From Greg Earle Sent Mon, Oct 20th 1997, 15:38
From Greg Earle Sent Mon, Oct 20th 1997, 15:38
In which Graham loses the plot:
> [The] Richard D James album is where Aphex shows the rest of the IDM lot how
> an LP is really done.
Yes, intersperse some great tracks with wank noodle-abouts, a total uneven
affair, that's the way to show those boys
> I think the RDJ album transcends its sillyness and becomes something
> utterly different after you've heard it a few times. It is not gimmicky,
> it's just great original music which justifies the hype.
Nah mate, it's still an uneven collection of tracks for the most part,
not cohesive or coherent on the whole, doesn't compare to Analogue
Bubblebath 3 (66% More Bubbles) as far as that department goes
>>>> But there is somthing to be said for the "soul" of a
>>>> piece of music, and Orbital has it in spades.
>>>
>>> I'd have to agree to an extent. The only RDJ I own is ICBYD, and while I
>>> like it, it's not an album I really feel. Maybe that album is an anomaly,
>>> but much IDMish musik has a tendency to be overly intellectualized, and in
>>> the process it leaves behind emotional content and a sweet
>>> simplicity/directness.
>
> For starters, I don't really believe all this crap about music having soul.
HAHAHAHAHA ... let's forward this to the 313 list shall we?
> This may offend some people, but the only things that matter are
> diversity and originality. This is what forms so called emotion or soul
> in music (for me). When artists excel at these two, the music becomes
> soulful. It's certainly not some kind of magical force or channel of
> emotions into music or anything like that ...
You've lost it mate, like Otto said, it can either be that which causes a
shiver to go down your spine (personally, I can throw a fair number of
tracks into this bin, Joy Division's "Dead Souls" and "Atmosphere" for
starters, last track on "Bluff Limbo" and Reload's "Event Horizon" as well,
all of 'em provoke involuntary full-body shivers, that's what it's all about),
or something which just drips hot buttered soul (re-read the Subject: line)
>> I really like the
>>> Autechre i have because their fractured melodies and repetitive beats touch
>>> me in a way mu-ziq's banal synth thingies don't (not that I don't like
them,
>>> they're just obviously cheesy and seem a counterpoint to his drums rather
>>> than anything that could stand alone, plus they get sickening after too
long
>>> a sitting).
>
> Totally agree on this point. Autechre music, despite the harshness of
> some of the sounds, is constructed in such a way as to be unobtrousive
> and rarely grates on the ears. Mike P's synths really grate a lot
> nowadays, and I still think he, in some ways, is a lot like Orbital in
> that nothing he has produced since Tango N' Vectif (for them, the Brown
> Album) has really been any good.
You're mad, "Bluff Limbo" is the dog's bollocks
> Orbital's Brown Album (for me) is their
> crowning glory, but I think it differs for people depending on which LP
> they first heard by them (or Mike P). Once you have heard 'their sound'
> (Orbital, Mike P and others) any subsequent LPs that do not stray
> massively from the formula tend to sound so very tired and staid, and
> you always want to turn them off before they reach their conclusion.
Don't agree at all, I enjoy "In Pine Effect" and "Lunatic Harness" quite a bit
and I liked a fair bit of "Makesaracquet"
> Autechre rarely have me doing this, but I can't really say for sure why
> this is, because their 'sound' hasn't progressed that much further than
> these artists (although the progression in each LP is distinctly
> audiable).
Don't agree again, I think "Tri Repetae" is as much a leap forward for Ae
over the first 2 albums as, say, Talking Heads' "Fear of Music" was a leap
forward from their first two (People Under 30 Not Expected To Understand This)
>> This is quite an odd opinion you have. AFX is my favorite because I find
>> his music so emotional. Listen to pancake lizard, hedphelym. If you have
>> I care, though, and can't feel it, we must have two very different
>> psychologies.
>
> My opinion on all this is probably somewhere inbetween. I Care Because
> You Do doesn't work for me as an album, but some of the tracks on it -
> the first couple, Alberto Balsalm and a few others - are excellent. I
> think the problem here is the way he uses old and new tracks together on
> one LP. Come On You Slags and Start As You Mean To Go On are decent
> enough clanging Techno things but don't (IMO) belong on this LP. They
> are too old and seem stuck in his 'old' (and to me, fairly boring) ravey
> hardcore-Techno sound of the Digeridoo/Classics era.
"Fairly boring"? You must not have that historical context, that's the
stuff that defined him as being apart from the rest at the time ...
I don't know what you were listening to in '91-'92 but this stuff was
just so far ahead of the field (at least, what I was exposed to at the time;
still not heard e.g. Plaid's "Mbuki Mvuki") it wasn't even funny
And as far as I'm concerned "Start As You Mean To Go On" blows the rest into
the weeds, although I'm in the minority I'm sure (I don't belong to the
"Alberto Balsalm is total godhead" posse).
>> The exact examples you 2 bring up: Orbital, Goldie - these are 2 examples
>> I'd use to typify soulless music.
>
> Nothing but agreement here too. Same for the No U-Turn posse. People on
> this list have been praising the Torque compilation over what they've
> heard of Roni Size's output (probably just New Forms, which is a shame
> as the man and the Reprazent crew have done so much more). I think
> Roni's output has been nothing if not versatile. His music is fairly
> typical of Jungle in its sub-genres, but he innovates in each one, and
> every track he makes does not sound the same. He does a wide variety of
> styles extremely well, and I think this is his strong point, whereas No
> U-Turn just give people one sound to latch on to, and a very very very
> formulaic one at that (although some tracks are absolutely wicked -
> Technology and the remix, and that thing off prototype years called
> Locust). Torque as an album I think it is absolutely unremittingly
> boring. I heard the mix CD and after 45 minutes I just wanted to die.
I agree that there's a definable sound to No U-Turn but there's enough
variation in "Torque" that it never bores me, maybe because I think it's
all wicked ...
> This is probably the desired effect, but I have never much cared
> for music that tries to pummel you into submission just for the sake of
> it (inc. Industrial stuff).
This explains a lot, I call it "intensity", you call it "pummel into
submission"
> Yeah, exactly. This is what sums up what I was saying about the RDJ
> album. It's wicked because the music is almost entirely his own. If
> you've heard a sound before it does tend to detract from the
> soul/emotion or whatever you want to call it, of the music.
Point one, if you don't think parts of "Richard D. James" are unquestionably
identifiably RDJ (i.e. "you've heard a sound before") then I disagree; point
two, how often can you honestly say that you've heard a completely original
album, things like "Tango N' Vectif" or "A Collection of Short Stories" or
(to a lesser extent) "Public Energy #1" don't get released every day.
> Um, bit of a rambler this post. Hope anyone who read it managed to get
> some sense out of it ...
You rate the "RDJ" album, and prefer Roni Size over No U-Turn. Says it all
for me really ...
- Greg