anybody want to start a topic about music production feels or philosophy rather than tech

[Ragnar]

I dunno I've had an overwhelming desire to be ARTICULATE about this shit recently so here goes

 

anybody else get a weird effect from listening to their own music, like "indeterminate time capsule" effect I'd call it? Like I have some tracks that could be considered 'old', dating back to 2006. And it's all at least mp3 straight from a computer so it's nothing to do with analog deterioration. I'm talking about more like when you go for this abstract kind of music and in bulk too, it's easier to get the feeling like you didn't actually write it? And then there's all this stuff I made that's weird time signature experiments but I didn't document it very much, haha. So anybody else get vibes like this from old music they wrote?

 

I was gonna write more, how my early experience of electronic music, I'm worried a lot of these guys it's all videogame soundtracks as their influence, but mine was at least partially this confused mixture of videogame music and some actual rave music hearing it secondhand from my brother? And I heard the proper IDM guys later, but there was definitely enough time for this confused idea of rave music, built up from a few songs heard secondhand, to gestate into my idea of what rave music was supposed to even be? Which is I'm assuming is how a bunch of IDM music happened in the 90s when it was brand new?

 

What you guy do for song title? I know there is definitely a lot of Autechre-y random string of letters and numbers type titles. if you do this is there any meaning or inside jokes or references? I know some Autechre stuff, even like '1 1 is' might be a Max/MSP command or something? I went for the Venetian Snares word salad-y song titles, although I hope a lot of Snares titles are inside jokes because mine tend to be (Last Step - Horse Lasagne Woman? Is this a joke about people who idolize cowboy movies, real version of the old west, your wife has to cook your horse and make it into lasagna? I hope) A lot of my song titles are google-able though. Baxandall_gammatone, is two types of filters (I think baxandall is just an old timey tone control). dr acid 92 is just an inside joke, my idea of MOST RAVEY sounding track title ever, also a little bit of that Simpsons episode "take 3 of these and call me in the morning oh I'm not a doctor" I dunno. Also some tracks titles are feints/tactical misdirection to make people think I'm on a lot of drugs, Son of Facemelting Hamburger Helper Guy. "some say he just kept driving till the Lazarus ran out" is more or less a direct line from The Adventures of Pete and Pete. "kid whose actual name is Stryker" is total inside joke, somebody on another site posts this youtube of kids wearing Heelies in some random parking garage, random dumb energ techno playing that clips/compresses randomly, kids are only known as HUNTER and KABLE

 

oh god it still exists

 

 

this stuff inspires my brand of idm more than any actual blade runner or terminator movies ever did. haha like I said there is another site/forum I lurk and we post random crap and sometimes it gets annoying, just a bunch of retro video game posts but sometimes we come across total mundane and/or insane stuff in real life

 

this is good non videogame thing but some guy shouts out it reminds him of daytona usa or something

 

 

 

 

ugh I hope I didn't get off topic

 

nowadays, like I joke about 'war on psytrance' but I do worry a lot about PLACEBO in music especially tekno music. It's hard to explain, it's an avoidance of 'good vibez' but not in a nihilistic way either I hope? It's definitely a reaction to people who think 'meditation' is like zoning out or gettin high. Maybe it's just an aversion to music I think would be boring as heck if converted to MIDI, even. Or when I don't detect inside jokes or possible humor in the music it irks me? I definitely worry with the shamanic themes of some tekno that it's semi-seriously meant as 'prayer' or whatever other name you want to give it. Or maybe it's just corny music. But I think maybe when you intentionally set out to make something mystical you avoid an immediacy in the music I guess that can truly feel mind-blowing?

 

 

I guess that's it for now, if I think of more I'll reply to the topic

 

[roasty]

https://www.youtube.com/embed/uoREOpany_Q?start=17&end=25&autoplay=1

[cruising for burgers]

ketamine is wearing off...

[Ragnar]

ketamine is wearing off...

 

 

ahaha I'm trying to explain non-drugsness of it and end up incriminating myself I GUESS. I thought revealing my underground forum influences would help it make more sense but I GUESS NOT

 

I'd be interested if you guys think my music RESEMBLES ketamine or whatever though? Because I honestly don't know

 

secretly hates the 'all creative people were on drugs' culture

 

ug you guys don't want to contribute to the thread for the sake of like, proposing the most unhinged tangential philosophies about music ever? Nothing? I think you guys assume seriousness way too easily especially when IDM stuff was originally at least the most tongue in cheek genre ever

[Kavinsky]

its a nice thread but its not something you can answer on the fly.

