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From the recent Month In Techno column at Pitchfork (written by Philip Sherburne):
| quote: | ...But 2007 felt less like a year of innovations, of bold leaps and technological alchemy, than a year of tweaks to the form, of honing in on what I've long called the "boom-tick template."
To illustrate the latter, you need look no further than Dubfire's "Ribcage". One of the year's biggest singles, it's also one of the most contentious. When the dance-music website Resident Advisor rated it only 1.5 on a scale of 5, their pan felt like a provocation, and that's just how many participants on the RA forums took it. In many ways, it's a fine track; when mixed well for the dancefloor, its shifting layers of ping-ponging bleeps and white noise create long, tension-loaded layers. Dubbing it a "tool," as RA's review did, seems a bit unfair; techno-- at least the more streamlined versions of it-- needs its tools. But something about "Ribcage" also feels oddly calculated, as though it were trying too hard to be epic, from its length (12:25) to its almost cautious sense of restraint. On the one hand it feels like an attempt at something I'd call "stadium minimal," which isn't necessarily a bad thing-- you could say the same of tracks by Carl Craig, Radio Slave, and Ricardo Villalobos. But without indulging in the risk-taking that makes those producers' best work so compelling, "Ribcage" ends up doing little more than stewing in its own juices. Some critics have attacked the tune for being opportunistic, given that Dubfire is best known as a member of the superstar progressive-house outfit Deep Dish, and it's certainly possible to read the record as an attempt to gain some underground credibility: from its sound to its one-sided pressing, duly adorned with a sticker that makes it look more like a bootleg, the record certainly aspires to a measure of underground cachet.
I don't mean to single out "Ribcage" as an act of bad faith, and I'm certainly not bothered that progressive house's mainstays are migrating towards other styles. (In any case, that's hardly a new development; DJs like John Digweed were charting Kompakt records a few years back, and the rise of German minimalists in the proving grounds of Ibiza have led to a lot of mingling between the Anglo-American old guard and the Continental upstarts.) But the degree to which "Ribcage" comes off as an exercise in textbook minimal is a reminder of how depressingly conservative the genre can be. It's the same problem facing indie rock: from home recording to DIY distribution, it's easier than ever to put a record out. (Mind you, I think this is a good thing: I made a record this year myself, recorded at home and released on a small label, so I'd be a hypocrite if I argued for higher barriers to entry.) But the sheer quantity of soundalike boompty-boompty is mind-numbing. I've always loved techno precisely for its streamlined seamlessness, but with so much material out there that sounds almost as if it's trying to be anonymous, indistinguishable, one begins to wonder if techno's long, asymptotal slope towards its ideal type isn't beginning to split subatomic hairs... |
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"All revolutions are the sheerest fantasies until they happen; then they become historical inevitabilities."
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