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yo everyone, over on fangs and arrows, this guy got me into CURLEY. Get the album "Esoteric" (careful, because Curley has released a lot of albums AS Esoteric, I'm talking about the 42 minute album he did with songs like "Boiling Point" and "Mono+Mono=Mono" on it), it's one of the best electronic albums ever. It's genius actually. I don't know how to accurately describe it, since it indiscriminately jumps around and changes styles a bit. It's pretty dark and crazy, and epic. It seems to repeat a lot if you don't pay attention, but it actually is constantly changing. He plays with a 303 a lot, truely getting warped sounds. Also is one of the few electronic artists who plays with tempo constantly, you know, a song might start in 150bpm and he will speed it up to 240bpm for the rest of the song (you'll actually hear it speed up, it won't just suddenly get faster). Actually, that's a staple of his work, you hear him creating the sounds; the 303 stuff actually has him turning all the knobs as he holds down a key, if you know what I mean. Some people probably consider it amateurish, but it sounds cool as hell. Just a really cool sound, some of the best electronic stuff ever. Dark and inventive, seems to mix dub, acid, jungle, and can be kinda harsh at times. Inimitable stuff.
You guys gotta get the absolutely brilliant COCOON Compilations too. Seems to mainly focus on really really intentive, often psychadelic electronic stuff, like Richard Bartz and Alex Smoke.
Also, of course been into a huge Drexciya kick as usual. I think Drexciya was absolutely the god of electronic music, up there with Anibaldi and Autechre and RDJ as far as electronic geniuses go.
When you really get into techno -- you know, really immerse yourself in the shit -- you realize pretty damn quickly that there's just so much of it. And another problem is how much of it is compelling. I use "compelling" instead of "good", because I hear a lot of it that is more interesting to me than is "good" in a traditional sense. The stuff I consider really good is the stuff that is inventive and may take a few listens to sink in. With the right synths and with just a bit of knowledge of programming, it's pretty easy to make a decent electronic track. Any hack can do it. But the ones who really stand out -- like Curley -- are the ones who really create their own sound. That's good.
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