Alcofribas
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Posts posted by Alcofribas
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I value music that’s made for the rush, the adaptation, and the general backwardness of the act
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in the wake of brian mcbride's passing, i have been (re)visiting some interviews with SOTL and figure i'd share a couple of the comments they've made about not releasing music for 13 years:
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first impressions - a very nice, chill album. I’ll definitely be returning to it and feels like it might open up more as the summer transitions to autumn. definitely the most impressive Slowdive album as far as the mixing and production go; I was especially surprised at how nice the vocals sound, how well they sit very upfront in the mix - quite unusual for them but it sounds really good.
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31 minutes ago, Bubba69 said:
In some ways I think it's more ambitious than it ever was. Imagine trying to make collapse EP with a cirklon and a huge hardware collection and making it all talk together and mix together correctly and all that. Man is doing some crazy shit that nobody else is doing in that way right now.
yes
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On 3/30/2023 at 3:22 AM, d-a-m-o said:
man i love this shit
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interesting thread here. i like it. some solid posts.
i'd like to say that aphex came up in a musical-social scene and a driving part of how this was perceived or even marketed had to do with "futuristic" sound; the excitement of defining boundaries of new genres and the excitement of pushing them; and an iconoclastic almost macho "innovationism." i think that scene is dead. and he's no longer a young man.
the underlying thing of richard has always been he does what he wants and doesn't give a fuck. "this record is just to make money fast bc i left my hard drive on a plane so it's whatever." "this record is just remixes i made for money." "i made this track in the car with the laptop plugged into the stereo, just having a laugh." and then the accompanying music is often so unbelievably good, of such an insanely high level of craft that you kinda have to think this whole attitude of "yeah whatever just having a laugh" is the actual joke bc he knows he's making mind-blowing shit.
it does kinda seem to me he doesn't really lean into that persona so much anymore. i think his musical statements are less severe and his public image is less provocative. again i think the scene is no longer there, the media landscape is different, music consumption is different. but i still think he's being himself. i see no compromise or weakening.
i think his music seems more understated these days. but i also think the craftsmanship is still there and it's still at a really fucking high level that most of us can hardly dream of. i think his attention to detail is probably greater than ever. people say "syro" was somehow weak or boring or whatever the fuck people were saying. but imo that stuff is so elegant, beautifully arranged, gorgeously mixed and produced, it's just completely on another level from what most artists in the game are capable of. it's really beautiful music imo. it's definitely less provocative, less in your face and bold, but it's no less moving and inspiring to me. and honestly, i still think he's showing off a lot in these newer records. especially considering the claim that some of this stuff is just stereo recordings of him pressing "play" on the sequencer and doing everything live. i mean, let's be real, that takes incredible artistry. like, go on youtube and listen to the countless videos of people doing live hardware music. it's like the difference between match light and the fucking sun.
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9 hours ago, drillkicker said:
I dont see that. Most people who make electronic music own a computer of some form, with a DAW even. I just add max/msp on top of that and that's all i need. No need for continual thousands of dollars spent on modules. I already have everything i need and ive been using the same tools (max+ableton) for the past decade or so. Ive acquired more gear since then but none of it stuck and i always revert to the same two tools. I use max to make the sounds and i use live intro to edit sounds into finished pieces. That's all i need and i dont expect that will ever change.
Also, i dont think physical devices = gear lust. As i said, i have friends who make very cool sounds with eurorack modules. It just isnt something i can afford. But buying modules you dont need in order to make music that could easily be made on a computer alone is annoying and irresponsible.
what i'm focused on here is spiral's claim, with which you agreed, that getting into modular/hardware is "the death of creativity." i mean, i think it's really obvious that people make extremely beautiful and creative music with hardware so i don't think that claim has any merit whatsoever. sure, there are people who get walls of modular and make absolutely shit music but this is infinitely more true for people making music with their computers.
