Dancing By Myself

I saw Paco Osuna DJ to a small room on Saturday.

And enjoyed it.

But I think that I’ve stretched my interest in the modern European sound near to breaking. I’m starting to get to the point where I’m noticing the conventions of the loose conglomerate of styles recently referred to as minimal. Its something else than techno or house, after seeing Derrick May and Jesse Saunders DJ I’m certain of that.

The remainders of what used to be called electro-house seem to run through a lot of it, obviously for a lot of people electro-house means something completely different now. I’m told that in the UK the term exclusively applies to Justice and Digitalism and the whole rock rave thing. Which is odd because that music is neither electro nor house. Justice to me sound like Rave against the Machine with a little Daft Punk/Alan Braxe worship thrown in.

But anyways, minimal. It feels like a lot of this music has that European inverted narcissism to it. You know: European musicians loving the music of black American musicians who in turn loved European music. Obviously this doesn’t really apply to some of the good stuff, Henrik Schwarz and the Innervisions style deep house. You can tell they genuinely love a broad swathe of music, from early house to dub to classic rhythm and blues.

Paco didn’t really inspire this, it was just the latest in a series of DJs that didn’t quite touch what I wanted. His DJing was really solid, he incorporated two laptops into the regular twin Technics set up and played one of the better hybrid sets I’ve seen. Great percussion in a lot of it. But a lot of this music seems to have its heart in the old European dance styles: Electro, Italo, early EBM and trance.

Especially some of the Get Physical artists and people like Kiki.

And obviously Cocoon has never gone very far away from trance.

Then you’ve got the colder more cerebral end with M_nus, the Hawtin, guys who were making click and cuts style stuff a couple of years ago.

Or the sound technicians like Sleep Archive.

It all feels a bit empty to me.

It lacks warmth, lacks life.

And I’m one of the coldest, most cerebral people I know.

In the American club context none of this music has the space to breathe that it does in Europe, it felt so artificial to see Paco DJ for a little less than two hours. Then the house lights come up, “thats it people, everybody go home!”

Either my fellow Americans have never heard of the afterparty or I just wasn’t invited. It feels weird telling my friends that I love being stuffed into dark noisy clubs full of mildly pretentious people so that I can dance by myself in the dark.

Sometime its what I need though.

I need something empty and robotic.

And sometimes I need something with a little soul to remind me what I’m missing. I hate being critical of people who have so much more drive and talent than what I am able to muster. It feels like an empty, masturbatory excercise. If I really want to change anything the only option available is the long hard road of learning to do it myself.

For now I’m willing to think to myself in public way.

What am I feeling recently?

Baby Oliver: This Is Prime.

I don’t care if its Morgan Geist, a collaboration, or some follower of the label. This is really top quality stuff, both sides of both releases have their moments. I’ve also been starting to care about dubstep again, instead of just following it out of a sense of loyalty. One recent change is how much I’ve been getting back into Scuba’s productions. I don’t remember exactly why I didn’t pick up any of his stuff after SCUBA 01, but now I’ve gone back and bought the MP3s through Boomkat. I’ve really been enjoying their elegance and simplicity, the functional nature of some of the tracks. The man has a definite ear for melody.

Tracks like Braille Diving have this early 80s Roxy Music feel to them.

Like Avalon in Dub, with caustic noisy basslines. I still don’t like his experiments with guitars in dubstep, but other than that its all solid.

And Hotflush has one of the highest standards in dubstep right now.

Here’s a big surprise, like every other poster on Dissensus I’ve been listening to Burial. Its over-hyped, but I’ve got nothing but love for the guy.

If he exists.

And I was the last half hearted grime fan to get into JME’s Boy Better Know Vol 4. The sound of last summer for a lucky few.  It feels like a perfect midpoint between 2-step, the Kanye Style helium vocals in 2005 grime and the bassline house scene which I’m not nearly enough into to have any comments on.