Honestly, at the same time I both love and hate the new minimal trend. I think some of the typical stuff such as Ricardo Villalobos is already cliched and on its way out the door. If you check out some of the new minimal stuff by Skoog (Agaric, We Are), Tony Rohr, 2 Dollar Egg, etc. it's really well put together and it's not all that "minimal." I just heard a recording of Hawtin's set at ILT this year and a lot of it wasn't really "minimal" either. In fact it was all pretty beatin' techno, from hardcell & grindvik on sthlmltd to his transitions stuff. It's funny because DJs like Hawtin, Carola, Luciano, etc. they're all kind of viewed by the minimal fans as "minimal" when really, those guys go all over the place and play an array of styles.

For instance, I had Carola in town last week and he played all kinds of stuff from trendy minimal pokerflat shit to the new ozgur can on truesoul. These guys are playing all over the place these days and I really enjoy it. To be honest, "hard" techno artists that have done it for me in the past don't really do it for me anymore. The only kind of hard stuff interesting me lately is the industrial type techno. Even Glenn Wilson has chilled out a bit with his recent collabs with Cari on Heroes International. I think what people don't realize is that you can be hard and heavy as **** at 133 as you can at 143.

I'll agree some of this bandwagon shit is pretty bizzare and kind of a let down, but some of it is worth checking out. Unfortunately, "minimal" is being used as a blanket term (just like how "techno" is everything from trance to chemical bros. for some)...this means a lot of good music gets lost in the mix. Don't get me wrong, I'm all for some hard beatin' techno but honestly all the hard stuff I've been playing lately is old.

Basically, to sell a record these days...I think its important just to leave the compressor turned off, drop the ****in' samba loop bullshit (although I do like my hardgroove don't get me wrong), and pull the bpms down a bit. You can still add the jack and funk and bang in there and still have a track that mixes great with the trendy minimal stuff.