Guardian blog post: “The strange lingering death of minimal techno”
This may not be worth commenting on but on the other hand so many people read the Guardian that it probably is.
Although I think Tony Naylor’s heart is in the right place, the timeline for his revelations is about as barmy as you’d expect from a broadsheet techno piece. The above article could have been written at least 6 months ago. It could have probably been written 12 or 18 months ago.
Credit to Tony though, or the sub, for the title. A strange lingering death indeed. The only word I wouldn’t use is “death”.
Minimal has declined since a peak of popularity 2 years or so ago but it certainly hasn’t died. I don’t say that as a partisan supporter of the sound either. I say it as someone who noticed a fatigue in the music which the letters “mnml” came to represent grew from around January 2007 but has actually receded a lot since about June 2008.
I can’t be the only one either. The reason mnml’s “death” is “strange and lingering” is because it isn’t a death at all! Minimal continues to exist. Only in a genre as ephemeral and illogical as dance music in 2008 could I seriously be saying “hold on there Tony, minimal isn’t dead, it’s coming back!
In the space left by the Chernobyl-sized toxic discourse that tainted the genre so badly, the grey sparse tones and clicks have begun to sprout shoots again. Naylor’s right to mention Onur Ozer, but could equally have cited Tolga Fidan or Jens Zimmermann or Rhadoo. I’m sure I’m forgetting others here too.
And what about those who never have stopped making stripped down house music? What about the ones who ploughed through the hype? What about Guido Schneider? Check his amazing new remix on Systematic.
What about a little guy called Ricardo Villalobos? (Am I biting American election debate style with all these rhetorical questions?) Ricardo’s last (quintessentially minimal) double LP was just a month or two ago and yet he’s cited in this article as a sign that minimal is dead or over.
The evidence is everywhere. Have a listen to some of Paris producer Seuil’s latest tracks and remixes and tell me this isn’t a guy whose clicking popping MINIMAL sound is utterly revelling in the current climate, albeit with a slight shift towards the depths.
I just don’t agree that deep house is replacing minimal, even though there is certainly plenty more “proper” deep house around if you like that word. What is happening is that there is a really blurred line and a middleground between perennial styles like US deep house, dub techno and a new kid on the block like 00s minimal.
This is the area that Johnny D and Oslo and so many of the best acts right now are inhabiting. But it’s not a massive paradigm shift either as Naylor suggests. Think about. It’s just not actually such a big step for the populist dance music audience ir producers in Europe and elsewhere to move from minimal house to house. It was house to begin with anyway!
Last June I spoke to Ralf Kollmann of Mobilee for this article and I’m reminded of this little prophetic gypsy’s curse he laid down:
“I think that the minimal movement comes more from the deep house side of techno than from any other style. For example if you listen to old Doctor Rockit or Herbert, it really sounds similar. So maybe as a consequence of that minimal is going back to towards that style now. Now maybe there’ll be more clubs concentrating on the more housey side of minimal, and other clubs might concentrate more on the techno side of it.”
Seems a pretty good call 18 months down the line doesn’t it? I mean, in practice it doesn’t matter what label you put on today’s house and techno, unless you write for a broadsheet I guess. What we’re left with now post-mnml and (sorry Tony) post-deephouserevivalandeverythingelse is just a loose template, a nameless scene where no one word dominates.
People are flinging all sorts of influences into 4/4 tracks and playing them in the places where minimal existed before, and backing them with the monolithic power of classic dub techno or house.
If there is even any defining characteristic that binds a lot of the newer music together than surely it’s that a lot of it is produced digitally. The sound divide between old records and new is distinct. But of course as many new producers are aping old sounds as sampling Greek folk music.
Maybe the article should have been called “The strange lingering death of dance music’s direction”. Not because the genre is finished or over, but because it doesn’t seem to be travelling forward in time with any coherency. People are looking to every moment and era of the past all at once.