 

[auxien]

 

it's easier to get the feeling like you didn't actually write it?

I've been writing and recording a lot of stuff over the last ~year and I'm getting that feeling constantly. Some stuff I literally do not remember recording. It sounds like me, and I know the sounds I programmed and I recognize that melody or whatever, but I have zero recollection of actually recording a few things I've found on my hard drive. And I'm talking about live recordings of hardware, so I was like, physically triggering and changing and bringing elements and effects in and out and so forth...no memory of it. But on the other side it feels very much mine and I know it is, in some ways that's my best stuff. All my old shit from years before I remember pretty damned well because I was really careful with the sounds and so forth. I'm much more comfortable and loose with it all now (for better or for worse, who knows).

 

The song titles thing goes in cycles. Sometimes there's a lot of meaning just slightly hidden, sometimes it's just whatever. No one listening much cares I'm sure, but some stuff is related to inspirations for the tracks or things I feel the track represents. Been coming upon and using a lot of Greek words lately (some bastardized and twisted of course), for some reason that I can't even begin to guess at.

ug you guys don't want to contribute to the thread for the sake of like, proposing the most unhinged tangential philosophies about music ever? Nothing? I think you guys assume seriousness way too easily especially when IDM stuff was originally at least the most tongue in cheek genre ever

was honestly put off from participating at first because I assumed it was going to turn into useless blabber (which it may of course) and I'll check out if so but I'm always curious to hear others' thoughts in general on these topics.

[Ragnar]

its a nice thread but its not something you can answer on the fly.

 

 

 

it's ok, just try to remember the thread exists if you have some kinda epiphany I guess?

[thawkins]

I definitely have surprised myself listening to some old stuff that only exists in wav or mp3 format somewhere. I mean I know it is there and more or less I do remember the general theme, but there have been times when I click and listen and I am totally drawn in because it sounds good (or at least potentially good) or there is some small quirk which came out especially well. Sure I can believe this happens more often the more music you make and the more time passes.

 

As for being inspired by sci-fi and future and "stereotypical influences" I don't feel I fit in the stereotype at all. Probably none of my stuff can really be classified as IDM and I am quite sure that my idea of IDM and electronic music (especially dance/club stuff) is way different, because most of my listening I do at home or alone and not really in a club setting (although I have DJed a select few times). While it's kind of good to have a different perspective, I also feel like if I am not presenting my music to someone and seeing their reactions, I might as well not be making it. Like I can hum along to my own imaginary tunes in my head all day, but I really feel inspired when I think that whatever I am making is some stuff that can mentally take the listener to another level or have some kind of positive energy transfer.

 

Track names I usually put the first thing that springs to mind. I sort of believe I got to be a little careful with the names, because names have power (and I would like my best tracks to have bad-ass names). So putting random gibberish is kind of a way to solve this, because if the track never ends up being popular it'll be "meh it's a6d7s7d48" vs when it is a banger "a6d7s7d48" will probably etch itself as something significant in people's heads and minds. Also personally I find it harder to get into music sometimes when the name is too distracting somehow.

[TubularCorporation]

I was talking with my neighbor last night about how I still pretty much work the same way as I did when I was a kid in the mid 90s with a portastudio, a DR660, a crappy Digitech mutlifx unit and a couple old Casio keyboards. I have more gear and more practice now, but the workflow is basically the same.

 

I also very much experience the same thing everyone else is talking about where stuff that's more than 3 or 4 years old starts to feel like it was made by someone else, and some of it is a lot better than I realized at the time.  Usually the stuff I was most disappointed with when I made it.

 

Also yeah, I wouldn't consider my own stuff anywhere near IDM, part of the reason I don't post much of it here.

[cruising for burgers]

i sporadically feel the same when listening to stuff i did 10 years ago, i wonder how i did it and amaze myself, but as soon as i play stuff from other artists i get back to earth and realize what i did is pretty shitty...

 

regarding track names yeah, what others said, kinda look for funny/nonsense names in order to don't sound too presumptuous because presumptuous track name plus shitty track is one of the biggest fails ever...

 

i also kinda share you point of view in relation to shamanic/spiritual experiences, like what happens with some trance music fans, it's even hard to avoid cringing when you specially think it sounds lame and fans think it's something pretty out there... like, the whole reggae scene innit?

