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Musical Fetishes

Guest 20XX

By Guest 20XX
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zkom Grand Master

zkom

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Bit crunch, acid squelch, dub delay, natural reverb, hand claps and finger snaps, distortion in general, detuning, hypnotic funky basslines, shuffling beats, moaning, etc.

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joshuatxuk Grand Master

joshuatxuk

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Delay & Reverb (this is probably too generic to be a fetish but fuck it)

 

Also certain groups of notes really get me going but I know shit about music theory so I can't explain it properly.

 

Old school dub and certain psychedelic and/or space rock is the fucking bees knees for me man. I love delay and reverb in a lot of genres though, and the way it's used can vary so much.

 

Yes dude. Yes. I love when chords or notes transition in a way that seems perfect and exciting - not quite unexpected but not predictable either. Alberto Balsam and Squarepusher's Planetarium do that for me.

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joshuatxuk Grand Master

joshuatxuk

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Fetishes:

 

Trainspotting samples - there's a trill in hearing an obscure sample source of a song you love without by complete chance that's like nothing else. This has occurred a lot when I'm listening to older music on local radio stations.

Simple but perfect sample flips: very much a "Golden Age" of hip-hop trait but also common with producers like Madlib, Dilla, Doom, and DJ Premier (I know there are others too, just naming my favorites off the top of my head) - good example is Geto Boys' "Mind Playing Tricks On Me"

Waves and waves of distortion, delay, and noise in rock, regardless of genre - Boris "Farewell" sums that up for me. But for me that can apply to Neil Young and Crazy Horse, My Bloody Valentine, Acid Mothers Temple, Jimi Hendrix, etc. I just love when sound is unpredictable and raw and "warm."

Surf Guitar - but usually not in surf music or classic garage rock: the riff in Dead Kennedys' "Holiday In Cambodia" or B-52s' "Rock Lobster" Best Coast's "Boyfriend"

Lyrics that are memorable and but don't make much sense or are over-simplistic but aren't pretentious either - I dunno, I really just blame liking R.E.M. as a kid for this. But I also like Johnny Cash and Willie Nelson...I just like stuff that isn't predictable or strict to rhyming.

Knowledgeable DJ mixing - basically when you hear a mix that features mixing of songs that tonally sound very similar or compliment each other well but are from completely different artists or even genres.

Really solid guitar riffs - you know a riff is excellent when the climax of a song is really just them playing the riff by itself in all of it's glory - it's actually every evident in more "mainstream" tracks like System of A Down's "Aerials" ot the Toadies' "Tyler"

Dub - classic late 70s/early 80s stuff made with tape delays, spring reverb, and a whole lot weed and mixing talent. Scientist, Mad Professor, Tubby, Scratch Perry, etc.

Black, Sludge, and Doom Metal - raw, more lo-fi or "live" stuff. Stuff that just hits you and doesn't sound overproduced. Part of the reason I really like Darkthrone, even though they changed style and aren't as lo-fi their recordings are still very raw imo.

Delayed climaxes: Weezer's "Only In Dreams," Mono's "Halcyon (Beautiful Days)" or Aphex Twin's "Girl/Boy Song" - you know it's coming and right before you think it will hit they stretch out the song just a little more...then BAM

Distinct musical climaxes or breakdowns - often the difference between good versus great songs. I don't mean just solos or instrumental bridges either, I mean like moments where the song really expands or shifts. It can be very subtle too, for example, Foo Fighter's "Everlong" @ 3:05 - that quiet part makes the fucking song. You don't hear that often in pop songs now especially, even acoustic or low-key ones. It's shame dynamics were thrown at the window over the last couple of decades.

Tape aesthetics - It has to be done in a clever manner, often mixed with digital methods, but basically I really like the tape aesthetic a lot lately - washed out synth pad and distorted beats. Whether it's VHS Head or Matthewdavid or 1991 or a number of others- I just like when unique sounds are achieved with tape.

True "Found Sound" or obscure and musically "rich" samples - basically anything that isn't classic "popular" sampling but instead things like field recordings, lounge and exotica LPs, orchestral works on vinyl, unique percussion, world pop and indigenous music, etc. I also like when stuff is very much manipulated to the point of where it's a new timbre altogether. I think the Avalanches hit on this, Gas especially, and even Clams Casino has achieved the sound to some degree. Personally I've liked L. Pierre a lot lately:

"Mistakes" - Hardest to explain, but basically when you hear something in a recording that most people would of "fixed" through editing (or another take on a track if it's pre-digital) but they left it in because it gives it character...or simply don't care. Burzum's cough in the middle of his yells on "War" (0:55), the sound of someone moving around at 3:45 in Mono's song "Halcyon" the Flaming Lips literally fucking up on "Jesus Shootin' Heroin" from 5:40 to 6:15 or so. I think I've even heard happy accidents and mistakes in certain electronic tracks but I can't think of any right now.

 

Guilty Pleasures:

 

Unabashed 303 acid

808 bass - especially used for tones, not as bass drum

Overused Breakbeats

Cliche electro beats (808 handclap and cowbell)

Dub sirens

Dancehall and ragga vocals

Good mash-ups, especially early 2000s pre-Girl Talk and pre-mainstream youtube shit - I mean like really good chord matches and ones that need very little editing - guys like 2 Many DJs and Freelance Hellraiser

 

Certain overused samples being deliberately referenced - especially in turntablism and hip-hop ("this is a journey into sound...") - for instance in the UNKLE main title theme I hear that d'n'b staple Blade Runner Sample or when Addison Groove put that hit from "Rapper's Delight" in "Footcrab" - when it's done in a very musique concrete fashion not just laziness, I think it's brilliant.

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Ivan Ooze Grand Master

Ivan Ooze

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I'm a sucker for a submarine sonar echo.

 

Incorporate that into a tune? And I'm all ears.

 

 

over the top bitchshifted gorevocals give me wood like last days of humanity

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beerwolf Grand Master

beerwolf

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I'm a sucker for a submarine sonar echo.

 

Incorporate that into a tune? And I'm all ears.

 

 

over the top bitchshifted gorevocals give me wood like last days of humanity

 

 

listening now my good friend

Hahah christ this is fucking bollocks!!

 

Hail the Oooze!!

 

Lol

I wish I never said anything :biggrin:

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zkom Grand Master

zkom

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MAXIMUM VELOCITY

 

I like it how it combines the soundtrack of a WW2 movie with a speech synthesizer..

 

Anyway, wasn't the naval/submarine techno some sort of weird German microgenre in the '90s? Tellurians' Navigator comes to mind also.

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joshuatxuk Grand Master

joshuatxuk

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Dub sirens

 

Is the Dub siren that sort of phone ring-tone sound?

 

 

Yeah that DJ Gunshot tune is a good example and that's likely what Squarepusher sampled. Oscillations with effects, they can vary a lot, they're basically a general term for DIY noisemakers used in digital dancehall and ragga especially and in subsequent influenced genres - for instance in breakcore, jungle, or drill n' bass.

 

I can't quite find an origin but its another Jamaican origin - apparently they became a facet of some sound-systems (proto-DJ setups) as far back as the late 60s.

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