Others are fighting desperately to etch out some kind of future. After a couple of years of hostility the sounds of the past and the present sit together quite comfortably, even as new sounds seep into 4/4 from around the world.
The only question is: where the hell do things go from here?
PS: I can’t help but feel strange everytime I try to discuss the “decline” of minimal, or indeed any other genre. The “decline” in actuality seems to be the time when people started using the word “minimal” to describe music that none of the producers you value or like were making. When that happens a bad imitation of the old sound almost replaces peoples’ memories of what came before.
As such it doesn’t feel like minimal “declined” at all. Many of the producers are still making worthwhile music. It just became a by-word for producers with no charisma copying M_nus records. Was it always this? Certainly not. It’s almost ironic that the times I liked “minimal” most were when some records on “minimal” labels were anything from really banging techno or just dub house, eg Duoteque’s releases on Boxer or Sven Weissman on Liebe*Detail.
In fact a label like Liebe*Detail has probably been central to both “minimal” and “German deep house” without necessarily being a perfect fit for either.
If all of the above tells us anything it’s that dance music is at its best when it is ambiguous and between genres. Where once the best dance music was often hard to pin down as “techno” or “house”, now a lot of it, for me anyway, is hard to brand “minimal” or “house”.
(Now somebody put the fucking kettle on! Carrying those stone tablets up the mount has left me really thirsty!)
lorenz wrote:
very good writing and objectivism
Posted 09 Oct 2008 at 7:09 pm ¶
Ronan wrote:
thanks a lot lorenz…btw I owe you a mail
Posted 09 Oct 2008 at 7:12 pm ¶
Joe H wrote:
Nicely put, I do think minimal is dead & I wouldn’t class Ozer, Fidan and Villalobos as minimal, more experimental electronic music than mnml. Me personally I see artists like Barem, jpls etc as minimal.
“People are looking to every moment and era of the past all at once”
This is very true and I wonder where it will go next, perhaps disco or maybe it might move forward with some dubstep/ techno genre. I think its good to look on the past but not so much if there isn’t a clear future in sight. I guess people are classing this “Drums & Percussion” Oslo, Cecille etc fase as new but hasn’t it been done before in the late 90’s.The only real move forward that seems to have come is Dubstep.
“I just don’t agree that deep house is replacing minimal, even though there is certainly plenty more “proper” deep house around if you like that word”
There is certainly a lot more warmer sounds of house around than a year ago & much less “tech house” I think the deephouse trend is ready for a fall which is a shame as there is a lot of quality around. If it goes like tech house went with everyone and there mother making it, it will be sure to loose the quality.
I was reading an interview with Magda where she says minimal is now mainstream.
Cue Eastenders dum dum dum dum dum…
Posted 09 Oct 2008 at 9:48 pm ¶
mhlt wrote:
The more it goes on the more it seems to me that the music has been the same all this time. It just happens that at one point people started calling it ‘minimal’, then when it became less popular (i.e. useful of a term to apply), then people stopped calling it minimal, then when it got unfashionable people started defining it in opposition to minimal. The last 3 years of techno have been more of a semantic struggle than a music one.
Posted 10 Oct 2008 at 1:29 am ¶
Gwenan wrote:
“I think that the minimal movement comes more from the deep house side of techno than from any other style.” that makes so much sense…
it hurt to read that Guardian article
it hurt because my parents and all of my extended family will have seen it, and they’ll be sure to bring it up around the dinner table, wondering if my latest ‘phase’ has come to an end already… and i’ll have no hope of explaining how irrelevant it is.
as for “where the hell to things go from here?” we know one thing surely – that wherever they do go it’ll be exciting? there’s a (literally!) infinite space of possibilities in music, and people are endlessly inventive, so we might not know what’s next (if we did, wouldn’t it be happening now?), but we can know we’re not about to run out of options…
great post! and shit, now i have the eastenders theme in my head.
Posted 10 Oct 2008 at 10:08 am ¶
chrishelt wrote:
Great piece, Ronan!
