From Philip Downey Sent Thu, Dec 24th 1998, 21:07
From Philip Downey Sent Thu, Dec 24th 1998, 21:07
I rarely post these days, so I figured I would make some end of year notes. Sender: xxx-xxxxx@xxxxxxxxx.xxx Precedence: bulk Musically: Gescom's Mag at 45+3 and Bola's Triangle Cake at 33-7 make a really good mix. (Speeds are approximate.) Ditto for Digeridoo followed by Gescom's Viral Rival at 33+3. Of course, it may not be that track, since the labels seem backwards. Anyway, try the outside crunchy track on Ska010This. Leila does some guest vocals on Jonny L's album, Magnetic, on one song called Uneasy. Has a Photek sound too it. The Seven Samurai (either version on Form and Function) by Photek is quite wicked. There is nothing quite like it. (But if you think there is, please tell me.) Thanks to Bola for reminding this list that you can have a melody and still make good music. On a related note, Burger/Ink's melodies couldn't save boring beats. (This is coming from someone who buys almost as many trance records as I do idm, so don't try telling me about loops.) Those Brinkmann variations on Hawtin suck...unless you're in between your speakers. Then they cook! Even sitting across the room from two speakers doesn't bring out all the neato things that are happening. Get yourself some big speakers and shake the house with the first two minutes of Neotropic's Mr. Brubaker's Strawberry Alarm Clock. Listwise: I think the root cause for the branching of the list subjects and the new diversity of artists is no releases from the old guard. This list has branched out because most of the artists who were churning out release after release when this list began aren't releasing much these days. Aphex, Global Communications, Orbital, Black Dog seem to all be taking their time (or are releasing house records, or got dropped from their label...). Funkstorung, Autechre, and Squarepusher on the other hand, are releasing records like there's no tomorrow. Unfortunately, they often press about 10 of them, and if you're not in on this first round, you don't get in. Since I refuse to trainspot to unheard things, (I got burned when Squarepusher's Big Loada lived up to its name) it's hard to want to gamble, especially as my poor Canadian dollar has been brought to its knees by the world markets. Please press more records you small labels. Are you afraid of making money? If you won't invest in yourselves, no-one else will. Playlists: I don't care what you played on your show. Really. If you want to interest labels to get them to send you free stuff, set up an address book with all the label's addresses (which Teep posted in October), or if you just need to indulge your vanity, post it to alt.music.techno. (If you search the archives, you will find a playlist or two of mine. I am very sorry.) If your show is on the web, put the playlists on the web. If I tune in your show and like it I just may have used the web (now here's the important part) with a _web browser_. Beside the RealAudio link, put another that says 'playlist for (my show) of <date>'. Simple enough? No, you will say, what do I do when I'm not on the air and people check days later? Put your email on the site. Happy holidays all. Here's to more good tunes in 1999. Phil Downey