10 fine albums on eMusic in techno and house EDM
To accompany the label list and elevate music I often malign, here’s ten I find individually satisfying (not least for often being full-length albums for 99 cents). Fair warning, I’m not a fan of the driving oonce:
1. “Welcome to Entropy” - 444 (2017). This is my absolute favorite straight-up techno album from the last few months, with nothing much in the way of “instruments” so many people like to use to make “songs.” Might well be Russian. Definitely jarring and noisy, but darn if it doesn’t make me want to dance again. Maybe if Einsturzende Neubauten lost its vocals and went fully EDM, it’d sound like this? Bummer of a closing track, though I agree with its three-word message and probably sound like it to others in this forum.
2. “Arecibo” - Trippin Jaguar (2017). As notable for the label’s album art in general as the music itself, this is the slower-tempo pick I made from Amselcom. What’s yours? 99-er.
3. “Rexer Flash” - Psychotic Beats (2012). On the oddly named Log Lady label out of SF, these put more emphasis on the melodies and brief vocals than the beat, which is how I like it. 99-er.
4. “Bifid Cipher EP” - Rolf Ono (2018). Quiet techno on four long tracks skirts being just downtempo. Better for reading than for driving at night. Not without hints of melody or distinctive sounds. 99-er.
5. “Vorab and Tesoro” - Flash Flood Darlings (2016). They’re from Korea and a different style but aren’t far behind #1. The heavily treated vocals, mostly romantic and in English, are about the right balance with the music, IMO, which is hard to do in EDM. Song structures can lean closer to synth-pop at times, which is fine by me.
6. “The Snake” - Brogan Bentley (2014). Dark yet danceable house music with haunting vocals. I’d compare it to what’d it’d be like to extend Polygon Window’s (Aphex Twin) classic 1992 track “If It Really Is Me” to a darker, more orchestral and danceable full-length album. I’ve listened to this more than almost anything on eMusic. Passionate and highly recommended. Avoid his EP, despite the price.
7. “Unieqav” - Alva Noto (2018). Another one for purists who don’t want anything organic like vocals or recognizable instruments intruding. Alva Noto may be a poor man’s Byetone (I understand they’re related), but his label NOTON seems to be sticking around. Three 5-star reviews of this one swayed me, but I’m not sure I agree or if it’s the best of what’s still a fairly large selection. I did have higher hopes for the pairing with Ryuichi Sakamoto.
8. “Strikeout” - Hardfloor (1995). If you’re a techno fan, it’s still possible to round out your collection of robotic Germans from the era when this music actually felt futuristic. Harthouse, which along with Eye Q, Planet Earth, and other variations led by Sven Väth went out of business long ago, apparently withheld the excellent full-length “Home Run” but maintains a large selection old-school techno classics from the likes of Hardfloor that ruled the dancefloors of the 1990s, at least in my imagination. One full-length by Bondzio & Zenker also remains under their alias Dadamnphreaknoizephunk, 2009’s “The Cheerleaders Are Smilin' at You,” but I think it’s their weakest album.
9. “Heart Failure” - Mydwem (2015) barely fits, preferring to slice up and play with house music cliches rather than playing into them, but I really like it. I’m surprised nobody has commented on this one. This and #6 are my favorites on this list, and their similarities are readily apparent.
10. “Best of” - Phonique (2014). Why not end with a big name that also emphasizes the main draw of tech house on eMusic: an album that’s two hours and fifteen minutes long.
I would not stake whatever reputation I have on these making believers out of people who don’t like this kind of music. The rock list previously was better and more interesting overall, I think.
There should be no general electronica, downtempo, IDM, drum & bass/jungle, dub, dubstep, trance, and definitely ambient on this list.
Comments
I would invert that judgement on a whole range of counts (catalog, range, reputation, influence, as well as the music itself).
I agree that Unieqav is very good; I think I like Univrs even more among his more techno recordings. Xerrox 2 is maybe my favorite overall, but that one’s not techno.
