Neither are you with a comment like that.
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No idea. Didnt read the article/watch the vid what ever. Never heard of the artist, dont really care about techno enough to investigate.
This thread though, full of men making dumb comments.
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I checked out the album. I agree itās not techno, rather somewhere between psy/acid trance. Iām not a genre purist but these things are different, and itās kind of cringe to ignore those fairly clear distinctions. Iām more into trance than techno so this isnāt a case of complaining about interlopers.
I found the music itself pretty lazy, although it was well produced. I did not like that 8 out of the 10 tracks just immediately went into kick/driving 16th note bassline with no intro or atmosphere. It feels templated and indifferent to the audience.
Some of the acid lines were cool, likewise some of the samples, but everything felt overly repetitive with little development or experimentation beyond volume fades or filter sweep. Every time I heard something cool it was looped well past the point of boredom two minutes later. If youāre going to work in a very limited tonal range like this you need to do something other than just repeat stuff over and over, things need to change around the repeating part or you need to establish the repetition and then mess with it in interesting ways. At most elements come in and drop out but other than that tracks sound very samey from beginning to end.
I felt the same way about the rhythms. Itās all very high energy but has only one gear. Kick-hat kick-hat kick-hat, over and over and over. Occasionally you get a snare backbeat, a shaker, or a 16th note closed hat (on different tracks). Track 7 is a slow breakbeat chill room thing but that too felt very looped. I had the impression the tracks were all built from bpm-matched sample loops with a little crossfasding between them rather than the drums being programmed, same as the endless 16th note basslines. idk how you put out a whole album of dance music with zero rhythmic ideas; I love a good 4 on the floor but thereās absolutely no groove here.
Itās a pity as Iām a big fan of goa trance and you can hear sheās going after that sound with the tonality, timbral, and rhythmic selections, but thereās more to a trance track than just starting out in high gear and staying there. None of the tracks sustain any excitement because they donāt build or evolve, and there arenāt any dynamics or shape. Kinda like the dance music equivalent of the Spinal Tap guitar amp that goes to 11. Oh well.
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I donāt know anything about any of this. But if I had to think of a stereotype in my mind of techno vs trance I would think of techno as being very minimal, repetitive, hard hitting, you listen to it in a concrete bunker blasting out of a PA that can barely handle it and everyone is in their own little world dancing like mad. Trance I think of as happy, poppy, lots of supersaw, youāre listening outdoors at a big festival with girls in bikinis and bros with glow sticks and everybodyās hands are in the air.
Listening to this if I had to guess I would say techno. Itās odd to say itās trance but itās bad trance because itās too repetitive. Soā¦ techno?
I donāt know, please educate me because I find the narcissism of small differences in the dance music world really fascinating.
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Iām generally pretty offput by the modern propensity towards seemingly pretentious, barely audible differences in certain subgenres of popular electronic music that really didnāt exist when I actually cared enough to stay current and informed, but I try to think of it like how there are a hundred similar paintbrushes that all look and seem about the same until you actually try to paint with them.
I just figure that the people who can identify them probably have more exposure than I do and therefore they know the expected line weights of more brushes than I do. Nothing wrong with that.
Also doesnāt change the validity of a ālike it or donātā mentality. Thatās how music should hit you is that you like it or you donāt. But the more that you know about it, the easier it is to identify what you like or donāt like, specifically.
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A little bit OT but I think that there is hype machine problem in the scene since ages. From the moment that someone realized that you can buy yourself into it, the magic was gone.
In terms of producers or DJs, no matter what gender, we need to stop hyping mediocrity.
As for ghostwriting, it is a cancer that spread in every art category, be it music, books or paintings. Maybe one day it will be publicly shamed.
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That was why I mentioned goa trance in particular - like most of this album, goa tracks tend to cluster around phrygian or melodic minor scales, thereās a lot of acid lines from SH-101s or TB-303s, thereās a strong 4 on the floor focus and always some kinda bass. By contrast, I think of lots of techno tracks where there isnāt necessarily a bass at all, or there may be very little in the way of tonality. Even where techno is very repetitive I typically hear some sort of rhythmic or textural development.
