6 posts tagged “techno”

Fizzarum's Monochrome Plural is one of those secret gems, an album that came out of nowhere, sold out it's initial pressing, and basically disappeared, only to be spoken of in hushed tones by the true fans. Comparisons to early Autechre are the easiest and most accurate, especially in reference to that groups Amber and Incunabula albums. Melodic, with some spacious reverb and slowly shifting patterns of clicks and buzzes keeping time. Perhaps in the same vein as Telefon Tel Aviv as well.

It appears that the out-of-print album is available as a CD-R directly from Fizzarum, so if you like what you hear, you can order it online and get a bonus CD-R of rare material.

Not sparse enough to be ambient, too many live instruments for techno, too loopy for post rock, not loud enough to be shoegazer/dreampop...where exactly does Seefeel fit?

"Through You," from their first full-length, Quique, rides all of these genre lines pretty closely. There's plenty of guitar here, though it's all blurred and smeared and pushed way back in the mix, and it's pretty definitively non-rock guitar. There's a percussive element that could either be a heavily processed drum machine or drummer in a distant room. It builds slowly and steadily, but doesn't end much louder or more forceful than it began.

It's easy to see the lines of influence in retrospect, but sort of hard to see how they all wound up together. From the minimalism and pattern layering of 20th Century composers like Steve Reich and Terry Riley, to the insistent post-techno ryhthms of early Aphex Twin and, to the rich textures of everyone from Brian Eno to Kevin Shields, Seefeel was sort of a summation of a certain line of progress in the hitory of recorded music, where the focus was on feel, atmosphere, and tone rather than harmony, melody and rhythm. You can hear their own influence echoing today, rippling outward from the experimental territory they occupied, into deeper abstraction, and into more meditative rock/pop areas.

Apart from releasing records as Pole, Stefan Betke also runs one of the definitive minimalist electronic labels, ~Scape, releasing records by Safety Scissors, Deadbeat, Burnt Friedmann, and others. But today, we are concerned with Jan Jelinek's first ~Scape release, Loop Finding Jazz Records.

Jelinek is a prolific producer working under his name and the pseudonym Farben (and occasionally as Gramm). Loop Finding Jazz Records is the first record he released under his real name, and its title is an apt description of its contents. The warm, meditative tones of these 8 tracks were created using a technique often referred to as "miscrosound," by sampling and manipulating fragments of old jazz LPs, stretching, layering and stuttering sub-second pulses of sound into new shapes. The result is a vaguely jazzy, deeply dubby, and cerebral approach to sampling. It's at once thoroughly modern and fondly nostalgic, using the tools of today to re-craft the sounds of yesterday.

Reggae and dub are typically associated with the warm, tropical climates of Jamaica and other Caribbean nations, but Berlin's Stefan Betke (AKA Pole) has perfected his own, chilly version to match his hometown's climate. The "Berlin Dub" style, as performed y Betke, strips techno down to it's barest, lowest elements in the same way that dub fillets reggae. The end result is a scratchy, stand-offish rhythmic pulse filtered across a track of throbbing, minimalist synth bass.

But apparently, three color-coded and numbered-but-not-titled full lengths were enough for Betke. The material he's released as Pole since 2000's 3 (the follow-up to 1 and 2) has been brighter and more forward, with beats that have been fleshed out and occasional vocal collaborations. The static and crackle of the broken Waldorf 4-Pole Filter that was a trademark part of his sound (and the source of his name) has seemingly been retired in favor of a crisper aesthetic. This track comes from 2000's Clicks & Cuts, Vol. 1, the groundbreaking minimalist electronic music anthology on Mille Plateaux.

I know very little about Anthony 'Shake' Shakir, other than that he's usually known as a producer of somewhat old-school feeling Detroit techno, as well as being involved in at least one label in that style. But this track stretches away from that rather narrow niche, grabbing ideas from drum n' bass, and even IDM, with an evolving breakbeat centering the song. It's definitely still dance music, with a strong bass anchoring the low end, but that shifting drum pattern wants to be something else. It's a delicate balance between the predictability of dance rhythms and the random or spontaneous flow of improvised music.

This one was taken from the All Tomorrow's Parties festival compilation for 2003, curated by Autechre, who know a thing or two about rhythm and chaos.

San Francisco-based producer/programmer (and former Orthlong Musork label owner) Kit Clayton has worked in a wide variety of electronic styles, from the completely abstract to the totally beat-driven. His day job, programming for Cycling '74, the makers of Max/MSP, a modular music software environment, surely informs the experimental side of his work. He's appeared on many renowned labels, including heavyweights like ~scape and Mille Plateaux.

This track, from the Souljazz-released Microsolutions to Megaproblems series, highlights the ass-shaking side of his repretoire, starting with a persistent house-esque beat before giving way to a funky midtempo shaffel feel. The dubby staccato synths floating above the deep kick sound like a digital version of a mid-70s blaxploitation scratch, making it nearly impossible to stand still until the song is over.