Electronic Music Appreciation Thread

[javyn]

I hate that techno ****, but love IDM.

Autechre
Plaid
Boards of Canada
Steve Roach
Popol Vuh when I'm feelin' frisky

My vote for best electronic album ever conceived goes to Spanners by Black Dog. Perfect in every way.

 

[javyn]

I hate that techno ****, but love IDM.

Autechre
Plaid
Boards of Canada
Steve Roach
Popol Vuh when I'm feelin' frisky
I also like the "Bombay the Hard Way" albums, but didn't care for the other stuff by that DJ, like Handsome Boy Modeling school...

My vote for best electronic album ever conceived goes to Spanners by Black Dog. Perfect in every way.

 

[Manny Calavera]

The best of EM:

Aphex Twin (Selected Ambient Works): While it can be said RDJ's stuff is always cutting-edge, I think the SAW albums stand far and away as some of the best art to spawn from electronic music. While SAW Vol. 2 can't compare to the sheer beauty and sparse, alien loneliness of the original, it's still an amazing experiment in sound.

The Books (Lemon of Pink/Food For Thought): Anything The Books put out is compelling, but their first two LPs are definitely their strongest. Amazing musicianship, definitely the ultimate in collage.

Brian Eno: The man. This is all. (But seriously, can't go wrong with Another Green World or any of his Ambient Work, particularly Music for Airports).

The Buddha Machine: A little plastic piece of junk that makes beautiful ambient noise. I listen to it every single day while working.

City of Heroes Soundtrack: Yup, the PC game. Never listened to the soundtrack on its own, only while playing the game, and it's reason in itself to play the game. Selected Works-lite.

Game & Watch games: Remember the old Game & Watch LCD handhelds from Nintendo that spawned the **** Tiger games? I collect these. They're worth a lot now, especially in Japan, because they're the ultimate kitsch art as consumer good. Each one has a spectator mode in which you can let a CPU run through the game. I often turn this on, close my eyes and just listen to it. While some people might find these bleeps and bloops annoying, I find it the ultimate low-fi symphony. An awesome melding of imagination, sound and visuals. I'm weird.

Grime genre (Streets/Sway/Dizzee): Any beat that comes out of the grime scene sounds so harsh and raw, it can't help but be seen as progressive. A lot of nay-sayers focus on the stoic delivery and miss the entire point: the beats that sound like absolutely nothing before it. I can't get enough of this stuff. Anyone who wants a great primer for the scene should pick up Run the Road.

Keith Fullerton Whitman: The current master of electronic, his brilliance floors me. Pick up Multiples (recorded using Harvard's instrument library in exchange for some teaching) or Playthroughs. If you think someone can make a compelling and affecting song out of, on occasion, a mere few notes, pick up some Keith. His new Lisbon live album is also great, and incredibly accessible for such an experimental live set.

Shining: Their debut last year was far and away the best effort put out on the Rune Grammofon label yet, and that's saying a lot. Jazz meets tech-core meets metal. Might have been my favorite album of last year if not for His Sufjan-ness.

I see a lot of you are more traditional in your electronic choices, so I left off a lot of amazing stuff that straddles the line between tangibly instrumented and electronically produced music (TV on the Radio, Animal Collective, Sigur Ros circa 2001, Xiu Xiu, Junior Boys, M83, etc.). Also left off a lot of hip hop in which I think the production carries its own (Def Jux label, anything MF Doom touches, J Dilla, etc.). Also, the stuff that I thought was trite and pointless to list, as it's since been driven into the ground by soooo many imitators: Chemical Brothers, Kraftwerk, DJ Shadow, Massive Attack, etc.

There's been some amazing electronic music this year also: at this very moment I'm listening to Chihei Hatakeyama's Minima Moralia, some of the best ambient music I've heard in years and years. Really beautiful, minimalist stuff.

Can't beat The Knife for haunted house (yeah, since they invented the genre, or something).

Booka Shade and Ellen Allien & Apparat have both put out the best "dance" (that term does not suffice as a description) albums since Vitalic. Barbara

Morgenstern is perfect electro-pop.

Everyone needs to go buy Talkdemonic's album. I saw them open for The Go! Team at The Black Cat and they are far and away the best opener I've ever seen. About as emotional as electronically based music can get.

