1) psy-trance - I plead ignorance on this one...
2) hardcore - lots of votes for my top choice Mutante! So here are a couple who haven't been named yet: Iszoloscope (fucking brilliant production), Peanut Butter Surfer (someone please coax him out of retirement)
3) drum'n'bass: Screwhead, Recoil, HostOne
4) dubstep: Luv, Intoccabile

Nice to see that people still have conviction, and are more interested in following their interested than chasing after the almighty dollar. Reminds me of something I wrote years ago when I was the editor for the hardcore section in Massive Magazine (which, at the time, boasted the largest circulation of any of the electronic music mags in North America). Now that Massive has recently put all their content online, I can share it with y'all - so here it is: an editorial I wrote way back in the fall of 1998.... as a bonus the entire reviews section is also included - read what myself, Doormouse, Eye-D and Unibomber thought of records that are now a dozen years old... look them up on discogs and find out if we were on the money as to which ones would become classics!


[ massivemag.com ]

"deeds not words"

show some respect for MegaForce*



*although they apparently ripped it from Shakespeare's contemporary John Fletcher.

welcome to English class...

Mick Harris is the man... seriously... Evanescence and Ellipsis are really incredible, and the stuff that came out on the Possible imprint was killer... he also did drum'n'bass as Quoit... and has a series of releases on HedNod.

Justin Broaderick (also ex-Napalm Death) - did some hard ass drum'n'bass stuff under the name Tech Level 2.... not to mention the completely fucking epic Sidewinder that him and Kevin Martin (aka The Bug) did on Mille-Plateaux. There's some pretty crazy shit that Godflesh released, Songs of Love and Hate In Dub was re-issued on vinyl last year, and is many levels of dark-ass awesome.

sort of surprised that no one's mentioned the Maurizio and Basic Channel material... really wild, dubbed out techno... hugely influential.

would be great to get him back here to play... last time was a blast.

c'est ma fete le 20 avril... donc - apportes moi des cadeaus faits pour un con!

actually the important thing is that at least Mutante isn't a twat.

that other guy is a total douche.

Dan Efex (Chicago) and Pablo Gargano (Spain) are about the only trance DJs I've ever been able to tolerate... Efex is a riot.

I think the tattoos, piercings and violent domestic abuse make it a bit too extreme. The story would have to be heavily censored to meet after-school special criteria...

a friend of mine, and her then-boyfriend, were both unemployed and living in BC. They survived for an extended period on nothing but rice, flavored with bacon grease supplied by a restaurant down the street...

she ended up hospitalized with malnutrition.

100% No Soul: Guaranteed.

love my ginger beard.

Still love the music, but haven't been going out. Drinking my way through the last three months of my degree - maybe not the best approach to school, but my GPA is happy enough with it.

I'll be coming out of retirement soon enough.

de calissssse!!!!!!

btw - Pabst sold here isn't even real Pabst... Canadian Pabst is brewed in Guelph. The real deal comes from Milwaukee... not that it's much better, mind you....

and I'll fuckin' see your stout impériale from Amère a Boire... and I'll raise you Peché Mortelle from Dieu du Ciel... and ultimately Dogfish Head's Worldwide Stout (which varies from year to year - but in a good year there isn't a bottled beer I've ever had that can touch it)...

and Dieu du Ciel's Grande Noirceur, if you ever get the chance to taste it when it's been aged about a year and a half, is mind-numbingly good.

nutritional yeast is awesome...

can't be...

unless I'm a lesbian.

haven't tried it with habanero, though.

the spice must flow...

habanero chocolate is awesome... I put that stuff on just about everything...

I even make an ice cream sauce using frozen raspberries, fresh-ground cinnamon, habanero extract and a dash of sugar... shit is fuckin' awesome...

not to mention habanero-chocolate oatmeal... add cocoa and cinnamon to steel-cut oats, then add to boiling water... add some habanero extract, a dash of chartreuse and some maple syrup... a few minutes before they're finished cooking throw in some cashews and frozen berries...

btw - for habanero extract I generally use Satan's Blood (800,000 scoville), although I've also got a Mad Dog extract (1,000,000)... and an unopened Blair's reserve which is in the range of 2,000,000 scoville.

Recoil is the fuckin' man...

if I hadn't just gotten home from class then I'd be there...

for those that are... brock out with your...

nevermind.

kick ass!

[ www.youtube.com ]

damn...

damn... my friend Brian is prepping to go back there. His tour starts in the spring.

Has anyone pondered the cause-effect relationship here? Is it possible that God isn't killing kittens because we masturbate... that God is in fact killing kittens in order to encourage us to get our kits off with increased frequency?

Just a thought.

...and does the kitten killing end at onanism, or does it extend to acts of coitus interruptus? Y'know... pulling out and spraying batter on the small of the back - does that result in a dead kitten, or is that viewed as like...some kind of a lesser act that only requires the kitten to be sprayed with a bit of water?

moi aussi... je veux une!

