June 2, 2024

I apologise for posting a shit Daily Beast article that mischaracterised what Bill Maher said about a race war.

I tried to find a clip before I posted the OP, and failed to quickly do so, so I just went ahead and posted the Daily Beast article.

I have since viewed the clip, and the article was not accurate.

I broke a rule of mine in regards to proper vetting, and I got burnt.

I apologise to all who replied in the thread (it was a lot, 145 replies) and to all who simply read it.

I will try to do better in the future.

Cel

June 2, 2024

'Sad Day for Free Speech': Media Matters Layoffs Follow 'Thermonuclear' Attack by Elon Musk

"This is how free speech is actually chilled—vengeful dipshit billionaires," said one media executive, after more than a dozen staffers let go from nonprofit watchdog whose mission is to combat right-wing disinformation and propaganda.

https://www.commondreams.org/news/elon-musk-media-matters-suit



Just months after mega-billionaire Elon Musk launched what he termed a "thermonuclear lawsuit" against Media Matters for America, the nonprofit media watchdog outfit announced a round of punishing layoffs Thursday which it in part attributed to the financial strain imposed by the legal battle it now faces. What triggered Musk's initial outrage in November was MMFA reporting about "pro-Nazi content" on the social media platform X, owned by Musk, appearing alongside ads by prominent corporations in the content stream shown to users. In his post threatening the lawsuit, which was later filed in Texas, Musk vowed to target "Media Matters and ALL those who colluded in this fraudulent attack on our company." Noting the scope of his retribution, Musk then added: "Their board, their donors, their network of dark money, all of them…" would be included in the suit's scope.

https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1725771191644758037


In the organization's Thursday announcement of layoffs, Media Matters' president Angelo Carusone said: "We're confronting a legal assault on multiple fronts and given how rapidly the media landscape is shifting, we need to be extremely intentional about how we allocate resources in order to stay effective. Nobody does what Media Matters does." Due to the pressures, Carusone explained, the group was "taking this action now to ensure that we are sustainable, sturdy and successful for whatever lies ahead." More than a dozen staffers, including researchers and digital producers, were among those terminated. "Many of my best colleagues at Media Matters lost their jobs today," Ari Drennen, the LGBTQ program director for Media Matters, said Thursday on X alongside individual posts from many of those laid off. "However you feel about our work, it should worry you that any billionaire could do this to any outlet at any time for any reason. It's a sad day for free speech."

https://twitter.com/AriDrennen/status/1793716305864143030
Media Matters for America (MMFA) is a 501(c)3 registered nonprofit—which describes itself as a "progressive research and information center dedicated to comprehensively monitoring, analyzing, and correcting conservative misinformation in the U.S. media"—founded in 2004 at the height of the George W. Bush administration. Ever since it has targeted the right-wing media echo chamber, including Fox News and other prominent cable, newspaper, and radio broadcasters who coordinate the messaging of pro-corporate and reactionary forces within the Republican Party and beyond. In a post on X shared Thursday afternoon, laid-off Media Matters journalist Kat Abughazaleh lamented the firing of her talented colleagues (and encouraged outlets that are hiring to consider them) as she also directed her ire at Musk for his possible role in the downsizing decision. "There's a reason far-right billionaires attack Media Matters with armies of lawyers," said Abughazaleh. "They know how effective our work is, and it terrifies them (him)," with the parenthetical a seeming reference to Musk.

https://twitter.com/abughazalehkat/status/1793691841113805312
Responding to her message on the social media platform now owned by Musk, media executive Ben Collins, current CEO of the satirical website The Onion, doubled-down on the charge against the Tesla founder and on-again-off-again world's richest man. "Fuck Elon Musk," Collins said. "This is why right-wing billionaires sue people reporting on them," continued Collins, who previously worked as a reporter for NBC News covering, among other thing, right-wing disinformation. "They know they can't win these lawsuits. But they also know legal fees will cripple the little guy reporting on their lies and crimes. This is how free speech is actually chilled—vengeful dipshit billionaires." Musk has championed himself as a devote "free speech absolutist," but his time at the helm of X, which was Twitter when he purchased it, has repeatedly exposed the limits of his commitment.

