In Strict Tempo, vol. 64: Latest News & Reviews
An update on all the hot topics in music this week, plus the usual splash of new reviews.
Thanks for all your feedback on last week’s Weatherall tribute. It’s a measure of the man that there’s been a host of articles about him this week that are worth your reading time. In particular this one from DJ Mag asks the age old question, What Would Weatherall do?
The Guardian have dropped another think-piece about Spotify, this time on their Discovery mode (something that’s been running and public knowledge for three or four years now). The headline on this one “Pay to Get Playlisted?” is really misleading. That’s not what Discovery Mode is at all. Far from being a Spotify apologist, but whatever you think the rights or wrongs of Discovery Mode are (and there are positives and negatives to it) it simply isn’t a case of paying to get playlisted. It doesn’t affect playlists - certainly not editorial ones - at all. It’s a way of pushing music using the algorithmic radio function Spotify has. One of the handful of benefits of Discovery is that it doesn’t require any upfront payment - tracks in Discovery are paid at a discounted rate, which opens the option for promotion to a wider range of artists. It means a bedroom producer with no promotional budget has access to the same promo opportunities as a major label star. If your track is shit (and there’s a LOT of shit music out there) and doesn’t get streamed, you don’t pay. If a fan searches for your music (ie. isn’t served it algorithmically) you’ll get paid the full rate for that stream (I know it’s not much, but it’s better than having a discount applied to it). Contrast that with the promotional opportunities offered at physical retailers like HMV or Rough Trade - you’ve got to pay a significant amount upfront for that, and if people still don’t buy your CD/LP you’re not going to recoup it. Music promotion has never been free - and it would have been all too easy for Spotify to take actual money for play listing but to their credit so far they haven’t.
I’ve said before that I’ve seen real success with Discovery mode, but I appreciate that won’t be the same for everyone. Discovery mode isn’t perfect, Spotify even less so, but if you’re going to bash them at least think about what you’re bashing them for.
Trance is a much maligned genre, but there’s still some big hitters there. I’d be surprised if anyone reading this isn’t signed up to Sam Valenti’s Herb Sundays Substack, so you’ve probably already seen his recent two-part dive into the music. I get trance isn’t everyone’s cup of tea, but for a period in the late 1990’s it was the dominant style of dance music, at least as far as the charts were concerned. On top of that, the pre-Millenium superclub boom was driven almost exclusively by Trance and it’s cousin Progressive House (a far cry for what passes for Progressive House these days). For many, the gateway into this scene were the Global Underground series of mixes, often recorded in (or at least inspired by) exotic locales such as Singapore, Uruguay and Tokyo, each double CD featured detailed liner notes about the DJ’s experience in said country and the night that inspired the mix.
Here’s a quick list of my favourite 5 Global Underground mixes:
020: Darren Emerson - Singapore (this is probably the mix that made me want to be a superstar DJ)
013: Sasha - Ibiza (Xpander never sounded so good!)
021: Deep Dish - Moscow (is this the only mix CD ever to feature a Dido track?!)
001: Tony DeVit - Tel Aviv (a statement of intent)
010: Danny Tenaglia - Athens (both discs incredible)
Special mention 023: James Lavelle - Barcelona (not Trance/Prog at all, but still fantastic, up there with his Fabric mix)
The Line Noise Substack is another I subscribe to. This week to celebrate it’s 200th edition (wow!) he interviewed Wolfgang Voigt about his GAS project. One section particularly stood out for me:
Like many GAS fans, I have romanticised the idea of the Königsforst as a mythical place where magic exists and beautiful music runs free, a notion probably helped by the fact I have never been there. When I ask Voigt to describe the forest, he says it is more boring - “a forest, like every forest”
I’ve been guilty of mythologising GAS in the past - I wrote an entire In Strict Tempo about it, but maybe we’re all attributing too much to music at times? Maybe, sometimes, all music is is just music? Maybe we don’t need to explain everything all the time? But isn’t that part of the fun?
Xpander
Klein - Thirteen Sense [Parkwuud Entertainment]
If My Bloody Valentine released an album in 2025 you’d hope it would sound like this. Defies classification: more than shoegaze, more than rock, more than industrial. TIP!
Cindy Lee - Diamond Jubilee [W.25th]
I don’t care how good this is, I’m not paying £75 for an album
Toresch - Untitled [Offen]
This came out on vinyl years ago, but has just appeared on digitals. Hypnotic drumming sends you deep into the groove, if you didn’t know this came out in 2016 you’d swear it was some lost Belgian new beat record.
Rainy Miller - The Fable/The Release [Fixed Abode]
A heartfelt and emotional vocal performance on this new one from Rainy Miller, gently soaring into a mesmerising ending. You know that renewal scene in Logan’s Run? This is what should soundtrack it.
Silkie - Techno Ranger [Anti-Social]
Dubstep is back! Did it ever go away? For a while you couldn’t escape it, but I guess like everything it went back to the fringes for a bit. I forgot how good good dubstep can be, and this is definitely good.
Fruit - If You Feel It, Say Yeah [Athens of the North]
The highlight of Fruit’s previously unreleased late 70’s boogie album. The 12” mix came out a while back, but the 7” version has remained out of reach until now. Of course we all love an extended disco mix, but sometimes this kind of music is meant to be heard on a punchy little 45.
Oren Ambarchi & Eric Thielemans - Kind Regards [AD93]
I haven’t heard this the whole way through yet, but you know what? The fact that almost 5,000 people have streamed a 25 minute long piece of avant-garde music on Spotify gives me hope that there’s still an audience for interesting music out there.