Geeze Louise! The label 'Intelligent': Redundant and snobby. Especially in the world of dance music which is chock full of technical complexity, fetishistic studio wizardry and head-spinning innovation. I remember hearing this tag somewhere in the 1990's, and it rubbed a lot of people the wrong way. The Detroit techno pioneers of the 1980's were now relegated to 'Classic' status, with this advent of some new sound. Into its second decade, electro and techno wasn't busting down boundaries, but rather subdividing, and setting up new borders. Hey, that was the 90's.
Yet it's the best term I can use as the “umbrella” for where I'm coming from with this blog right now. Other terms: ambient, acid, just techno, bleep, Detroity stuff, Orb-ish dub, early trance...also apply here. In the first part of the decade, a new idealism and majestic concern for craft emerged...however abstract. It was what my ears tuned to, and what became my obsession. In its defense, 'Intelligent' might have a lot to do with artificial intelligence (and the Warp compilation of the same name). It is the sound of machines thinking and talking...to each other. We are lucky that someone put those sounds on a record for us.
A main reason the term 'Intelligent' got glommed onto was to set itself apart from 'Hardcore'. You know the type of techno I'm talking about: hyperactive breakbeats, whistles, sirens, keyboard riffs that are about to overload, samples that are pronouncements about who is alive or dead, who is leaving and coming into the building at any given time, plus the constant monitoring of the bass bins. You were either terrorized or irritated by it. Or you lost your shit to it. I love 'Hardcore' and the next few posts are dedicated to it...just to set the scene.
I dig it. I think "Detroity stuff" is the label I'd choose. Because I like everything a little or a lot kawaii. One of the rabbits buried herself in a towel upon the playing of the above track. Positive response or negative response, I don't know. Maybe she was "losing her shit".
ReplyDeleteYou should write more often. There, said it.
Your rabbit probably saw a ghost in the machine. I hope she's OK.
ReplyDeleteThe above, it's not like a manifesto...or I'm sticking only to this-genre/this-era thing. Everything is pretty broad and shapeless right now. It was more like this is where I'm coming from. Labels are tough. People see them as musical fascism, but you have to get a little lost in it all to see that they really do have a navigation purpose.
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