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Re: Mutek



>  not to mention pole & kit clayton who don't
> > >usually do house even though they use some of the same sounds
> > (only better).
> Not to burst your bubble, but Kit Clayton comes from a strong
> techno background. Check his early releases. I'm not sure why
> you are calling this all house?

i'm reffering to his recent eponymous CDs on drop beat & ~scape (not to
mention the experimental phthalo CDs) which are almost idm & not really
house.  unfortunately i don't own his previous releases on cytrax, mimic
& the model, & so on.  my bubble is okay though, i knew he did house before.

> For example--
> > >i guess my point is that if you're going to play nothing but house music
> > >(be it "advanced" house music *cough* like thomas brinkmann's mutek sets
> > >*cough*),
> Brinkmann is minimal techno...not house...two different traditions here!
> Enough of a difference, I think, between house and techno to warrant
> a bit more thought about it. Now Closer Music I would call house-- and
> Herbert.

okay, tobias, you've stumped me, i'm really not a techno or house
connoisseur at all & i should have said:

"i guess my point is that if you're going to play nothing but house OR
TECHNO music (insert thomas brinkmann joke here), at least have the
decency not to monopolize the avant-garde tag...  there are so many
people who do music which is far more "advanced" than anything i've
heard this year..."

which is still my only point.  there are people who currently do the
kind of stuff that mutek claims it is promoting; why aren't some of them
invited to the festival as well?

as for the talk of finances being a problem, i don't think it should
make the production of live experimental music impossible.  it adds a
constraint for sure, but to say it means that nine tenths of the acts
playing on the main shows should be house or techno is a bit of a far
fetch, don't you think?

to take the first example that comes to mind, pita & markus schmickler
have filled a room last year in montréal with little advertising,
wouldn't they do at least as well if were they supported by mutek?  even
so far as rhythmic electronic music goes, there is more to it than house
& techno: once again off the top of my head, hrvatski, phthalocyanine,
crank/lowres, cex, kid606 all live right across the border & none of
them has ever played in montréal.  & i'm only listing my personal favorites.

i don't know...  maybe some people read this as if i were saying that
all house & techno should be banned from mutek forever?  that's not the
case: what i found thrilling about the first edition was the meeting of
genres & methods.  this year was bland to me & unlike what i would
expect from such a prestigious event.  (the curating itself, if you
excuse its lack of breadth, was nonetheless very competent, & hats off
to eric mattson for his work which i'm not criticizing at all.)

> > >personally, my favorite mutek show was an off-mutek event taking place
> > >at the always-reliable casa del popolo with leon lo opening with a bunch
> > >of entrancing, ultrarepetitive (!) loops which sounded like modern
> > >classical... & no beats!
> But why is this so exciting? As mentioned, Riley did this over 30 years
> ago...

i don't know.  it just sounded good & catered to no particular "hip"
taste.  not to mention that i have never heard terry riley.

also, there are far more people who do various strains of house & techno
than there are who make neo-classical minimalism...  personally, i find
things exciting when they don't happen often.  (doesn't everyone?)

which leads us to the formulation of your question.  is "excitement" the
quintessential value of avant-garde music?

> Perhaps there are no answers to these questions--
> just some differing perspectives. I felt similar about
> this year's Mutek, but one must remember that the
> beat-oriented genres are the ones that have really
> propelled this sort of music into the limelight.

that's if you like the limelight, of course.

anyway, as those who have read this far should understand, my problem
with mutek is strictly semantic.  in a vacuum, i do appreciate & enjoy
that minimal electronic music is being performed in my city.  i should
like the genre after all, i make house music myself.  or is it techno?

~ david