is dance music going through a sort of 'return of the repressed'?

wuhg?

wait, were people repressing their love for alan parsons? cuz that's just sad if its true.

I think you're right about this, but you could just call it fashion tho . .. sooner or later legwarmers were going to come back, same with saxophones and cosmic disco. The question is, who were the repressive forces? What was the superego that forbid these things? I'm guessing that the 90s ideas of what electronic music was about (modernity, innovation, clarity/minimalism in design and structure) have just finally lost all credibility or become optional, not necessarily linked in anyone's mind with a given genre. It used to be mandatory to pay lipservice to the idea that you were "pushing things forward"; now that dance music has entered a period of self-consciously "late" decadence it's cool to build your work entirely out of cute signifiers from the past . ..

http://www.gullbuy.com/images/electroclash2.jpg

i like the way you've still managed to make 'nu-rave' sound x10000 better than 'balearic minimal'

Drew, I think you're on the mark when it comes to, as scott just called it, "electroclash 2", but in some of the other genres the past feels less recycled than revisited, sometimes almost touchingly so, like a 20-something now lovingly picking through his father's lps that he spurned as an adolescent. And, in some cases, the influence isn't worn as lightly as an ironic badge or waved like a glowstick - it's a heavy thing, all brain-swallowing dubs and eyes-closed synthesizer codas.

there are an infinite amount of ways to combine the old with the new. some work. some don't. i'm intrigued by that ilm beardo thread. i'd imagine that i would like those kinds of mixes/tunes. and i love the idea of "prog" dance music. i was an orb fan. and i love prog disco. and i love the 80's. electroclash never did much for me. i thought it might have been a mistake to put a 15 minute supertramp remix on an 80's mix that i posted on ilm. turns out i was just being hip again!

i already love this thread.

feel free to download. i think it's still alive:

Tone Band - Germany Calling (Polydor - 1981)

M& H Band - Popcorn (Butter Mix) (Touch - 1988)

Micro Chip League - Communicate (Peking Walk) (AK Lawn - 1986)

Chocolate Milk - Video Queen (RCA - 1981)

Technique Niquee - Frattered (Zero Faute - 1986)

Panoramics - Estellita El Mix (Harbor Light - 198?)

Supertramp - Cannonball (Instrumental) (A&M - 1985)

The Mood - Don't Stop (RCA - 1982)

Baroque Bordello - Today (ALG - 1984)

Richard Romeo - Non Chalance (Ariola - 1984)

Opal - Ain't No Way (Dub Version - Killer Matos Mix) (Silver Cloud - 1983)

'Lectric Funk - Shanghaied (JDC - 1981)

Full Beat featuring Afroside & Jovanotti - Beat Bop To Bicycle (Full Time - 198?)

Slammin' The Rock - Say Yeah! (Warlock - 198?)

http://dutchtoenglish.com/skots%2080s%20rock%20box%20vol%201.mp3

i blame the internet! or thank the internet. depending on whether something is good or bad or not. john denver mashups can be a hoot. on the other hand, i think i'm anti-edit. that can mother sky edit really left a bad taste in my mouth. anyway, the overabundance of stuff online and easy access means something in the scheme of things. it would explain the 20 minute krautrock anthem into the italodisco obscurity into the postpunk bassline into the 80's house into the...approach. that's how people here things now. lotsa frankenstein monster hybrid genres are the result.

now that dance music has entered a period of self-consciously "late" decadence it's cool to build your work entirely out of cute signifiers from the past

drop the words "self-consciously" and "cute" and you might have something there

Er, but "lateness" and "decadence" are concepts which can only emerge from self-reflection, from a historical sense of where one stands in relation to the past, so it wouldn't mean the same thing if you took "self-consciously" out. I wasn't using it in a pejorative sense at all. The point is simply that "decadence" is not some objective fact, it's a decision you make about how you locate yourself.

As for "cute", that's just me being bitchy.

thanks for clarifying. i did read it perjoratively. and that's because i got the sense (from this thread, from ILM opinions, from some critics) that somehow dance music is less because it is in a heavy recycling or cherry-picking phase when it seems that the critical stance (+ internetification) is what's changing more than musical technique.

why hasn't anyone dreamt up the idea of putting long saxophone solos on minimal techno tracks? it could be a retreat haven/melting-pot for cool-craving jazzers, etno bands, hibernated proggies, etc. that Villalobos marching-band tune doesn't count as its far to repetitive, i'm thinking more like organic/free-floating opuses pushing the man/machine dialectic to its limit.