https://twitter.com/oneunderscore__/status/1793692699549417846
https://twitter.com/JuddLegum/status/1746982809539891220
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June 2, 2024

Why the far right is surging in Europe - FT Film

The European Parliament has been a coalition of centre-left and centre-right delegates for decades. But elections in June could deliver more far right MEPs than ever before. Their success could influence EU policy on everything from immigration to agriculture and the energy transition. The FT speaks to politicians and voters across the continent to reveal the causes and potential impacts.

June 2, 2024

Democracy, Deshmocracy: Mega-Financiers Are Flocking to Trump

https://prospect.org/blogs-and-newsletters/tap/2024-05-30-democracy-deshmocracy-mega-financiers-flocking-to-trump/



Twenty-four years ago, when then-President Bill Clinton asked Congress to establish permanent normal trade relations with China, and Congress did just that, the chief argument that Clinton and the bill’s proponents made was that bringing China into the world capitalist system was sure to push the country in a democratic direction. Capitalism and democracy, they repeatedly averred, were inextricably linked. Some empirically oriented economists, particularly those at the Economic Policy Institute, predicted that the corporate pillars of American capitalism would not only set up shop in China but decimate American manufacturing in the process. They were dismissed as protectionists, though their predictions proved to be entirely correct. Others of us noted that the slim history of what happens when Communist nations embrace aspects of a mixed economy showed that those nations compensate for moving toward economic liberalization by snuffing out political liberalization.

That’s certainly what happened in the Soviet Union in the early 1920s, when Lenin’s decision to move away from nationalization to a more market-oriented economy was accompanied by Lenin’s decision to outlaw, first, the Communists’ rival socialist parties (the Mensheviks and Social Revolutionaries), and then all oppositionist tendencies within his own Communist Party as well. But neither the lessons of history nor those of economics gave any pause to PNTR’s advocates. Capitalism yielded democratic as well as monetary dividends, they said—and said and said—again. The relationship was causal: To support capitalism, ipso facto, was to support democracy. Except, of course, when it doesn’t. Recently, that exception has become glaringly visible in the run-up to this year’s presidential election. For the first time in our post-Jacksonian history, one of the two major-party candidates is clearly opposed to our nation’s fundamental, if incomplete, democratic norms and laws.

Despite that, in growing numbers, many of our nation’s most prominent capitalists have come around in recent weeks to supporting Donald Trump. They include private equity pirate Stephen Schwarzman, hedge fund mogul Ken Griffin, “activist investor” (i.e., corporate shakedown guy) Nelson Peltz, and just today, aspiring university dictator Bill Ackman—multibillionaires all—and a host of Silicon Valley gazillionaires. Also among those now speaking fondly of Trump is JPMorgan Chase CEO and Wall Street’s acknowledged leader Jamie Dimon. As The New Republic’s Tim Noah has written, many of these, Dimon most particularly, professed to swear off Trump as a threat to democracy in the wake of the January 6th insurrection. What possibly could have produced such a change of heart within this cohort, understanding as they do that Trump poses a clear and present danger to America’s democratic values? Just between us, it’s money. In 2025, the Trump tax cuts on individuals—more than 80 percent of which went to the wealthiest Americans—will expire. Trump has vowed to continue those cuts if he’s elected, which would increase the nation’s deficit by a cool $4 trillion.

