Techno Minimalism

[TheRev]

I wouldn't want to hear minimal all night at a club just as much as I wouldn't want to hear any other genre all night at a club.

That said i don't feel minimal is good peak time music. Good for the start of the night, great for the end, but when my blood is pumping and i'm warmed up and ready to throw down I want a bit more than bleep bloop whirrrrr

A good sound system is totally critical. Michael Mayer had me bopping about like a robot with epilepsy last i saw him. Matthew Dear also blew my mind. Both played on one of the best sound systems I've heard recently in New York and i really think that made a HUGE difference.

One thing I've noticed about minimal though it is in line to the increasing age (at least in the states) of techno consumers. It's less abrasive, lacking some of the raw energy. I feel like it may be a further alienation from the youth the music needs to endear in order to survive and flourish in the future. But maybe that's my skewed Stateside view talking.

[Ian]

there are two kinds of music... good and bad.

once we go beyond that we are just wasting time and energy.

most "minimal" techno is tripe, some is brilliant. most "hard" techno is shite, some is great.

to be honest, the good "minimal" is getting better than most of the good "hard techno".

[The Overfiend]

Eidolon..........
Some of the best I've heard from that genre.
But I don't agree about the better than most hard comment.

[TheRev]

there are two kinds of music... good and bad.

once we go beyond that we are just wasting time and energy.

most "minimal" techno is tripe, some is brilliant. most "hard" techno is shite, some is great.

to be honest, the good "minimal" is getting better than most of the good "hard techno".

That depends if you are trying to objectively classify music or subjectively.

There are many objective classifications of music that can be made based on forum, sounds used, tempo, etc that have no relation to whether or not you think it has any merit.

What is being lumped under minimal has been done so because it uses a certain sonic palette and has a stripped down vertical structure. This sonic palette differs from schranz or hard techno.

All objective statements that can be made for the purpose of discussing music without actually having listening points to reference.

Whether or not you find those sorts of discussions worthwhile is up to you.......

[Analog.1]

I remember when the term 'minimal' was first introduced around 95 - 97 and those minimal tracks in those days were proper. Proper talented producers or should i say purists ;) making some serious music using proper analog equipment, none of this vst minimal glitch stuff, i find the new minimal sound sounds far too precise and clean, i dont hate it but dont love it either.

[Craig McW]

Matthew Dear/Audion
Peter Grummich
Daniel Bell
Dan Curtin
Thomas Brinkmann
Luciano

Hot!!!!!!!!!!!

[V..]

Things were better when it was all just fields.
I remember the good old days.
Pasteurs of green.
The daisy`s in the meadows.
Little hedgrows and butteflies.
Now it`s all concrete and tarmac and glass and steel.

Things were better then......

[Jay Pace]

MP: You were lucky. We lived for three months in a brown paper bag in a septic tank. We used to have to get up at six o'clock in the morning, clean the bag, eat a crust of stale bread, go to work down mill for fourteen hours a day week in-week out. When we got home, out Dad would thrash us to sleep with his belt!

GC: Luxury. We used to have to get out of the lake at three o'clock in the morning, clean the lake, eat a handful of hot gravel, go to work at the mill every day for tuppence a month, come home, and Dad would beat us around the head and neck with a broken bottle, if we were LUCKY!

TG: Well we had it tough. We used to have to get up out of the shoebox at twelve o'clock at night, and LICK the road clean with our tongues. We had half a handful of freezing cold gravel, worked twenty-four hours a day at the mill for fourpence every six years, and when we got home, our Dad would slice us in two with a bread knife.

EI: Right. I had to get up in the morning at ten o'clock at night, half an hour before I went to bed, (pause for laughter), eat a lump of cold poison, work twenty-nine hours a day down mill, and pay mill owner for permission to come to work, and when we got home, our Dad would kill us, and dance about on our graves singing "Hallelujah."

MP: But you try and tell the young people today that... and they won't believe ya'.

ALL: Nope, nope..

Props python boys, props...