WOEBOT: Introducing the legendary...

One of the things that bugs me about the web is how it attracts congenital cowardice. There's a load of people out here (not you naturally dear reader) who haven't really taken the bull by the horns, who are lurking out here, making their claim on turf no-one in their right mind would want.

A distinct strain of internet-approved music has emerged over the past few years, a music which gets the seal approval from your Pitchforks and Styluses is feted on the blogs. Take for instance the new Carl Craig remix of Delia and Gavin's "Relevee", I've been whipped up into a froth of expectation waiting for this by net-related hype. It arrives this morning and I slap it on the decks, and man I feel nothing whatsoever for it. Partly, I'll freely admit, because I've heard a million old records like this before- could compile a whole CD of similar retro-synth throbbings from the seventies and eighties (this time with feeling...). Why are people working themselves up into a feverish excitement about this? The answer, because they haven't done their own fucking researches and they haven't the hard-bitten soul to feel what it is they're missing out on. They don't begin to grasp the connection of the ear to the third eye. They're a bunch of pussies in short.

All of which brings me to the crudely constructed website of my dear old friend of fifteen years Dr. Lloyd Beryl. It's one of those isolated occasions when I sense something overwhelmingly other entering into the gene pool. Lloyd is, I'm sorry to tell, a man with pain in his heart, a man who can hear at a deeper frequency. Listening to his Mix Number Two, which comes in two parts is one of those salutory "Thank-Christ-I'm-not-alone-in-this-world" moments. It's not the tunes so much as what is communicated in the assemblage's pretzel logic, in the cracks. And this, ladies and gentlemen, is true scholarship.

What Lloyd wants out here in this desolate place I don't know.

Comments

I actually had the same feeling after hearing Revelee. Let down by all the hype. Although I still enjoy the tune, it was nowhere near what it was made up to be. It was a very clever marketing campaign though if that is what it was intended to be.

However, aren't tunes like this supposed to point the way backwards? I mean if you are a youngin and this is the first bit of arpeggiation that you ever hear it is probably glorious. Then you find influencers and work back towards them. Not everyone has the skills to be so clued in.

Posted by: hector23 | June 7, 2006 04:17 AM

By the way all this might warrent a question on what you think of Mr. Todd Terje and his disco edit skills.

Posted by: hector23 | June 7, 2006 04:20 AM

it's nice isn't it. its just that something like jackson actually had a spirit to it. don't want to get to locked into a young-vs-old thing; this is a rekkid targetted at people precisely my age.

lloyd's mix two now here:

http://rapidshare.de/files/22399475/Archive.zip

Posted by: WOEBOT | June 7, 2006 07:22 AM

i really, really, really want to love d&g but it just hasn't happened. great analogue synth sounds but they need to put something into it rather than just the notes. just recently acquired manuel gotsching's e2-e4 from the 80s and it's just miles better than anything d&g have released so far. i think they need to get on the edge a bit more - they sound so safe.

Posted by: nonightsweats | June 7, 2006 08:59 AM

Refreshing to see one (!) person in the blogosphere who got nothing from the CC remix of D&G. I thought I was a minority of one in not thinking Carl Craig is all that. I liked his Jazz Funk Classics release as 69 & thats about it. There seems to be a ring of blogs that canonises Craig & I still have no idea why.

Posted by: jahschmidt | June 7, 2006 10:48 AM

yeah the carl craig mix of revelee isn't all that special, i agree.
the baby ford mix is quite lovely, though.

Posted by: simon silverdollar | June 7, 2006 03:18 PM

I think a lot has to do with expectations. This is not to dismiss the fact that if you all don't like the track, you simply don't like it. However, expectations were so high and the track was talked about for so long that it really couldn't deliver could it?

Regarding the "congenital cowardice," this certainly must be something that has gone on since associating onself with music became "cool." I mean is giving any Pitchfork/Stylus/zine-approved track an automatic let any different than putting that SUBHUMANS patch on your jacket because it was so punk, even without a full analysis of what the music really offered? Annoying as this may be, it isn't new and it won't stop.

I think hector23 has a good point in that this is music for hopefully pointing the young'uns backward. The Carl Craig associaton with the track is an excellent first step for this I think. As for the track itself, I really, really liked D and G's album even if it was already-done arpeggiated synths, and the addition of CC's drums really did make for a happy meeting for me. And I also think the hype was due to a real desire for this to be great given the extreme devotion many feel for both DFA and CC/Detroit-related music.

This all makes me wonder how you all feel for other much-lauded acts like Metro Area and Daniel Wang who essentially just recreate older forms of music?

Posted by: matt | June 7, 2006 04:35 PM

I have not heard much by D.Wang but I think Metro Area are a total yawn also. Another producer who lacks the groove or oomph for any dancefloor excitement & not enough going on too tickle me cerebrally. So not much good for home listening either.

Posted by: jahschmidt | June 15, 2006 11:10 AM