From Art Kerns Sent Sat, Aug 22nd 1998, 21:19
From Art Kerns Sent Sat, Aug 22nd 1998, 21:19
i got there late because the directions from the web page for coming up
from the south were wrong, horribly wrong. sigh. i knew i should've just
used mapquest...
so i only heard the last few minutes of 2silver boxes vs. scatterbrain,
which made me even more bitter about getting lost. good stuff, and i'm
looking forward to hearing more from them. oh well.
my head was not in a pthalocyanine kind of mood. it was very challenging,
very noisy. i'll have to listen to his cd more, because i really hate not
"getting it". oh well. it certainly wasn't boring, by any stretch.
surface 10 was nice. i hope he releases a new album, because i'd like to
soak in the newer music over repeated listenings. rumors of more idm-ish
beats were not at all exaggerated. and he was really into the music as he
was playing it, which was cool. too short a set, though, i was left
wanting more...
lexaunculpt vs. shad t scott was wonderful. i try to avoid overused
adjectives like "sick" or "wicked" or the like because, well, they're
overused. but damn.... was my brain tingling after these guys were
through. lex's last song melted me, it's one of my favorite tracks this
year...
alas, i think i was biased against the o.c. collective from the start,
since the word "collective" holds a special place in my heart as one of my
top two most hated words ("eclectic" rounding out the pair). maybe it was
a case of too many cooks in the kitchen, or people not wanting to step on
each others toes, or who knows what but... i had a hard time liking this
(and i really really tried). loops that went on for too long, very
straightforward song structure (granted, it's hard to pull off anything
else in a situation like that i guess), too much boom boom boom boom to
make up for the lack of melody, etc. lately i've been very careful with my
expectations, as i've found that they more than anything else play a big
role in whether i like or dislike things (having read a really good review
will make me only find faults in something, reading a bad review will make
me search to find things i like... even when i'm aware of this stupidity it
still happens, over and over). but it was hard not to have high
expectations for all these guys, who i like a lot individually. well
anyway, i think you get the idea, i didn't think it was that great...
noodly and went on too long without going anywhere...
other things:
the loraine cds are really good, and the packaging is pretty nifty too.
get one.
ad lib bt... just say no.
i got handed a copy of "e.x.p. issue a", a very nice zine containing
excellent interviews with richard james, luke vibert, and others, plus a
bunch of idm oriented reviews. i recognized some of the guilty culprits as
past or present idmers... good job, guys. it says it's distributed "grass
roots style" but they list xxxxxxx@xxx.xxx as a contact, so if the grass is
particularly sparse and weedy in your area you might want to hunt down a
copy... even if they do almost spoil it all by using both "collective" and
"eclectic" in the very last review... argh...
and of course hello again to everyone who found me lurking in the shadows
and said hi... people from this list are always so damn nice in person,
even to my antisocial ass...
out
...
art