Posted 10 Oct 2008 at 10:26 am ¶
mano wrote:
nice post ronan. i also thought the article in the guardian was ridiculously out of touch…
Posted 10 Oct 2008 at 10:29 am ¶
aNikdote wrote:
Wholeheartedly agree on Seuil. One producer who is really doing something special. Like his new remix on Tsuba and ep on Freak n Chic. Not to mention Anthony Collins remix. Going places.
Posted 10 Oct 2008 at 10:45 am ¶
lorenz wrote:
“I guess people are classing this “Drums & Percussion” Oslo, Cecille etc fase as new but hasn’t it been done before in the late 90’s.”
i agree totally! It s house music….pretty pure….nice….for me personal, not deep/dark enough, but alright…
When it comes to artists like Pan-Pot. or Boris brejcha, i must say…when they released their last albums, they were stuck on my ipod for weeks!
But somehow….it started to bore the crap out of me, and i know, that a track like “abstract prologues ” by Fidan, or “baumgartnerhöhe” by efdemin will always do something to me…
In the end, I think its not about minimal music as a genre, which is getting out of fashion, its more like….there are a bunch more people out there, who want their piece of cake ääähh should i say fame, which all the big names get….you now getting gigs…standing in front of an audience….controlling them…..we have to say, that it got easier to produce electronic music…we have more possibilities. So people just start to write, and somehow they make it to beatport, or even on a record…but you know…that doesnt make the artist good…or innovative….and as minimal was very “IN” the last times…they made minimal…
and raped it…in a way!
My conclusion is, that the prodecer, who still manages to… KIK… is even better than before, because its getting harder to impress with ones music! People heard everything before…and that brings me back to Joes post…with OSLO….its not new…just reinvented, and different to what was going on in a bunch of clubs the last years!
And i m one of those who cant manage to get into the oslo sound, i still like it minimal
but GOOD minimal(god i hate me saying “good minimal” ahhh…whatever)…like Jus ed, Pigon, or rob hood…their music is incredibly unique!!
just my 2 cents…
and ronan….don t worry bout that mail man..
nice weekend
Posted 10 Oct 2008 at 6:27 pm ¶
Ronan wrote:
jeez I like when you all speak such damn good sense!
Mhlt said: “The last 3 years of techno have been more of a semantic struggle than a music one.”
Very well put and absolutely right. In the end the word “minimal” couldn’t carry the ridiculous weight of sounds heaped upon it.
Posted 10 Oct 2008 at 8:30 pm ¶
pablo/beaner wrote:
great post. i cringed upon first hearing the title of that guardian article, and cringed more reading it. i always seem to find myself ending up as a defender of minimal or devils advocate, but the point always comes down to: “good music is good music, and a rose by any other name would smell as sweet”. the anti-minimal and pro-deephouse waves always seemed semantic and useless to anyone on the ground, in the club, listening to music.
Posted 11 Oct 2008 at 5:07 pm ¶
Tom wrote:
I agree with this part of the article:
“And it might be, in Britain. But, the German scene and media - as British Matt “Radio Slave” Edwards enthused on a recent edition of DVD-magazine, Slices - isn’t prey to the same vicious swings, the same boom-bust, hype-kill cycles.”
I always find it’s the same people who say such and such scene is “where it’s at” are the same wankers who call it’s death 6 months later. I’m sure the same will happen with dubstep. There’s no latitude given to a scene to develop naturally. I suppose that headline’s like “German techno changes incrementally over the course of many years” isn’t going to turn heads.
Posted 11 Oct 2008 at 9:33 pm ¶
michael wells wrote:
it’s remarkable how keen people in house music are to label a certain sound as “dead”. perhaps it’s because we feel like we’re at the forefront but how often do you hear people who love rock music say “you know that thing with someone singing someone on bass a guitarist and a drummer? it’s so dead”? i hate to say “it’s all abt the tunes”, at the risk of sounding like a cliche, but the idea that house music would get itself so wound up in these semantics. i don’t get it.
