it was bound to happen.
you see, load up the ireallylovemusic blog in your browser of choice and step away from the computer.
you will probably notice that the site is devoid of anything superfluous.
its a clean site lacking design, colour, and even capital letters , as is the original review site.
the whole concept behind ireallylovemusic was about the information and pointers to the music, and not about promoting the actual site itself.
in other words its always been a minimalism site both in design and stature.
so, when in the last 18 months i kept reading on various forums about the explosion in the minimal techno world i was initially wary of the use of the m word.
in fact, the very description had me concerned that the music would be too hardcore, nee bangin’, for my delicate eardrums.
so i held back from investigating further.
then slowly remixes by so called superstars of minimal scene started to drift into the ireallylovemusic archive.
almost by accident.
the epic ricardo villalobos remix of thomas dolbys classic, one of our submarines, trentemollers brilliant remix for robyn, and radio slaves remix for the knife, we share our mothers health, being the primary culprits to raise my awareness and initiate the hunt for more.
then in december when i looked back at 2007 and realised that actually it was the techno music that i (re)discovered which provided my inner soul with the greatest buzz, i decided to jump on board and see if my system would be appreciative of the new directions techno was moving in and drift beyond my personal comfort zone of detroit styled productions.
bearing in mind i am no philip sherburne, (his online articles and photography have been a revelation in ways to describe such simplistic music and yet still managing to make everything sound utterly essential), am no longer part of the clubbing community, and have little access to the glut of hard-to-find limited 12″ singles that dominate the scene, i picked up two albums that were very easy to track down.
the very ambient based trentemoller compilation/mix, chronicles, thus making me wonder if this is all a new updated version of my addiction to pete namlooks fax label back in 1994, and the radio slave misch masch set, and settled down on the sofa to see what all the fuss is/was about.
to cut to the chase – i am smitten.
totally and utterly smitten.
the music has proven itself to be the perfect antidote to all that i normally listen to.
predominantly devoid of vocals other than a processed snippet here and there, beautifully produced for headphone listening, and very emotive when done right, this electronic music has reinvigorated my passion far more than anything else has for quite a while. sometimes the machine enhanced moods are cold, distant and rather dark, other times, its all about the party, but the results are often startlingly wonderful.
so, now that the blogsphere (if people still call it such) heat has probably moved onto pastures new, therefore giving rise to easy accusations that ireallylovemusic is merely jumping on the media loved up frenzy for all things minimal, i suppose its only expected that i am to follow in the trailblazers burnt paths and pick up the charcoaled pieces.
however the simple truth is that these albums/remixes/mixes, are exactly the sort of music i want to hear more of in the coming months, well, that is until i tire of throbbing syths and melodic machine created ambience, and i once again need to hear the cut-n-thrust of a rock band.
a great place to try before you buy many great examples of the new directions in which techno has ventured recently, legally, is of course the resident advisor podcast series.
high(ish) in aural quality, these 160kbps mps are absolutely essential to the novice trying to figure out exactly which micro genre within techno happens to be the most enjoyable.
apparently techno, electro and yes, even minimal are my chosen directions, but then i knew that already.
so there you have it, with my obvious love for techno on the up (search the blog archives for dust science and all will become clear!), it looks like the ireallylovemusic blog is entering into a new era.
don’t expect me to suddenly become a pure techno only blog, that’s just not the way things work in the english outback, and there are plenty of excellent places online already giving us daytrippers all the necessary pointers, it’s just that i wanted to explain the slight change in direction that will probably become more obvious as the year goes on.
in the course of such a shift, i have felt, and no doubt will continue to feel, duty bound to try out various guitar based releases, but, being brutally honest, i have heard little in quite a while that has been of interest.
though knowing the way my emotions run, this could all change 15 minutes after this overly verbose post goes online.
at least now you know why i never reviewed that dreadful babyshambles album.
stay tuned.
mark e
ireallylovemusic