Reinvention.

[dirty_bass]

An interesting thing that came to me in another discussion.
Techno is getting on a bit now, in terms of it`s age.
I think it has reached a point of saturation now. The technology is easily accessed to make it. Everyone and anyone who thinks they should have a release is raising the readies for a small 300 run of pressings or whatever.
The over popularity of the DJ changed the nature of the music somewhat, and in some cirlces, turning the content from music, to tool.
And thus the ease of loop production has caused an even greater amount of loop based techno getting made, by people who may or may not be considered musicians (DJ`s), [yes, that is a touchy subject I know, burn me].

The point is, it feels like the scene is on the cusp of some kind of change.
What will that change be?
Will it just be musical or a much deeper change, reaching further into the nature of the scene?
Turntable sales are down
Vinyl sales are down (no one wants to be a DJ anymore, cos DJ`s aren`t "cool")
The digital (and piracy) era is changing the nature of distribution of the music, commercialy and publicly.
Computers are getting cheaper and cheaper.

What does the future hold for us.
or What are we doing to secure the future?

My opinion is, rather than deny what is happening, we need to embrace change and push the new. I have a lot of ideas, and it is a point for discussion that comes up more and more amongst our collective (londontechno collective).

I am extremely interested to hear other views, and what other people are doing, or are wanting to do.

And how can we help each other.

[The Overfiend]

Bottom line the quality of the music has to improve and reflect the individuals passion to the music.
Not to say that stuff that is out now is trashy, but you have to do a f*ck load of a lot of thought and have some train of thought behind the music to make it stand off from the rest.
That is my opinion.
Individuality will bring forth change, the next generation will come and show and prove.
You had the Ur crew, Mills, May, and the Detroit crew, then the Swedes and the killer Uk sound.
I guess now we are the cusp of something bigger.
I hear a shitload of promising people coming to take the reigns
Jimfish, Bass, Dsp & Pauze, The Attack Mexicans, Gray, Ogi, The Mafia crew, Fernando, some of them are close associates and their focal view are to contribute man. Not personal gain. I can't wait to hear the music in the next two years man. I don't know about the business aspect much as far as vinyl not being cool, but if live pa's are the way of the future then F*ck it. Show and prove that you can rock a crowd with your own tracks.

[Evil G]

sub-genres need to go away. they made record shopping more convenient, but i think over-classification of music raises a serious barrier to creativity

.

[dirty_bass]

Good point. Maybe declassification and more of a mix of styles.

[Ritzi Lee]

Well i'm one of those people who don't care what others say about how techno MUST sound.

This is a record comming out in january 2005, where i wanted to make a statement about not being limited to one type of sound:

SAMPLES:

Je Suis Ici.
A side: Orlando Voorn remix.
B side: Ritzi Lee original.



I know there are a lot of people on this board who don't agree this is techno. Techno must be hard and terror by defintion? They have all kinds of f*ck*d up sub genre names and so...
But please keep it simple. Let the people work on their own creative way to search for sounds... It's still a journey through the electronic mayhem. :)

[Rog]

its a massive subject this:

i'd like to think the people who do small projects are doing it from their own passion as opposed to gain - the example of a 300 press would justify this - picking up your own distribution and probabley giving the bulk of the press away.

techno has become so split in genres, but anybody who heres a mix by a class dj would note there is a progression in sound.

live pa's and live effects taht can be created with real equitment as opposed to mixer fx's are the bigegst thing i've heard in change.

dirtybass, you know what i mean when talking about the noises that seb mark was making the speakers churn out - that was fresh and something that people will embrace.

i also think with all of this technology etc people will want to play and push their music so an established underground sound will grow that will be the outlet centre for these artists, as the squat partys are/were for dj's.

better work now!

[dirty_bass]

know there are a lot of people on this board who don't agree this is techno. Techno must be hard and terror by defintion? They have all kinds of f*ck*d up sub genre names and so...
But please keep it simple. Let the people work on their own creative way to search for sounds... It's still a journey through the electronic mayhem.