i'd like to talk a bit about this idea that "all you need" is a computer and a daw and max or something like that. obviously, that's a powerful set up and if that's what you specifically are into that's lush and i don't wish to criticize that for you. there's something quite attractive about that to me, even. but i think generally speaking the computer makes us talk like this. it makes us think we need it, and it is all we need. it's both the bare minimum and the maximum. people always refer to their computer and smartphone as something they need. it's as though you're cut out of life itself without this bare minimum of a few thousand dollars of devices (and you absolutely will have to continue to spend lots of money on these over time). and there is a kind of hostility here toward other ways of doing things. it makes us think in terms of "i don't need to do something else if i can do it on my computer with ease." i think, for one thing, if we are talking about creativity this attitude is a form of laziness. since when is music making all about doing what is easiest? doing things the "hard way" is often very rewarding work. i don't use modular gear but i can imagine there is a special kind of joy in patching something up. the way it inherently makes you slow down could really help put you into a nice state for opening yourself up to music. the way you can just patch randomly and find totally unexpected sounds could really create some amazing surprises and bring the music in for you. all the tactile sensations happening, the colors, maybe even odors involved, all these can talk to your imagination. so to me it's unintuitive to say that it's "annoying" to do this or the "death of creativity" when you could more "easily" do this on a computer. especially since the computer is almost all visual, and since we use it for so many things it lacks the kind of specificity of instruments.
i also think that this insistence on how the computer can replace everything overestimates the "ease" this technology brings to our lives. there are many angles to criticize this. for instance, specifically i think typing on a text screen is legit rubbish technology; imo autocorrect isn't correcting your mistakes it's correcting for a bad interface that makes you use your thumbs to press a visual cue the size of an apple seed on a flat piece of glass. is it truly easier to use a mouse to change a value than using a knob? is it easier to open up a softsynth than to have an actual synth in front of you? i think this stuff adds up, especially when you see how this technology encroaches on our lives so insidiously - everything must be done with the computer. so i think when we evaluate "ease" we would also want to take into account the accumulative effect of mediating so much in our life with one single technology. there's a lot of burn out here, depression, fatigue, just from constantly staring at a flat screen alone. earlier spiral directed his ire at the #analog and what is that? it's a computer phenomenon! even when you are using analog or going dawless you are compelled to represent it on social media. it's not real until it's online and be can scrolled through on a phone.
so i see this tendency to regard computers as this fundamental necessity in our lives that we basically never question. we might even have an ironic stance toward them - lots of memes for instance about phone addiction, binging on social media, stuff like that - but we never part ways with it. and with this is an antagonism to other technologies, other approaches to doing things a computer supposedly can do. and it's this kind of thing that i'm aiming my sights on. obviously, computers are an awesome technology (i am typing on one presently) and not only do i not hate computer music but i actually love what it can do (the autechre brothers are divine entities imo). but i very much encourage efforts to shut off the screen and do things "the hard way." not for you, specifically of course. but generally speaking.
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12 minutes ago, mcbpete said:
Need to watch that one again - Seem to remember the late 90s/early 00s CGI and editing style being a bit .... yikes in comparison to the first two
For sure. But it def has cool moments
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1 hour ago, Ivan Ooze said:
Nice WEIRD track, looking forward to hear the rest
*eyes emoji*
20 minutes ago, mcbpete said:Wondering if the video at 3.01 where it goes all organ-arpy is a reference (both sound and visual wise) to:
(^ From Koyaanisqatsi if you've not seen it)
Naqoyqatsi has a whole crash test dummies segment with dummies crashing in slow motion
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1 minute ago, Alcofribas said:
this is an interesting reply, thank you.
there are a couple of things here. i definitely agree that there is a kind of "car guy"/ "hardware guy" thing out there. no denying it. probably like 80% of gearspace is this guy. i also think that there is a definite trend on social media to valorize hardware and "dawless" or whatever. but i think even here we are running into some difficulties parsing out the boundaries here. i think you are describing niche phenomena, whereas almost definitely the vast majority of music being made (in the "west" perhaps) is computer music. i think a trend on social media is a real thing, but social media is already also part of this problem i see, where more and more every facet of our lives is being mediated by one single technology: a computer, a touch scree, a mouse, a keyboard. so the way we make music is the same as the way we write a resume, consume news and political events, hail a cab, mediate our love lives. this, to me, is extraordinarily far from a "blank sheet of paper;" it's indeed an ever-encompassing environment where we live more and more of our lives.
i would even push back against this idea of a blank slate. not because it's an invalid way to approach making art (it isn't) but because it's a very specific idea about what creativity means. personally, i'm not interested in blank slates. i like to tinker, to mess about, to play. and one plays with what's at hand. with hardware, this activity is literal, physical. to me, it's the play that leads to the freedom, not some sense of a completely blank slate where you can do anything. i like hardware bc it's so different from the world we live in now. the computer is a chore, a mesmerizing piece of glass shining light on my face beckoning me to more more more. i can operate the majority of things in my studio with my eyes closed. many things have big knobs and switches and buttons i can press without even having to "think" really. with a computer i am always looking. i'm beholden to the screen. everything is there. click click click click. i think the computer is an inelegant interface. the touchscreen, the mouse, the keyboard - i genuinely believe these don't hold a candle to throwing a slider or ever so gently tweaking a knob.
