I laughed until I pissed myself, and then I cried.

[BazzIt]

http://pitchfork.com/features/articles/ ... al-nation/

xxx

[test_recordings]

I don't get it, flicking over and listening to bits of the soundclouds it just sounds like a hyped version of the '80s?

[extremesociety]

I like Rustie, I think he's super musical. Haha, he makes even more sense to me after I read that he loves Holdsworth:



EDIT: hell of a craaazy melody

[crabb_steppa]

t 'nuum:dr

[BazzIt]

Yeee dig Rustie, just hate the amount of shit that Pitchfork can talk. Its like they're fucking high school literature teachers, finding improbable themes everywhere they turn their heads. Rustie's tunes serving as a metaphor for the generations of today's short attention spans is some prime bullshit, I'll say that.

[extremesociety]

Yeee dig Rustie, just hate the amount of shit that Pitchfork can talk. Its like they're fucking high school literature teachers, finding improbable themes everywhere they turn their heads. Rustie's tunes serving as a metaphor for the generations of today's short attention spans is some prime bullshit, I'll say that.

No effing doubt, they exude pretentiousness. Their only saving grace, imo, is that they generally push decent music (but then there's Lana Del Ray....complete with her Interscope sign off ).

[Clean]

Kinda reminds me of the guy who made sheet music out of a Zomby tune.

[wolf89]

Article is fucking stupid.

Rustie's Glass Swords is the shit though

[incnic]

Well Im inclined to believe you guys hating on the *mildy* academic slant of this article are borderline retarded drug addicted scumbags with a singular interest in the 'futurepast-broto-brodungeon-step' music.

I'm not a fan of Rustie / Hud-Mo anymore tbh - maximalism done wrong imo (compared to the other examples of maximalism given) too much disparate shit going on but badly picked (and i like that kind of thing) However i do appreciate the depth and breadth (wide!) of research that has gone into the article even if it has no bearing on what Rustie intended to make.

If no one bothered to even try to examine social and cultural contexts for electronic music it would fade into .... BIG DROP BRO / MAD KIK and be even more disposable / maligned. This is well written and doesn't revert to bare DJ Hyperbole b2b w/ MC Tired Cliches that 90% of writing about electronic music tends to.

I particularly like the visual comparisons to Takashi Murakami and the mention of Hamlets Blackberry as a setting for the music. More visual comparisons / seatings of the relationship between music and art please Reynolds.

Dunno - I really appreciated this article - depends what you want out of a piece of writing tbh.

Liked it so much I took the time to spell / punctuate / not mention burial
burialol

[LGBT]

^^^^^^^^^^^^
Stop being positive

[incnic]

lol joeks
briiala/xzomby

[collige]

Rustie's Glass Swords swaps electronic dance music's tendency toward
deep/dark/stark for flat/bright/busy.

I hate the vast majority of what is on p4k (Blackdown's column being a notable exception), but this really takes the cake.

Well Im inclined to believe you guys hating on the *mildy* academic slant of this article are borderline retarded drug addicted scumbags with a singular interest in the 'futurepast-broto-brodungeon-step' music.

I have nothing against academic articles about electronic music, I have a problem with articles that are fundamentally stupid. The very idea behind this article (that dance music up until recently was largely "flat/bright/busy") is blatanly false to anyone who knows anything about the history of dance music. Had the author never heard Charly?

[incnic]

no u got it the wrong way around mate...lol
you didnt read it properly naughty naughty.


he said the predilection up until recently for 'acclaimed electronic music' was for deep and dark
now there is 'flat/bright/busy' in alternative - and that is rustie et al

anyway

[collige]

. The key terms-- as praise terms for fans and critics, and ideals for producers and DJs-- were "deep," "dark," "stripped-down."

With the exception of critics, this statement is pretty much incorrect. The idea that "deep," "dark," "stripped-down." was ever the prevailing sound in most of EDM is in stark contrast with the huge popularity of vocal house, rave, happy hardcore, jump up dnb, etc. Again, see Charly.

