Minimal

[nickcraddock]

hello

never posted outside the mixes threads before, so here goes...

i saw something over HERE that touched upon something that i've been wondering about for a while. specifically, this quote did it:

Indeed! ... I hope commercialismn doen't destroy Minimal like it did with House Music!

Is it really the case that people think of this thing 'Minimal' as being a distinct kind of music, separate to House or Techno?

Do people still have criteria for what they deem to be 'House' or 'Techno', or is all just a big sloppy grey area these days. Are they outdated terms - do they mean anything to anyone any more?

I can appreciate that pigeonholes can be a convenient way of referring to music without having to recite a massive speech every time you're asked what you're into, but I think it's a bit weird when people embrace these divisions so wholeheartedly. I'd like to point out here that I'm not levelling any personal criticism at Ghazala here - his comment was just a flashpoint behind raising this point.

sorry for such a meaty first post...

nick

[deccard]

minimal is soooo 2005

[skept]

Is it really the case that people think of this thing 'Minimal' as being a distinct kind of music, separate to House or Techno?

to me it seems that minimal is more of an adjective preceding house or techno than it is a distinct genre.

Do people still have criteria for what they deem to be 'House' or 'Techno', or is all just a big sloppy grey area these days. Are they outdated terms - do they mean anything to anyone any more?

seems to me like it is a big grey area. eg: techhouse

yeah people really do get trapped up in a genre. other people get mad and say "i just make music, i don't concern myself with genre" which i just reply to by saying you have to describe you music some how right?

[gillsans]

Here is Philip Sherburnes new "This month in Techno" article from Pitchfork.

http://www.pitchforkmedia.com/features/ ... 5-06.shtml

He touches on some of what has been discussed here recently about the popularity of minimal (in Berlin).

[Der geile Ami]

really tho, how can you commercialize this music? So much of it is completely unaccessible by the mainstream public. To try ot bastardize it would only make something that did not sound like it.

cool article

[mayzee]

really tho, how can you commercialize this music? So much of it is completely unaccessible by the mainstream public. To try ot bastardize it would only make something that did not sound like it.

yup... I think the people who get worried about things being commercialised and diluted don't really have to worry... although because the people who write the magazines and tell the people who don't know what they really like what they should be listening to you get more people interested in the style. Its not the same as something going 'mainstream' though...

I also think the popularity is part of a reaction to modern life, everyones looking for less clutter and more simplicity in everything they do, people like minimal design and the marriage of form and function more than they ever have, and minimal music kinda fits in with this ethos.

also agree with skept - to me its all house & techno, after that you use other words to say what sort of house or techno it is... in any form of art theres minimalism, but you wouldn't put minimal as something separate to painting or sculpture.

[clubfoot]

I find what we are calling "minimal" these days is often neither techno or house. That is, if you think of Techno as being typified by the Detroit sound etc and House music being a descendant of disco (excuse my generalism). I find a lot of the current "minimal" too slow to warrant the (traditional) Techno tag but perhaps also too abstract to fall into the House category. So, I guess "minimal" really finds itself in the middle ground between these two perhaps leaning more towards one or the other - often flirting with other styles such as progressive, dub, jazz, blues.

And that's the beauty of "minimal" - pretty much anything goes. Perhaps "minimal" can be best described as electronica for dancing to.

[mayzee]

see what you mean... and agree 90% but I guess it also depends on how you define those for a start... I'm with you on house being a disco descendant (although prog house has never been disco-ey... maybe thats why the prog crowd have also picked up on minimal stuff a bit)...

I don't know if theres ever been such a thing as a 'traditional' techno tag though... techno is by its nature a change ridden and experimental form which has spawned untold other sounds/genres over the years... theres so many techno variants out there personally I still see minimal as sitting (mostly) under the techno banner...

"And that's the beauty of "minimal" - pretty much anything goes. Perhaps "minimal" can be best described as electronica for dancing to."

agree with this 100% though again to me the 'anything goes' idea is something thats been prevalent in techno since the beginning