Biden, by contrast, has promised to end those cuts for those Americans whose annual income exceeds $400,000. And despite their ostensible and frequently voiced concern for rising deficits, more and more of our gazillionaires have decided that Trump’s commitment to make them still more filthy rich trumps (no pun intended) their heartfelt claims of support for democracy. Don’t take my word for it; take Trump’s. According to The Washington Post’s Josh Dawsey, when Trump met with über-wealthy donors at New York’s Pierre Hotel earlier this month, he told them that their “taxes are going to go up four times” if Biden is re-elected. “You’re going to have the biggest tax increase in history,” he added. “So whatever you guys can do, I appreciate it.” If the assembled Wall Streeters wanted a one-on-one lunch with him, the Post reported, Trump said the tab (to his campaign, or legal expenses) they would have to pick up would be no less than $25 million.

snip

June 2, 2024

Democratic Rep Dean Phillips Calls on Gov. Hochul to Pardon Trump in Baffling X Rant

“You think pardoning is stupid? Making him a martyr over a payment to a porn star is stupid,” Phillips wrote on X.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/presidential-dropout-dean-phillips-calls-on-gov-kathy-hochul-to-pardon-trump-in-baffling-x-rant



Former Democratic presidential candidate Rep. Dean Phillips (D-MN) went on a baffling X rant on Saturday, in which he called on New York Gov. Kathy Hochul to pardon Donald Trump “for the good of the country” just two days after the former president became a convicted felon on 34 counts of falsified business records. In his bizarre initial post, the Minnesota rep gave a laundry list of Trump’s crimes and then immediately called for leniency from the New York governor. “Donald Trump is a serial liar, cheater, and philanderer, a six-time declarer of corporate bankruptcy, an instigator of insurrection, and a convicted felon who thrives on portraying himself as a victim,” Phillips wrote scathingly.

https://twitter.com/deanbphillips/status/1796695686215348594
“@GovKathyHochul should pardon him for the good of the country.” The congressman, who dropped out of the Democratic primary back in March, dispelled any hopes of sarcasm with a follow-up post minutes later, apparently clapping back at those who disagreed. “You think pardoning is stupid?” Phillips wrote. “Making him a martyr over a payment to a porn star is stupid. (Election charges are entirely different.)”

Prosecutors had argued in the hush money case that Trump’s attempts to conceal his affair with Stormy Daniels could’ve influenced the outcome of the 2016 election. But Trump’s other three criminal trials—two regarding attempts to overthrow the 2020 election and one regarding his handling of classified documents—are seen as much more serious offenses. None of these other cases have a trial date set, meaning it’s extremely unlikely they’ll reach a verdict before the November election. In his X rant, Phillips insisted that a Trump conviction only fueled MAGA’s fire, with potentially disastrous results for the election. “It’s energizing his base, generating record sums of campaign cash, and will likely result in an electoral boost,” he wrote.

https://twitter.com/deanbphillips/status/1796873915073003952
Trump’s campaign announced on Friday that it had raised nearly $53 million in the hours after the verdict and has readily attacked the trial as “rigged,” a false claim Trump repeated in his Friday press conference. It’s unclear why Phillips decided that now was the appropriate time to re-enter the political fray, since he’s kept a low profile since dropping out of the presidential race in March. And Hochul, for her part, is unlikely to heed his advice anyway. “I cannot image a world where she would consider doing this,” a person close to the governor told the New York Post. “This makes no sense.”

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June 1, 2024

Vision Remigration: Project Advocating the Ethnic Cleansing of Europe Launched in Switzerland

Vision Remigration, led by neo-Nazis, is growing rapidly online and off since its April launch

https://globalextremism.org/post/project-advocating-the-ethnic-cleansing-of-europe-launched-in-switzerland/



In April, a new Telegram account opened with a post featuring a large banner drop in Switzerland with one word: “remigration.” That was the launch of Vision Remigration, a new project inspired by the racist “Great Replacement” conspiracy theory, which alleges that white people are being intentionally displaced in their homelands by people of color, mainly immigrants and refugees. Vision Remigration, led by individuals with neo-Nazi and other extremist links, calls for state policies to deport en masse people of non-European descent “back” to their “home countries.” In its own words, Vision Remigration attempts to “[formulate] solutions for current migration policy and population exchange, which are grouped together under the term remigration.” The word remigration is nothing more than a more “acceptable” term for what amounts to ethnic cleansing, removing people of non-European descent from the continent.

