Quote Originally Posted by Jay Pace View Post
Hmmm.... I go to a lot of minimal stuff. The vibe is very dfferent.

You end up drinking and chatting a lot more, rather than doing full on bosh bosh bosh stuff, which is all I did for years.

Its nice. More sociable, and the emphasis moves away from the music and into the atmosphere of it all. Hawtin excels at this - creating tension and atmosphere in a crowd. The set ends up being more about the vibe than the music. And for this reason the quality of the setup becomes crucial. Minimal on shitty rigs sounds awful, and almost pointless.

The way things seem to be moving at the moment is into this kinda cartoon shuffly plinky sound which I find really irritating. But on the other side there's some really smart stuff being made. Some fantastic old school sounding stuff, heavy detroit influences, and an emphasis on a slow, driving funk and melody that can be both quirky and mesmerising.

IMO one of the best things minimal has done has encourage producers to move away from fast distorted loops and start slowing things down and going for a more organic sound.

Can see a resurgance of melody and a move away from glitchy DSP style stuff, which is just going to end up sounding tired and cliched. Very "00s" or whatever you call this stupid decade.

I'm really glad it happened though, as its made going out much less intense and much more appealing. More of a drop in vibe to it, than a full on drug induced bosh-fest. Which is great and that, but I'm not getting any younger, and can't really be dealing with work on monday with a head reeling from chemical withdrawal.
Some good points there. Musicality (neo-trance, anyone?), cleaner production values etc. I always wanted to hear stuff on a good, not to loud rig, though. Not only minimal stuff. Glitchy for the sake of it and trying so desperately not get loopy that it hurts is not my cuppa, though. I also miss basslines at times. Which lots of mnml tunes are lacking. Often enough the kicks don't make up for this, either.

I have said it before and eagerly say it again - i am all for a mix of styles. On a per-track basis and looking at an entire set. Atm i am really rediscovering the beauty some techno of around 2000 + / - two years had.