My approach is with two systems:
One studio is a Eurorack system (360 hp) with a ZILLION possibilities
My second studio is a single Octatrack mk2.
I can run two tracks on the OT and have it almost TOO much! I mainly use found sound/longer samples, and plock start points/pitching/effects/lfo mods.
The Eurorack system gets jammed-on and recorded live to the 4ms wav recorder in my rack.
The thought of combining these two systems blows my mind and makes me feel uneasy.
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I had an Epiphany reading that.
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At the time [1996] , these 2 tracks felt like minimalism:
https://www.discogs.com/release/44613-Las-Vegas/images
Edit:
further discussion:
What is the most “Minimalist” of true Jamaican Dub?
Cheers!
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I love minimalism. In fact, almost all of my music begins its life as “locked grooves”. Sometimes the music dies before even being properly born, but sometimes it survives the birthing process.
Its a delicate business giving birth to a song. Overdo it and the original seed (loop) loses its essence and is born dead (this phenomenon is also known as “playing cover versions of your own songs”). Or underdo it and leave the thing permanently in a fetal state, never having born? its all about making right choices, knowing what to change and what to leave untouched. One of the scariest mental traps for me is falling pray to the “repetitive music = boring” mindset, I’ve killed so many fetuses in that headstate… Sometimes you just have to trust the loops to carry through and resist the urge to create too many events, nahmean?
OTOH I have so many fetuses in my cupboard its kinda creepy really… 
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in terms of the repetition, instrumentation & arrangement of the era -
James Brown Minimalism:
What is the most Minimalist James Brown Track?
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I would love to hear any pieces from forum members which they think/feel accord with the approaches being discussed in this thread. I’d consider the work of @pokk and the SM-LL label to be - generally speaking- in this style. The ‘share your tunes’ thread is great but it tends to be dominated by particular styles that are generally quite distant from what’s being discussed here.
I try but the constant battle is the feeling- even just with an OT as the sole instrument- that I ‘should’ be using more of the OT’s potential and end up making too much mess. My partner is good at reminding me to ‘keep it simple’ (not that “minimalism=simple”, but it’s nice shorthand way of saying it). Finding the line between ‘simple’ and ‘boring’ is a true art (and maybe for some, a science).
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Thanks for the mention @ericd.
Some great thoughts through this thread and some familiar themes popping up. I’m certainly going to find adding something to this hard and confusing so bare with me.
So for me, I guess my perspective is it’s less about style, type of sound, space or no space, simple clean studio with a pot plant or a mess of cables and gear. It is more about mindset or process specifically being minimalistic.
I think it’s not surprising minimalism is cropping up quite a bit in recent years, due to the busy times we are in.
I find I am not the biggest fan of the term minimal, not sure why entirely, still working this out but probably as it seems to be a yardstick held against creative output and the definition of it, or how to enjoy it, or who should enjoy it. It has baggage, and that doesn’t ever seem to be helpful in creating interesting music I find.
A person in a white room hitting one note on a piano over and over is often easily considered minimal, yet someone head to toe in tattoos in a basement covered in posters playing a chord on a distorted guitar over and over often seems different, and I don’t think it is.
I think also it’s entirely relative. Back in the early-mid 90’s listening to techno music it didn’t feel minimal to me, in-fact often myself and friends were trying to ring everything they could out of their gear, yet the result was often in keeping with evolving that genre and partially due to technical restrictions sounded quite straight forward. The complexity was maybe in micro areas such as eq adjustment or shifting back and forth drums to create structure. When I compare the records of that era to say the later more self-proclaimed genre movement of minimal techno found in more recent years, I find the new stuff ironically being fussier than early 90s sound and actually probably closer to pop music honestly.
Plastikman, Sheet One, just a great acid album, and really once you have an 808/303 bouncing along, it’s hard to find a reason to put much else with it. Those two boxes of preset sounds are some of the best presets Roland has ever made.
I don’t remember that feeling of it being minimal at the time as a listener. I think the context was most tracks didn’t have many elements in them. Jeff Mills, another good example, tracks are hard as ever, didn’t really think that was minimal, just straight forward techno.
Robert Hood is an interesting example as when I first heard Minimal Nation the term minimal was attached to the product and the sound of that record is crazy stripped back. Just hearing the kick drum alone on vinyl was really interesting as the crackle or the cut would interact with the sound. I remember the discussion around the time “I could have done that”, and yet we didn’t. We were too busy trying to make “wigged out” techno and in my cases failing. “Your boy has no rhythm”, said Adam X. Demo rejected haha.
Robert Hood put the word minimal on the sleeve, and it’s pretty clear to hear that was a consideration in how it was made, the process, the intent.
