From Rodney Perkins Sent Thu, Apr 8th 1999, 20:51
From Rodney Perkins Sent Thu, Apr 8th 1999, 20:51
I was checking out Simon Reynolds yearly hate list and foudn this tirade. Its must read. I know many of you will be chucking those Gescom 12's for speed garage white labels after reading this. :-0 GEEKTRONICA, A/K/A IDM (INTELLIGENT DANCE MUSIC) This international network of home-studio-made, pressing-of-500 electronic music is basically the new lo-fi rock. That much is clear from the fact that Matador, home of Pavement and Yo La Tengo etc, now has a roster of seriously hip techno (Pole, Jega, Burger/Ink, Boards of Canada) and has done a deal with Warp, the pioneers of first-wave "intelligent techno". Then there's all these Pastels/Mogwai/Low type bands putting out remix albums with their tracks revamped by all the usual geektronic suspects. I call it geektronica because the people into it have the same trainspotter obsessive-compulsive collector mentality as lo-fi nerds, and because musically, it's deliberately enfeebled or impaired sounding. Just as the demographic constituency/class-base for lo-fi doesn't like rock that's too rockin' and rhythmically muscular, similarly the geektronica audience prefers dance music that isn't danceable. I'm not saying that good music hasn't come out of this area--IDM's patron saints Aphex Twin and Luke Vibert are household gods chez moi (although Autechre and Squarepusher, also patron saints, are decidely not), I dig Mike Paradinas, Jega and Boards of Canada. But this music's strongest trait isn't rhythm but melody (all those poignant or chipper or glum tunes) and timbre (another thing it has in common with lo-fi, an obsession with different grains of distortion). Lo-fi and geektronica fans have the same commodity-fetish for wacky sleeves and peculiar configurations of vinyl --split singles, one sided discs with drawings etched into the other side, flexis, 10 inches and 7-inches (and soon 8 inches, apparently), double-7inches, maxi-EPs and mini-albums. There's a whole on-line world of obsessives who trade and hunt down rare early 12 inches on labels like Skam and Rephlex, which sometimes fetch huge prices. Nothing against obscurity (that would really be the pot calling the kettle black I suppose) or unusual formats/packaging, or coveting rare records. But a lot of this geektronica stuff has crossed the line into wilful obscurantism. With records coming out in pressings of 250 or even fifty (with handpainted covers etc), you have to wonder what's the threshold below which music ceases to be a "cultural practice" and becomes mere hobbyism? As the phenomenon of music distributed through the Internet, downloaded and CD-burned continues to develop, this global geektronic network may well devolve into a barter economy, with bedroom producers trading their music with other artists through the Net. Momus recently suggested that rather than everybody being famous for 15 minutes, in the future everybody will be famous for 15 people. That's what it's getting like, and that's why we should be getting worried.