My theory remains that last year, french robots landed in the desert to proclaim that 9/11 is over and it's ok to dance again - unironically.

tricky, definitely didn't mean to imply that dance music is lesser for being in a "heavy recycling phase" - i'm much more interested in what's being recycled and what's being left out and why than blaming the scene for lacking 'newness'(as drew said, newness is old now anyway). minimal, techno, cosmic disco etc is pretty much all i listen to these days anyway (trend whore that i am).

I think I'm gonna stay away from this thread.

you ever get trancey dan?

this all sounds good to me

lots of it *is* good, sometimes great! i let some value judgement seep into the nu-rave characterisation, but otherwise i really didn't mean to say that any of this shouldn't be happening, or is taking things in the wrong direction, or any of that...

ihave a feeling that we might be on the way OUT from this. sleek modernism might be on its way back, at least in europe, judging by the recent success of things like redshape and radioslave.

well actually the early part of your post all sounded good, i can live without the WOW POWZACK neon discovery nurave stuff though

does any of this balericy stuff sound like deodato

"WOW POWZACK neon discovery nurave stuff" is pretty much all I listen to right now.

does any of this balericy stuff sound like deodato

yes, yes it does

which stuff in particular spencer?

why hasn't anyone dreamt up the idea of putting long saxophone solos on minimal techno tracks?

i guess 'The Man With The Red Face' wasn't particularly minimal/complex, but still...nearly 7 years old now :o

Fuck saxophones in any music that isn't jazz. ugh.

fuck saxophones in jazz and nothing else

all music is jazz, dog

The answer to the original question is, ABSOLUTELY.

As for specific music, it's not just about the nu-rave rock bands (which I like very much). There's a mountain of amazing house music coming out of all this - it's almost like my dream has come true: Daft Punk has become a genre unto itself, fueled by myspace, hype machine, ableton, serato etc. You could just start at the Justice myspace page or Ed Banger or whatever and check out their top friends and see where it takes you...

ha do we have to completely different things going on, on this thread now?

does any of this balericy stuff sound like deodato

yes, yes it does

-- jaxon, Thursday

ok ok spill the beans throw them on the street. tell!

was looking for less well-known recommendations really spencer, but cheers :)

Right, I was saying to look who they link to in their top friends, and their top friends and so on and so on.

gareth, check out the dj history thread where people are voting for their 25 favorite balearic tunes.
http://www.djhistory.com/forum/showthread.php?t=24317

there's so much deodato-esque stuff on there. even a top tune like Tullio De Piscopo's "Stop Bajon" has that islandy light jazz feel http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jhIXU4IXLWg

also, i did a search on that forum for Deodato's name and came up w/3 pages of results.

I'm probably being lame, but as a sometime DJ, I'm slightly guarded about just laying it all out there!

Wait, gareth???

never acid, i went to a Trouble & Bass party a few weeks ago and was talking to one of the guys and asked him what he thought of the whole Nu-Rave tag and he said they were part of the NoRave scene. kinda made me laugh, but what they're doing was pretty rad. then Moby came on and played 2 hours rave's greatest hits.

Trouble & Bass - Drop the Lime / Math Head / + crew

yeah i love the trouble & bass stuff! definitely some of the best new music coming out at the moment

Daft Punk has become a genre unto itself, fueled by myspace, hype machine, ableton, serato etc. You could just start at the Justice myspace page or Ed Banger or whatever and check out their top friends and see where it takes you...

god this sounds like some sort of nightmare out of 120 days of sodom ...

we keep recycling, eating our own poop for nutritition, closing ourselves off and taking in nothing new, until our poop becomes so stripped of nutrition, so bare and acrid and acidic that it rots our teeth out.

nu-rave: eat shit and LIKE IT

Uh, I'm eating. Not only that, I am eating spicy Szechuan noodles with some unknown ingredients.

xpost. Oh please.

I'm having FUN, I promise.