We gots Rob Gee coming in a couple of months.. show up en masse and maybe there'll be more shows in the pipe. Every scene needs a foundation, and that seems to be lacking in Montreal's hardcore scene over the last few years. There's been a lot of effort to put shows together, and some of the shows that have happened here have been completely retarded (Hitched!)... but many of the events that have taken place didn't get the support they needed - which is sad - because nights like Hardcore Underground had a lot of potential, but there just wasn't a consistent enough level of support to keep it running.

Without a base that supports the scene, the whole structure collapses... and that's what we've witnessed. If you want to rebuild it, then the best way is to show up when something's going on. There are plenty of talented people in the scene, and a lot of people that are willing to invest their time and their knowledge... but there's gotta be some kind of a return. Otherwise you're just pissing against the wind.

well... I can only speak for myself, but there was never any talk of cocksucking during the process of booking this gig. I can only assume that this holds true for everyone else involved.

At any rate - it's always nice to have some new faces behind the decks...

can we all just ditch the drama, have a happy new year and hope there's no snow on the ground when this party rolls around?

The other thing is that his 'live set' didn't seem all that live... it really did seem that he was just playing sound-files, with gaps between them... it certainly wasn't one of the circuit-bending performances that people went crazy about during the '94 tour that he did... and it was a pretty large venue with a stage big enough to accommodate a pretty sizable band (First Ave. in Minneapolis - the bar where they shot the concert scenes for Purple Rain)..

Anyhow, this was right around the time that Come To Daddy was released, which was the same time Aphex announced that he was taking a five-year hiatus from music (which he pretty much did... with the exception of Windowlicker there really wasn't any new Aphex material until Drukqs came out in '02).

I'm not asking for interaction, but I do expect a bit more than a playlist of tracks. He did pretty much the same thing at the other midwest shows... in Chicago or Detroit he actually walked onto the stage and into the orchestra pit, where no one could see him... and then the music started... with absolutely nothing whatsoever on the stage.

Autechre, on the other hand, were brilliant. They were touring with Mark Broom and Spacetime Continuum... Broom was DJing, but Autechre and Spacetime were using a lot of gear. I didn't expect it to be that heavy and hard. I think Winnipeg and Toronto were the only Canadian dates on that tour... there was a blizzard that night, and the car they were in got stuck in the snow while they were loading up their gear... so a handful of people who were still around got to have the fun of digging them out. It was a pretty great night.

btw - in terms of live-shows... Montreal's own Natural Born Sucker were fucking sick. Saw them here at Produkted at the tail end of '97... and again when the played the mainstage at Furthur in '98.

I saw Boxcar Willie at an outdoor show during the Calgary Stampede... FML.

I guess I can just sit back and laugh here... 'cause I saw Aphex in Minneapolis in '97... and I've played shows with Autechre, Squarepusher and 'Snares... They're all pretty solid, and it was great to hear Digeridoo on a huge system.... the Aphex stage show was pretty lacking, though... I heard it was a contractual obligation tour - so he had a couch on stage, with the back facing the audience. He walked on-stage, lied down on the couch and played his live set.

At various points in the show there were dancers dressed up in the teddy bears costumes from the Donkey Rhubarb video - but most the performance was just a bare stage, looking at Richard D. James' feet hanging off the end of a couch.

Squarepusher at SAT in 2003 was pretty damn shrill... I love a lot of his older material, and it would have been awesome to see him in the mid-late 90's... but the last few albums haven't been all that impressive, imho.

Autechre, touring for Tri-Repetae in '96 was phenomenal... hard as all hell... Second Bad Vilbel live is a shattering experience... I've had a couple of other chances to see them, but it's never quite come together... would love to catch a GESCOM live performance... did anyone else hear that last couple of releases they did on SKAM? Pure sickness!

As for 'Snares - it's always fun... but seeing the Venetian Snares Drum'n'Bass Ensemble at an intimate venue in Winnipeg is probably still tops. Back in the days when he was still using an Amiga 500 to perform, and augmented by live saxophone, keyboards and Greg Hanec (who performs as Suture) playing clarinet, trumpet and sampling and re-sampling himself to add additional layers... totally bizarre night at this place called the Red Herring Cafe - which was a venue/coffee-house run by a youth outreach group. They hosted some really awesome shows, and the place held about 50 people max.

I got drunk for xmas...

well... not yet, but I'm working on it.

ah... drama.

I suppose it's great that this thread is getting bumped, but I'm not sure if most of the contributions are all that positive. Maybe people are just extra-spiteful this time of year... too many forced smiles surround us, and we feel the need to lash out.