 

i mostly have no unconscious influences atm, every time i start a project is with a technical objective, and that's probably why i don't enjoy making music that much anymore, and why i realized i'm not really tailored for this music making stuff, i mean, there's people who don't have 1/4 of the technical knowledge i have and spit beautiful melodies in minutes... i guess i'm not a very handy human, not good at sports, not good at instruments, maybe i should have invested in the technological side of things sooner in my life...

 

anyway, posting in a ragnar thread...¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[TubularCorporation]

Watch out, when you think you have no unconscious influences is usually when you have the most unconscious influences!

 

I'm only kind of joking.

[TubularCorporation]

Back in 2015 I did a deliberately stupid/obtuse concept album about golf as an interplanetary blood sport in the distant future, made some tapes, and then decided against releasing them.

 

And now Trump is president and it seems more prescient than stupid.

 

 

 

I generally like the idea of taking the superficial trappings of the most low grade, commercial, throwaway, late-capitalist crap and trying to evoke some sort of sense of either sadness or the luminous (or ideally both at once) with it, kind of loosely in the vein of art made from garbage, or even some early pop art before it became a big industry itself. That's why I have like 5 or 6 ROMplers.

[TubularCorporation]

Also I usually avoid talking about process because it always sou d pretentious and simplistic when you say it. But if you don't say it then usually people don't really pick up on it, but that's fine with me because most of my favorite music is stuff where you can tell there's a fairly deep private symbolism going on, but it's too self referential to really untangle. I like stuff that bewilders, although I don't know if I've achieved myself that yet.

 

 

EDIT: to be clear, it's not that I don't like talking about process - I like it too much if anything.  It's more that as soon as I finish saying something about it I cringe so hard that I strain my cringe muscles.

[Ragnar]

Also I usually avoid talking about process because it always sou d pretentious and simplistic when you say it. But if you don't say it then usually people don't really pick up on it, but that's fine with me because most of my favorite music is stuff where you can tell there's a fairly deep private symbolism going on, but it's too self referential to really untangle. I like stuff that bewilders, although I don't know if I've achieved myself that yet.

 

sometimes I think the only way is to make batshit insane press releases like Aaron Funk does

 

and then when that one guy commented on my track "I feel like I'm at t.g.i. fridays", that stuff makes me happier than actual constructive criticism

 

my early music was definitely low-concept at times, like I also thought it was 'happier' music back then, it was definitely preoccupation with the mundane and like now in the present day I have a niece and nephew, and I want to figure out the right way of saying 'childhood can be shitty' without /encouraging/ shitty feelings? I'm definitely more of a fan of Amazing World of Gumball than the other cartoons I watch secondhand, and like with some of the cartoons I worry is this DEHUMANIZING if the cartoon is too cutesy/perfect? Teen Titans Go is like cutesy but not even, it literally feels like a hellzone to watch it. They might even acknowledge it's not a /complete/ enough cartoon world to capture a child's imagination. Maybe that's my gripe about it, it's easier to fake a /complete/ cartoon if it's cutesy? Nothing about it has to breathe or however you'd put it

 

this is kind of the iconic early track of mine

 

http://www.buzztunes.org/music/ragnar/merv-griffin-ventures-through-the-mayonnaise-labyrinth

 

it's definitely mundane but people commented on the production back then and maybe it's even gone /backward/ in that regard. But I think thematically it was boring. At the end of the day I was trying to make HD versions of that game Earthbound's music at times

 

and then nothing back then was properly meant as an album, even some weird later stuff of mine like "div" was always meant as an album although others are just compilations that I thought were strongly themed enough somehow when run in sequence

 

if anybody's ever heard div though, I think by that point, and I'd like someone else's opinion because I feel pretentious saying this, but it feels like I /sense/ something album-y going on but it's like a mechanism in the background and nothing I can verbally express besides obvious stuff like 'it's a little breakcore at times', but I don't even mean that. And then some albums synesthesia stuff is kicking in and it feels like the transition between tracks is a transition between environments. It's definitely a remnant of times listening to IDM, where 'here's a bunch of tracks' got sold as an album maybe sometimes, but then you go back to something like I Care Because You Do and it does feel like there's an abstract theme going on?

