Moving...

Lots on the back burner, but I'm in the process of changing cities. Check back soon.

A long and progressive road...

A fascinating article by Philip Sherburne over at Pitchfork on track times and their possible heraldic properties. Mr. Sherburne’s column “The Month In Techno” is truthfully the only thing I regularly read at Pitchfork. He really seems to have his thumb on the pulses of scenes on both sides of the pond, not to mention that he’s a great writer. Ordinarily he's spot on with his reviews of records, performances and whole scenes, although I really think he’s missed the mark ever so slightly with this one.

As Mr. Sherburne pointed out about halfway through the piece, extended track times are nothing new in dance music. The original 12” version of disco classic “I Will Survive”, one of the (if not THE) most recognizable disco tracks of all time, lists a running time of 8:02. Acid house standards like Steve “Silk” Hurley’s “Jack Your Body” and Jamie Principle’s “Your Love” both clock in at over 6 minutes. Even radio-ready stadium techno the likes of Underworld’s “Born Slippy.NUXX” (9:44) and The Prodigy’s “Voodoo People” (6:28) tend to sprawl a bit, although both tracks were issued hideously executed “edits” that were little more than fades at the break. Long tracks are the rule in dance music, rather than the exception. Villalobos’ proposed 44 minute single, though, takes the standard 10 minute extended mix, turns it on its head and kicks it in the crotch.

Mr. Sherburne proposes three possible reasons for such dramatic jumps in track times; firstly that due to the extended lengths of parties, tracks are being extended in a proportional manner; secondly that the relatively new digital media are allowing electronic artists the freedom to expand and fill said media with sound; and, finally that laptop sets are allowing DJs to test unfinished tracks, thereby introducing a degree of improvisation. Each of these reasons is equally plausible, and the reader can definitely see the logic underlying Mr. Sherburne’s conclusions. I find it interesting, and a little worrying, that only reasons indicating the growth of the minimal techno aesthetic have been presented. I would presume to suggest a forth, not-so-positive suggestion.

I should preface this by pointing out that I am mostly not a fan of Kompakt/Perlon/Get Physical/Bpitch/Systematic/Areal minimal techno. I say mostly because whenever I come across a release by any of these labels I feel compelled to listen in the hope that I will like it. Sometimes I do, but mostly they go back in the rack. I can quite understand why the music press likened the work of these labels and their associated artists to the minimalist works of Frank Stella, Samuel Beckett, Carl Andre, and Robert Bresson. The music is stripped down to little more than percussion or a single looped phrase, a single element of which is then varied ad infinitum, and in my case, ad nauseum. The good stuff develops an infectious groove that changes just enough to keep the listener interested while managing to maintain the repetitiveness that keeps things…well…groovy. Unfortunately, the tracks that achieve this delicate balance are few and far between. I can’t really explain why the vast majority of these tracks don’t appeal to me other than to say that I find the majority of them too…tasteful. They’re like of-the-moment audio wallpaper; like Eno/Orb ambient for the new millennium.

When I read in Mr. Sherburne’s column that Ricardo Villalobos is contemplating releasing a 44 minute single and Perlon’s Sammy D is playing bits of some 20 minute opus out at parties, I immediately flashed back to when I first heard Goldie’s hour-long abortion “Mother”. I wrote in an earlier post about defining moments; “Mother” was, for me at least, the death knell of jungle/drum ‘n’ bass. After that every thing with an Amen-derivative break sounded pretentious and vain. It wasn’t until I read Simon Reynolds’ Generation Ecstasy almost a year later that I had any kind of inkling as to why that was. It was that drive towards the “progressive” ("intelligent" is the word that Mr. Reynolds favors), that need for deeper meaning in the music in lieu of visceral reaction to it, that had precipitated the release of “Mother” and eventually leached the vibrance from drum ‘n’ bass. Of course, Mr. Reynolds saw the signs earlier (as detailed in the book) but the end effect was the same. After reliving the horror, I started to wonder if 44 minutes of Villalobos is going to sound like 10 minutes of passable minimal techno bloated with 34 minutes of "progressive" self-importance.

Has minimal techno, by all accounts a vibrant and exciting scene, been bitten by the progressive bug? I sincerely hope not. As I said earlier, Mr. Sherburne has immersed himself in the scene and he knows far more about it than I do, but where he sees manipulation of new media, I see the studio gimmickery and mellotron noodlings of Emerson, Lake & Palmer, Genesis, Pink Floyd and their ilk. Where he sees the infinite possibilities for improvisational sound manipulation, I see that scene in “This Is Spinal Tap” where the band takes the stage at a festival, minus guitarist Nigel Tufnel. “We’re not about to do a free-form jazz , uh, exploration in front of a festival crowd, are we?” asks bassist Derek Smalls. They did and hilarity ensued. Let’s hope that a half-hour minimal techno track doesn’t become it’s own joke.

Fundamentalist

My name is John and I am a Pet Shop Boys fan.

