New Cold World

I’d just like to say hello to all my friends, imaginary or not, all over the world. I don’t know what your lives are like, nor whom you love,

But may I wish you the best for the new year.

I’m agnostic, and more than a little gay,

But sometimes I think the imaginary figures of Odin and My Father’s God smile down on me on days like these. And if you’ve suffered through the blizzard of allusion and the cacophony of sounds posted here, I really truly consider you my friend.

Because I can’t even get my friends to listen to this techno bullshit.

What kind of person does it take, really, to follow that cold road that Monolake and T++ have been walking for some time now?

What kind of commitment, what isolation of the spirit?

I hope the drugs are some consolation, but is it enough really?

I’m just a very weird guy, writing for no one in particular, but my money is with the Emptyset.

This is a man committed to a sound, refined through years of practice.

There’s something really satisfying just hearing his first two releases and knowing they exist, know that you just didn’t dream up this fucked up mix of D1 and Loefah and T++. It’s real!

They are so well done, so lovingly made I can only assume that this is a guy desperate to wring the last drop of hope out of this music.

He’s seen what happened to breaks, and to the fucking “I’m hard! Me!” style of Surgeon-esque techno.

He’s seen all of early dubstep’s fucked up potential.

And he’s managed to get a little bit of it all in there, with even a kind of cocky twist to it. The Emptyset would like to welcome you to 2008,

Its a New Cold World out there.

And until Nathan Fake and Xasthur release a 12″ together.

Or Jhonn Balance comes back from the dead to dance with Ricardo Villalobos.

Until all the nice, kind of fucked up beardy guys can really get on down.

This will be as close as I get to my Valhalla.

Until then DJ Hermetic, and the Gay Magick Cru would like to bless you.

Non-denominationly, son of a preacher kind of a way.

Whether you’re a Earth Goddess kind of person, or a Cold Rationalist.

You are loved, here now.

Thanks to all my teachers for getting me this far, Alan Moore is one of the tops. The Barbelith community, you’re crazy, but I love yah.

Especially the posters known as Seth and Grant,

Thelema and the Dao do not need to be at odds.

I’m here, and listening.

To the secular people, especially Tim Finney (mwaaahh!).

Glad to hear you’re alright after the surgery.

Its been so cool to see my imaginary friends do well.

Whether its Ronan, or Phil Sherburne,

Gee maybe I should get a Myspace account?

Or Dissensus’ own Jacob Burns, aka Busy Face, aka Sodium Night Life.

Thanks for all the beats, will try to repay the favor soon.

Peace

Hermetic

Now its cold.

The Midwest looks to be in for a real winter for the first time in a couple years, sure we had a couple of short brutal Februaries but its already hitting the negative temperatures (Fahrenheit) in December this year. Which means I’m not really in the mood for happy music. My listening is far from monochromatic, its not black, black, black all the time. But its definitely getting a little on the grey side.

Been digging out the old painkillers.

Eyehategod, Burzum, a little Xasthur here and there.

Take as needed for pain, right?

That and a bottle of Johnny Walker keeps me warm at night.

For those of you who have wandered by looking for writing about dance music it’ll still be here. I have never pretended to have completely defensible tastes. I listen to nu-metal, psy-trance, ugly fucking Current Value DnB, Meshuggah for gods sake! Anyone who wants to criticize me for the occasional hipper than thou stance needs to keep in mind that you are just looking at the upper crust of who I am.

Sure I like incredibly detailed tech-house a la Villalobos or Luciano.

But to look at me I’m still more nu-metal than New Order.

Some things you just don’t grow out of.

Its trying to reconcile the broad strands of interest together that occasionally gets me in trouble. Sure I love the stuff that Distance is putting out on Chestplate at the moment. Love some of Reso’s stuff (Toasted!), but I’m not sure you should just take my word on it. You got to keep in mind that I’ve arrived at Dubstep and all the little UKG sub-genres threw a pretty circuitous route.

I thought it was interesting, for example, that Scorn’s press releases for his new album on Ad Noiseam all mentioned him being an “isolationist” artist. Its not really a tag that is used for electronic music, there’s isolationist black metal but not much isolationist dubstep.

Its been a long time since Mr. Harris was in a metal band, but the sonic propensities, the trademarks of the maximalist, brutalized sonic template remain. He’s just using dubstep LFO tweaking now instead of distorted guitar crunch. Its well put together, after a couple cursory listens at least. Little soundtrack samples and off key fuzz add a interesting sheen to things.

Tim Finney would hate it, I’m positive.

I’m not sure how he would feel about the Sub Version album though. It came out back in July apparently, I’ve only noticed it recently and found it engaging. This is Jay Haze and Michal Ho collaborating (occasionally with Paul St. Hilaire aka Tikiman) as a dubstep side project. I like their individual outputs separately, especially Jay’s Fuckpony project. But together they get seriously odd, this is so off kilter, so rhythmically different from mainstream dubstep as to be almost incompatible from a mixing standpoint.

They’ve had a track or two included on both of Soul Jazz’s Box of Dub compilations, which is probably the only contact they’ve had with the dubstep scene at large. Nobody gives a shit apparently. Best of luck to them, hope they keep at it.

I have listened to and liked both Pinch’s album and Boxcutter’s new one. They’ve been talked up and down though, no need for my input really.

Just thought it was interesting that two genre’s of music as disparate as grindcore and house could eventually meet someday in British dance music. I’ve got some respect for people who choose a singular sonic template and stick by it throughout changing winds of fashion. And I can also see how dillettantes bring new ideas to old tables.

Its the committment to a sound I’m looking for.

I’ve been enjoying watching DnB being influenced by dubstep. Breakage’s new thing was spectacular minimalism at its best. Minimal dubby jungle, wouldn’t think that it would work but it does. Parson has also been doing things at higher tempos that bear watching. DnB might be like Dubstep’s older brother, a bad influence most of the time, but when its the other way round good things seem to happen.

So where do I cast my lot, sensuality or austerity?

Slinky sexy 2-step, or brawny thuggish drum and bass?

Dubstep?

Minimal dub techno with a dubstep influence?

It might all get a touch too hermetic.