 

this isn't going to translate well to English haha, but there is weird music online but not enough people seem to approach it as 'mystery guy makes a weird mystery album' type idea. ("Belgian Elmo Mixtape" was originally supposed to be like this) Like nobody tries to establish themselves as DJ Wojovobaposavilio and try to imagine what this invented guy's music would even sound like. Haha that REALLY didn't translate well to English but I'm pretty sure even obscure bandcamp weirdos approach the music as /themselves/ or as an internet anonyminity type thing. I don't think there's enough of an element of trying to be this perfect weird techno you imagined discovering in the used music section of a Goodwill someday. One time I wanted to dump CD-R's in this place that's not even a Goodwill, it's a place called RE-STORE owned by Habitat for Humanity, and they have CDs but it's some random local semi-religious type music. It's like, the guy who bothers to leaf thru the CDs at the Re-Store, what do you want to tell THAT GUY? What do you hope the person was /looking for/ musically that would've exceeded their wildest dreams if they actually found it?

 

yeah growing up musically was weird, I heard some weird stuff at a young age like Brian Eno records but my world didn't really open up musically from there until I got srs about internet, and some college stuff, music section of the college library/CDs they dumped from the college radio station. I'm pretty sure the actual music scene in CT was pretty barren, like CT HARDCORE lol is this all we had, that and Moby? the whole Connecticut Hardcore thing sticks with me though

 

 

there is guy who shows up to starbucks, every day it might be a different shirt but I'm pretty sure he's compiled all the t-shirts from every CT Hardcore band

 

there is maybe a weird strain of... whatever in CT, rebel without a cause syndrome? also whatever was going on with Sandy Hook guy's parents. I'm not in the nicest part of CT but I'm pretty sure they were pretty well off once you're in Newtown? Does 'nothing to really complain about' radicalize certain people? lol I'm trying to do the right thing musically, I can't say life is particularly hard in this country, at least not in this part of the country especially so I just want to 'make some music' in contrast to that CT hardcore stuff which seems like political to point of obsession? The irony is there's some stuff to complain about in CT, it's just mostly in the big cities. Bridgeport is godawful

 

the local starbucks is cool sometimes if you actually talk to people, there is a woman who's shown up a few times and she is or was an international harpsichordist? It still sucks we don't have a real cafe but like, people are gonna still show up and the actual people are either gonna be interesting or they aren't? Some guy liked my album art at least. There was some lady who had the pretense of being a 'tattoo artist' but it was way abstract, I think she semi-liked some Osamu Sato artwork when I showed her. But yeah it was kind of cool, she saw it as a natural progression like 'I could use this as a tattoo design' but it'd probably fly with some other scene

 

ok I think that's it for now, if nothing seems insightful at least enjoy my speech patterns lol

[TubularCorporation]

Yeah, the problem is I've lived and/r worked near art schools my entire adult life o I'm surrounded by a constant ambience of mostly crap self promotion and have developed an allergy.  That stuff was really fun in high school, I should probably try to find joy in it again but it's not easy when you've seen the things I've seen.

 

Plus the self-as-brand paradigm that we're in since the Internet became a monetized "attention economy" (emphasis on the scare quotes - in fact, here are some extras: """") in the 2000s is really, really gross and unhealthy and dehumanizing.  Which is a different thing from what you posted but it can be tough to not see all forms of self promotion in that light now, even if it's on the more OK end of that spectrum.

 

I guess maybe I could say it's the difference between trying to have a career (professional or otherwise - trying to be visible because music is a form of communication and communication usually doesn't work very well if it isn't reaching anyone) and being a CAREERIST.

 

Anyway, that's a good press release.  I grew up not too far off in time or space from what he's talking about and the part about CT hardcore REALLY hit home for me.

 

EDIT: also the aside about the local Starbucks, which is dead on and a really accessible way to talk about how we can carve out spaces to be human inside the corporate landscape, which is something that people who get too deep in to political theory (which is unfortunately important for some people to do, but it's definitely not good for a person's mental health to spend too much time down there) are usually really bad at talking about to people who don't already agree with them. Or something.  Anyway, moving on.

[TubularCorporation]

Also, seconding the sentiments in the OP regarding the Heelies video.

 

 

 

These days a lot of the time I'll start with an idea or image or memory that makes me laugh and then try to take that and turn it in to something musical that has, to keep reusing the same phrase, EMOTIONAL RESONANCE.  I guess maybe something about squishing together ridiculous concepts with a sense of almost sadness but more calm sadness - I go back to the phrase "golden loneliness" in that Magnetic Fields song from before they put out 69 Love Songs and got all bougie, more the feeling it evokes than the actual meaning of the lyrics in their original context - might say something vague about the transitory nature of existence and shit that people have been talking about since we were still riding to work on dinosaurs.