I have been a Pet Shop Boys fan since I saw the video for "Always On My Mind" on CBC’s “Video Hits” in late 1985. My first CD (and what a CD!) was their 1990 album Behaviour. I still listen to it today. My first 12” single (bearing in mind the decline of vinyl on this side of the pond) was a promo-punched copy of Se a Vida É (That's The Way Life Is) coloured vinyl (lime green and lemon yellow) double-pack procured [ahem] from my university’s radio station archives. It was a turning point. Up until that moment I was strictly a CD-track-to-track DJ, slavishly seeking CD singles, lusting after the unreleased tracks and remixes, combing Usenet listings and mail order catalogues for that elusive German remix EP or Japanese four-track promotional CD3. Of course I knew of the existence of 12” singles, but, having grown up more with 8-tracks and cassettes, I viewed records as curiousity rather than a viable media alternative. Within a month of liberating [ahem] that doublepack I had a belt-drive turntable, purchased for a mere $20 from an electronics repair shop down the street from my apartment, and was playing the hell out of whatever wax I could lay my hands on. Within a year I had two Technics 1200s, albeit second-hand, and a cheap three-channel mixer. I often think back to when that double-pack landed in my lap, particularly while surveying my record collection, and it can only be described as one of those defining moments after which everything is different. In my case life split into Before-Vinyl and After-Vinyl and the pursuit of good, often obscure, records has become less a hobby and more an obsession. I no longer have much interest in the CD singles, but I’d step over my own mother for that Relentless triple-pack.

So you can imagine my excitement when the Pet Shop Boys' new album Fundamental practically leapt into my hands as I idly thumbed through the Pop/Rock rack at our local HMV. Once ensconced in the car on my hour-long commute home, I popped my shiny new CD into the stereo, prepared to bask in the glory that is 80's inflected electro-pop.

Boy was I surprised.

Fundamental opens with the dark and disturbing "Psychological", a haunting electro-house track with lyrics that are simultaneously nonsensical and evocative. "There's something in the attic/ And it smells so bad./ An Undertaker/ in a bowler hat./ (Psychological) / What's that spilt/ on the kitchen floor?/ Who's that banging/ on the cellar door?" sings frontman Neil Tennant as partner Chris Lowe's bassline grinds above ghostly groans . These lyrics, little more than disjointed phrases, suggest powerful and unsettling images and are the perfect precursor to the rest of the record.

Fundamental seems to be predominantly a response to the political climate both in the UK and Europe in much the same way Green Day's "American Idiot" was a response, although less subtle, to the political landscape of the good ol' US of A. The first single "I'm With Stupid" details British Prime Minister Tony Blair's fictitious doubts over Britain's alliance with the US in Iraq; "The Sodom & Gomorrah Show" describes a rural resident's first exposure to an Amsterdam or Ibiza-like world of sex, drugs, and dancing; the ballad "Luna Park" drips with bile over the Millennium Dome fiasco and an expected electoral backlash that never quite materialized. Stomper "Integral", a track reminiscent of the Boys' hit "Go West", anchors the record. A song about hard-line anti-terrorist surveillance policies put forth by Britain’s Labour government, it's the one track on the album that noticeably presents the rage and disgust Neil and Chris must be feeling with Blair and his supporters. As both pop song and political diatribe, "Integral" works in a way few songs have and is the most likely to draw the "American Idiot" comparison.

With Trevor Horn sitting in the producer’s chair again (he produced “Left To My Own Devices“ and “It’s Alright” from 1988’s Introspective) Fundamental is a lush record packed with all those little Horn-y flourishes. Sweeping strings flow in and out, over and under Art Of Noise bleeps and buzzes. It’s the kind of ear-candy that keeps a song fresh even when you know the words by heart and Horn is a master at it. “Left To My Own Devices” still sounds good, and I’m pretty sure Fundamental’s highlights will have equal staying power.

Having said all that, Fundamental is not a perfect record. The saccharine Release-reject "I Made My Excuses And Left" is glaringly out of sync thematically with the rest of the CD and its inclusion is a mystery to me. The Diane Warren ballad "Numb" is also a misstep, although given it's recent inclusion in the farewell-England world-cup montage it is destined to become a classic. These two tracks are the most typical of the Pet Shop Boys output and perhaps that's why I like them the least.

Happily, at least for me, Fundamental sounds like a Pet Shop Boys album without sounding too much like a Pet Shop Boys album. Put another way, Tennant, Lowe, and Horn have managed to craft a thoughtful and emotional record, while retaining their twin signatures of electro-pop and wry, tongue-in-cheek lyrics. It's a combination that has served them well in the past and continues to serve them on Fundamental. I mean, when an album has a song on it called “Minimal”, which describes all things minimal and sounds anything but minimal (Horn strings, hello!) it’s the kind of delicious irony that can only be the Pet Shop Boys. Who says pop never lasts, anyway?

Patience

Coming soon