The concept of remigration garnered international attention in early 2024, when Austrian Martin Sellner, de-facto leader of the white nationalist Identitarian movement in Europe, delivered a lecture on remigration to members of the far-right German party Alternative Für Deutschland (AfD) in Potsdam, Germany. His calls for ethnic cleansing of immigrants created a firestorm in Germany and mass rallies against the AfD. This meeting followed AfD member’s Matthias Helferich launching his own campaign called “Vision Remigration” in December 2023. But now, the Swiss’ Vision Remigration movement is attempting to export this idea, in its more innocuous sounding form, and instill it in far-right party platforms across Europe, starting with Switzerland. They’ve been organizing rapidly, hosting three events since mid-April, including a series of lectures advocating for remigration, and another “information session” planned for June.





Vision Remigration Leadership

Vision Remigration is led by members of the neo-Nazi group “Junge Tat” (“Youth Action”), a small outfit led by former “Eisenjugend” (“Iron Youth”) leader Manuel Corchia, and based in the German-speaking areas of Switzerland, primarily near Zurich. They identify as an “Identitarian Movement 2.0.” Their leadership maintains links with fascist and neo-Nazi groups across Europe, like Kampf der Nibelungen, Blood and Honour, and Combat 18. Junge Tat has openly endorsed violence, including sharing the manifesto of the Christchurch shooter, titled “The Great Replacement,” which served as the impetus for the murders of 51 at two mosques in New Zealand. The security forces have, on several occasions, seized weapons from members, and the Swiss intelligence service has stated that they “have the group on their radar.” At least one member is allegedly employed with the Swiss military police as of 2023.

Corchia, in addition to helping lead Junge Tat, is also providing leadership to Vision Remigration and has an extensive history of far-right extremism and the promotion of neo-Nazism. In 2020, while leading Iron Youth, Corchia, under the username “Alles Gute A.H 88,” (A.H standing for Adolf Hitler and 88 being numerical code for “HH,” or “Heil Hitler”) and five others disrupted an online lecture at the Zurich University of the Arts, yelling “Heil Hitler” and “Seig Heil” on April 20, Hitler’s birthday. At the University, he also distributed a series of hateful stickers, including those saying that “mixed children are more susceptible to health problems,” “mixed babies are born unhealthier than unmixed babies,” “mixed-race couples are more violent than white couples,” and some featuring the Black Sun, Swastika and pictures of Adolf Hitler. Corchia also posted a series of racist symbols on the fringe platforms Minds and Gab, the latter of which was used by the perpetrator of the Pittsburgh Synagogue mass shooting in 2018 to spread “Great Replacement” rhetoric, including a post signaling his intentions to target Jews. Corchia was later sentenced to fines and expelled from the university. That same year, Corchia’s home was raided on the suspicion of illegal possession of weapons, where police found several firearms. Corchia was convicted of owning an AK-47 without a permit.

snip

June 1, 2024

Following Trump Verdict, Far-Right Explodes in Rage, Seeks to Undermine Faith in Elections and the Judiciary

https://globalextremism.org/post/following-trump-verdict-far-right-explodes-rage-seeks-undermine-faith-in-elections-and-the-judiciary/



On Thursday, Donald Trump was found guilty on 34 felony counts of falsifying business records. In the hours following, as rage grew among Trump supporters, there were calls for riots and violent retributions. The Global Project Against Hate and Extremism (GPAHE) has documented calls for violence coursing through white supremacist and other extremist movements, while enraged MAGA influencers sowed distrust in our judicial and electoral systems.

