| #532 |
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2000 |
The end of what feels like a remarkable short year is nigh so here’s the first part of my recommendations and recap of the year. There was a general feeling of directionless-ness this year and a lot of music seemed to be treading the same ground as it had during 97, 98 and 99. Drum & bass, for the first time in five years, finally started to tap into a younger crowd with new DJs and promoters popping up and it will be interesting to see how this develops over the next year. Recent underage events will only strengthen this. The demise of several venues and the glamourisation of others in preparation for what was to be a very normal Olympic period meant that the more eclectic end of sounds suffered under a continuing wave of house and generic commercial trance (most of which were simply new remixes of adaptations of old 93-95 progressive house and trance tracks). Nevertheless, like in previous years, the slowdown of a live scene simply means more people stay home to make and record music themselves. Whilst this is not so good for punters, the time opened up for people to record their own tracks, helps build a stronger more coherent local music scene in the long term. 2SER powered on with a new website with streaming audio so people all over the world can tune in live over the Net and despite the inability to find a suitable venue for Freaky Loops, 2000 was certainly a year of massive growth for 2SER. Freaky Loops (2001) will happen this summer, probably in March, but first there is the 2SER stage at the Big Day Out to get through. Transplanting a Freaky Loops vibe to Newcastle the National Independent Electronic Labels Conference built some strong interstate and trans-Tasman links that will hopefully mature and grow next year. The turnout was surprisingly good and people seemed to leave with at least a good understanding of what everyone else is doing around the country. There were 120 local live acts that weekend in October too and some outstanding new sound makers were uncovered. 2000 was also the year of internet music hype. Probably the first and the last. While some were happily downloading crap music recorded by people with bad ears (who can’t distinguish 160kbit from 320kbit) from Napster, the real action was happening with the shift to online ordering amongst DJs – most notably from the UK’s quite comprehensive Juno Records (www.juno.co.uk) who have started to send very large quantities to Sydney in the last 12 months. Not only has the Internet opened up cheaper specialist music, it has also given access to information on a huge range of music that would otherwise have been filtered out through local distributors. On the local distribution front, Creative Vibes have massively expanded and their catalogues are ever increasing at a rapid rate. Newcomers Inertia Distribution have sprung up in the last six months bringing in a whole new range of specialist music at excellent prices. Both Creative Vibes and Inertia have managed to combine with the falling Australian dollar to make local music shopping much more affordable in the last 6 months to the delight of both record buyers and probably local record stores. Performance-wise, the mid year tour by Herbert was an outstanding aural highlight while the recent Ju Ju Space Jazz launch was perhaps the most visually spectacular. More internationals came this way, pushing gig prices up, and not always giving the quality promised, but what is new there? The top tunes will be in next fortnight’s round-up. Frigid finishes the year off with a bang. The 17th has Ubin and Buggin’ and there is a special ‘until midnight’ Christmas Eve Frigid with Tooth, Quark Kent, Deep Child, Prince Valium, and Raven from Fourplay. More info and special treats at www.snarl.org. Yellow Peril (www.snarl.org)  Goto
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