I think this is part of the problem. for me techno is really, almost undefineable, and is a style of music with huge diversity. but yes a lot of people do pin it down to sub sub sub genre`s.
I think the point for me is that a lot of people are just kinda ignoring the state of things, and the need to look at a bigger, long term picture.

i'd like to think the people who do small projects are doing it from their own passion as opposed to gain - the example of a 300 press would justify this - picking up your own distribution and probabley giving the bulk of the press away.

It`s a tough one this, cos really, doing your own pressing is real good thing to do, and I respect that. But also, in a way, I think it devalues the music as well somehow (in terms of anyone with a bit of cash, can press a record).
Maybe there should be more quality control at the distribution end?

[massplanck]

Well i'm one of those people who don't care what others say about how techno MUST sound.

This is a record comming out in january 2005, where i wanted to make a statement about not being limited to one type of sound:

Sorry man I'm gonna have a bit of a go but only because you tried to plug one of your records in this thread and lead me to believe that i was gonna hear something revolutionary. This isnt reinvention this is still just dance music with a kick drum that goes 1234 and a hihat which goes on the offbeat with a few detroity stabs and notes. I understand that you probably expected a reaction but I think that this was just a shameless plug to get one.

No offence. I thought this thread would throw up some more interesting insights but I fear everyone is still stuck on the e merry go round and will just start bigging up the newest hard techno producers with the best eq & compression settings which means that for year another year it looks like people are going to be thinking that they are going somewhere without actually realsing that they are sinking in shit. How come every year we drag up this subject about 'no boundaries' and 'techno can be anything' people still make their ****ing songs go dum dum dum and tish tish tish and NEVER NEVER NEVER try and break out of the forever and always will be at 4/4 & 140 bpm black hole? huh? Change that.

No Ritzy music doesnt have to be all about terror and evil but at least the people who make music thats full of terror and evil try to throw away the rulebook and sound like
this

[dirty_bass]

Sorry man I'm gonna have a bit of a go but only because you tried to plug one of your records in this thread and lead me to believe that i was gonna hear something revolutionary. This isnt reinvention this is still just dance music with a kick drum that goes 1234 and a hihat which goes on the offbeat with a few detroity stabs and notes. I understand that you probably expected a reaction but I think that this was just a shameless plug to get one.

No offence. I thought this thread would throw up some more interesting insights but I fear everyone is still stuck on the e merry go round and will just start bigging up the newest hard techno producers with the best eq & compression settings which means that for year another year it looks like people are going to be thinking that they are going somewhere without actually realsing that they are sinking in shit. How come every year we drag up this subject about 'no boundaries' and 'techno can be anything' people still make their **** songs go dum dum dum and tish tish tish and NEVER NEVER NEVER try and break out of the forever and always will be at 4/4 & 140 bpm black hole? huh? Change that.

No Ritzy music doesnt have to be all about terror and evil but at least the people who make music thats full of terror and evil try to throw away the rulebook and sound like

Ok that`s more like the kind of answers I was hoping for.
Spot on, sometimes I feel like shaking people, to wake them up to what is happening.

[dirty_bass]

No Ritzy music doesnt have to be all about terror and evil but at least the people who make music thats full of terror and evil try to throw away the rulebook and sound like
this

Well, that`s not exactly groundbreaking either.
Throbbing gristle were doing that 20 years ago.
But the point is made.

[massplanck]

Spot on yourself DB. But sometimes i feel thats its wrong people we are trying to shake up.

I'm not against 4/4 mixable techno but the sad fact is that it seems that its all people ever want it to be. I'm just gonna leave hard techno and apply my years of hard techno experience to something which isnt hard techno if you know what i mean.

