This is Növö, a project of Lauren Boudic, also known by his Genetik System alias.
True child of the '80s and the Belgian tradition of electronics, he treats us a mix of electro embedded in EBM aesthetics, industrial vocal samples, electrofunk plus a dirty cover of 'Nagasaki (Mon Amour)' by Polyphonic Size, Belgian rather poppy minimal synth band (in their site you can find the original). Out on Antony Rother's Psi49net (with whom I gather from his site he split up violently).
Industrial aesthetics and political speech, multi-cultural harsh signals from the underground, 'Konztruktivizm' is a difficult album for a dance label, even for Psi49net. Mostly dancefloor oriented, sometimes just electro-industrial noise, it's compact, it has vision and a point of view. Not for everyone.
Növö - 2003, Konztruktivizm
Part 1 - Part 2
Info here.
Konztruktivizm
S-Channel
German Broadcasters is a project by L.A.Williams, one of my favorite house music producers.
Actually, 'house' may sound a bit weak as a characterization when you listen to his work, as he was always influenced by the harder, acidic side of Chicago music and Detroit. On top of it, this project draws elements from the european EBM-influenced scene (hence the name) and results in a repetitive Heckmann-like track that first came out in Munich's Disko B 2002 'HeavyHitters' compilation of Chisel tracks (from where I've got it) and slipped into the same year's Hell's mix CD. L.A.Williams also worked a lot with some oldschollers of the Berlin scene like the adorable Paige Ilise or Mueller records and did some remixes.
German Broadcasters - S-Channel (Radio Broadcast mix)
The rest of the 'HeavyHitters' album is crazy jack house with techno and filter elements. Anyone interested, just give me a note.
Faces & Phases
Kevin Maurice 'Master Reese' Saunderson is one of those few people who got Detroit music going on. Having commercial success a bit more in his view compared to the others of the first wave of techno, he managed to reach the stars as Inner City with releases like 'Good Life', 'Big Fun' and other epic tracks that influenced the development of House and dance music in general. Billions of 12''s and remixes under many alias won him the reputation of a delivering producer. He enjoys his place in the modern pantheon of dance music as one of the Belleville Three, the other two being Juan Atkins and Derrick May (although you should check the 'High Tech Soul' DVD where this trio is more or less doubted). On top of that he is an excellent DJ, creative and unpredictable.
As time went by he seemed to cut back on productions a bit, focusing on mix CDs, compilations and re-releases of his old tracks (Ι must have seen about a hundred re-issues of 'Good Life'). Although he tried a comeback at the end of '90s, it seemed that people wanted more his earlier work so he stepped back. He puts out a track now and then, but mostly focuses on his back catalog.
The thing is that Saunderson manages to combine a lot of elements. In his DJ sets he can jump from latin house to banging techno in 5 minutes and you don't even notice it. His commercial productions blended house euphoria with the power of techno beats and soul vocals so easily that it clicked right away at the time. Later dance genres started to diversify and most artists specialized on certain styles and this bastard KMS thing obviously become less commercial, as more focused artists developed new styles (hypes) easier. Since then, only crossover labels (like !K7 for example) could promote correctly someone like Saunderson outside Detroit. Personally I think he just caught the spirit of the late '80s perfectly, improvised a little, succeeded and dragged the rest of Detroit with him. I know that a lot of people consider him as the 'sell-out' guy of the three and I think it's totally unfair.
This is a retrospective compilation of KMS (the label) tracks, first out in UK, re-released by Planet E and finally by Belgian SSR. Just listen to the first CD of this compilation and make up your mind on your own. From force-driven, almost aggressive hardcore 1991 style to jacking tracks with vox samples, so much energy is trapped in this record that it's difficult to go through it in one shot sitting in a chair. CD2 is more house-oriented, yet without losing at all its edge. I have the luck to also own this one on vinyl since back then; recently I started playing again stuff off it , as it mixes incredibly good with the nu-oldschool sound of DJ T and the likes (that copied the KMS sound) on one hand and Abe Duque's records on the other, or even some of the new rave tracks from Cologne. All of you who know Saunderson from Inner City have a surprise coming.