I guess it's strange that I didn't really like the style and concept of electro-clash or disco-punk (liked many of the songs), but I do really like nu-rave as an approach. I also think that many of the songs/tracks would be similar regardless of which style is in vogue.

i am amazed at how readily folks my age (and younger!) have embraced their fogey status

christ, i feel like the lex

Tullio De Piscopo's "Stop Bajon

i love this one

this thread is weird now, its all over the place

people are all over the place on the internet

the dissolving of genre and the total confluence of modern sound onto a limitless palette

'this place' = 'this thread'

Also if you spend your time plotting the influences you miss all the new things that are being created in the process of combining them. It's not just one endless loop, it's more like an infinite flux.

I get exasperated when I see people complaining that there are too many unconnected things going on in music. As though art should be controlled in some way, delimited... why?

to prevent eclectism:D

unconnected things = great

as long as they stay unconnected

people are fond of limits and boundaries. of rules.

lex does that mean we need different ipods for different genres or what

lex doesn't know how to connect an ipod

i actually don't!

trusty discman continues to serve me well

i saw him trying to eat an ipod once, on wanstead flats. tuomas laughed at him, explaining you dont eat those, they're for wiping your face with

i think everything is inherently connected anyway. now i must get a haicrut and a job.

i revived threads about radioslave and justice to say how much i like them, and nobody cares!!

i like both radioslave and justice

we're finally back in sync

maybe everyone was politely disappointed that you lost the plot?
oh xpost
oh fuck.

I get exasperated when I see people complaining that there are too many unconnected things going on in music.

the thread premise was that a bunch of connected things seem to be going on across dance music sub-genres, and i wanted to find out if people agreed that they were connected and about how they were connected and perhaps try and expain why. i'm not sure what the fuck has happened since then. ronan, vahid, tim and drew at least seem interested.

jermainetwo, that wasn't really aimed at you, or anyone else in particular, it's just a general thing.

HA HA HA HOLY SHIT

the dance + cheer squad just did a big routine to basement jaxx's "good luck" for the friday rally.

BRITISH DAHNCE IS NOT DEAD IN AMERICA!!

followed by

some southern rap / snap song with guys going "two step to it, two step to it".

some beyonce type thing with a dancehall-ish beat

the e-40 song with the "we be to rap / what key be to lock" sample

the hyphy song that's going around with the luke vibert-ish cheesy listening strings + chimes orchestra flourish sample.

some weird spybeat crap with samples ... sounds like it might be U.F.O.!

extremely aggressive and slow sounding track with incredibly LOUD 808 bass bombs all over the place ... and a guy going "bring it back bring it back haaaaaaaaay" ... or maybe he's saying "where you at where you at heeeeeeeeeey!" what is this?

the breakdancers are kicking it pretty oldschool - they just did routine to tracks by the propellerheads and the freestylers!!

the awesome snap / hyphy tracks were by DJ UNK.

the uptempo r+b track was ... gia ferrell? is that right?

apparently two of the songs were from "happy feet"

DJ Unk = Walk it out = the "two step to it" song?

i am interested in this topic, too, but it's also something that all dance threads on ILM (except maybe the bobbins ones and the polls) seem to evolve into. (at least the good ones do IMO)

i think we are on the way IN not OUT. i want my dance music to contain multitudes (at least right now in 07) and also to be like muji. those contradictions are where it gets interesting right?

(at least right now in 07)

haha vahid were you liveblogging a pep rally?

gotta be an ilm 1st

SCOTT I AM MAKING SWEET BUSHY LOVE TO YOUR COMPILATION
("to", not "to")

just in case anyone missed my hothead mixes. beardo on beardo axxxtion!

Macondo - Do It To Me

Francisco - Heal Yourself

Abe & Malka - Silver's Really Grey

Laurin Rinder & W. Michael Lewis - Anger

Neil Merryweather - Sunshine Superman

Smokey Robinson - Theme From Big Time

Jackson Heights - Sunshine Freak

Barrabas - Mr.Money

Michael Franks - Born With The Moon In Virgo

Don Fardon - Belfast Boy

Morning Glory - Even When I'm Up I'm Down

The Hues Corporation - All Goin' Down Together

Red Rhodes - Lunar Nova

Scott Bradford - Essential Horror

The Face Dancers - Let The Music Set You Free

Tropea - Tambourine

Spread Eagle - Piece Of Paper

The Turtles - Hot Little Hands

Charlie D & Milo - Om Sweet Om

http://wvvy.org/listen/content/sweet%20smoke%20for%20hotheads%20mix.mp3

The Mystic Moods - Cosmic Sea (Warner Brothers - 1973)

Road - I'm Trying (Natural Resources/Motown - 1972)

Hamilton, Joe Frank & Reynolds - Funk-In-Wagnal (Dunhill - ?)

