In Strict Tempo, vol. 32: This Weeks Hottest Takes
Glastonbury, DJ's producing, Taylor Swift, AI... it's all here.
The old “DJ’s should be able to produce and not just DJ” debate has reared it’s ugly head again. It’s fucking tedious tbh - not everyone can DJ, not everyone can produce, not everyone can do both. It really doesn’t matter.
It’s Glastonbury this weekend, so most of the UK music industry seems to have taken itself off to the West Country for the weekend. I always get a pang of jealousy when everyone’s buzzing about it, especially when the weather is like this. Then I remember the thoroughly miserable time I had there the last time I went back in 2016 and suddenly I don’t miss it as much. Also, who takes running gear to a festival?
The charts are fucked. The other week Taylor Swift released another swathe of versions of her latest album in order to keep Charli XCX off the #1 position in the charts. I’m not if it succeeded (I can’t remember the last time I actually looked at the charts) and this week it seems Dua Lipa is releasing alternate versions of her last album for another crack at that #1 gong. Did you know there’s something like 40 unique versions of The Tortured Poets Department across all phyical formats, and at least 13 different vinyl versions listed on Discogs? - at an average price of £35 a pop that’s over £450 you’d need to spend to hear all the tracks she’s put out on a physical format. I know it’s easy to take a pop at Taylor Swift, but that’s pretty exploitative behaviour if you ask me. Take nothing away from her as an artist (regardless of whether or not you care for her music - I don’t), and she’s an intelligent businesswoman for sure, but getting your fans (the majority of which I guess skew quite young) to stump up hundreds of pounds for a myriad of slightly different versions of an album doesn’t sit right with me. I’m sure they’re all on streaming, but still…
The RIAA have decided to sue a couple of those AI music creation sites that I wrote about the other week. Gonna be watching this one with interest as it’s all pretty murky. Like I said - who’s doing to get paid when one of these AI generated tracks starts generating royalties? I’ve been speaking with friends about this a lot and there’s some great ideas floating around, but my worry is that the horse has now bolted… these systems have been trained on copyrighted music and the people that have invested in them aren’t just going to shut that tech down. My guess? They give equity to the majors, and fill playlists with this shite.
I’m aware that this is the second short news-roundup in a week. I’ve got a few longer-form features lined up I promise. If you don’t like the industry takes then by all means let me know, conversely if you prefer it to the music reviews then please tell me too. I’m still finding my feet here. That said, there’s some exciting stuff in the pipeline in the In Strict Tempo extended universe so keep your eyes peeled for that…
This Weeks Hottest Tracks
Ghost Dubs - Damaged Versions [Pressure]
Didn’t really know anything about this until I saw it pop up in the Boomkat mailer this week - looks like it’s digital-only which is a shame, but this tips all the boxes for me - grainy, dub concrete on a Rhythm & Sound / GAS / Pole tip…
The Revolutionaries - Meditation In Dub [333]
Sticking with dub - Death is Not The End sub-label 333 drops a plate of deep rootsy dub here. If that’s your thing this is a must-cop - you won’t find an original for anything less than a few hundred quid. 333’s been running a couple of years now, and continues to go from strength to strength.
Planetary Assault Systems - Deep Heet vol. 5 [Mote Evolver]
After that excellent LB Dub Corp album earlier this year Luke Slater returns to his Planetary Assault Systems guise for four relentless techno traxxx. This stuff does what it says on the tin, no-nonsense deep techno slammers. Sounds like being fired into space.
LOIDIS - Wait & See [Incienso]
The last (and only) LOIDIS 12” remains one of my favourite records of recent years, and still gets a regular play at home and on the headphones. New material comes as a nice surprise, and I’m looking forward to hearing more.
Resoraz - Art of Time [Warp]
Not new, but I found this whilst digging through the racks in Flashback the other day. Proper golden-era Warp gear here, bleepy, a bit proggy, and eleven minutes long. They don’t make dance music like this any more.
SOPHIE ft. Kim Petras & BC Kingdom - Reason Why [Transgressive]
SOPHIE’s tragic death in 2021 robbed us of one of the most influential artists of recent times. Now her brother is curating some unreleased material into a new album due later this year. Reason Why is the first single off that, and it sounds a bit like BIPP which remains my favourite track of hers (the Autechre remix that surfaced a couple of years ago was great too).
Mariah - Utaka No Hibibi [Everland Psych]
This was undeniably THE hottest Japanese synth wave reissue of 2015, and it remains a classic to this day. It looks like it’s due a repress later this year, so if you missed it first time round now’s your time to pick up a copy. It’s funny, on Spotify, the best tracks all have the lowest streams which tells you something about their playlisting algorithm (but I’m not sure what… maybe it tells you more about my taste?)
That’s all for this week. Back again next Friday with more of the usual. Thanks for reading, sharing, commenting etc, it’s always really appreciated!