Kevin Saunderson - Faces & Phases (1998 compilation)
CD1: Part 1 - Part 2
CD2: Part 1 - Part 2
Info here.
An old bio here.
The Final Corporate Colonization Of The Unconscious
As mentioned before, Drome are Burnt Friedmann and Frank Hernandez. They play a weird electronic dub-like something, influenced by anything. This is their second record (I don't have the first one) out in Wigwam, sub of Toxikk, in which labels they released most of their stuff before moving on to Kiff and then Friedmann went his way (check also the previous Pole post).
The music resembles a lot the 'Nuf Said' material although in a bit unshaped yet kind of way, with oldschool-ish electronica drum sounds and some breakbeats, although the subtly delivered extremities of the future to come are already obvious. An opera voice flows over metallic dub, field recordings and references to John Cage give their place to beat tracks, sounds float from around the world, Kassel meets Melbourne through Texas. And remember, this was recorded on 1992.
A remix album was subsequently released. The original was later re-released in Ninja Tune.
And once more, what a great title for an album..
Drome - 1993,
The Final Corporate Colonization Of The Unconscious
Part 1 - Part 2
Info here.
Irdial Radio
The first Irdial stuff I got stuck to was Stephen McGreevy's recordings. I was preparing a thesis on field recording, I came upon it by luck and it sounded interesting. I only knew Neuropolitique and InSync by then, but McGreevy's recordings just hit on spot, he had me. And then I came upon the Conet Project.
If you don't know at all what I'm talking about, please visit this label site. Read a little about them, check their attitude and their music. They have upped all of their releases in the Internet Archive and in Hyperreal. Listen to some of them, good experimental techno and electronics, they're there waiting.
And don't forget to check these two projects.
a) The VLF recordings project.
Stephen McGreevy records with radio receivers sounds from up the magnetosphere, produced by the interaction of the Sun's electric currents and cosmic particles with Earth's magnetic field (more or less, OK?). His really informative site which also works as a portal is here, with audio samples and zillion assorted links. Just dig a little through.
The Irdial release (2CDs, sounding better than the average sample) can be found here or here. Don't forget the booklet.
b) The Conet Project. 
I won' t try to describe or comment on this at all, the info is there. You may get angry, scared, political, or just stick to the weirdness of it and listen to those voices at night with the lights low. It may be the most unsettling thing I've ever heard on record and I can stand a lot of shit. And I'm not the only one to say this, as I gather. It's addictive and weird and interesting and spooky and big. Please check it out.
Irdial info is here. The 4 CDs are here or here. Once again, read the booklet.
Check also this reportage.
Idiosyncratic Expressions
Parallel Recordings is a NYC based label run by Jason Williams aka Velocette, a producer from the early '90s.
His first releases came out in San Fransisco's Reflective Records, important early electronics label run by Jonas Sharp of Spacetime Continuum fame. Through Parallel as expected he released a lot of his own stuff, Jonas Sharp, the first Kit Clayton 12'' (two tracks are included here) and their collaborative project I-Liner and Synewave's Chris Sattinger as Keek (interesting site and views). As I get it the label is going for a revival so keep an eye on it.
The music is a mix of electrofunk and techno forms, minimal concerning the track development but maximal and complex in sounds and moods. A totally urban, pressurized, almost stressing sound that draws equally from Detroit and NYC techno, with an occasional jazzy or housey touch on top. And when it starts to sound too complex and thick, it turns mellow (I guess that's the San Francisco influence). Actually, I think I get it better now than then, don't know why. The Klayton tracks stand out instantly even from so early, no wonder he went great later. I recall I have some Velocette 12''s and I assure you, the successful attempts of Velocette are also exceptional.
VA - 2000, Idiosyncratic Expressions
Part 1 - Part 2
Info here.
Gas
This is the first CD of GAS (Wolfgang Voigt project) I promised in a much earlier post. It went out on Mille Plateaux.
GAS - 1996, GAS
Here (tracks#1 to #5).
