Tuesday, July 17, 2007

Woebot on Todd Terry. fuck, there's a surprisingly large number of tunes mentiond i haven't got. Matt, when he does a terrain, he really DOES IT.

Funny that two different Todd-is-Gods would play such a seminal role at key junctures in nuum evolution (Edwards, w/ vocal science), although in truth it's more like the first Todd damn near spawned the nuum, got the whole party (people) started. Just follow the line of that wracked-by-XTC "fee-eel-eel it" vocal: a lineage of darkbliss, from Peech Boys "Life is Something Special" via Black Riot's "A Day in the Life" through Coco Steel &and Lovebomb's late-period (and proto-darkside) bleep with "Feel It" to Rufige Cru's "Jim Skreech". Tracky to the 'core (“I’m not a writer of songs, they’re too much trouble”)and thrifty to the point of auto-cannibalism ("Party People" = a dubverted "Can You Party", which itself = a rap-less "I'll House You"), there's no preciousness like with the Detroit techno auteurs, no sense of himself as Artist. In the late Eighties and early Nineties, it's almost like he's barely conscious of his own creative issue, just poops the stuff out and pockets the cash. What I love about the Royal House stuff especially is how it's at once slammin' and ethereal. On "Party People" and other early Terry tunes, the production has a curious cavernous, clanking quality, making you feel like you’re in a bunker-like space full of sound-reflections and muffled noise. Whether deliberate or a by-product of lo-fi studio conditions/fast-money-music wack 'em out carelessness, the effect of playing them in a club must have been to double the “in the club” feel. It's like they've been pre-vibed.

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