Re: Recordings

[improv@peak.org (Dave Trenkel)]

At 8:13 PM 10/8/98, Andre LaFosse wrote:
>Dave Trenkel wrote:
>>
>> Form & Function is out, at least in the states, and it's really good. I
>> like it quite a bit more than Modus, F&F seems to be focussed more on 
>pure
>> drum textures. Listening to Photek is, for me at least, like 
>eavesdropping
>> on the internal conversations of an obsessive/compulsive.
>
>I heard some of the older bits on F+F and liked it, but the newer stuff,
>like just about all the jungle I've heard come out of Britain over the
>last year or so, is just horrendously discouraging to me.  It seems like
>there's some sort of contest in Britain as to who can come up with the
>stiffest, simplest, most un-funky beats.  The complexity and
>unpredictable nature of the rhythms that made it such an unusual style a
>few year ago seems to have been more or less discarded in favor of
>dishing out a stiff drum-machine emulation of an eight-note rock beat
>(or, at best, "Funky Drummer" played at 160 BPM, a la Roni Size).
>
I dunno, I kind of like the way d 'n b has progressed into this highly
abstract, utterly non-danceable music, given its roots in the dance scene
and the fact that it's earliest raw materials were some of the funkiest
drum grooves ever. I hear Photek as coming from a similar place as the LTJ
Bukem stuff, his Logical Progression compilation was one of the first d 'n
b things that I really connected with. I like the way things are very
active on the micro-level while on the large scale, there's a certain
static minimalism to the music. Of course, not everything from the scene is
brilliant, or even good, but I still hear things I like.

>Anybody have any reasons why this is the case?  Or compelling arguments
>to the contrary?  About the only new (post-'96) jungle I've heard that
>consistently excites me as much as the older stuff is LA-based DJ Hive
>and some bits on the new DJ Spooky album; I wonder if the US is due to
>start picking up the slack in the near future...
>
I don't know if it'd be considered true d 'n b, to be honest I don't have a
lot of patience with the endless fractal sub-categorization of the
electronic music scene, but Amon Tobin's Permutations is pretty fantastic.
He's applying the d 'n b beat chopping approach to old jazz drum solos (a
drummer friend of mine says he hears Art Blakey and Max Roach on this
disc), Brazilian music, '50's exotica, and others. Also, Tobin seems to
have a real flair for composing interesting pieces, I've followed his stuff
for a few years, both under his name and as Cujo, and have liked everything
I've heard.


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Dave Trenkel : improv@peak.org  : www.peak.org/~improv/

"...there will come a day when you won't have to use
gasoline. You'd simply take a cassette and put it in
your car, let it run. You'd have to have the proper
type of music. Like you take two sticks, put 'em
together, make fire. You take some notes and rub 'em
together - dum, dum, dum, dum - fire, cosmic fire."
                                            -Sun Ra
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