 

Sparrow flying through a mead hall and all that.

But also I find this very inspiring:

 

 

Not joking.

[Ragnar]

EDIT: also the aside about the local Starbucks, which is dead on and a really accessible way to talk about how we can carve out spaces to be human inside the corporate landscape, which is something that people who get too deep in to political theory (which is unfortunately important for some people to do, but it's definitely not good for a person's mental health to spend too much time down there) are usually really bad at talking about to people who don't already agree with them. Or something. Anyway, moving on.

meanwhile the FAIRFIELD starbucks, completely eliminates the opportunity for dialogue and stuff. Remember that in real life a starbucks is gonna be LOUD anyway because of the sounds of making espresso and stuff. This starbucks though, it has a second floor that pretty much isolates the coffee making cacophony and like you step up to the second floor and it feels like Aphex Twin - Parallel Stripes track is playing, maybe the demonic lovechild of parallel stripes and brian eno - thursday afternoon even, even though it's complete silence. It's like in this environment you feel AFRAID to talk because even the most timid voice breaks silence in this dramatic way. To be fair it's a college town and a lot of the people are probably students (trying to study) but still. Luckily there was a real cafe in town as well last time I checked and it is NOISY

 

also press release? I commented on how Aaron Funk's press releases are great, my rant wasn't meant as a press release tho. Detrimentalist has one but it's not really very good, but when you get to later stuff he perfects the insane press release as art form imo

One of these tracks is about my 2 friends. I really love them, they are good people and really great friends. After I recorded the track, I had a vision that they became the same entity, like some kind of human spider hybrid, which I really didn't like as I don't think of them like that at all. The tune is not about that whatsoever but I kept thinking about that for a good 2 or 3 days. It was chilling. See if you can guess which song it is! Another, I wrote using only tweeters so it was hard to make out anything other than hi-hats. Still, it sounds much better than most music that has been recorded. See if you can guess which one it is! There is a track that mainly uses analog devices to control digital devices. It seems laughable that most people want to control their analog synths with midi, imposing their ridiculous choice of notes on the music. They are pretty much rapists. I have enabled these devices to communicate in a mutually respectful, consensual embrace. See if you can guess which track is 100% free of blatant narcissism! The final tune is a ramp, an inclined plane, or a crescendo of sorts in music, stretched out over a number of minutes. It's like a pyramid wall made from every thought you've ever thought of becoming immeasurably more discernible, yet built upon a river of everything you've tried to forget. The river is grey and all thoughts you've ever had are all other colors but mainly maroon and silver. See if you recognize your thoughts in this one!

I tried to do something like this early on but failed. It's harder than it looks

 

But yeah I definitely think the attention thing you're talking about, maybe there isn't room for some ridiculous lore-building in the style of old Warp Records and Rephlex stuff. But at the same time maybe it would catch on and sell a good amount of records and people are just so paralyzed by a need to get noticed/discovered? Notice I said 'paralyzed' and not actually 'afraid'. Like in the sense, maybe ideas get /muted/ in the brain because of wanting to get discovered too hard. The sad thing about it to me is that with Bandcamp, it's easier now than ever to just 'post some hobby music you made' with no real risk if nobody buys anything. As short a time ago as the 90s you still probably had to make vanity CDs and labels and stuff, or at the very least get friendly with one of those NETLABEL things remember those?

 

Maybe it discourages collaboration too? Who knows. Just imagine "some nobody vs. some other nobody" on Bandcamp? It might happen but they're probably famous in their scene at least so it's more 'some vaporwave guy vs. some othe vaporwave guy'

[TubularCorporation]

 

EDIT: also the aside about the local Starbucks, which is dead on and a really accessible way to talk about how we can carve out spaces to be human inside the corporate landscape, which is something that people who get too deep in to political theory (which is unfortunately important for some people to do, but it's definitely not good for a person's mental health to spend too much time down there) are usually really bad at talking about to people who don't already agree with them. Or something. Anyway, moving on.

 

 

also press release? I commented on how Aaron Funk's press releases are great, my rant wasn't meant as a press release tho. Detrimentalist has one but it's not really very good, but when you get to later stuff he perfects the insane press release as art form imo

 

Oh shit, I was reading that on my phone on the bus to work and must have missed a sentence or two because I thought your rant WAS one of Aaron Funk's recent press releases (I don't really know anything about his biography, he could have grown up in Connecticut for all I know) and was kind of surprised that it was like that, but I've seen some weird press release type things over the years so I figured he had just taken the art of press releases to the next level, haha. 