Hereās an example of the aesthetic I feel she was going for (anything on this album or label really). Itās a very distinct signature, like electric pianos riffing on 7th chords in house music, or jazz influences in drumānābass, and itās hard to miss the the overlap. Now of course Iām sure she was pursuing her own musical direction rather than just trying to recreate older styles, but I wonder how far she can go by abandoning groove, fills, intros, outros, anything other than 16th note monophonic basslines etc.
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Is honest work that allows some of us to make a living off of music, though.
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Well, where should I start. I think a big part of her fame was the remake of age of love. Its not the worst trance remake/remix, but of course some of the magic, energy of the old thing is gone.
The high pitched noise after i think 2 min of the famous ( jam and spoon ) version I always turn down when listenig in the train. The real original is from 1990, on a belgian label, also with a bit irritating stuff, some erotic vocal and a saxophone i think.
I listened (and still do ) to the old version like 20000 times in the train or at home. The melody, wow. along other stuff from the (acid) trance years until 94. its one of the few things that keep me alive, the melodies and composition touches me in a special way.
Supersaw and i donāt know what made it a lot more annoying in the following years for me.
I try with jamming at home a bit but mostly groove or melody sucks.
I was never really part of the scene, first i had school and and social problems already in 94 that still affect me, never took drugs except weed, but that unfortunately too young i think.
And of course i was at the same time fascinated by detroit etc and other incl belgian techno, front 242 etc already earlier.
I still go to underground raves/ clubs and experimental stuff. The young people make great techno stuff again.
I like most tresor new faces mixes, (while a big part of the other soundcloud recommendations leave me cold), the magic seems still there. I was never in berlin or frankfurt( where big part my favourite old trance, but also mark arcadipane/the mover comes from).
I said a few years ago to young techno people: āthanks for bringing back nice techno. What seems not possible is to bring back the magic of the old trance, similar as it seems not possible to bring back the magic of old thrash/death metal records.ā
Ki/ki from holland had nice attempts of driving hardtrance mixes i saw on yt and sc includic nice new tracks from samoh.
Nina Kravitz was/maybe is famous for including komakino-outface ( and similar) in her techno sets. A nice soft but fast track that was called hardtrance, beautyful melody.
Donāt know if sven vƤth plays a trance track from his old labels sometimes, very rarely i think.
Paul van dyk absolutely played in Tresor, pcp in the omen frankfurt ( was not there unfortunately, just know it from yt)
Dj hell made one of the first trance compilations for logic records.
Desert Storm made a classic trance record
Oscar Mulero had a club also called omen in Madrid ( he didnāt know the other), where it seems they played trance hits also.
I was at his techno set recently, sure interesting, except he likes high pitched noises too much for me, had to leaveā¦
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So whose album are we reviewing today lads?
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How about asking the lasses?
The lads are all twats based off reading most of this thread.
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Explaining my jokes for me again mateā¦
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Album is not good in my opinion, but neither is Fred Again etc. Mainstream stuff is rarely anything interesting.
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Her music sucks and her DJing is boring. Itās inexplicable to me why she is a know name. There is a wealth of more talented and interesting DJs out there.
GNOTR!
Now thatās a blast from the past.
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I was pretty engaged in techno from 98 to 2004, and then last ten years again.
Whilst the social media influencer stuff is pretty depressing, I think thereās still some great techno out there, and still some innovation. Some great music on Perc Trax or Hydraulix for example.
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Let them have their influencer techno lords at mega events , their sync buttons , ghostwriters , AI generated beats and visualsā¦ who cares, ignore it if you donāt like it. The best parties are the ones in a stinky basement with max 200 people anywayā¦
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For sure. But social media dominates everything.
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Only if you let it.
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