movement 2014: first lineup announcement (terrence dixon, adam x, zeitgeber, etc)

behold, the first group of artists announced to play movement festival in detroit next year, saturday may 24th - monday may 26th. (official website)

for my eyes this overall list looks solid but certainly not spectacular. detroit, as usual, is well represented, with my picks from that group currently being jeff mills, mike huckaby and terrence dixon - who, by the way, has a new album coming out soon. some other artists that stand out for me: adam x playing live, metro area also playing live, donor, alstadt echo who runs the nice techno-oriented dub monitor website, and of course zeitgeber, aka lucy (he, too, has a new album in the works) and speedy j, which would seem to make up for lucy's cancelled appearance last year, when he was quite oddly booked between steffi and nina kraviz.

i, however yearn for more rare bookings, especially in terms of international techno, (proper) deep house, and experimental stuff, as well as some chicago talent. but hey, that's me! at least i hardly see anything edm-y. there should be plenty more artists to be announced, and we'll have to wait, probably a few more months at least, to see what's up with the weekend's off-festival party offerings. oh, and i'll likely be making my return to the festival after missing out in 2013. fingers crossed...

intriguingly, an earlier promoter of movement festival, back when it was called DEMF, appears to returning with a festival, using that name, over independence day weekend, july 4th 2014. juan atkins has been announced as the artist director. interesting stuff, and something else to look out for during next year's festival season. (official website)

and here's another summertime festival variable, only worth noting because it would likely attract music and people i'd rather not be around: EDC joliet - formally known as EDC chicago in 2013 though it was not located in the city - is "not likely to return" in 2014. oh well.

monday moods: live jams from polar inertia and convextion

it's 630 pm on a monday as i write this, and the sun has been down already for about two hours. hooray for winter? anyway, the evening's menu calls for some distinctly dark, atmospheric techno - when doesn't it? - so if you're in the mood, here are two live sets i've been enjoying a lot recently.

polar inertia - smoke machine podcast 074 first, a mysterious outfit from france, polar inertia. i've written a few reviews over at RA covering their music, which has been released sparingly over the past two years or so. they have a very cool, cinematic approach particularly noticeable on their two solo EPs for DEMENT3D, which link together deep tripping techno cuts with spoken-word/ambient passages that tell a strange sci-fi story. they've a few other production credits to their name but at this point, i'm sure i'm not alone in hoping for another proper EP. at the beginning of the year they turned in this rare podcast for smoke machine, a forty-minute live recording taken from a set that happened, apparently, somewhere around paris. mind-bending stuff, and the last section would seem to give a clue as to where they might go with their next release, whenever it might come out.



convextion at deep motions, october 2013, nijmegen switching to something newer... i've only mentioned convextion once or twice here, and it's time that changed. convextion, aka ERP (real name gerard hanson) has been a personal favorite for years, ever since i discovered his excellent self-titled LP. hailing from texas, he specializes in electro and techno sounds that are sleek, melodic, futuristic, and so gorgeous they almost hurt. there's a good amount of convextion recordings floating around, but his sets are so fresh and dynamic, i'd say you can never have enough of them. this one is relatively recent, coming from a deep motions party in nijmegen, the netherlands back in october, and weighs in at a hefty 91 minutes. (thanks to them for sharing it!)

aphex twin - flim

quick post for now, turning away from last week's comments about what maceo plex did to aphex twin's "polynomial-c", and going to a happy place with a sentimental favorite...

"flim", from the 1997 aphex twin EP/mini-album come to daddy, was one of those tracks that helped launch me, as a serious and soon-obsessed listener, into the world of electronic music. years ago, i first tried producing with computer programs like reason and ableton; i only ever 'finished' a few tracks, and they were mostly influenced by this. here it is via youtube, with a buncha photos of cloudy skies. still perfect:

NOT GOOD: aphex twin - "polynomial c" - maceo plex edit

over the years i've tried to keep my writing here as positive as possible, because generally, i'd rather discuss stuff i like, not stuff i don't like. but that doesn't mean i'm not often stumbling into something that leaves me unimpressed or worse. so, i've decided to start a new and probably infrequent series of blog posts under the title NOT GOOD, in order to express my opinions against some of those things.

my first order of business concerns a new and baffling attempt to re-contextualize a classic piece of electronic music: aphex twin's "polynomial-c". first put out on R&S in 1992, it is a triumph of a track that defies easy classification. part breakbeat, part techno, whatever... indulge in all its glory below.



yesterday, maceo plex - aka maetrik; real name eric estornel - uploaded a track to soundcloud. its precise name is Aphex Twin "Polynomial C" Maceo Plex edit and you can stream and download it here [update - youtube link]. fast-paced and brilliantly bombastic in its original form, this take on "polynomial-c" is slowed down considerably, its nearly unhinged rhythms chained to a dry-hump tech-house groove with no features worthy of description. why, exactly, was this necessary?

according to a text accompanying the track, it was designed for dj use in "a modern techno set". i have a different way of defining "modern techno" but that's beside the point. this is what i hear: something unique reduced to something that's mostly generic; something timeless (or at least close to it, damnit) twisted to fit a certain perception of what sounds good now. and of course, putting your name on it and making it free to download brings to mind those ethical and legal questions (admittedly hard to answer) regarding the re-purposing of someone else's commercially available music.

probably anticipating criticism, the artist himself appears to have set his defense, saying in the text with the track: "dear haters, this is not a remix, it's an edit". fair enough, but it is a Maceo Plex edit, ensuring proper attribution for what sounds to me like one big, awful, unnecessary joke. there's a reason i've never before mentioned maceo plex on smilecoldanatomy. i just don't like his music. but this thing needs to be called what it is: rubbish!

[update - it looks like maceo plex has removed the track from his soundcloud page, but it can still be found on youtube.]

monday moods: rod modell - cloud over

hello again! yes i'm still around, i've just been a bit distracted. anyway, here's another edition of monday moods.

i had nice things to say about rod modell's album incense & black light four years ago, when smilecoldanatomy was in its infancy, and since then it's never been far from my speakers. this track, "cloud over", has become a personal favorite over the years - it's so warm, so cozy, so perfectly understated. at least, it's a great soundtrack to this particular monday in chicago. enjoy...



on another note: it was great to meet george, aka slydex, aka kondaktor this weekend. (he flew into chicago to play the DTH three-year anniversary party friday.) face-to-face meetings with artists who have made anatomy mixes are really rare for me, so it was a pleasure to hang out with george for a couple days and confirm that he is, in fact, a great guy. if you're in NYC, montreal and/or mexico city, you should catch him at one of his upcoming gigs on his first tour of the continent. i wish him well on the rest of his trip... also, reese's pieces!