Track #6 here.
Info here.
(zipped 88,3MB - real size 145MB)
True People.
It's strange how easily and fast the perception of the world changes, even on such a supposedly easy matter as the definition of an underground music style bred on a certain place.
By world I mean not only the hype-feeding media and the info-consumers that devour the issuing crap, but also the rest of us that happen to live on the same planet. I mean, I notice that lately when people say 'Detroit Techno', they mostly talk about the (otherwise beautiful) works and releases of:
- Soma Records and Slam, Vince Watson, Alex Smoke and other Scot artists
- Modern Love (English label)
- Delsin (Dutch label) and related artists,
- Music Man Records (Belgian label),
- Styrax and Arne Weinberg' labels (both German)
I hope you get what I mean. The Deepchord/ Echospace guys certainly fit the Detroit niche easier, yet musically they borrow more from Berlin dub techno than George Clinton. As Convextion also does, hailing from Dallas, Texas. Canadian labels hypothetically have more direct access to the Motown vibes; sadly the clinical minimal they offer has little to do with Detroit's feeling. All above names mentioned strictly as mere examples of the effects of Our Lady Discordia's toying with us Confused People.
To put some things right, many current releases of MMR are from Detroit artists and this also stands true for other euro labels (often run by DJs) like Orlando Voorn's NightVision, the Clone subs-labyrinth and of course Tresor. Also some European artists published in Detroit, dropping techno or fat bass beats (Aril Brikha is Swedish I think). And of course I don't forget that Detroit music spread around the world through Europe, at first via UK, later through the Tresor Berlin- Detroit axis and finally through the Gigolo connection.
Has the music changed? Of course it did, otherwise it'd be boring. Did it lose its special character? Well..
The main question for me is this: How do you define a subculture? I don't know actually, I haven't studied this or something, I'm just thinking. If the new form maintains certain elements of the main tradition and rejects some others, it evolves into something new, with an individual character. When does it count as a continuation of the older path and when does it become a new evolutionary current?
Let's take neo-Detroit, as it is often called (I think I first read this term in Hardwax store). I love it. It's good music, centered and deep and sometimes powerful. What's the common in all music of the above mentioned artists? Fat productions, lots of bass, lots of reverbs, minimal song structure (see loops), sometimes deephouse elements and dubby echoes, often made by synths and boxes. Still the occasional string stab (a la 'Knights Of The Jaguar', you know) doesn't hide the fact that it has more to do with Basic Channel than with Metroplex, or with deep Chicago stuff than with 'The Punisher'. And of course it's Minimal (as in the music style called 'Minimal', not just minimal music). And all these styles have similarities, but also differences in some essential characteristics. Neo-Detroit sounds to me more tame, if you please.
I admit I was utterly bored when hard techno ruled the clubs at the end of the '90s and a lot of Detroit (and Chicago jack) DJs pushed towards this direction, I'm the last one to say or think this music is 'too soft'. Yet it's a bit single-minded. Jeff Mills released a banger and an ambient CD at the same time. Robert Hood released hardcore and mini techno and the 'Nighttime World' LP at the same year. This all-beautiful, all-deep sounding, all-loopy minimal thing is lovable, but not really Detroit for me. It lacks the funk, and it lacks diversity.
It is admitted by the first wave of Detroit that their music, this mix of house, soul, funk, EBM and breakbeats was named 'Detroit Techno' just for a certain record release that borrowed its name from Juan Atkins' 'Techno City' track, trying to 'find a way to characterize their music. Styles and ideas changed and interlocked, Techno was actually such an abstract term as 'electronica' or 'acid jazz' are. Techno was everything that wasn't house or garage or hip hop or any other of the mainstreams and Detroit Techno came to be the synonym of experimentation and funkiness combined. Later it came to be understood as banging records for amphetamines, but most artists were apparently too multi-faceted to focus on such a limited style so new things kept springing out. During the Gigolo era the electrofunk aspect was a bit accented, with an excellent result: the partial recognition of some UR artists from people outside the underground.