PS: On the hard techno front I think the Divide is the only person that kicked ass this year (without having a complex about himself). Even though I dont play that type of music but he seems to be one of the few that that can drag people out of the hole & of course Grovskopa & Co.

[massplanck]

No Ritzy music doesnt have to be all about terror and evil but at least the people who make music thats full of terror and evil try to throw away the rulebook and sound like
this

Well, that`s not exactly groundbreaking either.
Throbbing gristle were doing that 20 years ago.
But the point is made.

I know I know everyting has been done before to some extent but few ever try to bring together everything that has been done before under one roof/album or mix which sort of pisses me off. They are either completely this or that never ambient/d'n'b/industrial/death/techno/minimal or whatever all at the same time.

More ****ing albums with broader scope less monthly 4 track releases with remixes by DJ Spanky and the same artwork with different lettering again and again. How about releasing 1 album ever year rather than a churning out the thinking process and ****ups in between?

[dirty_bass]

I don`t consider the majority of techno albums to be proper albums.
there is rarely a concept, morew a collection of tracks.

[massplanck]

I don`t consider the majority of techno albums to be proper albums.
there is rarely a concept, more a collection of tracks.

aye. but lets not even get to carried away with the word 'concept' here . With bands\groups you get 12 tracks on an album every 2 years or so. Then you hear **** all from them. But at least that collection of tracks stands out a bit as an entity and you know that their latest latest songs wont be dumped on you continously every month until you or they die first from boredom.

So will you all please **** off\hide away and join\create a 'techno' or whatever band, bring back the personality, bring back the vocals/words (I'm sure you guys have something important to say other than boom boom boom), bring back the machines, make your own instruments, listen to ****loads of strange music, make an album and THEN hold it up for us all to see.




;)

[xfive]

I don`t consider the majority of techno albums to be proper albums.
there is rarely a concept, more a collection of tracks.

aye. but lets not even get to carried away with the word 'concept' here . With bands\groups you get 12 tracks on an album every 2 years or so. Then you hear **** all from them. But at least that collection of tracks stands out a bit as an entity and you know that their latest latest songs wont be dumped on you continously every month until you or they die first from boredom.

So will you all please **** off\hide away and join\create a 'techno' or whatever band, bring back the personality, bring back the vocals/words (I'm sure you guys have something important to say other than boom boom boom), bring back the machines, make your own instruments, listen to **** of strange music, make an album and THEN hold it up for us all to see.




;)

You're still forgetting that of those 12 tracks.. probably 8-9 of them are filler.. and the other four WILL be "dumped" on you each month as the singles are released... this gets new people to go buy the album each time.

I'd rather have an EP from an artist each month where they have 1-2 bangable tracks. Each EP is it's own concept.

Let's see that adds up to... what 10-12
quality tracks from one artist in a year vs .. what 3-4 ?

I don't see doing big albums in larger intervals as a way to increase quality.. sorry :)

If you are producing quality then releasing often is not going to hurt the scene at all.

[massplanck]

ok 2 bangable tracks from every artist a month it is then.

and none of this shit neither ...

[xfive]

I'm all down for LivePA etc etc man.. the only point I was trying to make is that releasing slower isn't going to help rejuvinate in and of itself... especially if you consider that the tracks on a big album are probably 1-2 years old..... Vinyl EP's already take hella lead time to get pressed anyway.

Again, if the quality is there it doesn't matter how you are churning it out.
I think we are making excuses by trying to blame things on the state of dj'ing vs LivePA vs whatever... when the fact of the matter is.. YOU are the one using the machines.... (unless you are Squarepusher.. then apparently the machines use you lol) and if you can't make fresh shit with em it's not anyone else's fault but your own.

[g]

I don`t consider the majority of techno albums to be proper albums.
there is rarely a concept, morew a collection of tracks.

regarding this, it's almost unfortunate that i have to bring up mr. child because in these circles he's the poster child for Cool And New (which instantly degrades his genius) but i keep hoping i'll hear something that will do for me and my sense of techno what Force + Form did for me 5 years ago.