i am by no means saying making computer music is bad or anything like that. but i do think there is a real "fish will be the last to know water" thing going on here.
also just want to make a comment on the idea that hardware is a huge pain to maintain. this may be true but i believe it is overstated. i also believe that it is another instance where people are not being realistic about computers. i have, for instance, several pieces of gear in my studio that are 30+ years old. some even more. some of these have never been worked on at all. they can be wonky and not work properly, but to me this is ok. that's life. and sometimes when things don't work, that's actually interesting and makes you try things differently. however, some of these work more or less exactly as intended after several decades. the ones i have had serviced basically are good as new and the cost of doing this was a totally reasonable investment imo.
on the other hand, my computer is always being annoying as fuck. it does weird shit all the time. there is almost no chance whatsoever a computer will last as long as my old synths or outboard gear. and once it's done, it's just completely fucking done. i have an emagic amt8 i've had since 2002 i think. it's worked flawlessly the entire time i had it. however, somehow my mac updated its OS (even though i have auto-updates turned off...hmmm...cool!) and now the amt8 needs to be powered on and off multiple times before the computer decides to recognize it. this is bc of a software "update." computers are constantly moving toward obsolecsence. they can render your studio less and less useful and unlike an old synth it's pretty unlikely you can open up a mac and do anything about this. there are plenty of proprietary formats that are basically unusable now, whereas all the cassettes i've recorded on since the 90s are perfectly useable.
this is all to say that if we want to really understand this issue we would have to look at what the computer is actually doing and not always take it for granted that it's the flawless machine that houses the holy spirit of software
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31 minutes ago, hello spiral said:
I don't like the lack of creative freedom that comes with the territory of gear. It seems to turn into a dick measuring contest and also most of the focus is on the mechanics of getting your gear to actually fucking work and maintenance etc. It's music guy eq of those dudes who are always taking their cars apart in their driveways every sunday. Spergy compulsion.
A daw to me is a blank sheet of paper and a pencil. Putting gear in the equation is like introducing a spirograph to the mix.Or to use another metaphor, wanting to get really good at fancy yoyo tricks.
And no, if you go down the rabbitholes of gear people on social media, the dominant 'ideology' (aka bragging rights) is always along the lines of #analog #dawless etc
this is an interesting reply, thank you.
there are a couple of things here. i definitely agree that there is a kind of "car guy"/ "hardware guy" thing out there. no denying it. probably like 80% of gearspace is this guy. i also think that there is a definite trend on social media to valorize hardware and "dawless" or whatever. but i think even here we are running into some difficulties parsing out the boundaries here. i think you are describing niche phenomena, whereas almost definitely the vast majority of music being made (in the "west" perhaps) is computer music. i think a trend on social media is a real thing, but social media is already also part of this problem i see, where more and more every facet of our lives is being mediated by one single technology: a computer, a touch scree, a mouse, a keyboard. so the way we make music is the same as the way we write a resume, consume news and political events, hail a cab, mediate our love lives. this, to me, is extraordinarily far from a "blank sheet of paper;" it's indeed an ever-encompassing environment where we live more and more of our lives.
i would even push back against this idea of a blank slate. not because it's an invalid way to approach making art (it isn't) but because it's a very specific idea about what creativity means. personally, i'm not interested in blank slates. i like to tinker, to mess about, to play. and one plays with what's at hand. with hardware, this activity is literal, physical. to me, it's the play that leads to the freedom, not some sense of a completely blank slate where you can do anything. i like hardware bc it's so different from the world we live in now. the computer is a chore, a mesmerizing piece of glass shining light on my face beckoning me to more more more. i can operate the majority of things in my studio with my eyes closed. many things have big knobs and switches and buttons i can press without even having to "think" really. with a computer i am always looking. i'm beholden to the screen. everything is there. click click click click. i think the computer is an inelegant interface. the touchscreen, the mouse, the keyboard - i genuinely believe these don't hold a candle to throwing a slider or ever so gently tweaking a knob.
i am by no means saying making computer music is bad or anything like that. but i do think there is a real "fish will be the last to know water" thing going on here.
