Re: New (?) term on the loose!
Daniel R Bidwa (db4s+@andrew.cmu.edu)
Fri, 19 Jul 1996 10:31:37 -0400 (EDT)
Jason Brancazio" <jbrancazio@mail.hamquist.com>:
>...for clarification, the Village
>Voice has just run a huge feature describing 'new sounds from the underground
>- illbient'.....in an article where they describe the music as defying
>language they also make sure to use the word illbient a thousand times. And I
>suppose by adding this transmission to the universe I've done my part to
>spread it far and wide. Whatever. I was just wondering if anyone else has
>seen this term in music journalism and what they think.
>
>'illbient' is used in the article as a catch-all phrase for the sounds being
>produced in NYC and probably other places which draw on many influences
>including hip-hop and ambient music, in other words it's often beatless and
>sample-based stuff like the 'Necropolis' CD I reviewed for the list a few
>months back.
Actually, DJ Spooky has been using "illbient" for self-description for
at least a year now, as have other NYC folks like Sub Dub and We. While
there's still some question as to whether it's healthy for any genre to
be subdivided ("ambient" being the genre in question here, but the same
argument is applicable to others), I think it's somewhat more genuine
when the new labels come from within the genre instead of being imposed
by journalists or others. A comparable situation would be the "no wave"
genre that essentially formed within NYC's punk(?) scene.
Caroline recently released "This is Home Entertainment", a decent compilation
of the illbient scene by way of the Home Entertainment label.
tlds