Nowdays I'd say that only the UR and Drexciya related releases are properly revered, when it comes to oldschool Detroit artists. Even the once superstar Jeff Mills seems to have fallen from grace in the eyes of the Market, I guess the others are barely managing to make a living.
I purposefully didn't mentioned anything above on the Space Afrocentrism, the Aztec cultural references or the political content of some of the older Detroit releases. It needs a lot of space to talk about that. Also, racial discrimination is something I hate and try to avoid at all costs. But I will lay my shields down for a bit and ask: isn't it strange that most if not all of the 1988-1995 Detroit artists were Afroamerican or Hispanic (they were not called that way back then...), when most if not all today's neo-Detroit heroes are white?
Now, all that I can say about this compilation is that it's a nice introduction to the second and third wave of Detroit music. If you've never heard stuff this old you'll be surprised. More from Detroit soon.
VA - 1996 True People. The Detroit Techno Album
CD1: Part 1 - Part 2
CD2: Part 1 - Part 2
Info here.
P.S.: Robert Hood mixed the new Fabric and issues HoodMusic #3 on MMR. I have high hopes again. Respect to the Master. Check HisSpace here.
P.S. 2: Only 220 friends... Shame.
P.S. 3: A YouTube video of a famous track. That's what comes in mind when I think about 'True People'. Here.
Quiz #3
Do you know this man?
Hint: He's done time in prison, and later was a refugee. Wrote some books.
Personal Settings
These are two compilations released by the legendary Quatermass, the electronic and (comparatively) accessible sublabel of godlike-status freak haven Sub Rosa. Both labels in their own inimitable style have been reference points in the development of global avant-garde and electronic music in general for three decades, with too many artists to be mentioned (check some names here and here) and more than many compilations of totally weird and rare music.
Based on a loose concept of Subjectivity (total creative freedom expressed in 15 minutes), each CD contains a number of tracks by three guests. Preset 1 contains tracks by Pan American (Mark Nelson of Labradford, one of my all-time favorite artists), Komet aka famous Frank Bretschneider and Joe Kingman aka Fisherofgold, of whom I know nothing. Preset 2 features oldschooler David Morley, the unknown to me Mikhael Van Straaten aka Nodern and the original G-Man, Gez Varley of early LFO fame (who surprisingly is just a bit older than me... crap, he must have been 20 during the LFO years). There was also a 12'' with 3 tracks from here and one more of Electric Birds (the connection with the Mille Plateaux HQs is obvious).
As you can guess, music ranges from static ambient 'post-rock' meanderings and dubby landscapes to oldschool electro, deep techno and abstract 'IDM'. Electric instruments were used subtly (it was the first Post Rock era anyway) but the means are mostly electronic. The minimalistic approach was very common despite music styles (still not all-conquering), but the concept was in a way leading to this. Most of the tracks are more or less typical of their famous creators. Nodern plays a subtle indie-tinted electronica, while Fisherofgold's track (the longer one) is an abstract noisy poem. On the whole, both CDs are beautiful and interesting.
The Quatermass people were looking for unknown artists to be released on future Presets (it's on the in-sleeves), something very commendable actually for such a big label. Of course the mp3 revolution stomped down on them a bit, as they are a work-of-art based kind of label (opposed to the 'I'll make money from DJing' mentality of dance labels and Beatport artists). And those labels don't sell anymore, unless they start meddling with the collectors' market.
I don't really know what I think about that.
VA - 2001 Personal Settings. Preset 1
Part 1 - Part 2
Info here.
VA - 2002 Personal Settings. Preset 2
Here.
Info here.
I & I Produkt
OK, this post is a surprise for me.
I had bought this one almost by accident. I knew it was dubby and that it probably came from Austria, as it has the G-Stone logo on the back cover (I guessed as a distributor or something). I didn't like a lot of things from Vienna then, but the production level was always high and a lot of them are a bit crazy (the Cheap posse, Stereotyp and many more). I had also just heard the name Dub Club out of some remix-CD of Submission out in Berlin label Meteosound, (which I now realize is sub of Shitkatapult...). The CD was cheap, I took a shot. I never had a clue who Sugar B was. It was some of the heaviest dub I've heard ever and since, spooky and dark and deep and totally stoned and I was guessing the artist was some oldschool freak gone mad, that put a record out and disappeared. The only clue was that Pulsinger did some additional production and for a time I thought it was him (wrongly). Not so much of an Internet around back then...