 

I wonder what the odds are of us having mutual friends or acquaintances, I hardly ever get up to Vermont or New Hampshire but I've definitely known some people who emigrated from there over the years.  A guy I was playing with for a while in the early '10s used to work at Friendly Toast in Portsmouth.

[Ragnar]

 

I wonder what the odds are of us having mutual friends or acquaintances, I hardly ever get up to Vermont or New Hampshire but I've definitely known some people who emigrated from there over the years.  A guy I was playing with for a while in the early '10s used to work at Friendly Toast in Portsmouth.

 

 

probably not much, my brother was more of the guy into any 'scene', I think I joked he had the 'white guy who wants to be gangsta' phase but I think he had a phase for everything. Nowadays I guess it's like drum and bass stuff. He could've liked post-rock at one point for all I know (probably not, but his musical tastes are definitely an interesting cherry-picking of different genre stuff at times)

[TubularCorporation]

 

 

I wonder what the odds are of us having mutual friends or acquaintances, I hardly ever get up to Vermont or New Hampshire but I've definitely known some people who emigrated from there over the years.  A guy I was playing with for a while in the early '10s used to work at Friendly Toast in Portsmouth.

 

 

probably not much, my brother was more of the guy into any 'scene', I think I joked he had the 'white guy who wants to be gangsta' phase but I think he had a phase for everything. Nowadays I guess it's like drum and bass stuff. He could've liked post-rock at one point for all I know (probably not, but his musical tastes are definitely an interesting cherry-picking of different genre stuff at times)

 

 

Neither was I really, except by association sometimes.

[Ragnar]

 

 

 

I wonder what the odds are of us having mutual friends or acquaintances, I hardly ever get up to Vermont or New Hampshire but I've definitely known some people who emigrated from there over the years.  A guy I was playing with for a while in the early '10s used to work at Friendly Toast in Portsmouth.

 

 

probably not much, my brother was more of the guy into any 'scene', I think I joked he had the 'white guy who wants to be gangsta' phase but I think he had a phase for everything. Nowadays I guess it's like drum and bass stuff. He could've liked post-rock at one point for all I know (probably not, but his musical tastes are definitely an interesting cherry-picking of different genre stuff at times)

 

 

Neither was I really, except by association sometimes.

 

 

 

lol top secret footage of bro do not distribute

 

[Ragnar]

me and my brother are like some metal gear level shit, BROTHEERRRRR he's had an INCREDIBLE sense of humor at times, I'm definitely the introvert but sometimes he really connects with my stuff, some random track I played from 'div'. He sometimes turns to conspiracythoughts but I think he's mostly just, in the moments of humor he's more just anti-bullshit, sees partisan stuff as bullshit. Like voting for a third party is kinda lame but it's also lame with the people who voted for Hillary just to vote against Trump and visa versa. Probably feels Trump won because nobody in America ever bases decisions on actual data or anything it seems at times? Like maybe the Trump voters moreso but it's inherent in the culture, feels-based politics versus data and results-based politics. That one track I have 'first church of fitness with the illness', I think he would agree, most religions if asked would claim 'our God benches more than your God' lol. Our collective humor keeps going back to the Powerthirst video lol. Sometimes it gets scary like is Powerthirst the only thing we can agree on? aaaaaaaaaaaaa 

 

there was this book he co-wrote in high school called THINGS. There are poems/raps which were tl;dr but there were also these pretty great collages in hideous black and white school copier mode. There are four stories contained in the book SOMETHING NOTHING ANYTHING and EVERYTHING which is totally like some kind of drugs going on even with the story titles but it's kind of semi-original drug thoughts and not just "what if reality isn't real whoooaaa *dubstep drop*" I swear some people don't ever graduate or elaborate past 'what if reality isn't real' thoughtz and he already was big time in high school which I find cool. I don't exactly remember which story was which, but I think "Nothing" is the one where the crazy uncle is like, eating spaghetti and like, wipes his fat fuck face (trying to paraphrase the story) with a random cloth and he ends up knocking over a bureau or something and crushing the protagionist's dog? Maybe it's the uncle's dog. But it's like proto John Wick situation where the protagionist goes completely nutso and goes to the zoo to calm his thoughts, and then he spots HIS ETERNAL ENEMY (or even MAN'S ETERNAL ENEMY) THE BISON (maybe a street fighter ii meme simultaneously) and then the guy 'whoops out his trusty sledgehammer' and tries to fight the bison but breaks every bone in his body, maybe even an exact amount of bones like 372 is mentioned. I forget the rest of the story but it's pretty dark, fighting the bison is the guy's last chance to affirm /something/ and becomes total failure. If John Wick got shot by the first Russian dude and fails to avenge doggo. But also a ridiculous satire of people wanting to do insane things on principle, even principles only that person understands? Who knows

