(idm) re: chain reaction et al

From Peter Hollo
Sent Mon, Mar 22nd 1999, 02:08

As an anti-four-on-the-floor type (by which I don't mean "ABOLISH 4OTF!"
or something, just that I don't like it) I can personally attest to not
liking Chain Reaction. Porter Ricks is something I feel like I really
OUGHT to like, and I don't find myself turning it off quite as swiftly
as the other stuff I've heard on the label, but all in all I hear about
a minute of it and think "Why am I listening to this?"

I've tried very hard to like Chain Reaction - reviews on idm, in the
Wire, and all over the place exhort me to go and buy. However, it does
nothing for me. Nice ambient sounds, I like the glitches and
weirdnesses, but fuck me, those beats drive me mad. It's probably just a
general house thing - I like very little house, and this is reflected in
my opinion of minimal house stuff. [Don't think I'm dismissing
everything with a kick drum on every beat (given that most d'n'b, and
most hip-hop too, is in 4/4...) or whatever. I love Underworld's first
two dance albums (ie dubnobasswithmyheadman and second toughest...) even
now, but listening to the latest album I can't help feeling disappointed
- some of it's lovely, but a lot is just boring]

Ah! Boring. That's the word I was looking for. Chain Reaction bores me
to tears. Y'know, there's minimal and there's minimal. Steve Reich will
never bore me; same with Underworld's loooong epics, because they have
an overarching structure that builds, goes somewhere, does something.

Anyway, after all this crapping on, I'll say two things: Firstly, I
think Joshua's words were ill-chosen; Chain Reaction most probably *is*
groun-breaking. I just wish they'd break out of the horrible beats they
put to their music. This is why Pole does so much more for me. Even then
it's too static for my tastes mostly, but I like it a hell of a lot more
than Chain Reaction.
Secondly, it really does just come down to taste in the end. I'll
explain all I like why music of type "x" doesn't do it for me, but in
the end Lance will keep on liking it, and others will dislike it. There
are so many factors that go into one's taste in music - what we were
exposed to in our youths, what was cool when we were into being into the
cool things (ie adolescent [a state of mind more than an age]), and even
just what we innately respond to. So all I ask is that those who *like*
Chain Reaction accept that maybe I have thought about it a lot, actually
have listened to the music, and have a fair amount of musical knowledge,
and dammit I just don't like this stuff...

Final note: I'm not sure about the causality here, but Mego put out
glorious glitchy and weird stuff which I think is on entirely another
level from Chain Reaction. I doubt that one of them came first, but in
terms of "ground-breaking", I think Mego [Fennesz, Farmers Manual,
General Magic, Pita etc] are about as ground-breaking as it gets these
days. I would also include Matmos in that league...

Peter.
-- 
Peter Hollo  xxxxx@xxxxxxxx.xxx.xx  http://www.fourplay.com.au/me.html
              FourPlay - Eclectic Electric String Quartet
                       http://www.fourplay.com.au
                     Raven: experimental electronic
                 http://www.fourplay.com.au/sound.html
"Of course, dance music can be a music where you lie on your back and
your brain cells dance" -Michael Karoli of Can, quoted in Wire mag.