Last night I left it playing for some times and fell asleep with it. It reminded me once again of the Submission CD (which I have to post here someday) and it still sounded really weird and smokey and in a way one of a kind. It's like a weird Lee Perry-ish affair made by a white guy in a wooden cabin in the darkest forest with lo-fi equipment (is this a politically correct thing to say?) . It's abstract and cerebral and unsettling where typical dub it would be earthy and root-oriented, still it sounds very personal and genuine and in a lot of ways moving. Did I mentioned it's also scary?
Today I found he is Martin Forster, the head of Dub Club and one of the Edelweiss project. This is the one record he recorded solo. What more can I say?
No one I know has heard this one, yet it makes even the Crooklyn records sound poppy. Give it a try. At nighttime with headphones on it would be fitting.
Sugar B - 2000, I & I Produkt
Here.
Info here.
Atina.Latino
This is the first Mambotur album I talked about in the last post, also through MultiColor.
More latino colored than the next one, it's a product of a process similar to the Senor Coconut records of the time, a fusing of latino 'ethnic' music elements with a touch of pop and european 'experimental' electronic music techniques. Uwe Schmidt is attributed some additional production credits (and thanks), his influence though can be easily heard throughout the whole album. The reason I think I like 'Al.Frente' a little more is that it has the Mambotur mark, it's more original in its own way, where as this one is the First Record, showing its influences more, going down a certain path already trodden. But it's all just about personal taste, so...
Mambotur - 2002, Atina.Latino
Part 1 - Part 2
Info here.
Al.Frente
Mambotur is a project of Argenis Brito and Pier Bucci, now both famous on their own and, at the same time, constantly in groups and collaborations with the Cadenza/ Perlon guys. They are really well known, I think, so I'll cut to the chase. This (of course) went out in multiColor.
If you're expecting minimal dance elements and lots of funky clip-clop techno, you're for a small surprise. This Mambotur album is closer in style with the already posted 'Blind Behaviour' (where Bucci played a part in the recording, and which btw was recently re-printed in vinyl, run now). This is almost an electronic pop album, though the occasional deep techno track will casually turn up, in the almost typical now neo-latin style (call it sentimental minimalism). Some tracks have SA-spanish lyrics over sweet melodies, all are more or less dub infused, never going uptempo but without getting at all boring. Of course, the 'electro-latino' character of these recordings is obvious as a mannerism, but also is artistic expression and choice.
To sum up, this is the counterpoint to Cadenza's percussive marathons, without which those tool-tracks would be no more than... well, just tool-tracks; it would be stretching to call their producers artists. Personally, I like a lot Pier Bucci's music, the album in Border Community in particular (maybe my favourite release there, along with Adamski's and Heim's). And Argenis Brito has a really good voice. And stage manners, I watched him a few years ago with the Senor Coconut live band. Despite Mr.Schmidt's overwhelming maestro presence, he effortlessly managed to gain the crowd by being pleasant and entertaining. In a good sense, and believe me that is rare.
I remember I found this CD in the 'Lounge' shelf... Hmm. At the moment I've lost track of the first one (I was going for a double post actually), but soon I'll find it and up it.
It's summer down there...
Mambotur - 2005, al.frente
Part 1 - Part 2
Info here.
Quiz #2C
It's really weird that no one has yet recognized the Great Beast, the allegedly greatest magician of the previous century, the industrial era Lucifer incarnate. Him who paved the way for a LOT of others who later claimed fame and fortune for achievements rightly of his own.
I'm talking of course about Aleister Crowley, the one big guy that single-handedly managed to provoke so much admiration and spite at the same time that even though decades have passed and hundreds of books about him are still around, very few (should claim to) have understood what he really tried to accomplice with his life. And because everyone that 'knows' who he was seems to have an opinion on him, I won't share mine. If you're interested to check him out, you must do by yourself. I can only tell you it's worth it.
