Hey! Just found out about your Substack and this series and have been really enjoying it. Was cool to read about this mix that I remember really confusing me as an American listener. I probably got to it a year or two late and I remember its dissimilarity to the super aggressive dubstep I was hearing locally throwing me off.
Something I’ve been thinking about has been the cultural transition away from an obsession with lo-fi aesthetics in dance music. I don’t remember when it first started but sometime right around 2010 I started equating lo-fi to authentic in dance music — I worry about “authenticity” less now but it seemed important at the time. I remember buying the American Noise CD on LIES and was listening to artists like Hieroglyphic Being and other Midwest producers, all of which I still like. As the decade wore on the glut of lo-fi sounds started to wear on me and a lot of records I liked a few years prior began to make me cringe. I’d triangulate it to around the time Winona by DJ Boring blew up. FWIW, seems like a similar thing happened in other related genres. The hip hop instrumental scene of people like Madlib, Knxledge, Ahnnu etc seemed to get eaten up by “low fi beats to study and relax too”. Vaperwave may play a part in here somewhere too.
Anyways, just some thoughts! Looking forward to reading the next one
it's an interesting point, which I remember writing about.... somewhere. I think my point was that the grunginess of Moodymann records made them sound more "authentic" - whatever that may mean - to many people, as opposed to the very clean sound of, say, Masters at Work. Even though both artists are total house legends and masters of their sound! I never really liked lo-fi house, though. It felt a bit affected to me.
Nice, I’ll see if I can find that article! Yeah most of that sound seems very affected to me and a lot less exciting now. I think it was kind of an entry point to dance music for me as someone involved in small town noise/punk scenes where there wasn’t much dance music happening. Shared some superficial similarities to what was deemed cool in my circles
any entry point is a good thing! it's interesting because Philip Sherburne and Shawn Reynaldo - both Americans who write about electronic music - came it to it via punk (kind of....) Or at least they had a big punk phase. As someone who grew up in the UK, I was never really into punk. I mean, I love The Clash, Sex Pistols, Buzzcocks etc. But I never had a phase, if you know what I mean.
I’m a long time reader of all three of you but just finding you all on Substack recently :) but yeah I get what you mean, and it makes sense to me that punk would be an entry point for them as Americans.
They are a little older than me so maybe the process was slightly different but I think a lot of people I know started by going to basement punk shows which were the only local music scene readily available to them and then discovered other “underground” music online. I had to wait til I was a little older to visit a club and dance to great electronic music. I will say, I’m still in the suburbs, around New Haven CT, and it seems like kids are still playing punk but thankfully there’s increasingly high quality electronic and dance music offerings for them to branch out into when they reach drinking age at 21
Skrillex was his own thing. It was the people who mistook his music for dubstep. AFAIK, he never claimed his stuff to be dubstep.
I haven't really thought about that! it's a good point. I would say Skrillex was dubstep, personally. But who knows?
Hey! Just found out about your Substack and this series and have been really enjoying it. Was cool to read about this mix that I remember really confusing me as an American listener. I probably got to it a year or two late and I remember its dissimilarity to the super aggressive dubstep I was hearing locally throwing me off.
Something I’ve been thinking about has been the cultural transition away from an obsession with lo-fi aesthetics in dance music. I don’t remember when it first started but sometime right around 2010 I started equating lo-fi to authentic in dance music — I worry about “authenticity” less now but it seemed important at the time. I remember buying the American Noise CD on LIES and was listening to artists like Hieroglyphic Being and other Midwest producers, all of which I still like. As the decade wore on the glut of lo-fi sounds started to wear on me and a lot of records I liked a few years prior began to make me cringe. I’d triangulate it to around the time Winona by DJ Boring blew up. FWIW, seems like a similar thing happened in other related genres. The hip hop instrumental scene of people like Madlib, Knxledge, Ahnnu etc seemed to get eaten up by “low fi beats to study and relax too”. Vaperwave may play a part in here somewhere too.
Anyways, just some thoughts! Looking forward to reading the next one
oh and very glad you are enjoying it!
it's an interesting point, which I remember writing about.... somewhere. I think my point was that the grunginess of Moodymann records made them sound more "authentic" - whatever that may mean - to many people, as opposed to the very clean sound of, say, Masters at Work. Even though both artists are total house legends and masters of their sound! I never really liked lo-fi house, though. It felt a bit affected to me.
Nice, I’ll see if I can find that article! Yeah most of that sound seems very affected to me and a lot less exciting now. I think it was kind of an entry point to dance music for me as someone involved in small town noise/punk scenes where there wasn’t much dance music happening. Shared some superficial similarities to what was deemed cool in my circles
any entry point is a good thing! it's interesting because Philip Sherburne and Shawn Reynaldo - both Americans who write about electronic music - came it to it via punk (kind of....) Or at least they had a big punk phase. As someone who grew up in the UK, I was never really into punk. I mean, I love The Clash, Sex Pistols, Buzzcocks etc. But I never had a phase, if you know what I mean.
I’m a long time reader of all three of you but just finding you all on Substack recently :) but yeah I get what you mean, and it makes sense to me that punk would be an entry point for them as Americans.
They are a little older than me so maybe the process was slightly different but I think a lot of people I know started by going to basement punk shows which were the only local music scene readily available to them and then discovered other “underground” music online. I had to wait til I was a little older to visit a club and dance to great electronic music. I will say, I’m still in the suburbs, around New Haven CT, and it seems like kids are still playing punk but thankfully there’s increasingly high quality electronic and dance music offerings for them to branch out into when they reach drinking age at 21