White supremacists took to the web to push violent rhetoric and calls for civil war. Chapters of the misogynistic, racist, street-fighting Proud Boys, whose leadership has been sent to prison for their involvement in the January 6, 2021, Capitol insurrection, made several calls to violence. The Proud Boys Ohio, Proud Boys Columbus, and Proud Boys Toledo chapters simply posted “war.” Proud Boys Columbus posted a song on YouTube called “Get ya Gunz up” advocating for the use of violence and a message saying “any one (sic) else have an insurrection erection?” Proud Boys Long Island issued a call to their supporters, saying “anyone who defends this verdict is guilty of treason!” The Cape Fear Proud Boys, after invoking Trump’s call to the group to “stand back and stand by” during a 2020 presidential debate, wrote “this is far from over, we promise.” The Official South Texas Proud Boys cited a plan, “Operation Free My N**** Trump,” calling for the “most glorious battle of our young hot lives,” which involves “smash[ing] commies, Feds & f*gs…while we storm the gates.”





Online commentators like antisemite Stew Peters and far-right conspiracy theorist Mike Cernovich weighed in with violent rhetoric. Peters shared an image of a noose with his 200,000 Telegram subscribers that had “extreme accountability” written on it. He captioned the picture “it’s time.” Cernovich posted on Twitter that “today was a terrorist bomb [that] detonated on our legal system. A September 11th level attack.” Dozens of racist and antisemitic online accounts posted violent messages including “EXECUTE BIDEN FOR TREASON,” “time for us all to start a civil war,” “So what happens now? Riots? Revolution?” and “nothing can stop what is coming.”

https://twitter.com/Cernovich/status/1796296502928924692


It wasn’t just American white supremacists who weighed in. Austrian Martin Sellner, de-facto leader of the Identitarian movement in Europe, called the verdict the result of a “show trial” which “should not have taken place at all” and called the trial “probably the biggest abuse of the legal system in American history!” Canadian Jeremy Mackenzie, a leading figure in the white supremacist Diagolon movement, said the verdict was “the best possible outcome for people who want [America] to get rebooted,” and that “they just revolution-pilled tens of millions of Americans.” White supremacists weren’t the only ones who erupted in vitriol after the verdict. Several MAGA figures responded swiftly, questioning the legitimacy of the ruling and casting doubt on the judicial system and elections.

snip

May 31, 2024

Recognition of Palestine pushes others to follow

Norway, Ireland and Spain have recognised the state of Palestine, pressuring others to follow suit as Israel continues its assault on Gaza.

https://www.socialeurope.eu/recognition-of-palestine-pushes-others-to-follow



Ireland, Spain and Norway have broken with the majority of European Union member states by formally recognising Palestine as an independent state. This follows the Bahamas, Trinidad and Tobago, Jamaica and Barbados, which did the same earlier this year, bringing the number of members of the United Nations that recognise Palestine to 143 out of 193. On May 10th, the UN General Assembly adopted a resolution giving new rights to Palestine within the organisation and calling on the Security Council to admit it as a full member. This has not happened yet because the United States keeps vetoing the decision. But, unlike the vast majority of UN member states which supported the resolution, most EU members did not. Most still do not recognise a Palestinian state and the war in Gaza has made the differences in how they treat Palestine obvious. As a result, Spain’s wished-for joint recognition by EU member states has not been possible. Such big decisions require consensus—and currently there isn’t one among EU governments.

This is not to say that the EU is completely neutral on Palestinian statehood. The European Council supports the right of Palestinians to have a state alongside that of Israel, although recently the president of the council came out in favour of full recognition. And, for years, the EU has given money and expertise to try to assist in building a Palestinian state—but has stopped short of recognising it. This lack of consensus has undermined political support for EU peace initiatives in the region. That is despite the fact that the European Commission has been engaged in the peace process and has reaffirmed its commitment to a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, most recently by proposing a ten-point roadmap. This is not the only time the sensitive issue of recognition has created divisions among EU member states. National governments have also not managed to agree a common position on the statehood of Kosovo, which declared independence in 2008.

