quote:

Originally posted by Woony I don't necessarily disagree but I would except at least some degree of self reflection from someone like Mills. Although, while it's obviously not a big theme in the mainstream anymore, I don't think futurism is necessarily dead or old fashioned.

Mills is basically out of date, a pseudo-intellectual middle aged man still stuck in his silly sci-fi concepts. He's never been as smart as he thinks he is, and his obsession with ideation isn't backed up by his intellect. I actually find parallels with John 00 Fleming, who also paradoxically talks of his passion for "forward thinking" and "futuristic" music when he actually means music that mimics a sound that is 20 years old.

"Futurism" in the original sense doesn't mean predicting the future, it means excitement for the future. Neither of these guys are really interested in relentlessly following the curve of technology. Their idea of forward-thinking future music is rooted in their generation's vision of futurity. You, on the other hand, express the classic Millennial trepidation for the future.

My own problem is I was born a decade out of time. I was a child who bought into the early '90s future-buzz and was left jilted by society's post-millenium comedown. Hence why everything I play and like has a vibe of starry-eyed spacebound positivty. My whole life is one long disappointment that the rest of the world wants craft beer, beards, vinyl and a facile version of authenticity when I still want everything to look like WipEout.

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Mixes:
> Back To Deep [Deep Trippy House]
> Terra Nova [Modern Progressive Trance]
> Rough & Ready [Modern Trance]
>A Different Energy [Good Modern Trance]
> The Edale Mix [Panoramic Beats]

Anyway, to get back on-topic, I went to see Ulrich Schnauss this evening. I saw him three years ago and it was one of most enjoyable electronic live shows I've been to. There's no magic formula to what he does - it's essentially just DJing tracks and stems (with the occasional inessential bit of live keyboard doodling over the top) backed up by pretty visuals. Y'know, the same way 90% of electronic guys do live PAs. The thing that sets him apart is simply the quality of the visuals, which are VJ'd on-stage by his wife, and the programming of his set list, which builds up and flows like a good DJ set. It just builds a consistent, carefully thought-out vibe which hypnotises you, whereas a lot of live PAs feel largely arbitrary and half-arsed.

I didn't enjoy this gig quite as much as the previous time I saw him, although it was no fault of Ulrich's. The stage set-up just wasn't quite as good as last time, the sound was harsher and not as enveloping, the crowd were quite chatty and slightly disinterested and the projector screen cut out halfway through for a couple of tracks. There's something about live gigs that brings out the biggest possible wankers, people who've necked two cans of Red Stripe and aren't really sure how to behave.

I'd still recommend seeing Ulrich live though. If you catch him in a good venue he's fucking wicked, and you will find yourself dancing by the end without noticing when you started.

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Mixes:
> Back To Deep [Deep Trippy House]
> Terra Nova [Modern Progressive Trance]
> Rough & Ready [Modern Trance]
>A Different Energy [Good Modern Trance]
> The Edale Mix [Panoramic Beats]

Heh, kind of related to the discussion around retro/futurism, last weekend I saw this girl from Israel, Dr. Rubinstein, that has made a name for herself in Berlin for the past few years. Her thing is acid, almost everything she plays has some kind of acid in it. She plays a LOT of early 90s german acid and techno-trance records. Every time I see here, she pulls out some obscure bombs I've never heard before. Anyways, I saw her at Berghain and people were totally freaking out - I find it really funny how this sound still works the same twenty years later. Acid, big 909 kicks and snare roll breakdowns still send people wild. For some people it's probably fresh since this kind german early 90s acid is not really a popular sound anymore. She played Humate '3.1' near the end and some people probably thought it was some hot new deep techno shit

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June 2018 mix

quote:

Originally posted by Woony He is, if you find a time machine back to 2013 He's still good but it's hard for a DJ to maintain his edge when playing three peaktime gigs a weekend.

Also probably depends when and where you see them. I saw him in la last summer and he was on fire imo. But its probably bc most of us had never heard a lot of those tracks live.

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X-MIX 1 The MFS Trip

This guy needs to come back

quote:

Originally posted by Woony Heh, kind of related to the discussion around retro/futurism, last weekend I saw this girl from Israel, Dr. Rubinstein, that has made a name for herself in Berlin for the past few years. Her thing is acid, almost everything she plays has some kind of acid in it. She plays a LOT of early 90s german acid and techno-trance records. Every time I see here, she pulls out some obscure bombs I've never heard before. Anyways, I saw her at Berghain and people were totally freaking out - I find it really funny how this sound still works the same twenty years later. Acid, big 909 kicks and snare roll breakdowns still send people wild. For some people it's probably fresh since this kind german early 90s acid is not really a popular sound anymore. She played Humate '3.1' near the end and some people probably thought it was some hot new deep techno shit

So you are saying early proto trance type techno will soon be making a comeback?