 

the other story, I don't remember the stories by the other guy, I think this one is my brother's story. Some random isolated weirdo is singing 'the ants come marching one by one hurrah' however that song goes. It turns out the guy is this ridiculous form of animal abuser who feeds ants to a bunch of anteaters, somehow the guy has rustled up like 27 anteaters. Now that the anteaters have been gathered he is prepared to let them loose in a frenzy of ant destruction/death, but at the LAST MOMENT some random greenpeace/animal activists burst thru the door and shoot him dead? With no explanation of how they located this ant-abusing individual, complete artistic license lol, but it's good, makes the story more surreal. The stories are probably meant to be read as strange fever dreams anyway. My memory of this story is a little more hazy and maybe "Nothing" has stronger themes but even the ant one is still a decent idea for a short story.

 

I don't remember enough about the collages, strongest memory is there is this colombian drug lord guy and it's like "the following book is approved by colombian drug lord (made up name)". I think there is also a huge disclaimer, Saturday Night Live, Happy Fun Ball style. There might even be a full on homage like DO NOT TAUNT THINGS but it's mostly original. We had a Saturday Night Live VHS growing up, but the one that is all fake commercials, and I think it skewed our perception of what Saturday Night Live WAS even? lol like if you distill SNL to just the fake commercials, sometimes it almost gets elevated to mr. show level and it's weird that way

 

 

Happy Fun Ball and Super Colon Blow for lyfe

 

Note: there may be some casual 90's racism going on but like I don't think the big ass plate of spaghetti is one, I was a picky eater growing up and I think my brother got a distorted idea of how much PASTA does the average family eat? lol Also colombian drug lord, I'm pretty sure he sorta idolized the guy in a dumb way (watches Scarface 110 times and jacks off until u pass out, everybody had that phase) but then there's a part about 'enforcing martial law with trusty AK-47', 'trusty' again (maybe might be misremembering) is it a commentary on one of those few quotes even the dumb kid remembers from history class, 'speak softly and carry a big stick', maybe I dunno. There is was definitely an element of drug stuff with my brother of yes sometimes party time, but maybe a desire to be TRULY OBJECTIVE as well or find that aspect of every issue where it feels absurd at least. Who knows

 

oh important thing about Things, one of the collages is like crazy guy face ---> something else ---> the word 'incomprehensibility' in a nice font

 

later becomes a song title on 'div', lol

[Entorwellian]

A lot of the techniques and styles that have their origins in IDM are in pop music now, and everyone composing electronic music now I've been thinking on it a long time and I think youtube is the worst thing that could have happened to music production.

I would like to know more about the geography of its growth and development. A lot of the Europe and UK folks I hear had a more relational experience with IDM, with record shops, clubs, raves and also competitiveness. Also the East Coast has their own shit going on and continuing to flourish. Like, the internet was the medium which we all listened to it but the reasons for listening and composing it seem different both cross geography and age groups. Around my neck of the woods, during the 90's, it was very individual, depersonalized and secluded and the music reflected that. West-coast IDM producers are hermits and pretty mentally fucked up to some degree. It was also driven buy a repulsion in not finding pleasure or connection with mainstream media at that and wanting something completely different than what was on the radio and television. You are removing the person from the picture and it becomes about the machines and computers taking over, and that was pretty punk and a pretty good artist medium to work with. I really credit public radio for playing bizarre shit at 3 AM during my insomnia as a driver and everything being blasted in the radio during the 90's and early 2000's as a repulsive, motivating force.

Today is completely different and its more relational based, self indulgent and people prominently display it as a group identity (especially the Aphex Twin fans. I think its because he brought the 'person' back into the picture.) It felt more of an accomplishment just to get a song played as radio waves out into space than getting a number of likes and subscribes. And if you really want people to like your stuff over a wide audience it becomes less about reaction and going for the most -towards-the-mean approach as possible. Autechre are really the only ones who haven't succumbed to that direction and still have it, as an example. I also blame the creeping influence of corporate marketing trying to persuade people "this is how its done" and you cant get away from it anymore because the internet is infested with it.

