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Re: Recordings

Dave Trenkel wrote:

> >Goldie: Saturnz Return (the 2CD new one recommended by dt - try the 
>60-min
> >long orchestral suite "Mother" for starters... then Bowie gets involved)
> >
> I dunno, "Mother" struck me as pretty unbearable. Worse than the most
> overblown prog-rock. THe 2nd disc is pretty terrific though.

I think there's a pretty decent 40-45 minute album hidden somewhere
within the 120 + minutes of SaturnzReturn.  The first disc is long for
the sake of being long; the second one has a few really nice bits (the
first three tunes, for my money), and a few other bits that might be
bearable if brought down to a managable length.  Too much of that album
smacks of length for its own sake -- raw repetition without any good
musical reason for it.

> >Photek: modus operandi (purist minimalist drum&bass - new one "form and
> >function" due soon/now)
> 
> Form & Function is out, at least in the states, and it's really good. I
> like it quite a bit more than Modus, F&F seems to be focussed more on 
>pure
> drum textures. Listening to Photek is, for me at least, like 
>eavesdropping
> on the internal conversations of an obsessive/compulsive.

I heard some of the older bits on F+F and liked it, but the newer stuff,
like just about all the jungle I've heard come out of Britain over the
last year or so, is just horrendously discouraging to me.  It seems like
there's some sort of contest in Britain as to who can come up with the
stiffest, simplest, most un-funky beats.  The complexity and
unpredictable nature of the rhythms that made it such an unusual style a
few year ago seems to have been more or less discarded in favor of
dishing out a stiff drum-machine emulation of an eight-note rock beat
(or, at best, "Funky Drummer" played at 160 BPM, a la Roni Size).

Anybody have any reasons why this is the case?  Or compelling arguments
to the contrary?  About the only new (post-'96) jungle I've heard that
consistently excites me as much as the older stuff is LA-based DJ Hive
and some bits on the new DJ Spooky album; I wonder if the US is due to
start picking up the slack in the near future...

--Andre