The European Parliament

Unlike decisions at the European Council, European Parliament decisions do not require consensus. This is one of the reasons the assembly has had a stronger and more positive voice on Palestinian statehood. Strictly speaking, the parliament does not have the official capacity to recognise states (this is something mostly done by governments). And yet, for a decade now the parliament has expressed support for the recognition of Palestinian statehood and the two-state solution. It has said that recognition should happen simultaneously with the development of peace talks. In January a resolution by the parliament also condemned Israel’s illegal settlements and called on the EU to contribute actively to the middle-east peace process. The parliament mantains a delegation for working with parliamentarians of the Palestinian state. Our research shows that setting up delegations with those seeking recognition as states is another avenue through which the parliament has been important for recognition matters.

Over the past few months, this delegation has met to discuss the impact of the war on Gaza and the west bank. Members of the delegation are some of the most vocal supporters of Palestinian rights in the EU. For example, the chair has condemned Israel’s war on Gaza, the killing of Palestinians during aid distribution and the suspension of funding to the UN Relief and Works Agency by some donor countries. The parliament has also hosted robust debates on Palestine. Shortly after a resolution passed by the parliament favouring Palestinian statehood, in 2016 the president of the Palestinian Authority, Mahmoud Abbas, visited the parliament and thanked MEPs for their recognition. In recent debates on the humanitarian situation in Gaza, there have been different opinions in the chamber. In March the majority voted in favour of a resolution calling for a ceasefire, the immediate release of all hostages and the dismantling of Hamas. But MEPs from the Left group voted against the resolution, arguing that making the ceasefire conditional on the end of Hamas would mean that ‘the resolution stands with Israel’.

Necessary momentum...........................

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May 31, 2024

AXXE - Disappointment Boulevard (The Reflex Revision) (2024)

Label: Emerald & Doreen – EDR 536
Format: File, WAV
Country: Germany
Released: 10 May 2024
Genre: Electronic, Funk / Soul, Pop
Style: Nu-Disco, Synth-pop

May 31, 2024

Plastikman - Consumed (1998) FULL ALBUM (archetypal dark, austere minimal techno masterwork by Richie Hawtin)

Label: NovaMute – nomu65lp
Format: 3 x Vinyl, 12", 33 ⅓ RPM, Album
Country: UK
Released: 18 May 1998
Genre: Electronic
Style: Techno, Ambient, Experimental, Acid


































Plastikman's 'Consumed' remains a masterclass in dark, minimalist techno

Brooding and austere, Richie Hawtin’s third album under the Plastikman alias is a minimalist masterwork

https://djmag.com/features/plastikmans-consumed-remains-masterclass-dark-minimalist-techno



When first encountering ‘Consumed,’ Richie Hawtin’s third studio album under the Plastikman name, a normal reaction might be like that of the prehistoric hominids in 2001: A Space Odyssey after they stumble across the alien monolith: scared, awed, and very much aware of the presence of a superpower. Like the monolith, ‘Consumed’ is dark and (almost) featureless; also like the monolith, it’s basically perfect in a way that seems to suggest an unsettling kind of higher intelligence. Unlike the monolith, though, ‘Consumed’ is (at least on the face of it), the work of a flesh-and-blood human being in the shape of Richie Hawtin, then in his late twenties and still a cult figure, rather than the techno superstar he would later become. ‘Consumed’ didn’t exactly drop out of the sky, either. Hawtin’s two previous Plastikman albums, 1993’s ‘Sheet One’ and 1994’s ‘Musik,’ both took the acid-house sound of squalling 303s and cutting drum machines, eliminated superfluities like the human voice, and encased the results in cavernous reverb; the ‘Concept 1’ run of 12-inch singles in 1996 pushed this minimalism to new levels of obsession, laying the path toward ‘Consumed’ in 1998. “The ‘Concept 1’ releases documented a year of sonic experimentation,” Hawtin said at the time of their re-release in 2021. “Each month I would record as much music as possible with a strict and limited selection of technology. Gone were the typical ‘Hawtin’ combination of TR808, TR909, and TB303s, which had driven the techno tracks I had become known for under my F.U.S.E. and Plastikman aliases, replaced by a stripped-down selection centered around three Doepfer MAQ 16/3 sequencers and five panels of Serge modular racks.”

