The first in this seminal, eventually gratuitous, series of experimental and forward thinking techno/laptoppery. Coming back to this release, 6 years later - the music is (generally) more mature than I may have thought back in 2000, crisp and reductive without any excess or exagerration. Things are more raw on these discs, and doesn't have the clubbier/poppier moments of the 2nd and 3rd sets, and also lacks the extremes mapped by the 2nd sets 3 discs. That said, artsy laptoppery and minimal techno's rapid and rhizomatic (sorry for the argot, but the metaphor is actually appropriate) growth in the last 10 year got a huge kick in the pants from the innovations by the artists included in these discs, in a time before heavy DSP double-tap soloing was possible, before Live made things so much smoother.http://www.megaupload.com/?d=EIYSPZOL
needless to say, these compilations included some real highbrow liner notes, which I feel have lost some their relevance.
9 comments:
I was just thinking of this comp last night!? Strange.
Anyways - absolutely classic set. Was never sold on the following volumes, but Vol. 1!
good. I've been wanting to revisit this and my copy must be extremely fucked up if It still is under huge piles in the closet.
on a minor note, unless the 2 empty lines are intended, if you get rid of all space between picture code and first word in edit, the text will be nice and evenly aligned on top with the image.
minor note noted.
it was very nice to come back to this set. a lot of tracks I hadn't thought of in ages but are still in my head "click for click" if you will.
I parted with this several years ago and have had more than a few opportunities to regret that flourish of the timeless on my part; memory (the recent/prudent kind) tells me that the Vlad.D track might still be some of my very favorite of anything he's done, a big writhing gauzy anemone monster. That guy is all Philly Joe bout his synth bidness. Good stuff. Did Mille Plateaux expire in ignominy? betrayal? Crass (the band) self-destruction-before-curdling? I read some hearsay on the microsound-L a long time ago and forgot every word. They seemed to tank around the time that the seeds they sowed SURPASSED the hype (if this is sensible); one wonder what gave (out)?
I believe that M-P just ran out of cash/personal interest. There were like, 80 sublabels (M-P, Ritornell, Force Inc, Force Tracks....) and at the time when they really hit stride with releases, the bottom fell out. I think this was partly due to a bad business deal (I don't recall the particulars). The label is already on it's 2nd resurrection attempt.
The interesting thing about the almost instant disappearnce of the MP labels is how the "fallout" allowed many smaller labels to diversify these genres...
in addition to bb's comment I think quality control began to slip with later MP releases. plus they had unweildy sub labels like Position Chrome... and we all know what fate would bring for the kind of once vital "terror-step" industrial drum'n'bass they championed...
they would do well with more editing, and a leaner, meaner roster...
wonder if Achim is able to get some funding these days for his own projects or for the labels... the euro arts councils are as far as I know still pretty strong in their support...
the fallout seems to have left a HUGE mess for restarting the labels - there have been 2 or 3 "related" releases on new (!) sublabels - but there is probs a whole liscensing/copyright thing that I don't even want to know about, in terms of using "Mille Plateaux" as the company name again. So, it might not even be a funding thing.
heh, "Position Chrome"......
great blog chap...
man i love this stuff, there are so many quality tracks on this album- took me half a day to download but what the hell eh?
i've been trying to find pan sonic's
Aaltopiiri for ages but to no avail.
maybe an idea for a different water christmas gift?....
keep up the good work
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