Posts by samuel walker
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Hard News: Friday Music: Dancing Fool, in reply to Russell Brown,
I have been known to dance to the sound of a coffee-grinder.
Sometimes all it takes is a phone ringing or a kettle boiling...
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At the risk of offending professional dancers... my credo is to dance to feel good, never look good. Never understood people who laugh at the funny dancers, they are probably having a better time than you!
On the other hand Leatherman in Thank God It's Friday has an approach that's hard to dismiss:
"You ain't gonna be happy until you're free. And the only way you're going to be free is to get loose. And the only way you're going to get loose is to dance!"
I can not comment on whether the dancing across car rooftops was re-created outside Box on high St in the early nineties, or whether a moving car was utilised to bridge the gap Vulcan lane created...
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I've found James Blake's music attractive too, and those Alex Clare and Jamie Woon tracks sound good at first listen too. But I guess I've been confused by their characterisation as "post-dubstep"...Which sounds all very nitpicky, and I'm not trying to put anything in a box, but I'm just a bit confused and intrigued about the musical strands that led to these new trends.
Since i invoked the spectre of Post-Dubstep...
I can only really answer in relation to my own history and the contrails that intertwine toward my personal musical mindscape. To me post-dubstep is a non-genre that signifies music that exists due to Dubstep, but is not Dubstep itself.
This is further complicated by the the genre disconnect between 90's downbeat and this years favoured genre signposts. Any release by the band Leftfield would be listed as dubstep today, in fact i do believe i have seen Massive Attack 'filed under' dubstep. The new album by 90's Trip Hop favourites Lamb was tagged Dubstep when I purchased it; even though they have not evolved far beyond what would be expected had Dubstep never become popular.
Dubstep grew out of the Grime and 2-step revival around 2002, in many ways a reaction to the trance-house that dominated at the time. It was initially characterised by a grittier feel with less vocals and more studio created tension than Grime and somehow evolved into a dancefloor genre as well as a chill-out alternate [Burial, Kode 9]. Much of what is put forward as Post-dubstep seems to be more focused on the 'dub' path exposed by Dubstep with a broader use of space and drawn out tension. It is easy to link many of these works to much of the electronic dub popular in the early nineties (then filed under: Downtempo).
I personally find the post-dubstep handle useful in that it signposts music that has been influenced by the creative and populist explosion of this music a few years ago whilst separating it from the more base [and less creative] Wobble and formulaic ['Ministy of Sound presents Dubstep'] examples of the form. As an aside I consider Wobble to be very similar to 'Jump-up' the populist offshoot of Drum and Bass in the mid-nineties; which had a tight formula and Wobble-esque vibe itself. i could ramble for hours on how much the current wave of bro-step owes to Si-Begg, Noodles Discoteque and the various related Breaks spin-offs of the late nineties ...buts that's a whole other kettle of fish. Genre titles have always been tricky, and much like modern english one needs to losen the reigns a little and not get too pedantic when the signposts move. Progressive house used to mean a type of dubby-acid house disco (guerilla records et-al) but less than a decade later everthing in that bin had a very strong trancey vibe. In many ways the genre had evolved with the musicians and DJs involved, problematic if you need to define a genre rigidly.
Woon is particularly easy to mark a path with through this teritory, as his first single was both infulenced by and involved with Burial (Burial being a pretty hory, easy to spot tipping point). If you listen closely you can still hear the half-time snares quite often, maybe we should have called it Half-step?
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Hard News: The Sound of Music, in reply to Russell Brown,
It seems odd to me that out of the lanky, cleancut, pale, post dubstep contenders James Blake gets more press than Jamie Woon. Wayfaring Stranger, Night Air and Lady Luck alone beat any of Blakes tunes...
http://www.youtube.com/user/jamiewoon#p/u/9/EL0pTo9Z_XU
Woon is also far more open minded and experimental, which is important considering the soul/tech hybrid both do so well. Blake is famously anti remix, whereas Woon embraces any blend...
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Hard News: The Thread, It Is Open, in reply to Geoff Lealand,
bleeding discussions about coffee!
I just discovered how to invert my Aeropress...gets the oil back in the coffee...so very good.
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Hard News: The Thread, It Is Open, in reply to Jake Pollock,
Strandbeests...Jansen is a genius.
There aren't any good quality videos of his animaris rhinoceros online... But if you ever have a chance to see the full documentary on his work Loek van der Klis - Works of Art by Theo Jansen (2006) there is a great sequence that shows the creation of the beast, several trial runs, and finally the beest being walked through an urban environment...
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Hard News: The Thread, It Is Open, in reply to Sacha,
The machine in K’Road’s Brazil always impressed me with it’s exaggerated tubing, levers and whatnot
Ducting? I couldn't even turn on the kitchen tap without filling out a 27b/6... Bloody paperwork.
Ere I am J H....
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Hard News: About Arie, in reply to Russell Brown,
Oh, look, me too. It has taken me a while to work this out.
which is a small but important part of what makes Russell Brown always worth listening to. And is one of the indicators that Mr Laws is sadly lacking.
I am very possibly wrong, but I think the police should be questioned about this fairly, lets not just turn the angry mob 180 degrees. There is enough possibility in that city of injury without angry residents and fellow 'looters' let alone the police.
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Hard News: Do you like what we've done…, in reply to Ben Gracewood,
Thanks for pointing out the disable typekit button Ben, even in Chrome the text was hideous.
otherwise an awesome upgrade, props to russ
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Our respective sites do have quite distinct styles, don't they?
RolfArohanui