i think it’s great that this music is being embraced, so i applaud and congratulate Pieter and Veronica on these comps… the MW comp has been prominently displayed in every Toronto record store i’ve been in since it came out… i even think that this MW record may be the catalyst for me starting a wave night in Toronto again (what i mean is, i think there is actually a chance that i can find a venue willing to take on a night of ‘80s wave/electro music again… it’s been difficult since electroclash ended!)
gotta say though, i find it annoying the way that reviewers are talking about this music as though it is in fact an actual genre. nobody lumps together (for example) Soft Cell and Joy Division, yet here we have bands like Openheimer and Iron Curtain being discussed as though they were a part of the same “movement”. these bands were no different than, for example, DM being influenced by Fad Gadget and Human League and starting a band, U2 being influenced by Joy Division and starting a band… except that DM and U2 started with those influences and then developed into something popular. here we have a bunch of bands influenced by the usual suspects (DM, JD/Factory, OMD, John Foxx, Human League) who just didn’t become popular.
i can understand the lumping together of some of the blatantly-primitive synth bands (Ceramic Hello, Transparent Illusion, Dark Day) but when we’re talking about other bands like Openheimer, Land of Giants, the stuff is clean and very well produced… if those records are “minimal”, then the first Human League album (Reproduction) is positively rudimentary. if “Devil’s Dancers” is minimal then so is “Don’t You Want Me”!
i guess my complaint is with the way these reviewers are trying to explain these collections, obviously with no roots or previous interest in ‘80s synth music. check the reviews on Pitchfork, for example. almost as though these bands were trying to achieve something different, or were from a separate movement, than the synthpop bands everyone knows. IMO this stuff should just be considered as an expanding of the palette of ‘80s new wave, synth pop, post punk etc, not some different strain of it…. like, in the ‘80s, i would’ve played these records alongside my OMD and Soft Cell records had i known about them, but i didn’t… so now because of the internet, my knowledge and palette has grown, and i can spin a set of ‘80s analog synthpop and have a lot more options to choose from
Well when it comes to reviewers, being knowledgable and actually listening to the music to be reviewed is always a possibility, yet not a prerequisite.
It becomes more understandable when you take a look at the reality of the whole thing - some people do it for free in their spare time, some are being asked to review music that doesn’t belong to a genre they like, but they are the music experts etc etc.
When I personally sent out stuff I got to read reviews which came close to 1:1 copies of the summary I had provided. I could have put anything, I’m sure. 8)
Coolest thing that happened in my home town way back when was a newspaper review of a concert that had been cancelled…. :wink:
but if we think like entrepreneurs here =), to attract a new market of potential listeners, the “minimal synth” scene is ‘sold’ as something completely different compared to old Human League and stuff like that. The crowd coming to a minimal synth night is usually completely different from those going to ‘dark wave/ebm/synth pop’ place, this is my experience anyway. As an example, just coming back from seeing Xeno & Oaklander in Paris, the venue was an arty place with an exposition down stairs and the generic visitor was more hipster-like than gothic. Right now, the minimal synth thing is kind of cool and attracts a more hip and trendy part of the populace. Another example, in Stockholm half a year ago I went with some friends to a ‘posh’ bar, cramped with design students et cetera, and between the usual stuff like ‘The Knife’, ‘Miss Kittin’ and whatnot, the DJ played ‘Devil’s dancers’ although I was under the impression that he’d rather die than put on ‘Underpass’. It is not really a question of putting things into their historical context here, but considering the fact that ‘minimal synth’, as a concept is light-years away compared to the old school dark electronics, imho.
Regarding reviewers, I think this might be a good thing =). If everyone considered the new Wierd compilation as similar to a re-mastering of ‘Reproduction’ I don’t think you’d see it lying around in all the Toronto record stores…
but if we think like entrepreneurs here =), to attract a new market of potential listeners, the “minimal synth” scene is ‘sold’ as something completely different compared to old Human League and stuff like that. The crowd coming to a minimal synth night is usually completely different from those going to ‘dark wave/ebm/synth pop’ place, this is my experience anyway. As an example, just coming back from seeing Xeno & Oaklander in Paris, the venue was an arty place with an exposition down stairs and the generic visitor was more hipster-like than gothic. Right now, the minimal synth thing is kind of cool and attracts a more hip and trendy part of the populace. Another example, in Stockholm half a year ago I went with some friends to a ‘posh’ bar, cramped with design students et cetera, and between the usual stuff like ‘The Knife’, ‘Miss Kittin’ and whatnot, the DJ played ‘Devil’s dancers’ although I was under the impression that he’d rather die than put on ‘Underpass’. It is not really a question of putting things into their historical context here, but considering the fact that ‘minimal synth’, as a concept is light-years away compared to the old school dark electronics, imho.