In all seriousness, having seen a decent amount of techno djs over the last 3 years, i have noticed how a lot of the berlin based berghain affiliated djs seem to play a lot more acid techno or even borderline proto trance sounding records.This could be a great development since if these records are made by techno producers it is far less likely for them to push the cheesy elements for commercial appeal which doomed trance as a valid legitimate genre years ago in many peoples eyes.

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X-MIX 1 The MFS Trip

This guy needs to come back

Welcome back!

Since the thread is bumped I should mention I saw Slam again on Easter Thursday. It was a toss up between Slam and Steffi and Slam won, which turned out alright as Steffi cancelled in the end.

I wasn't quite as enamoured with the Soma boys this time around. I've noticed one of them DJs on the CDJs and the other seems to just do FX/editing with a laptop. They have a tactic of twisting the living shit out of tracks, turning them into huge builds before finally dropping the beat back in. Last time they confined that largely to the middle hour of their set and it introduced some nice variation into the set. This time they leaned quite heavily on it for most of the set, and it did become a bit manipulative and predictable after a while.

I have noticed in various kinds of techno I've seen over the last few years that there seems to be a popularity in huge breakdowns that even rival vintage trance in scope. I remember first grumbling about Paco Osuna's "breakdown techno" back in 2013. I can't tell if this is a new development or if I just didn't hear enough techno prior to then to notice.

___________________
Mixes:
> Back To Deep [Deep Trippy House]
> Terra Nova [Modern Progressive Trance]
> Rough & Ready [Modern Trance]
>A Different Energy [Good Modern Trance]
> The Edale Mix [Panoramic Beats]

quote:

Originally posted by paulversuspaul Also probably depends when and where you see them. I saw him in la last summer and he was on fire imo. But its probably bc most of us had never heard a lot of those tracks live.

He can still play a great set but when he still played vinyl and wasn't touring ever weekend he was just ridiculous. A lot of great DJs have that period in their career where they are just untouchable and his was before he really blew up.

Last time I went out was at Tresor during easter. Good music from Kenneth Christiansen from Echocord and Convextion but jesus christ, I forgot how awful the crowd actually is.

On the topics of breakdowns, around here you can't really get away with too many of them. I think the trance-y techno sound has kind of plateau-ed but overall it's been a positive development over the last couple of years, people are more open now to that kind of sound.

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June 2018 mix

Last edited by Woony on Apr-04-2016 at 20:42

Another perk of weekends off is getting to go to the occasional d'n'b show for a flail-session. Checked out an old-school vinyl rinse-out, then a couple weeks later attended a Hospital Records tour, followed by a RAM Records night a few weeks after that.

RAM night was fun for the fact it's the first time folks watching me dance kept buying me drinks. I've had punters ask about my steps (old Prodigy vids', learn 'em), get tripped out by my steps, and not-so subtly try and cop' my steps, but never consistently provide a steady stream of beers.

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Everyone has an opinion. Mine just happens to be a little more informed than most.
Electronic Music Critic: Near-Daily Ruminations Of Music I Own, In Alphabetical Order!
(~)

You appear to be speaking in tongues, fam.

good to be back!

Man, the rest of us must be on some sort of delay from berlin since the trancey techno sound seems brand new to me and not something that has already plateaued. Even when its subtle its noticable to me. For instance i love this newer track:



that bassline almost seems like it came straight from a mid 90s german trance track. Sounds fabulous on a techno track like this.

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X-MIX 1 The MFS Trip

This guy needs to come back

Check out my January mix, it's full of that kind of shit (the Distant Echoes track appears as well)

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June 2018 mix

I saw X-Press 2 last night on a whim. A friend had asked me if I fancied it and it wasn't until I woke up from a disco nap at 10pm that I decided to go down. They were playing for free in a bar called Distrikt, which I'm sure I've mentioned before in this thread. The quality of names they book that you can see for free is absurd - they regularly get people like Juan Atkins to play to about 150 people and the vibe is always fantastic.

It's funny how the nights you anticipate the most often disappoint, and the random shit you go to at the last minute is often the best stuff. X-Press 2 were fucking wicked. They came on and the place was already packed and started off with some peak time house, including Bicep's newest remix. There was a moment early on where they dropped into the inevitable Prince tribute (Erotic City) and then mixed out into some never-ending melodic tech monster that had me rushing off nothing more than vodka. After half an hour or so they dropped into harder, percussive mode and kept things pumping for another hour - the Peace Division remix of Roaches got an outing, to give you an idea of the filthy drums they were laying down at this point. Then they brought it up with some huge vocals and just kept dropping huge slabs of beefy techno and house until the end.

Their mixing was really tight and effective - in three hours I noticed one solitary moment when the beats were anything less than air-tight. Great DJs, great party, great tunes throughout. Aside from the aforementioned unknown melodic tech mind-melter, the tune of the night was probably this, nice to hear a Renaissance classic still ripping it up 20 years later:

___________________
Mixes:
> Back To Deep [Deep Trippy House]
> Terra Nova [Modern Progressive Trance]
> Rough & Ready [Modern Trance]
>A Different Energy [Good Modern Trance]
> The Edale Mix [Panoramic Beats]