(Post-)Hardcore Continuum & UK Music Writing

#84

i mean whether it’s post-hardcore continuum or not (i will argue no coss post-dubstep didn’t even have the same relation as dubstep 02-04) whats wrong with calling it techno? then it’s like thinking techno can’t have a breakbeat in it.

#85

i agree that old bobby hood was minimal funk bringing back the essence of chicago jack trax tho in more cerebral form. but his imitators were calvinist to a t a lot of that user/primate techno was pleasant audio wallpaper for fuckers to get their E fix to. so yes absolutely the 313 can have their class blindspots, just like we all do to an extent through socialisation.

u don’t have to suddenly stop liking techno coss of its labour aristocratic roots thats fucking dumb some of my favourite music was made by posh people. but E Flash was an intervension to demystify the coding (or revealing what is behind the commodity of club culture) which u lot seem to miss.

This is the problem with liberal and to an extent post-structuralist discourse it sees the process of comodification as micro capitalistic or localistic units being expropriated by macrocapitalists. but it’s still the same capitalism, still the same mode of production that reduces everything to an exchange value. I’m pretty much heavily marxist influenced but i agree with Woebot that there really wasn’t anything socialist in club culture and there never will be. as we say: ‘one does not build communism.’

#86

the left has been pro capitalist since 1918-1921 m8. it’s like all of u are 100 years too late.

#87

The thing is the music as formality isn’t the central point of the hardcore continuum. otherwise tidy trax style hoover dominated UK hard house would be 100% nuum. more than garage.

The way i read Simon is like this: what power structures form the knowledge of the music? What power dynamics push the discourse forward? What are the class/race/gender polarisations?

But if you try and say how does the knowledge of the music constitute the power relations you’ll get nowhere ime. The inversion power>knowledge is important.

#88

sorry, can’t follow you with korn and stuff like this? maybe we misunderstand each other.

#89

rock music as sound is bad no hormonal guitars in clubs please its like shit student nights at uni. big beat was worse than jump up.

rock as industrial/rocking out like joey beltram is good tho.

#90

Primate/User records was mainly copycats of Mills’ Purpose Maker series, not Hood’s early ultra sparse records (Minimal Nation etc). Maybe nitpicking here, but that’s an important distinction for me. Also all that tribal techno got huge in the not so calvinist (!) parts of Europe as Italy, Spain etc pretty quick got on board and with the rise of the Naples techno scene actually infused a bit of party appeal than the frankly horrible Primate records.
It’s fair to propose that the Hood/Mills axis has a more universalist/class blind angle than the more explicit (not THAT explicit tho) approach of Mike Banks, also further exemplified with Mills’ smooching with high Euro culture and distancing himself from US rap culture and subsequently Hoods religious conversion. Still I don’t buy into that power dynamic as defining musical forms or cultural adaptation. That’s way too simple an analysis, which also ignores obvious universalist elements of music expression.

Also the quality of american techno (in my estimation) over euro techno is not down to race, but to culture (funk/soul background, less club infrastructure which maybe emphasizes the auteur element contrary to especially the UK scene, where ‘scenius’/functionalism are too pervasive IMO). American techno producers are often also way less preoccupied with technical trickery and production values, which also is a thing that seems to negatively impact Euro productions, especially the UK ones.

Sorry, to derail the thread with the techno angle/non-exisistant continuum(?).

#91

Well I don’t think any of us know enough about the detroit scene to say definitively. But i always took the 313 sound to be a more disembodied contemplative take on the mentalism of chicago i mean quite a it of acid house/dance mania/cajual well i dunno if u can even say yeah that’s house and that’s techno. Are there any on these forums who went/go to those detroit parties? i think the geographic separation of that continuum is something we think of more in UK and Europe, less in the US.

But certain sections of the UK techno scene definitely, definitely do/did have an antipathy towards hc/jungle, i just don’t know whether SR is hitting the right targets there i mean didn’t the colins play quite a bit of early hardcore on their shows and wasn’t knowledge a hard techno/early gabba club where loads of working class nutters and some rudeboys went?

#92

Hey Y’all, been busy keeping busy, but published two reviews in the past few days, one taking in the Patina Echoes comp for Timedance and the other reviewing sevent recent EP’s from the nexus of producers I’ve been looking at. Both pieces contain quite a bit of thoughts that have matured via this this thread, especially the Patina Echoes comp as I really tried (and probably failed) to make it as beginner-friendly as possible.