Posted 13 Oct 2008 at 7:32 pm ¶
michael wells wrote:
it’s like, while all these producers are banging their heads together over who’s deep and who’s minimal basshunter is winking and going “see ya”.
Posted 13 Oct 2008 at 7:37 pm ¶
seanobraonain wrote:
Honestly great quality post ronan.
Isn’t nice to see everyone getting along!
Thanks for keeping on with your blog/work.
Posted 13 Oct 2008 at 10:32 pm ¶
Ronan wrote:
thanks a lot sean, long time no see.
“i hate to say “it’s all abt the tunes”, at the risk of sounding like a cliche, but the idea that house music would get itself so wound up in these semantics. i don’t get it.”
oftentimes it’s the same people who indict perceived trends and fickleness who viciously indict a scene as “dead” at the first available opportunity.
Posted 14 Oct 2008 at 10:05 pm ¶
Gwenan wrote:
Garth Cartwright of the BBC reviews Dinky’s new album and makes Tony Naylor look AWESOME:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/music/release/3jcz/
“Listening to electronic dance music at home – as opposed to in a club (the environment where it’s designed to be heard) – can be a trying experience: the huge beats and distorted samples lack presence when not blasting out of a massive sound system, the eerie synths fail to wash across the listener. And, truth be told, dancing by yourself is rarely much fun…”
Posted 16 Oct 2008 at 2:23 pm ¶
Ronan wrote:
I don’t have much faith in the BBC’s ability to recruit people who have a clue about techno
Posted 17 Oct 2008 at 12:13 pm ¶
lorenz wrote:
i dont get to read/see bbc information and reporations to often, and i dont agree in all points in the revies about “may be later”, but i have to say that this album did not catch me.
Posted 17 Oct 2008 at 2:28 pm ¶
Gwenan wrote:
haha see i’d forgotten you were on their side/payroll… maybe you should have a word/dance with Mr Cartwright and set him straight on a few things. (can’t comment on the album - haven’t heard it yet.)
Posted 17 Oct 2008 at 3:59 pm ¶
Karl wrote:
I was gonna say something but I think mhlt and Tom already said it much better than I would’ve ever done.
But as for the germans not being as much about hype, hyperbole and then claiming something as dead. I think that line ups at German clubs (well Berlin anyway) have changed more than the ones of british clubs. Just a feeling I have, but the big mnml guys seem to get just as many bookings in London while the new deep house and techno dons seem to be finding their way on to many berlin line ups?
Oh and btw way: “German techno changes incrementally over the course of many years” would just be a hillarious headline!
Posted 20 Oct 2008 at 11:18 am ¶
Karl wrote:
oh and the comment about the clubs comes from someone who is an outsider to both countries, so mostly my feeling comes from browsing web listings and the occasional visit rather than going to all these clubs all the time.
Posted 20 Oct 2008 at 11:21 am ¶
davey SUPERTENNIS! wrote:
i dont know it matters if it all sounds the same (the best genres all sound the same) or is it out of fashion? i dunno. girls are all kind of the same, and beer and sachets of MDMA
i dont get bored of those either:D
Posted 15 Nov 2008 at 10:44 pm ¶
Fotis Pandis wrote:
A very well written article I must say.
Personally I am rather new cause I have only been listening to electronic music for only the past 1.5 years.
In my opinion the reason of the “downfall” of minimal music is that it has reached a peak point and cannot get much better than what it already is. I would also like to point out that one of the most influancial djs at the moment is Robert Babicz a.k.a. rob acid who has done some amazing work on both producing tracks but also on remixing a few. Most of the tracks he produces and remixes are very good examples of the combination of minimal and deep house.
Finally I would like to say that through the years all electronic music genres have been mashed up together again and again and I do believe that there should be rising new names for all these upcoming genres rather than calling a track e.g. progy-housy-minimal techno.
Posted 17 Feb 2009 at 11:18 am ¶