And I can't forget to mention the other awesome electronic acts that have put out class-A albums this year: Matmos, Mylo's stateside release, Isolee, Herbert's best album, Girl Talk (best mash-up ever) and the million and one electronically-tinged shoegaze albums that have been released this year (year's been awesome for a shoegaze fanatic such as myself) from Belong, Asobi Seksu, Jesu, Gregor Samsa, Serena Maneesh, etc. Great stuff.

Oh, and my EP definitely has a lot of electronic trappings. I'll be sure to inform everyone when it's out, though it's obvious many of you are pretty bleeding edge and it's coming out on one of the indie "big three" so, yeah, I'm sure I'll get some comments.

As a side note, after I publish my book I'm going to start working on something I've wanted to do for over ten years now (I'm 21): create a two-disc, EM soundtrack to Maus: A Survivor's Tale. I'm going to contact Pantheon about it but most likely it will remain a pet project.

Music is a big part of my life: I'm a fanatical fan, journalist and artist, so if you have any questions about electronic music (or music in general, for that matter; I love Patsy Cline, Sunn o))) and The Beatles (Best. Band. Ever.) the same as the electronic acts listed above), feel free to PM me.

 

[VMan]

Originally Posted by jonglover

Girl Talk (best mash-up ever)

**** yeah.

 

[Nonk]

The Orb

 

[drizzt3117]

I've bought a bunch of DJ mix stuff lately, alot of it is europop but there are some decent tracks. I've been buying a lot of stuff from Chicago DJs lately.

 

[gamelan]

Originally Posted by jonglover

Aphex Twin: Selected Ambient Works 85-92 is not only my favorite electronic album of all-time, but it's tied with Pet Sounds as my favorite album ever. Had a lot of great, lonely moments with RDJ's masterpiece.

Xtal, turned up on a sound system with really really deep bass. enough said.

-Jeff

 

[Reflection]

I'm not a huge fan of electronic music anymore but there are still some songs that I like:
Rui Da Silva - Touch Me
Deepest Blue - Shooting Star
Tiesto - Sweet Surrender

 

[javyn]

Anyone else into IDM? I really like how some ambient/IDM guys mix up some mid-eastern or asian style in their stuff. Have to be careful though, too much makes it sound new agey and cheesy, like the CDs at Whole Foods, but when done right, I love it.

Although not IDM, Juno Reactor is really good at mixing world music with electro.

 

[VMan]

Originally Posted by javyn

Anyone else into IDM? I really like how some ambient/IDM guys mix up some mid-eastern or asian style in their stuff. Have to be careful though, too much makes it sound new agey and cheesy, like the CDs at Whole Foods, but when done right, I love it.

Although not IDM, Juno Reactor is really good at mixing world music with electro.

Yeah, I like IDM too. Juno Reactor is great.

 

[javyn]

Versace, wasn't your avatar a pic of the band Bauhaus a while back? Or was that someone else? If it's you, then yeah, you have good taste in music and I'd like to hear other stuff you like.

BTW: Juno Reactor: Beyond The Infinite....great album I still listen to constantly!

I also really like Future Sound of London (Lifeform and ISDN particularly)

Again though, I'll restate...the best electronic album I've ever heard by far is Spanners by Black Dog (Black Dog are now called Plaid).

 

[VMan]

Originally Posted by javyn

Versace, wasn't your avatar a pic of the band Bauhaus a while back? Or was that someone else? If it's you, then yeah, you have good taste in music and I'd like to hear other stuff you like. BTW: Juno Reactor: Beyond The Infinite....great album I still listen to constantly! I also really like Future Sound of London (Lifeform and ISDN particularly) Again though, I'll restate...the best electronic album I've ever heard by far is Spanners by Black Dog (Black Dog are now called Plaid).
Yeah, I had a Bauhaus avatar a while back. You should see the vintage Bela Lugosi's Dead poster I have, from the 80's. I have listened to FSoL a bit but I need to try and get some more of the albums. Edit - here is the only image of the poster that I could find online:

 

[javyn]

From ages 13 to 20 I was a huge Bauhaus fanatic. I've mostly outgrown em now, but still from time to time put on the BBC/Peel sessions.

Anyway, my favorite FSOL is ISDN. The album's a collection of songs they did on a broadcast stream over...an ISDN line of course.

 

[VMan]

Listened to Moby - Play this afternoon while playing beer pong, haven't listened to that album in a while.

 

[RJman]

Any fans of Cabaret Voltaire?