Love it or hate it, lo-fi house has been the all-permeating sound of the underground in 2016 – but a recent batch of artists have been discussed more for their jokey names and apparently ironic attitude to the scene than their music. Has underground house music run out of ideas? Last month, a deep house track started to follow me everywhere I went on YouTube. It would have faded into the background had it not been for the fact it was by an artist called DJ Boring and features an image of ‘90s icon Winona Ryder as its label. At the time of writing, ‘Winona’, which samples an interview with the actor, has had over 445,000 plays on YouTube. It probably doesn’t hurt that it comes off the back of a wave of Winona Ryder nostalgia thanks to Stranger Things, but it’s still a huge number for an unknown artist working in a micro-scene that’s currently referred to as “lo-fi house”.
The alternative to big room house music has gone by many names – outsider house, knackered house and raw house are a few – but over the past several months this evolving sub-genre of music appears to have reached saturation point. Both Whities boss Nic Tasker and Joakim have remarked that there’s too much “jazzy” and “cute” lo-fi house at the moment, while Midland has suggested it’s more concerned with style than substance. “If a record has a photo of nature taken on a film camera as its centre label, it is lo-fi house,” he quipped on Twitter. “The current wave of lo-fi producers lean on humor and irony in an attempt to be staunchly anti-authentic”
It’s not just DJ Boring that’s caught my attention this year. Ross From Friends and DJ Seinfeld are two more artists making fuzzy house with names that don’t appear to take themselves too seriously (the former has written a track about pasta called ‘Durum Wheat’). Florida-based Blair Sound Design, who runs a coffee-themed label called French Press Lounge, fuses video game box art, old school record label imagery and vaporwave-like typography on his sleeves, and refers to his music as “cheap house” on SoundCloud. The closest comparison might be the music of L.I.E.S. or Mood Hut, but while those labels attempt to create underground authenticity through a punk attitude or simple anonymity, the current wave of lo-fi producers lean on humor and irony in an attempt to be staunchly anti-authentic.
rdevito
E-Beamz ing owns it \m/
Try these and tell me what you think:
Homepark - Lost In Days EP (FINA 022)
No Moon - Everything's Coming Up Millhouse
Look Like - Shadows Groove
ASOK - Virtual Light
OrangestO
quote:
Originally posted by rdevito
Homepark - Lost In Days EP (FINA 022)
Listened to the previews and picked it up. Nice release; I especially like the B side.
quote:
Originally posted by rdevito
ASOK - Virtual Light
I've been obsessed with Lobster Theremin in the last few months. Dope label.
Thanks for the recommends. I'll have to skim through FINA's catalog more for sure.
Silky Johnson
You would probably like most of what the Studio Barnhus crew are doing (one of my fave labels). Axel Boman, Kornel Kovacs, Baba Stiltz (most especially him, in terms of productions), Art Alfie, and Mr Tophat particularly.
I wouldn't really call it "lo-fi" as you describe, but most of what they put out, be it productions or mixes, has an "old dusty records" sound that I cannot get enough of.
in Swedes, meng.
Also a huge fan of Lobster Theremin! Saw Route 8 back in November and it was such a ing awesome jam.
Silky Johnson
Like omfg fadadjfaksdjla;kjababa
wotyzoid
Look at the cool kids. This has been like a thing now, right? Its good, I like it better than most of that Romanian bull. I feel like its a revisited style better done by real Detroit niggas over the years, though.
Silky Johnson
^^^ Rofl, dunno why that made me laugh, but it did. :stongue:
wotyzoid
I'm not hip anymore so I don't know much about this new , but it's nice, it's what I was trying to say.:p
Edit: one of my buds has been telling me about lobster theremin for the past year but I just never full on bought it. I've been listening to mostly older stuff.
Mr.Mystery
Dudes can't ing mix their tracks properly, so they just release them as is and call it "ironic."
wotyzoid
I should send them a demo, my mix downs are ty and brute like that.
Lews
Silky Johnson
Can I also say that I hate Fact mag? ing garbo articles that come off like they were written by complete ing posers and noobs.
