. If at a push I had to label something "wonky" I'd probably put Birken, Subhead or Forshaw into that bracket quicker - but that's just my interpretation of the 'feeling' of wonky in my own head.

I don't like the term "wonky" any more than you do, but like it or not, it does describe a section of music and producers - some of whom I said deserved not to be tarred only with that brush. And excuse me for not saying "Gaping chasm" instead of "fine line"!... but you know what I was getting at.. and I wasn't out to slam Miditonal or whoever.

You made a good point re: loopy techno - At one stage that wasn't such a bad thing to refer to something as, then it became a dirty phrase once the style was abused... the same way "wonky" has perhaps become a little stigmatised in light of the people who you feel have abused the sound a bit. I don't know if it's derogatory term or not, to some people it is a kind of put down or jokey phrase and music not to be taken seriously - for me it's just a term that is used sometimes (mainly by fans), and it helps me know what they're into. I generally don't use the word myself, in a similar way that I dislike IDM, BUT I'm not going to kill myself over it either :)

Maybe you should just give out to Jerome about this; he's the one that started isn't he?! The wonker...

[module]

drought, sativae, scandinavia, no future, mosquito.. these, imo, were the labels that pushed the sound ppl are gettin at here..

i lost interest at one point, cos, imo, a lot of producers jus tried to make stuff that was pruposely wacky & crazy & bendy, and in doing that, made records that were impossible to mix for anymore than 4 bars.. jus spastik patterns with no groove for the sake of it.. got very tedious very quickly.

i still love a crazy bent synth with stiff jerkin drums, but my hard is in hard dense 'loop' techno.. which, still, is considered a bad word..

woe betide the man who plays loop techno ;O)

but yeah.. i like to think of the word 'wonky' as a descriptive word.. not a catch all phrase for a whole 'scene' or 'sound' and i think sunil feels the same.