Message 6/31
Date: 19-Nov-99 @ 01:52 AM -
RE: dance music trends
I'm not going to answer the BPM question because its kind of ridiculus...make a track, set the tempo until it feels rights...I mean...there are no rules to the genres, only subjective perceptions of what sounds make something tech-house instead of house and when house becomes "deep" ...
Anyway...as to the trend thing...
I live in Detroit and am selectively frequent at parties here (that is, I've been in the scene long enough that I won't go to a party every week...I actually only choose the good ones...)
Happily I'm still hearing a lot of hard techno (from Swedish to the Jeff Mills varieties) and some slightly slower, more housish (but definitely not tech-housish) "pumping techno" ... Adam X was here a couple of weeks ago and he put on a fucking good "pumping" set and Niel Landstrumm did a very interesting hard set...
In the harder areas, I've noticed a strange jungle/hard techno fusion that I'm glad to see. Let me explain what I mean by that....
This jungle-tech is a fusion in that it is still four to the floor (or often 2 times 2) but it abandons the House kick in favor of a rat-a-tat stream of low percussions which mix organically with the rest of the rhythms...and the rhythms are what resemble jungle... They aren't like, detailed etchy, funky beats, but still very intricate and beyond what we usually call straight techno (see Richie Hawtin's new album)...
And then there's that plague of Trance... ick... keep that shyte away from me. At every middle-of the road party (in quality) there is a token west-coast Trance DJ (because no one from Detroit would have the balls to do it) and the younger kids/newer kids seem to actually like it. Thankfully there is still
an enthusiastic REAL techno audience that will sweat inside a warehouse for someone like Adam X or Neil....
Anyway...each time I come home from a party I get pissed at everything I've made and think "once again I've lost the cutting edge" ... So many records come out each week its like...damn...I gotta really get my brain going....where do *I* think that this shit should be going? What aren't they doing? How can I avoid the old stand-by beats?
Can anyone sympathize? I KNOW I'm not the only amateur on here and I'm willing to admit that *I* was a groove-box kid turned on a couple of years ago...Fortunately I've moved on!
John Acquaviva, Stacy Pullen and Charles Feelgood tomorrow, baby...System 3 year...
anyway...that's my rant...ttyl