Thursday, January 29, 2004

Notable Electronica

Music Wonkery

I wouldn’t even think of trying to compete in music writing with Johno, but as a long-time (suffering) fan of electronic music, I thought I might put together a list of notable stuff...you can’t really go wrong with any of this.

1. Orbital - “Orbital 2”. The “brown” CD.  Classic mid-nineties, easily the most polished effort of its time, and therefore somewhat timeless.  “there is a twist in space”

2. Tangerine Dream - “Poland”. Get the import, 2 CD version.  An absolute classic; a landmark political and musical event.  One of the finest long-form electronic concerts ever.

3. Underworld - “dubnobasswithmyheadman”.  Spooky, weird, depressing, and brilliant.  Later Underworld is more polished and even better, but this is a key recording and lead-in to what they became.

4. LFO - “Advance”.  Brilliant early, experimental recording.  Ridiculously difficult to find, and proportionally fantastic.  Found this when it was attached to the computer game “Hardwar”; it was one of the first games to have “serious” music with it. 

5. Junkie XL - “Big Sounds of the Drags”.  One of the grooviest “dance” CDs ever.  It’s a bit of a bridge between listening music and dance, though—tracks are danceable but just plain fantastic listening.  Brilliant production.

6. Assemblage 23 - “Defiance”.  Good late-model melodic industrial...showing you where that genre has gone.  Doesn’t really stand up with the rest of this list, but is useful as a touchstone for this style.

7. Aphex Twin - “Selected Ambient Works 85-92”. Xtal, oh xtal. Singular, beautiful, ethereal...and really the last thing by Richard James I actually liked.  A landmark.

8. Alpinestars - “B.A.S.I.C.”. The best new “retro” electronic out there...along with its followup “White Noise”.  Brand new music that has groovy analog shit in it.

9. Sasha - “Airdrawndagger”. Hated it the first time I heard it, as I was expecting something different.  Picked it up again 6 months later because I couuld still remember some of it, and I’ve loved it ever since.  This is one of my highest recommendations on the list, and the first “DJ” CD I’ve really respected. Unless you count Tom Holkenberg (Junkie XL) as a DJ.

10. Morel - “Queen of the Highway”. Enveloping, dark, groovy, and local.  Just what the doctor ordered.  Morel worked with Deep Dish, and the searing, unstoppable beat of this CD smooths out the harshness (in meaning, not tone) of the lyrics.

That’ll get you started.  Every CD on this list is utterly different from the others; they are all good representatives of their sub-genres...so buy, damn you!


Posted by Ross on 01/29/04 at 03:25 PM
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