Hello People - Dinosaur (ABC - 1975)

Cambridge - Faithless Lady (Green Dolphin - 197?)

Alessi - Do You Feel It? (A&M - 1976)

Count Buffalos - Phases (Toshiba - 1976)

Stargard - Starbob (MCA - 1978)

Byzantium - Baby I Can Hear You Calling Me (Warner Brothers - 1972)

Dane Donahue - Casablanca (Columbia - 1978)

Vance Or Towers - Don't It Getcha (A&M - 1975)

Molkie Cole - Sugar Boogie (Janus - 1977)

Tucky Buzzard - Time Will Be Your Doctor (Capitol - 197?)

Hot Chocolate - Hello America (Big Tree - 1975)

Wham! - Superslick (GRT - 1978)

ADC Band - More & More Disco (Cotillion - 1978)

Today, Tomorrow, Forever - It's Your Love (RSO - 1979)

High Inergy - I Just Can't Help Myself (Gordy - 1980)

P-Funk All Stars - Hydraulic Pump Part III (Oh My God I Can't Feel My Face And There Is Cocaine Coming Out Of My Ears And Sly Is Crawling Around On The Floor Get Up Sly Where Am I What Year Is This Records)

http://www.wvvy.org/listen/content/19feb07mix.mp3

thanks!

http://loveanddancing.sitesled.com/493531372_2555967b1b_o.jpg

http://www.to-here-knows-when.co.uk/images/hidenseek.jpg

All these kids in Oberlin just got back from London and were all like, 'We got into some really hot shit over there, you should play it' during a techno set I was doing. And I didn't know how to tell them that I think London is NOT the coolest place in the world and the whole nu-rave thing is shite. Re-hashed electroclash does not a genre make.

just came across this from mister reynolds, which has some overlap with the thread premise.

scott thank you

So, when will we see a revival of "Popcorn" or "Magic Fly" then?

(Hmmm... I just realised "Felix Da Housecat" has already revived the latter)

hey hongro, have you heard "shit robot" yet??

I don't think so.

i put an 80's version of popcorn on my 80's mix up above, geir. check it out if you dare.

You mean, the B&H Band (or whatever they were called) version?
I prefer the original.

you can't beat the original, it's true. but i like the 80's touch.

some girl came up to me at a party once and asked me if i was playing "some popcorn remix or something", and i was like, 'uh...no.' then i realized that would be pretty awesome. thanks scott.

XP I might have liked the 80s touch had it been an early 80s touch. I never liked the typical late 80s sound with lots of FM synths and samples.

When I was super drunk I forgot to say hi to Steve, Ronan and everyone else.

sup

http://americanathlete.blogspot.com/2007/07/you-should-be-dancin.html

spencer where do you DJ in LA? we have similar taste. excepting ratatat.

I just woke from a dream in which I was in a psytrance band called Digital Medium.

Max, email me and I'll send invites. Another ilxor is a bigger DJ who you'll probably like even more!

i still think there's more to talk about here. has anybody addressed *why* they think almost every variety of disco is being revived right now? is 'escapism' too thin an argument? how does something like this http://americanathlete.blogspot.com/2007/11/body-lovin-music.html go from reviled to cherished in the space of a couple years?

i don't really want to get into an argument about the quality of any record - i've absolutely no problem with anyone loving obscure german hot-tub disco (in fact, i'd probably be fairly down with that record) - just the, er, cultural climate right now, the readjustment of values.

Yeah the increasing need for escapism is not confined to dance music:

http://blog.wired.com/sterling/2006/07/the_consolation.html

"I'd like to see this silly thing, just to take my mind off the wholesale slaughter of Indian train commuters and the looming Arab-Israeli War. That, and Johnny Depp as a pirate. It's like the cinema of the 1930s, all of a sudden; everybody wants to see Ginger Rogers in Art Deco chiffon bcause they're standing in a soup-line."