Don't know how I missed this (I say this as I figuratively shake my fist at the Blogger follow feature), but the Cio D'or mix on mnml ssgs (ssgcast #21) is phenomenal. I usually reserve judgment until I've actually been through a piece as a whole, but only ~20 minutes into "Planetary Nebular" (Ms. D'or's title for the mix) and I can say with a great degree of confidence that this is a new favorite, something I'll be turning on more often than not in any mood, no matter the reason.
The guys at mnml ssgs have come up with a term for this type of sound - "head-" or "mind-fuck" techno. Donato Dozzy (whose name, interestingly enough, is reminiscent in some synaesthetic/onomatopeiatic way of his preferred sound) has been carrying the torch for this new breed of "true" minimal techno, and his RA podcast #105 is a great place to start. As the ssgs say: "elemental." It's easy to get wrapped up in sonic trends of genre music, but this stuff really excites me; it does with synths what Rob Hood did with percussion.
There's some overlap between this and the "Berghain sound" pushed by Ben Klock, Norman Nodge, and of course, Marcel Dettman, so it's only fitting that the news accompanying the mix is thus: Dozzy and D'or will be releasing an EP together on Peter Van Hoesen's Time to Express label. So into it.
Few random thoughts / observations (not necessarily re: the above, though I do encourage you to take the time to check that out).
My first go at Sonotheque in five years wasn't what I expected. The setup was a bit janky - the feet of the decks were positioned precariously upon cigarette ashtrays with rubber bands tied round - and the main console wasn't an option for some reason. I had a hell of a time using the pitch sliders on both decks, as every time my meaty hands got hold of the pitch it would cause the record to skip. I guess the lesson here (in many ways) is that I do not play out often enough. Kind of sucks to know that the practice I'm constantly doing at home doesn't have much real world application, though - my best nights of late have been at the Let's Go Deep nights at Cafe Lura, where I usually end up bringing my own 1200's and am fairly comfortable with them. Excuses are like assholes...
Steve asked me about the SXSW trip and mentioned that I hadn't written about it. I really don't know what to write, for a number of reasons. I feel like my relative ignorance of the cultural context for a lot of what we saw allowed me to enjoy the shows without the burden of any kind of active, in the moment, metaphysical analysis - most discussions I had with Eric at the time, re: the music/crowds/etc. was limited to what was actually seen and heard, with some rote extrapolation. Knowing, now, just how much hype surrounds some of those bands makes it somewhat difficult to get my thoughts in order. I'll try, sometime.
(It doesn't help that for as much fun as I had going out to the shows, I still feel that the best parts of the trip involved getting to hang out with our dear friend / host, Will, which would make any honest, written discussion of the trip less of a critique and more of a diary entry.)
Finally got to meet Jake last night. Hey, Jake! I picked a URL at random.
A link to a Youtube video of Thee Oh Sees playing one of the shows we attended down in Austin gives me an idea - I think my SXSW roundup (get it? I mean, do you get it?) will consist of videos from shows we were at. It should be relatively easy, given the amount of iPhones present wherever we went.
Final note: discussion re: the label Troubleman Unlimited (relevant, again, in 2009) led to an immediate connection, one of the finest examples of the mid- to late-90's "emo" sound. What a loaded term that is. Indian Summer did it best/earliest, and the Canadian band Shotmaker ran with it. Troubleman released a great double-disc discography of the band's output sometime in the early 00's (which I bought from a bandmate's mini-distro on a Buy Nothing Day, which means I got it for free dollars and never followed up on my promise to pay him), and for reasons possibly limited to nostalgia / the amount of times I listened to those cd's, I think it "holds up." Those of you who are both curious and have loose morals can check out the complete discography here.
Amazing house track. My tastes tend to run along two lines - "tracky" long loops or "tools" and euphoric, melodic stuff like this. Will never get enough of this one, especially when used tastefully in mixes... I first fell in love with the tune after hearing it in Panoramabar resident Steffi's Resident Advisor podcast #120. Steffi deploys the track toward the very end of the mix, serving upon first listen as a most pleasant surprise, an oasis after so much abrasive (in a good way), psychotic, dirty, looping house tracks (prime example: Marcus Mixx's "Psychousic"); repeat listens render "Deep Burnt" as sort of a mnemonic "goal," knowing you're going to be fed some well deserved sugar once the timer starts running to close, paired neatly with a Charles Webster remix of Justin Martin's "The Sad Piano," yet another melancholic / melodic earworm, though not quite on the same scale as "Deep Burnt."
Eric Cloutier (Bunker, NYC) used "Deep Burnt" early on in his recent podcast @ mnml ssgs, coming right out of / into (I forget which) one of my favorite house tunes of the moment (for entirely different reasons), Seth Troxler's "Aphrika," which uses a pitched down sample of a reading of Maya Angelou's poem, "Phenomenal Woman." I feel like Steffi may have set the standard for the use of "Deep Burnt" (toward the end of a mix, rather than early on) but despite this (personal/subjective) faux pas, Eric's mix is a terrific blend of the "deepest" house music played at a clip no faster than 120 bpm (sort of his m.o.). Keep an eye out for Eric's 3+ hour set from our 25+25 party (once we sort out some technical issues with the recording) - our expectations were high, and he exceeded them with little effort. Brilliant stuff.
Can't decide which of these is the most bizarre (i.e. my favorite) - probably the baseball cap with the razors stuck to the back, or "guy running down sidewalk wielding a machete."
(Apologies for the gruesome still - the video itself isn't gory at all, unless you count the proceedings of a montage supplemented by a totally inappropriate HI-NRG soundtrack.)
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