As for SM-LL, it’s hard to articulate my thinking when in regards to discussions around minimalism without it being long and tapping into lots of different things. Ultimately for me tho it comes down to good music or not.
I spent many years creating my music and comparing it against artists I admire feeling pretty lost most of the time. I sounded so sparse and with few sounds or layers. I really didn’t like spending ages on music, I wanted to get basic ideas recorded and would jam for hours on simple things and feel really happy, but after listening back to it against my favourite artists it just sounded like half the track was missing., yet as soon as a track I was creating would get complex I’d just get very dissatisfied with the results.
It wasn’t until much later as the music got more complex prob most notably with Warp entering that post-Squarepusher era, I politely bowed out and realised I probably should embrace focusing on what I am creating anyway. The simple stuff.
Much of the music on SM-LL has been created in very short amounts of time with the process and working with the artist with an aim of shipping out music as soon as it’s feasible. Basically, if it sounds good with just that kick drum, let’s try it. If that track has energy but has bad eq, let’s try it.
I think SM-LL is more an attempt to embrace different thinkings around music creation, collaboration and process, than being under the guidance of terms like minimal specifically. Having said that, utilising such things as repetition, often considered in minimal discussion, is a really good tool ensuring tracks meet length criteria, or create opportunities for change, so structural, or sometimes just sound good on repeat. Even it can be a bit of laziness meets anxiety meets life gets in the way.
I often find myself saying “I’ve never heard a record with just a kick drum all the way through. That would be great” Still not done that yet though, probably a very hard record to create, or maybe not.
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I had never heard Christian Loefller before and I really really like his music. So thank you! Funny but his music feels kinda minimal to me. Have you ever listened to Iglooghost? You might not make it 10 seconds lol. There’s so much stuff happening.
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Ill give iglooghost a listen! Loeffler might sound minimal and id be inclined to agree had I not had (as cheeesy as it sounds) a near spiritual experience a few months back and there is A LOT going on in what you might consider a single part - a synth sound for example might morph into a percussive skittering and the stereo field tricks he does… oMFG even vocals at first listen are just there, but when you have a good set of headphones you discover that the voice separates left and right and is filtered down, only to give birth to the second vocal part. Hopkins is on the same level but he’s more technical, same for Rone. Loeffler gives me the melancholy feels. Too much sometimes.
Went off topic there for a second, sorry 
Since the thread is dying down I wanted to again SINCERELY thank everyone for chiming in here. It’s been a fantastic learning experience and I have a weekend or two of listening to go through all the recommendations.
Da Vinci said to truly understand something you need at least 3 perspectives. You’ve given me 68 so far. I think we’re doing pretty good 
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Cheers:
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I dig that. Also, do you know Lusine? He seems right up your alley.
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This is so fresh, thank you for that recommendation! This thread is the perfect mix of gear talk, music discussion, general philosophy and compositional techniques.
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Would this qualify as minimalsim?
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Not a kick drum, but a hand drum. I had to listen to this many times to get my head around the fact that it was performed acoustically by a single person. This is how you create a delay effect without using a delay effect, when you are actually musically gifted:
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Ooooh, I need to give this a listen.
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Here’s something I recently finished. Started out trying to remix a friend’s song but I think I had all the influences being discussed here floating around in my head- his song isn’t recognizable even though it’s made entirely of short samples from it. For me this is probably the closest I’ve come to making something in this style I really like, even if it’s quite derivitave (seems like a good place to start anyway). I still think there’s too much in it but can’t pinpoint what to subtract.
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For me, I think minimal music kick started my curiosity to start producing. The folly of ‘oh if it sounds so simple it must be simple to make.’ Then I started dabbling with different genres but was always interested in not going over board.
Recently, I sold my minilogue to get a the new one. That for some reason, made me realize how so much gear on display for me was crippling rather than enabling. I, then removed everything from my desk and kept only what I use.
Now I’m sticking with Digitakt, which I had but abandoned for sometime, and a volca FM, which I borrowed from a friend and never quite used. I’m trying to focus on just these two and not get side tracked by the feelings of wanting new gear. The volca FM is such an amazing little thing. You can immediately play with it and make good sounds, but you can also dig waaay deeper and do more.
For what I’m interested in right now, I definitely want to keep things limited. Seeing lots of gear can quickly makes me anxious. I would definitely want to add more, but only once I’m comfortable with what I have and I’m confidant in where I want to go.
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this.
in such genres as goa trance and electro industrial, minimalism as methodology helps me a lot to keep tracks from being overloaded.
and to have some room for live percussion, of course
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Ha, I think I’m the complete opposite! I really like music across all ‘genres’ that uses only a few sound elements/limited sound palette in the final piece. I think Eliane Radigue is the ultimate expression of this.
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So ahead of her time.
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