From bloch Sent Fri, May 14th 1999, 00:04
From bloch Sent Fri, May 14th 1999, 00:04
On Tue, May 11, 1999 at 02:26:58PM -0700, Sean Cooper wrote: > >Skam can do no wrong at the moment but you only have to look at the > growing disatisfaction with > >some of the latest Rephlex releases to see that the tide can turn. > > in the interest of a certain parity of opinion (given all of the > skam-stroking going on lately), skam have to my tastes done almost nothing > but wrong for the past 18 months. except for the bola LP, which i > legitimately enjoy, everything else they've released has struck me as > tedious and musically regressive. it wouldn't bother me -- there's nothing > particularly new in a flood of mediocre music being released; that, after > all, is the status quo -- except that their releases are discussed so > frequently and in such glowing terms that i wonder if its just a kind of > laziness. people go and see, for example, the latest tom cruise film > because tom cruise is in it -- that's their guarantee of something vaguely > amounting to "quality" in their minds. does skam carry similar cachet? > > i realize there's no accounting for taste and that what's "good" amounts to > nothing more (or less) than what can be argued as such. but it makes me > wonder whether people actually listen to these records, or just collect > them. or is that the point...? > > mystified, > > sc > I think you're being a little unfair here, although I do agree that apart from Soup the recent Skam output has been largely mediocre. Couldn't you insert any number of other record labels into your paragraph? e.g. Mego, Phthalocyanine, Chain Reaction, Rather Interesting? I don't see any alternative to following a label or artist whom you've liked in the past, given that there are so many releases. You may be right that people are buying some releases for reasons other than musical merit, but if so I don't believe that's restricted to Skam. Oh, and I posted the original review of Squarepusher's live band, if anyone wishes to comment. adam