Re: Who's on the forefront of loopmuse?

[Andre LaFosse <altruist@earthlink.net>]

Gotta add a few cents in:

John Price wrote:

> The forefront of Looping today is on what most here would undoubtedly > 
>consider the lowbrow side of all things loop that is if you are prone > 
>to categorizing things.

Actually, there are quite a few of us on the list who are very much into
the so-called "lowbrow" side of electronic music; there are also a few
rather high-profile members of that "community" on the list.
 
> IMHO - It's the dance floor dude that is still driving things loopey  > 
>for the majority of the world - Musicians and audiences included.

There's no doubt that loop-driven music is pretty much the mainstream
right now.  You can't go near the top 40 without some sort of
sample-based rap or R&B tune rearing its head.

But I think there's a distinction to be made between something which is
at the forefront of music commerce (i.e. what's selling to a lot of
people) as opposed to something that's pushing the envelope of the art
or craft of music in itself, which is often (and usually) very far
removed from the mainstream.  I'm assuming that it's the latter of these
two that fostered the original post in this thread.

> Obvious and overexposed Loop Leaders: Beck, 

I think you've got to factor Beck's co-producers into the picture as
well: Carl Stephenson on _Mellow Gold_ and the Dust Brothers for most of
_Odelay_.  I'm not familiar with his more obscure independent releases,
but my general impression (which I'll happily have disproven by anyone
more well-acquainted with his work than I am) is that Beck's primarily a
singer-songwriter, albiet of a wonderfully eccentric persuasion, who
gets a lot of his cut-and-paste aesthetic from production collaborators.

> Square Pusher, 

Squarepusher overexposed?!  Here in America, the only way you can get
hold of any of his recordings is via usually pricey British imports. 
Granted, 60,000 copies of _Hard Normal Daddy_ sold in the UK is quite a
feat for music as angular as his, but I would definitely have to say
that he's a long way from being even a mainstream artist in terms of his
recognition factor within the drum-n-bass scene (to which he's only
marginally a "part" of, anyway), which in itself has a very low profile
relative to your typical pop music (again, this is from an American
point of view.  Keep in mind that Goldie only sold in the low 10,000's
with _Timeless_.)

Also worth noting is that Tom Jenkinson (the man behind the Squarepusher
alias) goes out of his way to avoid looping in much of his programming;
he deliberately programs out all of his drum patterns manually, making
sure to rarely if ever repeat a pattern.  It's a very different
aesthetic than your standard hypnotic loop music, and in fact one of the
first criticisms he recieved was that his rhythms didn't repeat enough.

> Puff Daddy ( He aint original and he sure don't drone. But his loops    
>> are in the hands and ears of eager children all across the world while 
>> their $ is secure in his bank account)

This gets back to the issue of how you're identifying the "forefront" of
this sort of music-making approach.  He's selling an obscene anount of
records, it's true, but from a musical point of view, he's not doing
anything in terms of the construction or mechanics of his music that
weren't being done at least 15 years ago by hip-hop producers with more
creativity, less showbiz savvy, and a smaller budget to pay for obvious
sample-clearance royalties.

> and The Orb on the Higher end of low end.

Has anyone heard the collaboration Phillip Glass did with Richard "Aphex
Twin" James a few years ago?  The distinction between the "high" and
"low" aspects of this music (and music in general) gets more and more
blurry (not to mention useless) as more and more "serious" composers
emerge with a strong background of rock and jazz in their past.

I actually saw a very amusing article in a mag a few months ago (I think
it was _Option_) in which a reporter played Phillip Glass a number of
CDs by the likes of Orbital, Underworld, Mu-Ziq, and others to gauge his
reaction.  Some funny stuff in there...

--Andre LaFosse