From Michael Stein Sent Tue, May 11th 1999, 18:57
From Michael Stein Sent Tue, May 11th 1999, 18:57
>I only had the three Gescom eps up until a little while >ago then I was introduced to BoC, Bola and Jega through various other >releases and my fascination has grown and grown. Now I find myself >saying to people that "I only need 3 more Skam 12" s!" in an excited, >almost childlike way - thats the collector side of me coming out I >suppose. Being a kollektorskum myself, I have to agree that some of the "limitedness" as described by Simon Reynolds sometimes goes out of hand. I believe our classic example of this would be Markant. Anyway, I, however, have to points to bring up: 1) "up until a little while ago then I was introduced to BoC, Bola and Jega" - This phrase typifies many of your situations. I hope this doesn't sound harsh, but you missed out. When this great music originally came out, you weren't interested. I know, it sucks, it's happened to me on numerous occassions. Many of the now scarce works of Bola, BoC, or any other artist that is being accused of releasing music on a much too limited basis were available at the original prices for months after they were released. I remember still seeing a stack Gescom "The Sounds..." EPs for $9 that wouldn't sell at a local shop a whole year after it was released whilst they were fetching over $40 on this list. My point is that just because you weren't interested in the music before many others, doesn't mean labels like SKAM, Diskono, Rephlex, or whoever should be blamed for being elitists. 2) This goes mainly against the Reynolds discussion a few weeks ago (sorry if it's out of place)... some critics superficially brand IDM (a phrase I use loosely) for being self-containing because of the limited releases. If the genre were to be analized further, they would see that these limited releases are mainly for minor releases such as singles and EPs. The majority of artists' material, like albums, are readily available. This is the case with most forms of underground or independent music. A few 7"s here and there are exceptionally rare (see Tortoise, Stereolab, Coil, Belle and Sebastian, etc) and the whole scene gets blamed for being "anal." This just doesn't make much sense to me, as much of it isn't that hard to find if people would just get off their couches and go to a decent shop on-line or in-town and do a little research. I do not want to start a flame war with this message. It's just my opinion that there's always too much unwarranted and excessive whining about the quantity of releases, when I'd rather see more reviews or other discussions. Mike.