Severian's electronic music gastropub
 

Severian's electronic music bistro, or bodega, or bar & grille, or taco cart is something of a dream of mine. I've wanted to start a thread devoted to electronic music for some time, but it's a though thing to pin down, and kind of a faulty label. Sometimes I'll describe an album as "electronic" and half hate myself for doing so because of how simplistic that sounds. The sub-genres' sub-genres have sub-genres at this point, so I know someone will read "electronic" and scoff, and think, "Idiot, it's acid grime-house yankee-tango footwork-foxtrot... DUH." But I want to have a thread devoted to the discussion of music that falls under this massive umbrella, so ... what the fuck else would I call it?

Anyway, I hope to talk about new and classic electronic music with other folks who are interested in and try to follow the genre, splintered and fragmented and expansive as it is.

I've actually wanted to do this ever since louder started his hip-hip café, and I have almost done it several times, but right now, with absolutely nothing happening in hip-hop, it seems as good a time as any.

So, is this worth doing? I know there are some folks here who just loathe hearing bleeps and bloops, but if there are enough who share my interests, I think we could have some nice discussions.

It's early in the year, and not a lot is happening in any genre yet, but there have been a number of strong releases in the past few years. I put together a list of what I feel are some of the best "electronic" albums from 2010 to the present. Guess I'll just throw this out there and see if anyone bites.

SOME of my favorite electronic albums of the 2010s, in no order except for Amygdala (which is #1 period.):

DJ Koze - Amygdala
KidKanevil - My Little Ghost
Vladislav Delay - Visa
Ben Frost - A U R O R A
Todd Terje - It's Album Time (also It's It's Remix Time Time
Aphex Twin - SYRO
Autechre - Elseq, Exai
Actress - Ghettoville
Boards of Canada - Tomorrow's Harvest
patten - Estoile Naiant
Hudson Mohawke - Lantern
Nicolas Jaar - Space is Only Noise, SIRENS
Plaid - Reachy Prints
Darkside - Psychic
Seekae - The Sound of Trees Falling on People
Botany - Lava Diviner (True Story)
Kornél Kovács - The Bells
Untold - Black Light Spiral
Burial - Rival Dealer
Caribou - Our Love
Mount Kimbie - Cold Spring Fault Less Youth
Arca - Xen

Aaaanyway. Anyone want to do this thing?

EDITED TO ADD:
Tim Hecker - Love Streams and Virgins
Fuck Buttons - Slow Focus
Blanck Mass - Dumb Flesh, World Eater (forthcoming)
Oneohtrix Point Never - Replica, Garden of Delete

Blanck Mass - World Eater

So far this is the most promising electronic-adjacent release on the schedule for this year. Not even out yet, but already pretty much owns my soul based on the songs that are available.



Listen to "Silent Treatment" and "Please".

Don't know about albums but this was probably my fave track from last year

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ziwQ92H1uk

Don't know about them? As in you don't know if you agree about their quality, or you haven't heard them?

If the latter... really? None of them?

electronic music has always been an afterthought to me. maybe it's my climate and environment. I dig it but it never strikes the right nerve in me to be in the mood to chill and groove to. Autechre and Aphex Twin are old stand by's by now. established and nothing to get wound up about anymore. i've always been half rockist and half something else.

Kraftwerk, Krautrock, Stereolab, and pop dance/ post punk /hip hop is as close as I get to this shit. electronics with guitars and synths get me off more. or electro and real drums. half and half. electronic music is like jazz or old blues. there's a lot to dig through to satisfy. you can spend hours looking for awesome 90's D&B, trance, and IDM, just like you can with old jazz and blues. post-electronic searching is what im into.

I don't really listen to new albums much and in the case of the electronic music I like (which is really more dance-oriented) I've found the best stuff tends to be on EPs or simple 12"s. But I've probably only listened to about 3 or 4 albums released in the 2010s in any genre.

A lot of what I listed is actually kind of "electronic + something else" ... this is why"electronic music" is a problematic title. It's like using "rock and roll" to describe everything from The Beatles to, like, Sebadoh.

Blanck Mass (and "parent group Fuck Buttons) are like ½ electronic, ½ harsh noise. Especially Fuck Buttons. Yeah, there's a solidly electronic element, especially to Blanck Mass, but both acts also encorperate MASSIVE guitar noise blitzkriegs and just really offer as much of a "noise rock" experience as a "electronic music" one.

Here, listen to "The Red Wing" from Fuck Buttons' Slow Focus, which was maybe my #3 or #4 album of 2013... for more of the "half and half" stuff, slide to about 1:15 in.

Fuck Buttons - "The Red Wing" (YouTube)

I gots to sneeze. you gots to hold on for a sec!!! son bitch!!!!.. mutherfucker!!!.. damnitfaggot!!!..

cocksucking ....muthatfuck...
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there's a bug going around.

sorry. ok,

Fuck Buttons. I've heard of those guys.