Each ‘Concept1’ 12-inch was limited to 2,000 copies, with Hawtin taking full control of every aspect of the package, from design to distribution — which meant that they were as widely heard as the two previous Plastikman albums. But much of the ‘Consumed’ sound, which shocked many Plastikman fans at the time of release, was already present in ‘Concept 1,’ as the acidic burbling of ‘Sheet One’ and ‘Musik’ was reduced to an austere series of squiggles, clicks, thuds, and echoes. Much, but not quite all. ‘Consumed’ wasn’t just minimal — it was dark in the extreme, a pitch-black excursion into electronic sound that had more tonally in common with Norwegian black metal than Joe Smooth’s ‘Promised Land’ or Hawtin’s own blissful ‘Spiritual High,’ which he released as UP! in 1992. DJ Mag once described the 303 line of ‘Plasticity,’ from the ‘Sheet One’ LP, as having “the physical presence of cathedral reverb,” but ‘Consumed’ felt more in line with the echoes of a dank cellar or satanic coven. ‘Sheet One’ looked off into the wonders of space; ‘Consumed’ contemplated a deep, dark, and possibly poisoned well.

Everything about ‘Consumed’ was stygian, austere, and designed to disorient, an 11-track journey into nebulous space. The basslines, such as they were, were pitched low and menacing, more of a malevolent presence than a musical force; the drums hit like hammer blows to the knees, bearing little or no similarity to the physical kits on which drum machines were based; the synth melodies, when they came, were brief and discomforting, four-note bursts of whistling paranoia; the occasional sound of a 303 was stripped back to tiny fragments, little more than the idea of notes. And all of this was wrapped in a series of chirps, howls, and echoes, reminiscent of a murderous mechanical zoo, everything reduced to the most minimal concoction possible, putting an almost sickly emphasis on the negative space between music and listener. “‘Consumed’ was recorded in the dead of winter in Canada,” Hawtin told the Line Noise podcast in 2022. “It was very isolated. So I think there is this kind of iciness, this introverted, kind of alone, dark part. Not dark as in necessarily scary, but just it’s very brooding, you know?”





Techno music, let us not forget, comes from disco and funk. It’s generally music for dancing. But there was nothing of joyful motion in ‘Consumed,’ nothing funky to grab the muscular attention, no lingering traces of human instrumentation to rescue you from the void. Rather than Larry Levan in the Paradise Garage, ‘Consumed’ felt like Jean-Paul Sartre contemplating endless nothingness in 1940s Paris: bleak but fascinating, and perfect in its intellectual inhospitality. This was by design. In a recent video, Hawtin said that ‘Consumed’ “is about taking as much away as possible. Leaving something which was more the aftereffects, the shadows of sound... I think at that point, in 1997, I had had so much time on the dancefloor, and ‘Consumed’ was kind of an antithesis of that. It was, ‘Can I continue to make music, coming from a DJ perspective, but reduce the sounds, the rhythm, so that it doesn’t feel like monotonous 4/4 techno anymore?” You could, at a push, dance to some of ‘Consumed.’ But throughout the album, the music feels more like it is waving the possibility of the dancefloor before you, then snatching it away at the last minute. That this menace was encased, on opening tracks ‘Contain’ and ‘Consume,’ in a shuffling triplet rhythm that was more typical of glam-rock boogie than Detroit warehouses (the kind of rhythm that would later form the basis of the short-lived Schaffel genre) felt like some kind of sick joke on the listener, like a pantomime horse clad in satanic robes or the monstrous rabbit figure in Donnie Darko. Hawtin wasn’t the first techno producer to use this kind of rhythm — Felix Da Housecat’s 1997 Essential Mix for BBC Radio One kicks off with a track listed as Ghetto House ‘Untitled’ that has a triplet rhythm, for example — but it was certainly rare, and Hawtin has to earn credit for helping to pioneer it in dance music.

snip