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On 8/28/2023 at 6:10 AM, dr lopez said:
in the new forum update is there a thing where i can like every alco post automatically?
this is available as a google chrome extension
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On 8/27/2023 at 12:49 PM, drillkicker said:
This is really true though. Ive gotten rid of every piece of gear ive ever acquired except for a few guitar pedals. It always gets frustrating that i cant (easily) change what's inside it and i just go back to my computer and max/msp where i can change everything.
i would argue that a computer and software qualify as "gear" and are the main equipment used to make music in the 21st century. i personally think this is a kind of "gear lust." something like the notion that you can "do more," everything is "more efficient" or whatever with a computer is the dominant ideology of music-making in our time.
to me, characterizing having an interest in non-computer technology as a kind of corrupting "gear lust" is really ignoring how beholden we are to computers. this is a something of a bugbear of mine, not meant with hostility toward you
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i'm keeping my eye on people here calling stuff "weird"
this is concerning
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12 minutes ago, blantchot1 said:
This new number is soooo bad
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On 3/31/2013 at 12:37 PM, gaarg said:
i need this post as an actual poster i can frame and hang in my living room
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1 hour ago, xox said:
Yeah, never too much (what?), uh, yeah, never too much (yeah)
Uh, yeah, never too much (what?), uh, yeah, never too much (what? Yeah)
Uh, yeah, she suckin' my dick (what?), uh, uh, she eat it for lunch (what? Uh)
Uh, yeah, I hit it from the back (what?), uh, yeah, I'm beatin' it up (yeah, slatt)
Uh, yeah, I'm beatin' it up (what?), uh, yeah, I'm beatin' it up (what? Yeah)
I'm in love with them drugs (drugs), uh, yeah, I'm kissin' the cup (what?)
She in love with a thug (what?), yeah, I don't give no fuck (what?)
I won't stress 'bout a bitch (what?), that's not my slut (slatt)
These niggas beefin' over hoes (what? what?), so I keep it up (what?)
Even when I'm at my fuckin' show (bop-bop-bop), I keep one tucked (yeah
exactly
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2 minutes ago, Ivan Ooze said:
I heard the album over a 100times
, you havent even heard it once yet go full rage mode.
Are you ok man?
brother, we all know you like this bc kanye is on it be serious
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3 minutes ago, Ivan Ooze said:
Ok time to go 2 bed grandpa
i do think the irony here is that you two are in hyper granpa mode with this one
valorizing a trap album that is filled to the brim with nothing but genre conventions as indicative of what is "weird in hip-hop" is absolutely bed pan levels of the octogenarian
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50 minutes ago, Taupe Beats said:
Very wrong
edit: Also going off on cliches and then calling something "mainstream", stop with the dumb hypocritical shit.
lol. lmao.
this record debuted at number 1 on the billboard 200 and has received superlative judgement in mainstream press. this is a factual observation, not a cliche. I know you’re aware of this.
i just think it’s cringe to portray the fact that this didn’t get a lot of hype on watmm as an indication that it’s too “weird” for the olds. it’s a mainstream hip hop album. there’s absolutely nothing innovative about it, it’s 808 samples playing some of the most done to death beats in an extremely tired genre with very mid rapping. take a listen to 5 seconds of the ae live shit that just got released and then tell me playboi cardi is too weird for watmm. come on man.
I absolutely do not care if music is mainstream, I love plenty of mainstream shit and I don’t begrudge anybody for liking popular music at all. I’m pushing back against the implication that people on this forum are too closed-minded to appreciate something like this, bc frankly this is very simplistic music that is quite easy to ignore among the mass of music that it sounds identical to. this shit is the sound coming out of every single smartphone or car speaker in the last decade. it’s also played (literally in the case of carti) in hip restaurants with hard to pronounce asian names. which I know bc I work in the same building as one of these lol
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7 minutes ago, Ivan Ooze said:
I heard noone talk about how legit weird of a masterpiece it is here
don’t be daft m9
like what you like, I’m just pushing back at a common kind of music snobbery where people claim that others are too old or closed minded to understand the music you like…especially if it’s an extremely mainstream hip hop album with (imo) very tired lyrics and played out trap beats that are like a decade past their prime.
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19 hours ago, Taupe Beats said:
Yeah this place occasionally shows me how naive I am.
the album is basically entirely composed of cliche, is massively popular, and has received acclaim by basically every mainstream outlet.
watmm isn't advanced enough to get this legit weird masterpiece...ok man
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On 8/20/2023 at 9:51 PM, Rubin Farr said:
this was a bit annoying bc martyn just never stfu and i feel like jack never really gets a chance to open up. but it's cool to hear two legends chatting and some nice tidbits. i don't think i knew there were originally 7 mbm tunes in the matrix, that's wild!
Evian Christ - Revanchist
in New & Upcoming Releases
Posted
lol that first track is absolutely rubbish haha