[massplanck]

I'm all down for LivePA etc etc man.. the only point I was trying to make is that releasing slower isn't going to help rejuvinate in and of itself... especially if you consider that the tracks on a big album are probably 1-2 years old..... Vinyl EP's already take hella lead time to get pressed anyway.

Again, if the quality is there it doesn't matter how you are churning it out.
I think we are making excuses by trying to blame things on the state of dj'ing vs LivePA vs whatever... when the fact of the matter is.. YOU are the one using the machines.... (unless you are Squarepusher.. then apparently the machines use you lol) and if you can't make fresh shit with em it's not anyone else's fault but your own.

Read what I said earlier. They key is not 'working by yourself/or blaming yourself if you cant use a particular machine' its meeting up with 3/4 like-minded people and forming something 'band' like and releasing the best thoughts/ideas of a few minds fused together once every so often. Let all the ego fights happen behing closed doors like they used to as opposed to in public on forums. ;) Let them all fight over whats good and whats not amongst themselves and then lets hear it.

How many techno groups can you name with more than 3 people? And more importantly how would the individual members of U2/Throbbing Gristle/The Beach Boys/The Bee Gees/ABBA or whoever sounded like if they had all gone off into their own little rooms and created one little individual band each containing no-one else but themselves and released stuff every month until hell froze over?

Lots and lots of thin music. Which is what we are stuck with.

;)

[Joseph Isaac]

To MassPlanck and Dirty Bass:

I agree with you in most of your collective arguments.

I hate to bring macroeconomics into something like this, but I have to say that the global economy and in particular, the United States' economy, is putting a serious strain on the development, creation, and most importantly the distribution of new quality music (in general...not just techno) in, from my experience, the USA and probably Europe and South America. To me its a rather simple concept: Less people employed = less expendable income = less music purchases. Now, the idea here is not to say that we are supposed to be selling thousands of releases and makes tons of money because we all know that's not going to happen. What am I saying is that yes, there are still people that have expendable income for non-necessities such as new music, but those people typically are not in the cities (side note: I avoid making a hasty generalization here by using the word 'typically'). And typically if you don't live in the cities or at least around them, experimental [non-mainstream] music is not promoted or readily avaiable (internet is an exception, but is not nearly as effective as live acts or record stores). Moreover, the folks that are in the cities that may even be interested go out less and spend less on music; furthermore, clubs are closing, legislation is limiting (nationwide!), and music is limited mainly to what already "works" in some clubowners' eyes. Where I live especially, and on the West Coast we still have Nigel Richards playing 4 times a year. NIGEL RICHARDS! No offense, but it gets old after a while. But Nigel Richards is an example of what "works" at these clubs because they are guaranteed to make at least the money back on the bar. In conjunction with this point, promoters are less and less (including myself) involved in the club/party process because the risk is not worth or even equalling the reward. Many counter this with corporate sponsorships for some events, but those are few and far between because it can reflect bad on the company if say someone dies from an overdoes at the event...again, from the company's standpoint the risk is not worth the reward.

***I'm not attempting to turn this thread into a "What's wrong with the US scene" thread".***

So how do we fix this? I say we go back to [my] punk/hardcore roots and do it hescher-style (hescher is West Coast slang for "rough") with piling in a van and driving (yes, driving) from gig to gig passing out CDs, promos, or whatever wherever you stop. Even if you don't have a tour full of gigs, you have to start somewhere. Think of an underground rock band that tours and you'll get a better idea of what I mean. Plus, bring along your laptop (yes, i favor the laptop over a sh!tload of hardware) or two crates of records, some clothes and a lot of ramen noodles.

I want to also clarify that I DO believe there is quality music out there now. Not like techno needs some rebirth into the music world because it is already happening...People will need to soon adapt. Vinyl will always be there, but the dj won't...