Byetone neighbors this territory but is happier to let things bang propulsively. I only listen to a few artists in this area, but I mentally have Byetone and Kangding Ray (e.g. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3lI1wUhg1J0) clustered at one end of a spectrum, with Alva Noto and (further out into abstraction) Frank Bretschneider at the other (my favorite track is https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pj1Nhzh90kk). (Maybe the next station after that is Ryoji Ikeda https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F5hhFMSAuf4 ) . Byetone and KR sound more to me like they were made by people having fun. I imagine AN and FB and RI more with a lab coat and a microscope, possibly on a space station.
Thanks also - it’s nice to discuss specific music - we don’t do that enough, even around here.
@Dark_Magus In defense of the list, it’s a product of returning from the trenches of endless, samey EDM in the confines of eMusic’s remainders and needing examples that fit the category while being at least somewhat distinctive. I’d rather a reaction to electronica be disgust than “meh,” and it seems that’s what happened. To be clear, I’m aware that there are plenty of unscrupulous RIYLs dropping big names to draw attention to obscure and ultimately low quality music, which was not my intent with the Polygon Window comparison (and again, just that one particular track from him…hauntingly indistinct vocals, basic melodies, and a somber tone…indeed very different from and much less diverse than “Surfing on Sinewaves” as a whole). If the comparison is wholly inept, I’ll retract it if anyone else strongly disagrees. In any case, I won’t dwell too much further on something you didn’t like (if you listened to the whole album rather than just sampling, I apologize). Just want to concur that while he does some quasi-dubstep stuff with the baselines on a few tracks, which is indeed a large part of the appeal to me, I’d be much less comfortable calling it a dubstep album than a house album, in that the beat is in no way chopped up or anything other than standard EDM. It’s entirely possible I don’t know what house music is and is not, other than the truly crappy stuff on the bottom half of the 300+ labels that are still on eMusic. Please clue me into any GOOD pseudo dubstep, as apparently I have a weakness for it.
I wouldn’t expect that list, with AN as an experimental outlier that’s a stretch for dancing or techno categorization, to be much interest to folks who prefer serious and otherwise seriously experimental electronic music rather than stuff that just plays with EDM conventions but still has a beat to get the limbs good and sweaty. Previously available experimental electronica on eMusic would make for a nice list to post on the “old eMusic” discoveries thread, but excluding my actual preference for IDM, I don’t know if there’s enough notable on eMusic to compile a list of ten. I appreciate hearing from serious listeners like you both here, as I don’t know any personally.
@Germanprof I like all that you linked (the Frank Bretschneider one comes up unavailable; had to look for other stuff of his, nice to know eMusic doesn’t have the unavailability market cornered), and your descriptions help a lot with deeper appreciation and things to ponder while listening. I do get the feeling I’d enjoy similarly if I just let Youtube autoplay infinitely, though, and for this more abstract style it’s hard for me to identify, let alone state a rule to explain, what I do and don’t like of it (I try hard to avoid calling anything “good” or “bad”). For other music it’s a lot easier to say something “sucks” for a very specific reason, but I can’t articulate what would make me strongly prefer one AN track over another. Time signatures don’t register for me, and I’m not going to get a math degree any time soon, so maybe that’s my listening deficiency. Until I can put preferences to words, AN and his ilk will probably stay in the 3 to 4-star liking range rather than Byetone’s, as I’ll turn off most EDM reflexively. I agree that “Garment” is all that you say, my new favorite track, and it reminded me of Tri Repetae-era Autechre, but that’s too easy a reference.
I wonder if it’s unreasonable to expect the human touch to win out over autoplay even in these extreme examples of unfeeling musicians in labcoats who’d have a much harder time proving they’re not robots themselves than in Asimov’s Foundation series. You’ve definitely given a lot to dive into here when feeling contemplative, and I absolutely trust your recommendations.
oh, and I just remembered that I wrote a review of Univrs with some more background discussion: http://musicisgood.org/2011/11/alva-notos-univrs-almost-human/ It may get at why despite the lab coats images I am not sure “unfeeling” is the right word. I think he is quite passionate about exactitude :-).