A simple Google search will feed you with thousands of links, but it's better if you stick to what unbiased bios you find and his books. Lots of stuff to read here. 'Yoga for Yahoos' may be the best written book for Yoga you will ever read, and 'The Book Of Lies' is my personal favorite.
I think that if I had put this photo up in the first place it would be more obvious who he was, right?
Du Bist Die Stadt
I found this one yesterday. I guess it says "You are the City". By the cool layout and the very informative booklet (if you read German, which I can't), I gather it's a compilation by artists participating in a festival that took place in 2002 throughout the city of Koeln/Cologne. There is also a bicycle-bar maskot, but after that it's getting confusing... I hope it was paid by the municipality (ah, those northeners ...).
It was released by the (incredibly named) Scheinselbstaending label, which in my opinion is one of the best pop oriented electronic labels, a evolutionary branch parallel in a way with Ladomat, more towards the electro-pop direction. There were definitely some strong connections with Kompakt from the beginning, while a (very) similar style was more or less adopted by Kompakt Pop later. The label boasts an amazing release by Luomo (with Raz Ohara vocals), some Pet Shop Boys-sounding 12'' by Baxendale of later 'I Built This City' fame, the first release of Drei Farben House and some stuff by Lothar Hempel aka Blitz (Auftrieb) aka Magnet (Kompakt) aka Phong Sui (Kompakt Pop) and once collaborator of Joerg Burger. Main feature artist is Brant, possibly the owner (any help here?).
The CD more or less clarifies its intentions from track one, embedding Burger-like pop techno sensitivities with Salz-like sweet fat minimal. Contains some typical mellow techno by Reinhard Voigt, M. Schaffhaeuser and the unexpectedly good Bum Khun Cha Youth (?), along some vocal pop bastardized with tech-house quality tracks by more or less unknown (at least to me) artists. Also an atypical '80s Brinkmann german vocal track and a Cologne-pop cover of The Smiths' 'Last Night I Dreamed That Somebody Loved Me' by Brant & Mr. Roper, which two years later got a remix by Ada and went on and slipped into the marvelous 2007 'Please Please Please' mix by master Tobias Thomas [Kompakt CD 58]. Who had written a small introductory text on the folder of this CD back in 2003, to come back full round.
It's unexpectedly and refreshingly good. If more pop was like this, I wouldn't need much else.
VA - 2003, Du Bist Die Stadt
Part 1 - Part 2
Info here.
A beautiful but outdated site of Scheinselbstaending can be found here.
Last but not least: check THIS.
Counting
I've been checking my RS downloads indicators and doing some thinking. To start with, a big thanx to everyone for checking out this page and for the occasional comment. And I've also been lucky to have the minimum of spam, which by the way I still hate so quit it.
It's amazing how popular the Drexciyan records posted here have been. Really don't know why, though I love them too. I think people recognize them or search for them and just download them. They are now of a cult status, I understand. Rightly, don't get me wrong. But I wonder if there is a logo more recognizable than 'UR'. Some classics like 'Pop Artificielle' and 'Soundtrack 313' follow with (much) lesser clicks. Some of the Rother ones also go unexpectedly well. Less popular but still strong stand some listening electronics or 'IDM' releases, but only the ones from well known names (like Pole, Friedmann, or the Toytronic one). And the Heckmann ones.
Cologne techno and listening stuff is sadly overlooked (with the exception of Gas' apparently rare debut 'Zauberberg'). For example take 'Forever Sweet', which it's an album by as much a supergroup as you can get in this style of music, it's supposed to be commercial, and I know that not a lot of people have it. But it's not that much wanted. Or the magnificent 'Dancer' compilation (which I intentionally left without comments and had even fewer downloads), some years old and not so rare but still top quality, ahead of it's time and surely worth it. Kompakt fans seem to be more interested to get the latest release two weeks before it's out than listening to something from the back catalogue. Maybe history is a totally boring lesson after all. But it still makes me sad, cause I like it.