Regarding reviewers, I think this might be a good thing =). If everyone considered the new Wierd compilation as similar to a re-mastering of ‘Reproduction’ I don’t think you’d see it lying around in all the Toronto record stores…
[quote author=“solvent”]for example, DM being influenced by Fad Gadget and Human League and starting a band, U2 being influenced by Joy Division and starting a band… except that DM and U2 started with those influences and then developed into something popular. here we have a bunch of bands influenced by the usual suspects (DM, JD/Factory, OMD, John Foxx, Human League) who just didn’t become popular.
spot on. it’s been discussed several times here, i believe, but the fact is, a good many ‘minimal’ projects were (or were attempting…) to make commercial pop music. the ‘underground’ and ‘subversive’ nature of a lot of this music is really only exemplified by its commercial failure and relative obscurity. it makes a lot less appealing of a PR spin, however, heh. “this little-known new wave band wanted to make it big, but they just had the wrong look, and their vocalist was a little too weird.”
i agree on the genre issue, as well. the PR and reviews for these releases are very historically reductive, and the thought that, say, stereo and the somnambulist could be classified as the same genre in any context has me scratching my head. that said, the many different genres that these compilations represent are not entirely unrelated, and it is necessary to package things in…convenient ways for consumers to understand. it’s useless to try to explain the differences between french coldwave and dutch minimal electronics when someone only knows joy division - especially in a 500 word review. once they’re aware that some of this music exists, then they can start playing the game of genre-connect-the-dots on their own (perhaps w/ the aid of a site like this one)...
you know… it’s great, really, what is happening here with this “minimal wave” interest from the hipsters and tastemakers. i’m weary, because i’ve been burned before. believe it or not, when the foundations of electroclash were being laid out, it was just as obscure a notion, with producers of “modern” music, people like me, Adult, the Hacker, Skanfrom, etc talking about and referencing ‘80s analog synth music (as obvious as this seems now, this was absolutely unheard of in the context of ‘90s techno/electronica).... never imagining that it would catch on…. and then the idiots came in, exploiting the obvious elements, with no taste and no subtlety… and they ruined it
let’s just hope that there’s no Peaches-of-minimal-synth waiting to jump on this thing and ruin it!
[quote author=“solvent”]let’s just hope that there’s no Peaches-of-minimal-synth waiting to jump on this thing and ruin it!
Ah, my new mission: to become the Peaches of minimal synth!
It seems inevitable for it to get ‘ruined’ as far as a lot of people jumping in and then everyone getting bored and it becoming very hard to find people to talk about this stuff too. All through the late 80s and 90s my own friends would laugh in my face or ask me to ‘turn that stuff off’ and I only knew about the less obscure stuff and NDW.
I think the thing to keep in mind is that those who really get it and need to continue to do this type of music because it is what satisfies them will continue as best they can regardless (example: Aviador Dro.) It will probably be as hard to get a minimal night going in a couple of years as it was to have an electroclash night in 2003. But the die-hards will find a way… look at that guy Gilles de Guen that inspired Pieter… it could not have been easy to have a night like that at that time! Even in a megalopolis like NYC! Imagine how many Salt-n-Pepa requests he had to dodge and parry!
As far as the genre thing goes: I always liken it to Jaussian Rezeptionstheorie. What was once unexpected now seems inevitable. ‘Back in the day’ these were all independent parties mining the zeitgeist: cold war raging, cheap synths and drum machine available, sick of snotty guitar oriented punk but inspired by it at the same time…. maybe not all of these bands shared all interests and they certainly didn’t know of each other unless they were avid readers of that particular Dutch magazine.
But now, long after the iconic post punk bands have been received by the critics (if not the R&R hall of fame) these strange little records have a ready context to be read in. In a way it is an injustice to the individual visions that they each had (think of idiosyncratic nutters like the Legendary Pink Dots) but the world at large (or at least the part that reads and writes music reviews) is now in a position to have an understanding, however flawed, of what it could mean that all this stuff is out there and certain maniacs (hello friends!) are motivated to dig it up, put it out and send it thier way.
It’s going to get ‘ruined’ but it nobody can ruin it for me.
It’s going to get ‘ruined’ but it nobody can ruin it for me.
absolutely!
both your post and solvent’s posts serve as a reminder - we lived through electroclash. trends come and go, it’s best to ignore them, or to just enjoy the fact that many more people will be exposed to good music ... and anyway, it’s even a bit premature to be expecting any massive trends at this point.
Even in a megalopolis like NYC! Imagine how many Salt-n-Pepa requests he had to dodge and parry!
eerily, i also made a salt n pepa reference on this board just a few minutes before reading your post. uncanny!
salt-n-peppa was like the first chart music that got me noticed.
it’s true and i’m not ashamed of it.
on topic i really do not see this becoming huge. It’s too specific, too obscure and too little people can make an educated distinction to electroclash.
i thought you grew up on belgian rave and piano house, kris?
i concur that things are far from the electroclash scenario, in terms of cultural saturation, hype, and inevitable fallout. but i can say that several friends of mine have become quite excited by this music due to these comps (including a couple friends i’ve been trying to push this stuff on for years). the genres’ connections w/ postpunk keep things enticing for those in the indie world…
Even in a megalopolis like NYC! Imagine how many Salt-n-Pepa requests he had to dodge and parry!
eerily, i also made a salt n pepa reference on this board just a few minutes before reading your post. uncanny!
the amount of michael jackson requests i get when spinning at wierd has reached catastrophic levels… happens almost every week. must blast them back with the fog machine!