I was one of the artists scheduled to play at Demolition Tour, and was also one of the artists that was axed from the line-up when the second room was canceled. The explanation I was given at the party was that Fractal (the original venue) had bailed on their signed contract. Given that Fractal did this exact same thing with other friends of mine, I'm inclined to believe that what I was told was true. Fractal bailed, kept the deposit money and the promoters were forced to find an alternate venue at the last minute. This was an unforeseen expense, and the space really didn't allow for the second room to happen. It was 3+ years ago. Let's move on.

Hardcore parties in Montreal have become a rarity over the past few years... they still go down from time to time, but not often. So it'd be great if people who are into the music came out to support it... and people who aren't interested in showing up quit showing such an interest.

I'm really looking forward to this one... I've pretty much been on hiatus from playing shows in Montreal while I finish my degree, and I'm quite stoked about coming back and playing a hardcore show at home for the first time in almost a year (last time was when Massacre played in March)...

All music produced today is certainly not done in a 100% digital environment. There are a lot of analog loyalists out there... it might not be all that common, but it is certainly possible to record gear to reel-to-reel tape. After all electronic music has existed since before digital recording.

Steve Albini is a great example...
[ www.soundonsound.com ]

read about his analog studio, his aversion to digital and his thoughts on media (which are relatively close to my own)... do you think he's full of shit, too?

George Martin (he produced the Beatles - you might have heard of them) gives an overview of the inherent difference between analog and digital recording, and again it's akin to what I posted.
"Ordinary [analog] recording stores the electrical impulses (which have been converted from the pure aural vibration by the microphone) on magnetic tape as magnetic variations in the coating. Digital recording, on the other hand, analyzes the frequencies constantly and stores the information as binary code on tape. If you can imagine `stop-framing' a slice of sound, analyzing it in terms of frequencies, converting the information into numbers to store on tape and doing that 50,000 times a second, that is what a digital recorder does. And on playback, a reverse process takes place."

How about the opinion of Neil Young?:
"along with the hiss went depth of sound and the myriad possibilities of the high end where everything is like the cosmos, exploding stars, echo. From the 80s on, no records contain that kind of quality any more and those are the very things that stimulate the human body into reacting, feeling, and enjoying music."

in short, don't assume I haven't done my homework...

actually - if you go back and read, you'll see that I've been following this thread for quite a while, just haven't posted all that much.



It should have been mentioned by someone other than me, as vinyl uses a physical means to produce a constant soundwave, whereas digital media use infinitely small bursts of sound to produce a facsimile of constant sound. It's one of the intrinsic differences between analog and digital means of sound reproduction, which seems to make it completely relevant to the discussion - just not conveniently suited to your arguments.

What part of my previous post hit such a nerve? The suggestion that you don't really know what you're talking about, or the fact that I called shenanigans on your arguments... or is it because I spotted your mention of people convincing themselves that they can hear 44khz frequencies before you had a chance to edit it and change it to 20khz... which I presume you did while I was writing up my comments.

That was the bit that made me question whether you have any idea what you're talking about.

if only everything was as easy as html

<life>neoform</life>

I mean... you throw out numbers like 44.1khz. You do understand that's the sample-rate, and you do know what the sample-rate is, don't you? No one is talking about hearing frequencies that are 44khz... you're simply spouting off a bunch of bullshit that you don't fully understand and expecting other people to believe it... but you don't know what you're talking about.

A cd is essentially miniscule bursts of sound, like watching a movie or television (which simply flashes images to give the illusion of motion)... digital audio doesn't give you a constant waveform, it gives you a waveform that is constantly broken... whereas vinyl does provide you with an unbroken waveform, as well, vinyl can is also capable of producing subharmonic frequencies (ie: seriously deep bass that dips below the threshold that cds reproduce)....

anyhow... go back to your misinformation, and your arm-shrinkery... I realize you probably won't understand any of this, but hopefully anyone reading this thread who thinks you're an authority on these matters will be steered away from your audio shenanigans.

do we have a winner yet?

damn... can't wait for Jager-bombs with Gee. It's been a long-time coming!

are you ready for some darkness?

the interesting thing is that what you're saying actually doesn't contradict what Cutterhead has been saying all along... that there is a difference in sound quality. If a group of experts prefers one format over the other because of a masking effect that conceals imperfections, then it would indicate that there is a discernible difference between mp3 and wav (even at 320)... if 'imperfections' are smoothed over in the compression, then it proves that something is lost (even if it is something that isn't necessarily desirable)...

At any rate, I'll stick with records simply because I enjoy the physical act of playing them... I enjoy digging through stacks of records, putting them on turntables, handling them... I never really got anything resembling that feeling from cds, and I get even less of it from mp3s. I can see how they're more convenient... but comparing formats is like comparing pets... and to me, the difference between an ipod and a record collection is like the difference between an ant farm and a dog... one of them is low-maintenance, doesn't take up much room, and can keep you entertained... while the other needs a lot of looking after, requires a lot of space and demands a lot more work...

which is more rewarding?

damn... that's hot... right up there with cock-fingering!

they pressed it up on 7"...