Seems like you really know your house. Not sure if you're musically inclined but if so the OP-1 is a great tool[1][2]. If you ever make it to nyc hit me up, I know James well and I'm sure he'd enjoy your thoughts around E2-E4.
Heh looks like this thread blew up. Really feels like community to just post a couple of my favorite tracks before bed and come back to all of this. Both the OP-1 links and the nyc offer are really great, thanks. Looks like a lot of fun.
Two of my other favs in this constellation of things are Walking on Thin Ice [1] [2] [3] by Yoko Ono which includes guitar and keyboard from John Lennon recorded as his last recorded creative act right before he was shot. Lots of people don't like Yoko but I don't care, this song is a great dancehall hit and that Lennon guitar solo at the end really gets me.
The other is Where You Go I Go Too [4] [5] by Lindstrøm which is more modern but unfolds as a singular kind of piece that was apparently toiling to make, listening to all thirty minutes each time he made a change. It's my favorite of his and has it's own unique sound but he's since said because it was such a grueling process that he won't make another like it.
I'm done and this can fade away. Glad y'all enjoyed these. Thanks for the notes to those who reached out to me.
I ordered the op1 back in August and haven't received it yet. But I just picked up the opz last week and it's completely blown my mind, surpassed all my expectations by a considerable margin, and proven to be my go-to subway entertainment. I intend to listen to all these tracks at work tomorrow, If you have any more in an organized list somewhere I'd love to hear it. I've recently become completely obsessed with house and I can't get enough.
Would you call that house where you're from? I think most people in the UK would pretty quickly say the Göttsching and LCD Soundsystem tracks are techno, and the Phuture track in the article is straight up acid techno. House tends to be lighter, slightly slower and more euphoric, e.g. this I would call acid house: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VFhxpMnfHB0
I'm intrigued because I knew an American at uni who insisted that almost all electronic music counted as "techno".
Göttsching is krautrock - a terrible but accepted name for the pre-techno synthesizer scene that formed in Berlin in the late 60s and became popular in most of Europe (not so much Germany) in the 70s.
The biggest names on the scene were Klaus Schulze and Tangerine Dream, Göttsching was in a peripheral band called Ashra Tempel but also played drums for Schulze. The less famous names on the scene - Roedelius, Cluster, Conny Schnitlzer - influenced Brian Eno's ambient music when he went over to Berlin to produce Low for Bowie.
As for techno vs house - the big difference is the rhythm pattern. Techno is square and on the grid, house feels like it has some swing and the beat is "skippier" with offbeats, anticipations, and sometimes triplets.
> the big difference is the rhythm pattern. Techno is square and on the grid, house feels like it has some swing and the beat is "skippier" with offbeats, anticipations, and sometimes triplets.
I think I could easily find a dozen examples from both genres that don't match your description... :)
BPM is the best indicator. Most house is slower, most techno is faster.
> BPM is the best indicator. Most house is slower, most techno is faster.
I'd also add that techno can be traditionally "darker" and "heavier" whereas house is usually a little more "sensual" and "groovy". As always, counterpoints can be found, but these are general orientations :)
With tropical house being on the rise, I find it really blurry if it's techno or house with the more pop-y stuff these days, especially the funky/disco vibes coming out of the Paris scene right now.
I'd say either Berlin school or kosmische musik is a better name than krautrock, if only cause it's more specific. Though it's all under the krautrock umbrella anyway. At least I usually see Berlin school as the descriptor for that kind of synth music.
Just to add to the lineage conversation;
Derrick May released a remix of Sueno Latino in 1992. It was based on E2 - E4.
Derrick May also played Exit by Tangerine Dream on a BBC radio 6 set a few years ago which he said was a big influence on him.
House originally started out with a faster tempo around 130 BMP which then slowed to 120 BPM over time. The acid sound has more to do with the squelched bass sound produced by the synths being discussed here. So your sample is acid house, just at a slower tempo which wasn't as common with the earlier samples.
>I think most people in the UK would pretty quickly say the Göttsching and LCD Soundsystem tracks are techno
Göttsching is indeed techno.
>and the Phuture track in the article is straight up acid techno.
In those days the term used for that style was "acid house". It then turned into various sub-genres (rave, trance, etc). Acid techno is a later name for later genre.
I've often said the same thing. I think when there are too many, it's not useful (though in some very real sense, every artist is its own genre), but of course one genre is useless too. Some people say "why have any genres at all", but as someone who's tried to explore musical connections where I haven't been able to find established genre names -- like between old folk music from some smaller countries, or the continuum of music featuring accordions, horns (especially trumpet and clarinet), acoustic guitars/lutes, and strings that goes from Russia down to Turkey and beyond -- it can be really painful to find related music and artists without good genres.
The trick is a good balance, and I personally find that electronic music and metal (as another poster mentioned) have genres that are often too small for my purposes.
To some degree, but no more than, say, the number of lisp-based programming languages or flavours of linux =].
In my mind it's something to explore rather than balk at. If you find something amazing like you've never heard before, then looking at the genre can help you to discover more things like it.
Only reason I suggested OP-1 was I googled and saw he studies physics at Princeton, for some reason I figured he'd be a good candidate for an OP, hehe. :D
I can vouch for the OP-1, it's a super fun synth, expensive, but totally worth it. No other device makes it as fun and easy to just sit down and jam out a track.
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gDqThYqldBI [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=umatbZ0n4mE