Hope y’all don’t mind my sharing links from my site…but considering that’s where I began this whole project and continue to do most of my writing on it, often makes more sense to me just to share relevant links. Peace!

#93

I wouldn’t be so sure. Listen to Bala Club productions, it’s clear that their work owes as much reggaetonas it does to nu-metal.

#94

Interesting reads @zurkonic , it’s refreshing to see people blogging. Reminded me to share this on here. He seems to have gone quiet on the blog, maybe concentrating on The Wire or writing a follow up to Infinite Music (https://www.amazon.co.uk/Infinite-Music-Imagining-Millennium-Music-Making/dp/1846949246), but Adam Harper’s rouges foam blog was pretty good especially around 2014 http://rougesfoam.blogspot.com/2014/ . He wrote a lot of commissioned articles too, there are loads linked on that 2014 blog page. It all felt quite realtime which is a special part of this like @PiLhead mentioned. A real head spinner to read bits like this when you feel a new strain coming through, alongside going out to the club and hearing it all mutate and develop right in front of you. Some of these moments are so fleeting that these pockets of thinking and writing are really important as an archive as well looking back.

#95

Thanks for sharing the book @Esquilax, I had not seen that. But I am quite familiar with Rogue’s Foam…I almost shared his transcript of Eshun and Steve Goodman’s lecture on Wonky the other day as it’s great, but also a bit amusing to read from this historical vantage point. As so much of the HCC debates were facilitated by blogs–something I found myself eulogizing at length while writing the other night–I’ve tried and read as many as I’ve been able to both find and remember as I was an avid reader of them back in the late 00s (I was so tripped out when i realized Ekoplekz is Gutter Breakz!) And thanks for the kind words re: the blogging…I’m really hoping more than anything that doing so will help others get off the fence and just start doing it! As I hope I’ve demonstrated here, I think one of the most important things to do to get music criticism back on track is not just indict its wrongs, but also try to create a space outside of commerce where how much you know is irrelevant as long as someone is passionate and open-minded. I wish I could take credit for this observation, but a friend of mine who runs a label of the sort I would never expect to have anything in common with once observed, following a bit of my stirring the pot as part of a normcore record group on FB called Now Playing where I noted how the contributors might not be as eclectic as they may think:

It’s funny how people who define themselves by their ececticism and open-mindedness are often the ones who respond most unfavorably to any insinuation that there might be something existing outide of their purview (my paraphrasing).

And don’t get me wrong, I’m as guilty as the next bloke of donning blinders and delving into my own self-created myopia…but I also try to remind myself that I might be doing just that. Anyhoo, would love to see some music sites popping up outside of a desire to monetize or as an extension of a promoter/concert venture…it fucking takes time tho and I certainly don’t fault those who choose not to make that investment.

#96

This feels like part of this flow, perhaps: http://blackdownsoundboy.blogspot.com/2018/11/hugo-massien-interview.html

#97

Ooooh, thanks for sharing, Martin! I adored his twelve on Tectonic (“Ursa Minor!” Not to mention that Bruce remix on 17 Steps) and can’t wait to scope the new record on yr label…just read half of it while waiting in the line at the grocery store:) Have been working on increasing my own production knowledge as of late so this interview is checking all the boxes for me.

Always really love how in-depth/involved your interviews are…re-read the Hyperdub archives a few months back and damn, there were so many bangers! Also been working my way back through the Keysound discography again…love that Bias & Gurley jam.

#99

I recall Simon Reynolds proposing a schematic model for musical innovation (acceleration, abstraction, exaggeration of particular tropes, etc.), however I don’t seem to be able to pin point the exact passages where this laid out in the most persuasive and detailed way. Would anyone be able to help here?

Incidentally, I am looking for other bits of writing on generic evolution, in particular in electronic music, though preferably less UK-centric than the proverbial nuum, so that it also includes other forms, in particular vernacular articulations of the global ghettotech.

Ultimately, I would like to come up with a fairly comprehensive diagram (with the obvious map/territory caveat in mind) that can help researchers, journalists etc. think through those dynamics. I would also like to make it a collaborative project so it would be great to hear from anyone who might be interested.

#100

The only political thing I ever noticed about nuum is the title of the label Swamp 81.