[wobbles]

I don't knowwhat any of you guys are even talking about

[BazzIt]

Regarding incnic, there is nothing wrong with a bit of academic examination of EDM, personally I find the premise of the article fundamentally flawed that is all.

As well as this, I think you will be hard pressed to find many producers who actually intend their music to be read the way that Pitchfork has read it - this is EDM, a form of music which appeals to the primal in humans, rather than compared to the more intellectual slant of IDM.

But yeee found the article really annoying myself, it seemed to be attempting to make too many ill-informed sweeping statements regarding dance music.

[makerowner]

As well as this, I think you will be hard pressed to find many producers who actually intend their music to be read the way that Pitchfork has read it - this is EDM, a form of music which appeals to the primal in humans, rather than compared to the more intellectual slant of IDM.

Why should what the producer intends be the last word? I'm sure most producers intend to make a great record, but obviously they don't always succeed. Whether or not a record is great isn't determined by what the producer intended, so why should the "themes" of a record be? Rustie clearly didn't intend to make a metaphor for the internet generation etc., as the article itself points out:

Martin Clark suggested that Rustie's overloading of "the midrange with bleeps and riffs heading in disparate directions" served as "a metaphor for living in intense digital excess." Rustie politely demurs from this kind of reading of his music, noting sagely that people have been hand-wringing about the shriveling of attention spans for decades, and pointing out that "I'm not plugged-in all the time-- I'm too busy making music!"

But why can't he have done so unintentionally?

Just cause it appeals to what's "primal" in us doesn't mean there's nothing intelligent to say about it. It's hard to imagine this record being created, much less being well received, in 2005 -- why is that? What has changed in music and in culture more broadly since then that makes it possible now? The article gives suggestions, whether you agree with them or not. What specifically about these tunes gives the album the mood or tone that it has? I think the article captures this well :

And rather than aiming for a hypnotic trance induced by subtly inflected monotony, tunes like "Globes" and "Cry Flames" are eye-poppingly awake. The mood is up!, preposterously euphoric but genuinely awesome: not so much striking a balance between sublime and ridiculous as merging them until they're indistinguishable.

The super-sharp sheen and crisp separation, the compressed-and-EQ'd in-your-faceness of the sound parallel the endless upgrades in audio-video entertainment, from high-definition flatscreen TV to CGI-saturated movies and 3D cinema to the ever-more real-seeming unreality of games.

That's the emotion that Rustie's Glass Swords instills: giddy buoyancy, the euphoria of gliding frictionlessly across the datascape. "Ultra Thizz", one of the stand-out tracks, gets its name from the hyphy scene's slang for MDMA. The sound of the word echoes fizz and jizz, effervescence and ejaculation. It's perfect onomatopoeia for an album that's like a pornucopia of instant-access bliss.

Also, lol @ this:

The very idea behind this article (that dance music up until recently was largely "flat/bright/busy") is blatanly false to anyone who knows anything about the history of dance music. Had the author never heard Charly?

The idea that "deep," "dark," "stripped-down." was ever the prevailing sound in most of EDM is in stark contrast with the huge popularity of vocal house, rave, happy hardcore, jump up dnb, etc. Again, see Charly.

[extremesociety]

Well Im inclined to believe you guys hating on the *mildy* academic slant of this article are borderline retarded drug addicted scumbags with a singular interest in the 'futurepast-broto-brodungeon-step' music.

Blech, what a well mannered response....

As a music school graduate, I've definitely been guilty in the past (at least according to myself) of having analyzed non-classical, non-jazz music in too much of an academic way. I totally dig writings on the social movements and aesthetics behind the music. However, for me, this article is grabbing at a trend that's so new, it's impossible to analyze in the present. In short, I think it's reaching.

[fractal]

well written, even if i don't agree with all of the writers sentiments

[collige]

It's hard to imagine this record being created, much less being well received, in 2005

This is where I disagree. Warp was releasing critically acclaimed "maximal" stuff way back in the mid-90s, why would 2005 be any different? What's the fundamental difference between Glass Swords that makes it so different from something like this? 80s synths?