The Minimal artistic ideal

[northernlight]

What i'm hearing is that allot of so-called minimal cats seem to be stuck in a rut musicly and 98% of the stuff i hear from the so-called minimal community sounds exactly the same as the last minimal track i heard before it. The only named genre that i can think of that has had less diversity was hard techno in the late 90's and early 2000's. I don't know about you but for me that sets off a red flag. I think the concept behind minimalism is genious and it would be a shame to just sit back and watch it become a period piece like acid house or hard techno did. I don't mean to be a buzzkill but honestly if you're just now getting into the electronic music production game and are hell bent on making minimal you are at the least 7 years too late. If you make a record that ends up sounding like allot of other peoples without a twist or innovation you are going to single handedly contribute to the demise of this genre. That stuff would have been fine in the past when there was a lack of records with that sound but to do it now would just be flooding the market and will end up hurting the people who got the genre where it is. I have real respect for the concept of minimalism and the genre itself and that is the reason i don't make minimal techno records for a living. I don't want to see it turned into a musical footnote. The way forward is to take a good lesson from what you hear and hold onto it and then add in something different and i hear very little of that in the genre. Why do you think Rob Hood hasn't made any Monobox records in fck knows how long now, why do you think Basic Channel is sitting off to the side? It's because they've seen the market get flooded out before and they know if they keep making those records they are just going to add to it's demise. If you love minimal don't make minimal make something new. You can take the knowlege gained from the genre and use it in something thats twisted out and different enough that it rides the edge of minimal and something else. It's not exactly an easy thing to do and not everybody is equipped to do it. If innovation was easy all of us would be millionaires, but the difficulty is no excuse for not trying.

inspiring post

[maks]

minimalism in general demands a very large frame, an outsize context, and through the presence of that frame reveals to us much of what minimalism has to offer, which is a revelation of scale, spectral and dynamic depth and complexity, and a non-egocentric vision of our relationship to the nearly infinite universe in which we exist.

David Moulton

[PsyTox]

as my friend valium said in the 1990s when I asked him why he called his music minimal techno:
Simplicity is the key to all magic.

I still keep it in mind during sets and producing. Filip is the king

[chester]

to me, minimal techno is a few things. for one, it's a reaction against the cliches of trance, by that i mean drum rolls and build-ups.

the other part is that minimal techno should be hypnotic. and this is often best achieved through small changes over time. it's drug music basically, meant for the head, not just the booty.

[chester]

i'm new. hello people

i use ableton live, a nord modular, and a cool plugin called More Feedback Machine 2 to construct my spacy beats.

[Storlon]

and a cool plugin called More Feedback Machine 2

yep, we love Urs

[steevio]

i hear ya
It's actually pretty ironic.
The reason Techno sounded the way it did was because nobody in Detroit could afford the expensive equipment so automaticly the music was going to sound different than pop music. That is the exact reason i use computers, because it's cheaper than the hardware and yet i still seem to get some sht from some locals out here for it. I don't really care though, there are allot of people out there that have loads of hardware and make complete bullshit with it. People for some reason don't want to admit that the sound is in the hands of the user. Give a real talent just a tin can and a 4 track reel to reel and his track will wipe the floor with the talentless rich kid who sits in his room that looks like the Moog factory. These cats need to admit that equipment is an inadimate object that does not play itself, it takes human interaction to give it soul.

this seems to have gone way off topic, but i'd like to answer this post.
i have to agree on 90% of what you've said, and that in the end its all about your ability as a musician, and i also agree that purism doesnt go anywhere, and you are right to not take any flak about using software, but one thing keeps popping into my head, and its the memory of the first time i heard those machines through a sound system back in the day, and i can still hear those 808's 909's and 303's and the effect they had on me.
theres something very special about the way those machines sounded, i sometimes wonder if house and techno would ever have happened without them, if it had it would be a very different beast.
theres just something about that kit that was right for the time, and it still resonates today. i know i've pulled you up on the whole ghetto thing before, i dont really think the ghetto has anything to do with it. when i first heard a 909 kick, it drove its essence right into the centre of my skull, and i was instantly hooked. at this time i didnt even know where detroit was, it was an Orbital kick drum at a UK rave.
we can't live in the past, but i still swear by the old analogue gear, it almost has a soul of its own, a mixture of old and new technology has always been the way music has progressed, you have to be open minded, move forward, but also take heed of the old masters, those guys around you in detroit have a shitload of experience.

good luck in the dojo mate !!

[basic miniwall]

its a puzzle of music, thers a picture but, did u get it//u must asebmle the fckn parts...