Zomby - Where were U in '92?

[psn]

Yeah. Im sorry but imho: This track is quiet frankly pretty boring. In the first 10 seconds i felt like i knew where the track is going. Bland melody, Basic chord progression and use of an auto arpeggiator midi effect, an uninspired tempo change for the b section . Someone who knows what he is doing could have done this track in 30 mins imho.I am sorry but i cannot see the appeal at all. At best it could function as a pretty generic "electro" beat for a hip hop track.

 

There's probably a lot to be learned from this kind oif analysis, and it's motivational to see what can be accomplished with just a few means. But is it a very valid way to judge the quality of someone's work?

 

You can reduce any idea or procedure, brilliant of bad, to a seemingly banal shortlist like yours - after the fact. The hard part is coming up with the idea in the first place, deciding which ingredients go in and which don't, which tools to use to process the ingredients, figuring out how to realize a vision that might be vague or mostly emotional in the first place.

 

In this case I think the track in question is pretty tasty, crunchy, airy and had a strong vibe to it. And even though you've more or less precisely broken it down for us, there's still an X factor in it, there's some magic going on, the sum is greater than the parts, etc.

[Guest teetime]

Yeah. Im sorry but imho: This track is quiet frankly pretty boring. In the first 10 seconds i felt like i knew where the track is going. Bland melody, Basic chord progression and use of an auto arpeggiator midi effect, an uninspired tempo change for the b section . Someone who knows what he is doing could have done this track in 30 mins imho.I am sorry but i cannot see the appeal at all. At best it could function as a pretty generic "electro" beat for a hip hop track.

 

There's probably a lot to be learned from this kind oif analysis, and it's motivational to see what can be accomplished with just a few means. But is it a very valid way to judge the quality of someone's work?

 

You can reduce any idea or procedure, brilliant of bad, to a seemingly banal shortlist like yours - after the fact. The hard part is coming up with the idea in the first place, deciding which ingredients go in and which don't, which tools to use to process the ingredients, figuring out how to realize a vision that might be vague or mostly emotional in the first place.

 

In this case I think the track in question is pretty tasty, crunchy, airy and had a strong vibe to it. And even though you've more or less precisely broken it down for us, there's still an X factor in it, there's some magic going on, the sum is greater than the parts, etc.

 

Yes, I can not argue with that. In the end every art form depends on the experience of the subject who is perceiving.

 

At best it is of emotional quality. I do not want and certainly can not blame you for that.

 

- It is a matter of taste.

 

Still i have a strong "feeling" that this music will not reach beyond the "zeitgeist".

[beerwolf]

I goggled zomby is a cunt and judging by the massive amount of results, popular opinion deduces this to be correct. Watmmer is up there (high five)

[schlucharski]

there's some magic going on, the sum is greater than the parts, etc.

 

nah its boring

[brisk]

I think you have to treat his music more like sketches than full-blown compositions. You can generally get the gist of what it is/where it's going in the first few seconds and the tracks are very rarely longer than 3 minutes anyway. A lot of them are lazy as fuck don't get me wrong, but if you treat them like mini-mixtapes (aka where were u in 92) and let them run quickly from one to another, it works much better. It's a bit like Juke in that respect. I can never listen to any Juke tracks individually for longer than a minute or so, but put them in a mix where they're in and out in 60 seconds and it all kinda fits together, at least for me.

 

Someone uploaded all of Zomby's unreleased dubs and put them in a zip file. It has about 3 or 4 hours of music and the tracks are all really short (many only a minute or so long(. I've listened to it at work a few times in it's entirety and there's some really great tunes in it. The eski stuff is particularly nice.

[Soloman Tump]

http://drownedinsound.com/community/boards/music/4159720

 

Here's another thread from 2009

[psn]

Someone uploaded all of Zomby's unreleased dubs and put them in a zip file. It has about 3 or 4 hours of music and the tracks are all really short (many only a minute or so long

 

Shareable?

[Guest KY]

Someone uploaded all of Zomby's unreleased dubs and put them in a zip file. It has about 3 or 4 hours of music and the tracks are all really short (many only a minute or so long

 

Shareable?

i would love to hear this also

[brisk]

Not sure what the rules are regarding this, so it's probably best I just link to this DSF thread instead: http://www.dubstepforum.com/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=118885&start=1980 (links are a little down the page)

[chassis]

Those are all good albums though.

 

He must have problems.

 

Lack of reality is probably one.

[joseph]

that DSF thread is fucking huge. I found this in there:

 

may be slightly unrelated and meaningless but the other day i was looking through bleep.com's artist top 5 charts, where artists come on to recommend 5 of their most favorite albums. i came across zomby's, and one of his top 5 was his own album, "where were u in '92?" i chuckled

 

I couldn't believe this so I looked it up, and it's true. and he speaks about himself in third person when recommending his own album, lol. or maybe he picked the albums and someone else wrote the bits, but I choose not to think that.

 

haha, theres no way he wrote those descriptions based on his dsf posts

[xyrofen]

that DSF thread is fucking huge. I found this in there:

 

may be slightly unrelated and meaningless but the other day i was looking through bleep.com's artist top 5 charts, where artists come on to recommend 5 of their most favorite albums. i came across zomby's, and one of his top 5 was his own album, "where were u in '92?" i chuckled

 

I couldn't believe this so I looked it up, and it's true. and he speaks about himself in third person when recommending his own album, lol. or maybe he picked the albums and someone else wrote the bits, but I choose not to think that.