Also, demonrail666, Ben Frost is categorized as electronic on, like, streaming services and shit, but he is REALLY more of a noise collagist. Again, his music runs adjacent to what I'd call "harsh noise," though if I recall some purists on this board took issue with that a few years back (fuck 'em, says I). I guess if I wanted to get someone who's not into electronic music to check him out, I'd refer to his music as "analogue maximalism." If you can imagine what the whole "digital maximalism" thing sounds like (Rustie's Glass Swords, JUSTICE, Kanye's MBDTF and, even more so,Watch the Throne, Hudson Mohawks, etc.) imagine what that kind of sonic multi-tiered assault might sound like coming from an avant-garde basement tinkerer who values composing over simply "recording," has a thing for building his own chimeric instruments, and comes from a DIY/punk background.

A U R O R A is such a frenzied sensory overload that when it settles into a kind of consistent rhythm, as it does from time to time, it's beauty can be frankly disarming. It's one of the many "electronic" albums of the last few years that almost doesn't even fit within any genre beyond... well, Ben Frost.

Listen to "Venter"from A U R O R A and you'll hear music that has as much in common sonically with SWANS as it does with anything under the "electronic" umbrella.

Oh, oh, and also ...

Nicolas Jaar is likely to be up yr alley, if you like that "half and half" shit. He's probably my favorite non-DJ Koze artist in the world of electronic music right now. His stuff is strange, because it's kind of only "electronic" in the most broad strokes way imaginable.

Like, sure, it's got bleeps and/or bloops, but if I had to compare him to any artist, I'd point directly to Suicide, not Aphex Twin or Squarepusher or Autechre or Boards or any of the other electro-bros who birthed most of the non-EDM side of the genre as it exists today.

He sings... like, a lot. He plays instruments too. Classical training in piano, which he puts to delightfully warped use on his records. There's a distinct post-punk feel to a LOT of what he does, at least under his own name (he is also ½ of Darkside, among other things).

Listen to "Space is Only Noise If You Can See" from the album Space is Only Noise. Without question, in my opinion, one of the single best songs of this decade in any genre. So droning and post-punky that it probably fits in more with Sonic Youth, Suicide, Shellac, Slint than with anything "electronic."

He's all over the place though. In 2016, he dropped his second proper album, SIRENS. Again, it was primarily embraced by "electronic" communities, but to call the album "electronic" is not really fair. To drill down the sub-genres and assign it to one of those is even less fair, however, so I guess electronic it is. But there's a whole lot going on in the relatively short duration of the album.

Listen to"History Lesson" from SIRENS and you'll see that. It's essentially a kind of post-R&B track. Aching white boy soul, almost like something The Rolling Stones might have done when they were still a thing to be taken seriously. No guitars, but still, it's far from an "electro" track. Please listen through the end. I beg you. Top notch climax.

Some interesting stuff there but my tastes are generally much more mainstream than that. House, some Detroit Techno and Jungle. A bit of Trance. That kind of thing. That Porter Ricks track I linked is about as out there as I get.

This is more typical of the kind of stuff I generally like

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m32Z-htDAok

demonrail, bro, listen to DJ Koze. His music is really not very challenging. It's chill, but it's weird as hell at the same time. Whimsical, I'd say.

Here listen to "My Plans" from Amygdala.

I think my tastes in electronic music are actually pretty damn mainstream. I got into it through Chemical Brothers ("Setting Sun" was one of the best singles of the late '90s), and Daft Punk, and of course Aphex Twin, but at the time I didn't even realize that Aphex Twin was very far left of those other groups. I saw the videos, heard the NIN collaborations, and considered it relatively "mainstream."

Blah... I wanna talk about electronic music goddammit!

P.s. That Masters at Work track is dope. That's some straight techno shit man. I like it. You'll find that Koze is influenced by that kind of sound. He used to be more aggro, more dancey and redundant before he (apparently) started consuming just obscene quantities of LSD. Lol.

Oh, such a nice gastropub! I will definitely visit this one frequently and with pleasure.

Have you heard "Crisis of Representation" by Gábor Lázar yet? If not, go check it out, it's top shit. Angular electronica in the vein of Mark Fell.

Yeah, I listened to as much of it as I could in a sitting. It started strong, and I was like, "OK!" But as time passed, I went from "OK!" to "Okay...??" Then several tracks later I woke up from a blackout -- the result of being aurally stabbed in the brain about a thousand times.

I'm sorry, but I don't think I'm ... whatever ... enough to actually enjoy this kind of thing (yet?). I can appreciate it, but I have a hard time actually listening to it.

Mark Fell I can handle. Lázar worked with Fell on The Neurobiology of Moral Decision Making, of course, and I can hear his fencing/knife-play sound on that album, but it's smoothed and spread out, providing accents to waves of more digestible sound.

Crisis of Representation may just be a bit too much for me. Or to little? I don't know. But it's like getting acupuncture and having an anxiety attack at the same time.

Interesting. I find them sounds quite soothing and relaxing, even. Although I don't usually listen to that album as a whole, only a few tracks and then on to something else.

But, hey, thanks for that Blanck Mass recommendation. Fantastic! Classic Fuck Buttons vibes, but warped and next level.

Yeah, of course! Can't wait for the new album to come out.

Have you listened to 2015's Dumb Flesh?

I like New Order.

"They're not electronic."

Well, no. Not all their stuff.

"None of their stuff. They sometimes do electro-pop. NOT 'electronic' as I understand the term."

I think "The Perfect Kiss" is probably the best electro-dance song ever.

"Great. But wrong thread."

Asshole.

hahahaah!

New Order is a guitar, bass, drums, with a twinge of synth band!

No no! Any good?