Most of the times when I post a release, I try to keep in mind if it's available around, searching as much as I have the time. I also like to share some not-so-much known or rare numbers and low-profile compilations with unreleased tracks by famous artists. Most exceptional example of this is the 'Ego' compilation, a limited pressing, 2CDs full of unreleased improvised live stuff, good tracks by artists that are still considered top. Which was downloaded by only two persons. Or the 'Station 17+' remix compilation, the prophetic 'WiR' Ladomat compilation and the 'Music For Children' concept, which were mostly ignored.
The thing is, does a record really have to be charted to be good? Everyone with an IQ over 20 could reply to that, still more or less we all do act like it has to. If the 'Ego' CDs were released by Soul Jazz or Raster-Noton or simply Kompakt, they would sell millions and everybody would pick them. It's normal. If I find somewhere a bootleg by a band I'm sure I like, I'll pick it up with saliva dripping, but if it's a band I've heard it might be good but haven't heard it yet, propably I'll pass. There is so much more music I have to check before spending my so few but precious money, so I've got to move on. More or less this was also happening during the vinyl era, you could just miss some records even though it was later apparent you'd loved them (check so many comments on old records everywhere). But I feel this is happening in a so much larger scale now.
The info overload by all types of marketing (corporate, mouth-to-mouth, MySpace, journalists' hypes) brought us to a point where, literally, all meaning is lost. A track might be considered successful, cause it was played by XXXX XXXXX last week and it made three hundred people on coke scream at the same time (which is a really difficult thing to do...). Someone edits it out of an illegal recording directly from the mixer and plays it every night or, worse, releases it as a bootleg in 2000 copies, making money instead of the producer that created it. After two months time when the official release is at last out it's already OLD and sells merely 500, while a new super hit remix by another 'artist 'will be played everywhere in its place.
When you have thousands of people trying to be DJs/producers, i.e. trying to achieve all this as a lifestyle so they can have sex and drugs and say they do music, all you get is the current situation. Where the average teen DJ-to-be has no role model to look up to, unless he wants to be a merchant (or a pimp, as it goes for the hip hop side). Where all that can be bought can be found everywhere for free, but no one's giving you any hints what to get. And where the only hints you get are either from illiterate journalists that often get paid (in demos mostly) to support someone over the other, or the sales' charts of Beatport/ Juno/ Bleep/ Decks/ etc, which of course have some very good reasons to promote certain artists and hypes. The reasons being, some of them 'star' artists own those stores, or are friends/partners with the owners. For certain labels, it's considered worthy of having almost all of their releases, just because the last one topped for two weeks on the charts of some famous (friendly) DJ who has decided to promote it, regardless of originality, quality or time endurance . For the rare one that truly deserves this kind of treatment, a hundred others don't.
And that leaves us normal people with the share-net. Where we can propose stuff to each other, listen to their proposals in turn, help each other out of this swamp of crap floating around which sooner or later we'll feed back. Obviously, as important as the roots are for the tree, the new branches are the future. New music is important. So, dear friends, instead of posting the latest stuff just because it's new and then fight about it with someone like you because s/he "stole" the links (?!?!?!?!?!?), maybe it'd be better to write some shit about why you are posting this. Even if this means you'll post two instead of twenty records. Maybe then you'll see you don't have to listen to a lot of crap, just the crap you like most. And maybe we'll have some more time to listen to them, instead of just piling them in hard drives, lost amongst a flood of faster downloads, more downloads, earlier promos, fake exclusives, CUT.
I really believe the music we hear is overestimated. And more over-evaluated than music is the lifestyle and the mentality it promotes. Most of you are too young to know, but hey, some say there is nothing new in art. This rush for the new big thing, this feeling that no one has done it before, is only partially true. 'No one has done it like this before' would be more accurate, I think. So, when someone rushes you for something new that's old in two days, check if he's charging you for something. And take your time to decide if you like it. And if you do, stand for it and support it. Then and only then will something be of value to you or to the people you communicate with.
