Hold Your Colour-Pendulum

[smasha]

My nonination for album of the year so far.

 

[gPhonque]

It's a shame you're a year late!


It's funny.......I was gonna post in your thread a week or so back ("Music bores me" or whatever it was) with some advice to look towards the dance scene (the REAL dance scene, not the commercial crap that everyone around here listens to) for your good innovative music, but decided against it because I thought I'd inevitably get replies of "DANCE MUSIC SUCKS blah blah blah blah ALL THEY DO IS PRESS A BUTTON blah blah blah blah THERE'S NO TALENT OR SKILL INVOLVED blah blah blah blah etc".... (not saying you would have said that Smasha, but you know what I mean I'm sure....)


And then whatdayaknow...... a week later, the guy complaining about the state of the music industry nominates a DRUM & BASS album as his album of the year so far! (albeit a year too late.....but then that's what happens when you rely on tv and radio to make your music choices for you...)


Pendulum are just the tip of the iceberg.


gPhonque's guide to rediscovering great music:

Download mp3 dj mixes of dance tunes to find the tunes you like. (drum & bass and breaks is where it's at!)

Get a nice turntable.

Head to DMC Records in Prahran. (or any number of great online dance stores)

Buy vinyl.

Wonder why you didn't do it years ago.

g.



ps. OR, ignore me and keep complaining about the state of the music industry.

 

[smasha]

I'm a drummer from way back but I can see what you mean.

It's getting harder when the commercial stations play the crap and it gets harder to find the good stuff but I'm definately not a top 40 fan.

Bought a cd by the Radar Bros which was fantastic -sounds like The Beach Boys combined with Floyd.

Lately I've bought a load of old prog rock stuff from the early 70's and listening to modern stuff like Sigur Ros.

Dance music has to take me on a journey to become interesting to me and Pendulums cd certainly does that.

When you have been involved in the music biz, you know what a satan dicking exercise the scene is (the people who run the record companies).
It almost turns you away from music and ing it all together.

 

[gPhonque]

I'm a drummer from way back but I can see what you mean.

I'm not exactly sure what you mean by this comment.... but for the record, I come from a "live" background myself (guitar, piano, whatever) and I've been composing/playing/engineering/producing all kinds of music ("live" and electronic) for 10 years... (and I make my living from it)

And although I've been making electronic music for years, it's only been the past year that I've really jumped into and explored the dance scene (drum & bass in particular) and I've found more fantastic music in the past year than I had in the previous 5 years. I now feel excited about new music every day for the first time in many many years.

But the thing with the dance scene is that unless you look for the good music, you won't find it.

The other thing most people often forget (or just don't realise) is that over the past couple of years, audio software and computers have become 1000% more powerful and affordable.....meaning you now have many talented artists who could never afford the gear required to make good quality music, now owning extremely powerful DAW's.... (hell, Pendulum do everything in software........although they do own a few bits of outboard gear)

...of course this means that you have an increase in crap music being made, but you also have a massive increase in the amount of real quality dance music being made simply because so many people are making it. With a bit of imagination, creativity and technical expertise, there's really nothing you can't do these days on a simple and relatively affordable DAW.

It's getting harder when the commercial stations play the crap and it gets harder to find the good stuff but I'm definately not a top 40 fan.

It's really not that hard though! Find a few web forums/sites where people (legally) post up mp3's of dj mixes (with tracklists preferably so you know what the hell you're listening to!) and within a few mouse clicks, you can be listening to some of the most interesting music you've heard in years. (www.dogsonacid.com and the "mixes" forum at www.melbournebeats.com are my "go to" places for dj mixes.......then I just buy the tracks on vinyl that I like.)

Rock/pop music is DEAD.

Dance music has to take me on a journey to become interesting to me and Pendulums cd certainly does that.

...and there's so much more out there that is arguably a hell of a lot better than Pendulum. Pendulum are great, but they are only one of many! If you're interested, here's some d&b names for you to check out: Noisia (my personal faves - hard heavy nasty tech-funk with some of the most insane production I've ever heard in any style of music EVER), Klute, John B, Break & Silent Witness, Evol Intent, DJ Fresh, Calyx, Calibre.........the list goes on and on....

When you have been involved in the music biz, you know what a satan dicking exercise the scene is (the people who run the record companies).
It almost turns you away from music and ing it all together.

That's the beauty of the drum & bass scene (the scene to which Pendulum belong) in particular. It's really an underground scene, and 95% of the time, labels and nights (particularly nights in Melb) are run by people who care only about the music! Forget your glowstick candy ravers and your Chapel St knob boys and all the other "dance music stereotypes"........they have nothing to do with it. Once you delve into the d&b scene, you'll find some of the most interesting and boundary-pushing music being made today. (same goes for the breaks scene as well)

Anyway, apologies if I'm telling you stuff you already know, but I'm assuming you're not all that familiar with the d&b scene......because if you were, I would have seen you post more stuff about it.

 

[smasha]

Thanks mate for your helpful advice-good luck this Saturday night.

Smasha-the stirrer.