The Minimal artistic ideal

[sauce]

OK.


After starting this thread (mainly as a joke! ..as a way to snub my nose at this cheesiest of all cheeses) and now reading the responses, all I have to say is...

BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!!!

*holds sides and gasps for air at the pain of laughing sooooo hard*

..i don't understand why many are so opposed to actually communicating ideas about what minimal/minimalism is. since you know...this is a minimal techno forum. forum.. look that word up.

The reaon everyone gets so reluctant to discuss these things is NOT because it's been discussed so many times. (If it has, show me!!) It's because our beloved genre is peppered with the need to keep things shrouded in vague imbiguity, for the sake of pretentious elitism... Which I am all for!!

Anyone who says it is usesless to try and compare minimal techno to other minimal art doesn't know what they are talking about, for real! I grew up in Flint, Michigan, about one hour outside of Detroit. In 1988 I entered high school and started raving, at least as much as one could rave in 1988. Since Flint was too dangerous to party in, most of my friends and I would drive to Detroit on the weekends. The discussions surrounding "minimal" started almost as fast as techno itself, becoming a fad amongst electronic music purists in much the same fashion as it is today. The first "minimalist" techno mixtapes I came across (about 1990) were accompanied by essays and photocopied artwork by the likes of Carl Andre, Philip Glass, Donald Judd and lots of other minimalist artists. You see, THAT'S why I found it surprising a few years ago to realize that minimal techno was getting popular again, as a style and as a philosophy. It was like I had come full circle and found myself in 1990! Don't get me wrong, it was a refreshing and welcome change.. a return to an inspiring sensibility. I, for one, embrace it.

Have any of you seen Ishkur's Guide to Electronic music?

http://www.di.fm/edmguide/edmguide.html

Go to the Techno section, and then go to Minimal. That about sums it up.

[532nm]

Anyone who says it is usesless to try and compare minimal techno to other minimal art doesn't know what they are talking about, for real!

you dont think it's usless to compare older minimal art(visual and aural) to modern minimal techno?

whats the point? where does it get us at the end of the day? nowhere.

if there's one thing i know for sure is that minimal techno, should always evolve and never be content with being compared to anything.

so yeah, i stand by my opinion.

so, way to "snub your nose at this cheesiest of all cheeses" with your "mainly as a joke" thread.

[tzusing]

btw i find it strange that not more people want to explore and share ideas on this topic. this is a FORUM. and this is MNML.nl.

Maybe because we talked this through a fantastrillion times already?

i don't know if can agree with this. there is still space to explore things that relate to minimalism. we can see this trend of minimalism in other forms of pop music. from folk artist like iron and wine to producers like jay dee, timbaland, and a sh!t load of hiphop guys...

when i was much younger i had a conversation with a fellow music lover that told me... a good stereo isn't important, as long as you can still hear the melody. because music is melody.
i don't agree with his statement...but i found it to be rather profound...he was pointing at something similar to minimalism. maybe it isn't repetition. but rather core. all we need is the core of the music... he was using a fucking 50 dollar stereo to listen to classical music.

but anyways my point is to say that...one can write books and books and volumes and volumes on minimalism...because it has already been done before.

we haven't even brought in the topic of minimalism and how it reflects and relates to society.

[tzusing]

Anyone who says it is usesless to try and compare minimal techno to other minimal art doesn't know what they are talking about, for real!

you dont think it's usless to compare older minimal art(visual and aural) to modern minimal techno?

whats the point? where does it get us at the end of the day? nowhere.

if there's one thing i know for sure is that minimal techno, should always evolve and never be content with being compared to anything.

so yeah, i stand by my opinion.

so, way to "snub your nose at this cheesiest of all cheeses" with your "mainly as a joke" thread.

maybe you are not interested in history. this is fine. but i think its pretty cool when i hear something thinking its some new hot sh!t and find that its been done 40 years ago. i guess i'm kinda nerdy.
check this clip out

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DyP7R9RSV-o

cut and past what? mash up what? awesome djs mixing records together to make new music what?
this sh!t has been around for 40 fucking years.

[sauce]

you dont think it's usless to compare older minimal art(visual and aural) to modern minimal techno?

Ummmm.... no.

I tried to break this to you already: the whole idea of saying this music is "minimal" is to pay homage to an artistic IDEA, not tangible or definable, really, except within very loose, user-constrained perimeters, an idea to which we still adhere!

if there's one thing i know for sure is that minimal techno, should always evolve and never be content with being compared to anything.

Ohh... So you found a way to capture an epiphane? Congratulations!!

Hate to tell you, but there's nothing new under the sun. Minimal techno evolved from something, so the comparisons will keep on coming. Hell, minimal techno isn't even very new, and hasn't really evolved very far from the original attempts, so your take on this is rather interesting.

minimal techno...hasn't really evolved very far from the original attempts

Let's add another twist to the original analysis:


How has minimal techno evolved?

and

How is it likeky to evolve?

One very specific way minimal has evolved since the beginning is through technology, i.e. newer gear. Another way is through sound design, as in, people are choosing to work with different types of sounds.

Reasons for these changes include the rise of IDM in the electronic music arena. Agreed? It seems the glitch has quite an influence these days!

[hydrogen]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DyP7R9RSV-o

cut and past what? mash up what? awesome djs mixing records together to make new music what?
this sht has been around for 40 fucking years.

Ohhh that is so sick! that last part.. i want that cut!

[Red Kite]

i think its pretty cool when i hear something thinking its some new hot sht and find that its been done 40 years ago. i guess i'm kinda nerdy.
check this clip out

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DyP7R9RSV-o

cut and past what? mash up what? awesome djs mixing records together to make new music what?
this sht has been around for 40 fucking years.

Know what? Minimal techno was invented in the stone age, when some jerk took a bone and banged some repetitive beat on a stone...

Sorry, but such historical "comparisons" always draw attention on similarities and neclect the obvious differences. And if you look at the music equipment, at who's doing music for whom and for what purpose, at the way people are supposed to react to the music, at the way it is performed, at the whole fucking cultural codes around it, than you must be deaf & blind not to realise that modern techno is something very different from 60s avantgarde music.

That doesn't mean some people did some amazing sh!t back than that still sounds fantastic, but to say: hey, they used loops, they used electronics, that's the same we do today - that's a very limited point of view, and anybody with at least a little background in cultural studies or art history can tell you that.

[tzusing]

i didn't actually post that video as saying...hey thats minimal techno 40 years ago. i posted that more as just an example of how loop based music have been around for so long. before the invention of drum machines, samplers and sequencers. Also i want to make th point that what we do now cannot be attributed to a small group of individuals. but is rather birthed from years of other people's experimentation.
No one is neglecting the fact that 40 years have gone by and the music is different. These "obvious differences" are assumed already. which is precisely why i don't bring them up..because they are...obvious.

also...time and time again musical ideas have been borrowed and taken out of context. and just because they are in a different cultural setting doesn't mean that they don't relate. What is fascinating is exactly the fact that they are in different cultural settings. making the point that even tho we are so different, even tho we come from different backgrounds, we have a similar sense of aesthetic. Thats fucking cool to me.
the fact that the music played by monks in temples here in taiwan gets me in the same trance as music made by the likes of sleeparchive, Ø or basic channel.
thats exciting is it not?

again...i hope you understand that i'm not saying they are the same. only an idiot would say that. what i am talking about here is the sharing of, or similarity of musical ideas.

a solid example would be...
jeff mill does not equal javanese gamelan. but did he borrow many ideas? of course.