From PlantBoy1 Sent Thu, Jun 25th 1998, 23:34
> Over the past few days I've been listening to a lot of circa 1991-92 > electronica/IDM (Old Orb, Seefeel, Renegade Soundwave, SAW2, Artificial > Intelligence, old FSOL, etc) and I thought to myself that almost none of > this fantastic music used any drum-n-bass gestures at all, and none involved > anything like *gag* big beat. > > I thought also that this stuff holds up *extremely* well over time, > whereas a lot of more recent stuff even by the same artists (i.e., RDJ) gets > tired for me after one or two listens. > > I mean, how much drum and bass/breakbeat/big beat can you listen to > before it loses it's novelty? And who's doing music in the tradition the > aforementioned artists were practicing in 1992 (actually, I'd say BoC is to > a certain extent, and some of Squarepusher's less hectic stuff does too). > What happened to melodic, dancy, trippy dub? Beat-oriented ambient? It's all > a wash of plinkityplinkitychikachikaboom 180+ bpm nowadays. > > Don't get me wrong, I love the speed and power of hard ass dnb, but > right now I'm listening to the Orb's Adventures beyond the Ultraworld and > I'm thinking damn this stuff is well-crafted and melodic and enveloping and > I don't hear that much anymore. > > -Cf I totally agree with what you're saying. Sure, this d'n'b stuff is great, but I think once the whole fascination with these 32nd triplet flanged snare drum rolls at 250 BPM (okay, maybe that's an exageration) is over, only a few artists will be remembered. BTW, a lot of the stuff I do is geared more towards the spirit of '92. Programming d'n'b beats gives me a headache. :-) Geoff "It takes a life in stereo to really flow" "There is no great or small To the Soul that maketh all And where it cometh, all things are And it cometh everywhere"