In Strict Tempo, vol. 16 - A Collection of Thoughts
More thoughts on the state of music journalism given recent events and the dance music industry in general, plus plenty of new music thoughts
There’s no one overall topic of the newsletter this week so I’m just going to go off on a couple of different subjects before getting to the good stuff of new music.
Vice announced yesterday that they’d no longer be publishing content to their website, instead moving more to a model of producing content for other traditional media sites. That’s pretty sad, not only for the job losses, but also for the what feels pretty rapid implosion of what only a few years ago was a pretty essential read for fans of dance music. Okay it could be pretty snarky in tone, and ignoring the elephant in the room of the questionable politics of one of its founders, it was one of the few places that wrote in depth about dance music, with knowledgable and passionate writers and treated a big room club tune with the same reverence as the latest Burial release. I’m not going to bother sharing any favourite articles because they’ll probably be offline by the end of the day, and it’s a real shame that this archive of a fertile period of recent electronic music history won’t be available to read any more, and that goes back to what I wrote previously about tunes being unavailable on DSPs. There was an old idiom that ‘if it’s on the internet it’s there forever’ and anyone who’s ever been tagged in an unflattering image on Facebook probably believes that still, but recent events are proving that’s not always the case. The internet - for regular consumers - has been a fixture of our lives for around quarter of a century now, if not longer, and there’s been entire scenes birthed and destroyed entirely online. It’s a shame that even though we have the technology to archive everything, forever so much stuff is still being lost, possibly forever.
I went into Soho last week for a little trek around the record shops there. It’s something I rarely do any more, since moving away from London I tend to buy most of my records online, but it’s still a nice way to while away an hour or so in an area of town I love and used to spend a lot of time in. I came back with a few 12”s, a format I don’t really buy too much of these days, for a few reasons, but mainly the price of them. Four 12” records from one shop set me back £60. That’s £15 each. I know that’s more or less what they cost these days but is it any wonder the format is struggling? No I know that it’s not necessarily the fault of the shops that records are costing £15, and the shops in Soho will have higher overheads than most, but at every part of the chain costs are going through the roof. A medium sized run of a 12” in a picture sleeve could easily set a label back around £2,000 these days, and then you’ve got mastering, promotion, distribution, artwork and MCPS fees to take into account before you can even begin to think about giving the artist any money. As oil prices rise and becomes more scarce the cost of vinyl is only going to get higher, so massive respect to those labels still committing to put records out in a difficult market. It was heartening to see the racks in these shops still bursting with independent label 12”s, so there’s still a market there for them, but a big portion seems to be reissues where you know there’s a market for it based on how many people want it on Discogs.
Apple Music are betting on Dolby Atmos audio as their main USP against rivals at the moment, and are incentivising labels to master tracks in the format by offering a 10% increase in royalties for tracks delivered in Dolby Atmos. There’s been some blowback on this as AIM in particular are saying that it’s pricing indie labels out due to the higher mastering costs, but I’m not sure I agree - it doesn’t cost a huge amount to get a track remastered in the format, and the extra support Apple give tracks in the format (for the time being at least) is useful at least. It’s a different tactic to Spotify’s Discovery feature which essentially gives Spotify a discount on the stream rate paid to the label for extra promotion, and results in a better listener experience for those with the right headphones (which let’s remember is the reason Apple got into the music game in the first place - to sell hardware). My only issue is that dance music doesn’t always translate that well to the Atmos mastering process, there’s no space built in to a techno or tech-house track for instance, everything’s just either panned left or right (if they even do that). At least with a band or orchestra you can try and replicate how it would appear live with separation between the recorded parts based on how the performers arrange themselves on stage or on the studio. Anyway, I think it’s a nice attempt from Apple to try and differentiate themselves from other DSPs and if labels get a small kickback from that then that’s all good with me.
Tunnel Vision
Onto this weeks new music then and we start with another single from that upcoming Bullion album. After his track with Carly Rae Jepsen a couple of weeks back he’s collaborated with Panda Bear this time, and you can tell as the track definitely has a real Animal Collective influence to it. Bullion is a really underrated producer, and Blue Pedro was one of the most fun tracks of the past ten or so years (and probably, indirectly was responsible for that Sea Shanty trend that blew up social media a year or two ago).
Sandwell District drop their new LP today, digitally too. It’s crazy, up until late last year the SD stuff hadn’t been available anywhere other than on a load of expensive vinyl records and an equally expensive CD, and now we’ve got it all, plus a load of new and previously unreleased stuff. Where Next? was the name of their blog if anyone remembers that, and this serves as an unexpected tribute to the late Juan Mendez aka Silent Servant who was responsible for a lot of the aesthetics of the whole Sandwell project.
Something I didn’t expect to see this week was this EP on Peak Oil from Wrecked Lightship which is a side project from Appleblim and Bleeker. This is right up my street this, just the right combo of dark drums, bleeps and low end. RIYL Pessimist and that kind of stuff.
There’s a new EP from Stereolab’s Laetitia Sadier that’s really nice and a pleasent listen.
A couple of new tracks from Dabrye. I won’t say much about this as Sam says more than any of us ever could in his latest Herb Sundays newsletter (an essential subscribe, btw) but you know what to expect here - meticulous beatmaking from one of the best to ever do it. I remember when 3/3 came out and we had a massive discussion about ‘backpack’ hip-hop in the office about it. Lots of people think backpack is a disparaging term, but I think it’s a badge to be proud of, and after listening to 3/3 again we went back and reevaluated a lot of records that got a bad press for being unfashionable at the time, but actually still sound relevant and fresh some 20 odd years later. El-P and Aesop Rock have both repressed their older records in the last few months so there’s something to be said for that.
DFA mainstays The Juan Maclean come out with a new ambient project this week, titled Infinity Machine. I’m a sucker for most things DFA and an unashamed LCD Soundsystem fanboy so I was always going to be intrigued by this. First thoughts? Sounds pretty decent.
Wrapping things up this week - a new tune from Julio Bashmore. Quite a nice old-skool house vibe to this, with a good does of funk. It won’t be as omnipresent as Au Seve was - christ, remember Au Seve? It felt like you couldn’t move for hearing that in the clubs back in 2012. Looks like it’s still pretty pricey on Discogs too.
Thanks as always for reading, thoughts, comments and shares always appreciated!