All of this is because of youtube. There are three main problems that it has: lack of regulations, the centralization of the individual and ease of use. First, there are multiple series of videos for every music tool under the sun now, and you don't have to be certified or even know anything about the subject and yet you can fill peoples minds up with all sorts of gunk and bad practice. It's gotten worse now with monetization, and people making videos claiming that they have the right techniques but that you have to pay for them first... This is sophism and if sophism was wrong 2400 years ago during the Greeks, and they saw sophism as a cancer on democracy. Its the anti-thesis of creativity and information exchange, and leads to all sorts of weird behaviours outside of societal norms (like the formation of cults, personality changes, kooky beliefs). Secondly, the focus is back on the person again instead of the music. The artist is put in a position where they have to hustle themselves all the time for viewcounts and subscriptions so the artist focuses less on new ideas and more on keeping up with the Jonses. The corps absolutely want this, because its easier to sell equipment and software (and those sweet, lucrative x.0 upgrades) over and over, and they can use the youtube medium for their own insidious purposes. Finally, it reveals how to do anything you want, but it doesn't encourage exploration or thinking on your own. Its passive learning and it enables you to solve a problem without having any understanding of the problem, and you can't really learn your equipment or anything novel if you go this route. It removes any semblance of labour, critical thought or new ideas and reduces a person down to an algorithmic copy and paste robot.

 

Case in point: I tried to follow tutorial videos for Max 5 a long time ago, and all I learned from the tutorial videos was only how to make the stuff that was in the tutorial videos. There were no Max tutorials on how to think algorithmic to solve a problem musically, because its impossible to do so with a close-ended video. You either need to talk to someone about it with back and forth dialogue or put in the effort in solving it on your own

Funnily enough I believe that IDM's future might be something more offline and less electronic, ironically.

[Ragnar]

 

youtube tutotials on how to IDM

 

yeah could never do it, sometimes I listened to BLOK videos on youtube to see what other people have done and I don't think there are any proper tutorials anyway. Maybe you guys detect an element in my music, of never properly learned to make some kind of HEAVY ASS bassline, possibly out of that fear, that I would only know how to make the specific bassline in the tutorial kind of thing/situation? Sometimes I have made some really good, psuedo drum break sort of noise generator stuff, but I swear I've gone backward at times because I was never gonna write notes to self even on how I achieved the weird psuedo break. If we could get total amnesia on how to music with each and every new song would human creativity advance 4000000 years, lol

 

I dunno if youtube is the final boss of the internet you're making it out to be but I was never one of the tutorial guys either. I just like the fucking around type videos (I mean dumb humor not fucking around with synths)

 

I'm worried I could get self-indulgent by saying this, but I hope I've kept the spirit of idumz alive in some way. Keep the mystery in it I hope, just releases random stuff intermittently on bandcamp, mostly chronological but any given album could be from a completely arbitrary time period, arcane time signatures at times but no fan forum to document that stuff. There was a rumor one time that DJ Saint-Hubert was actually a collective of different artists, and it just became a rumor without any effort on my part/propagandizing. In some ways, for people to think I'm actually a collective is like the BEST COMPLIMENT EVER lol

 

ughhh I have one of those halfway good sony voice recorders but I don't know where it is. Fuck algorithms for now, weird inhuman samples/abusing the right to sample things as the true spirit of IDM lol

 

Edit: my last album, compilation of old stuff but definitely curated to some extent, stuff I wanted to put out there that somehow never got properly released. Classic IDM technique, pretending to release material casually but actually being highly curated, see portreath harbour. I dunno if the u-ziq lost albums are as curated as he makes them out to be, though

[Ragnar]

that's definitely the right way to IDM in my opinion, I imagine most people on bandcamp or youtube put something out and are like THIS IS IT, this track, this track is the big deal track. I literally have many incidents where I don't find 'value' in a track until much later, and it was sitting on my hard drive for the longest time. And then like, whatever feels I had when I made the track totally HITS me again, and it's like being on drugs, this act of re-'getting' the track, lol

 

some of it is probably that idm now is overproduced, people translate amount of effort into value of the track, the actual history of idm was probably a bunch of stuff they jammed out in bulk