 

haha, theres no way he wrote those descriptions based on his dsf posts

 

Yeah, it's actually intelligible.

[Guest EleminoP]

he smokes dank nuggets grown in awepittance's mons pubis

[psn]

He sounds like an eloquent, intelligent, hard working and humble enough bloke here:

http://www.self-titledmag.com/2011/06/29/the-self-titled-interview-zomby/

[brisk]

I still laugh at that interview, purely because of the following quotes (and what we found out later)

 

Like with “Natalia’s Song,” I wrote it to give to Burial

 

and

 

Who’s singing on “Natalia’s Song” then?

A Russian singer. I don’t know her name. I’m surprised [that song] doesn’t have like 2 million [YouTube] views. It’s really a work of art. I’m really proud of some of my tunes.

 

I’m not into being a arsehole

 

[psn]

Yeah, that's pretty bad.

[beerwolf]

He sounds like an eloquent, intelligent, hard working and humble enough bloke here:

http://www.self-titl...nterview-zomby/

 

I read that whole interview. And he seems alright to me. I wonder how much of his on-line rantings and ravings are engineered to be that way on purpose? LIke they say there is no such thing as bad publicity, (something he's actually famous for).

 

Remember, if in real life you are a really top bloke then does it matter if you act like a dick in the virtual world? I've gone on-line all the time and been a real dick and mildly rude to people, something in real life I'd rarely do. What doe's it matter if a load of people on-line who you will never meet hate you? I think that's quite funny actually. Because you know it's just a bit of a game. I try not to take my virtual personality seriously at all, it's real life that matters.

 

 

I guess the thieving of Natalies Song is a bit of wrong'un though

[oscillik]

Remember, if in real life you are a really top bloke then does it matter if you act like a dick in the virtual world?

 

I'd say that continually not showing up to gigs is not the sign of a 'top bloke'

[beerwolf]

Remember, if in real life you are a really top bloke then does it matter if you act like a dick in the virtual world?

 

I'd say that continually not showing up to gigs is not the sign of a 'top bloke'

 

Yes I'd agree with that.

[Guest sirch]

maybe he picked up a heroin habit

 

or is an alcoholic, or has a fear of flying. or... smokes nuff UK Skunk.. or all of the above.

[awepittance]

i seriously want to punch zomby in the face for making really bad uncatchy watered down chiptunes sounding music, seriously fuck him. either do the shit right or move on bro. every NES composer even on the Bible christian propaganda cartridges put your shit to shame. Either stick to 'late to the game' ripoffs of other idm musicians doing throwbacks to hardcore, or stop, please, this really boring 8-bit aping shit falls apart in 5 seconds into each song, terrible

[Guest sirch]

hahaha, are you on the blob, awepittance? :)

 

i seriously want to punch zomby in the face for making really bad uncatchy watered down chiptunes sounding music, seriously fuck him. either do the shit right or move on bro. every NES composer even on the Bible christian propaganda cartridges put your shit to shame. Either stick to 'late to the game' ripoffs of other idm musicians doing throwbacks to hardcore, or stop, please, this really boring 8-bit aping shit falls apart in 5 seconds into each song, terrible

[superstix]

hahaha, are you on the blob, awepittance? :)

 

i seriously want to punch zomby in the face for making really bad uncatchy watered down chiptunes sounding music, seriously fuck him. either do the shit right or move on bro. every NES composer even on the Bible christian propaganda cartridges put your shit to shame. Either stick to 'late to the game' ripoffs of other idm musicians doing throwbacks to hardcore, or stop, please, this really boring 8-bit aping shit falls apart in 5 seconds into each song, terrible

 

 

looooooooool bitter but funny because it's true

 

Also, I have those Bible NES games and they were fun back in the day.

[Guest]

hahaha, are you on the blob, awepittance? :)

 

i seriously want to punch zomby in the face for making really bad uncatchy watered down chiptunes sounding music, seriously fuck him. either do the shit right or move on bro. every NES composer even on the Bible christian propaganda cartridges put your shit to shame. Either stick to 'late to the game' ripoffs of other idm musicians doing throwbacks to hardcore, or stop, please, this really boring 8-bit aping shit falls apart in 5 seconds into each song, terrible

 

 

Before I read along this topic I had this vinyl on my wishlist but after searching around the internet I must admit that I would never pump any money into this mad kid.

Sorry, but his behaviour against people who like to purchase his work, his style about people criticising his work etc etc bla bla is a total turn-off.

I see the points of Awepittance's words. What left a bad taste in my mouth was also his way he used the Reark samples. He even said it's his work alone.

 

This kid needs to grow up before he throw his music into the world.

[Guest sirch]

i think one of the stupidest things you can say to a person is to tell them to 'grow up'. i mean... how ridiculous. it's like something your mum or dad would say to you when you're a kid. then later you spend all your time in your mid-teens wishing you were grown up and could do all the things adults do. then, when you are actually grown up and your youth has vanished, you wish you were a kid again! lol. so it's just a dumb thing to say to somebody, unless you're like... reeeeaally fucking old, like 50 or something.

just saying.