Trentemoller - The Last Resort

[kid cue]

Originally Posted by BrotherLovesDub

the "whatever that means" part of your statement means to me that you don't find the gooey rewarding center of minimal techno that many do. in fact, i'd say you've chosen a fairly good example in matthew dear as the opposing figurehead. i'm going put this into simple american terms. matthew dear makes good tracks but he's all Details magazine. Trentemoller makes good tracks too, but he's Wallpaper magazine. one man can look at a white chair and think, wow, what a plain and boring white chair, i understand it's functionality, but it's quite boring. another man can look at the chair in awe of the craftsmanship and thought taken to create a simple, yet effective chair that is neither oppulent, nor spare. it's quite simply a plain white chair. effortless and satisfied in it's form and function.

that's a pretty nice analogy (the chair, not the magazines, because i've never opened either one). i do like minimal techno though, and i'm down with its form + function, but i feel like it functions at different levels too. i like techno when its functionality is sort of awesome and you can't poke any holes in it because it's so machine-relentless. or when it starts to reach outside that functionality without losing it, like that Booka Shade thing. or Red Planet or whatever. but i've been listening to this Trentemoller record and i get the sense that it's very self-referential tech-house, like it uses the standard form and just does a very good job with it, the kind of job that only techno heads are going to care about (meanwhile, any dumbass can appreciate a perfect chair). the lushness, for example, sounds like a very narrowly-defined kind of lushness. and in a way i almost feel like it's just there for its function in the structure of the track, rather than for actually being lush. i guess balance for the sake of balance isn't really enough for me, i want other ideas too. i dunno, maybe i should dl the singles.

that Matthew Dear album, ironically, doesn't do anything for me at all anymore. it sounds kind of gimmicky, so i guess it swings too far the other way.