Date: Thu, 22 Aug 1996 17:43:46 EDT From: Dez (100702.123@COMPUSERVE.COM) Subject: 4AD-L to split Jens Alfke's news that he is to set up an ethereal/wotsit list seems lik good news to me. I've been on this list around a year now, and it seems to me that the majority of major flame wars that erupt are basically of the old 4AD/new 4AD types. Personally I prefer these kind of lists to cover as broad a church as possible, but it does seem that there is a very clear divide between those who see 4AD's 'Golden' period as being around 83-86 with Cocteau Twins, Xymox, DCD, TMC etc and those who believe that the label really found its feet with the signing of the Muses/Pixies and welcome the nineties eclecticism. Anyone who's read any of my drivel will know which side of the fence my feet are planted on, but I'm not interested in reopening that debate. I think it's time for a parting of the ways. Obviously there will be many people who feel as comfortable with the old as they do the new - nobody is suggesting that the lists should be mutually exclusive. But for those who consider the Cocteau Twins to be totally irrelevant to anything in 1996, and those who consistently hate everything 4AD puts out, being on the same list is bound to cause conflict - not to mention overuse of the delete key. - Dez PS we get to keep Red Atkins, though. Date: Tue, 24 Sep 1996 09:31:10 -0700 From: Jens Alfke Subject: A new mailing list With the help of Jack Huynh, I've finally done what I've long been threatening to do: I've started up a new mailing list to spin off much of the interesting (to me) non-4AD discussion from the 4AD list. Rather than having the topic just be "thislisty stuff that isn't on 4AD", I've tried to focus things a bit more. (There's an excerpt from the Intro web page below.) I know some people here have been opposed to the idea of doing this; but I really think it's time. The musical split between the current 4AD roster and the kind of music pure-impure wants to discuss is by now pretty complete -- the only crossover bands I can think of would be Gus Gus and possibly HNIA. It's time to give 4AD-L back to the people who still like 4AD and discuss the ongoing electroswirlynoisyjunglethereal scene elsewhere. I've tried hard to design a list that will not stagnate the way single-band lists do; we have a very wide variety of stuff to discuss, much of which is way out on the bleeding edge and not very well served by the mainstream media (hell, they can't even come up with a decent name for it. "Post-rock" my ass.) The focus will be on the music itself, not on peripheral issues like movies, record stores or clubs. Here's an excerpt from the list manifesto. You can read all this and more, with better formatting, along with a poster I've spent too long slaving over, at: http://www.mooseyard.com/Jens/pure-impure/ _________________________________________________________________________ pure-impure is a mailing list for discussing music that mixes up elements of techno, ambient, shoegazer (aka dreampop), noise, dub, drone, and what-have-you. Some of this music has been called "trip-hop". Some has been called "post-rock". No one's come up with a good label yet, but there's a lot of interesting music being made that seems to fit into a coherent whole. The name of this mailing list comes from an EP by Seefeel, whose early recordings are a perfect example of this style -- amorphous, looped sound; elastic basslines; guitar morphed into a swirl of sound; vocals lost in the mix. However, this is not exclusively a Seefeel mailing list. This list is a spin-off of the long-lived 4AD-L, which has been a good place for discussing these types of music. However, with the continued evolution of the 4AD label (The Paladins?!?) there's a growing distance between the bands currently on 4AD and a lot of the non-4AD music being discussed there. It seemed to make sense to split the ambient/noise/etc. discussions into their own list; and here we are! In setting up this mailing list I'm trying to avoid the bad examples of one-band lists, which quickly run out of things to talk about. On the other hand, I have to hope that there is enough of an aesthetic focus that we can agree what music is relevant without digressing into infinity or getting into flame wars. It'll help to have a core set of bands we can assume axiomatically are relevant. Here are some examples, up for debate or addition: Bark Psychosis Bowery Electric Flying Saucer Attack (and spin-offs such as Movietone and 3rd Eye Foundation) Labradford Laika (and old Moonshake) My Bloody Valentine Portishead (or are they off the pop end of the spectrum?) Scala Seefeel Slowdive (particulary Pygmalion and the 5EP) Spectrum Stereolab (who in many ways don't fit but whom I'm convinced belong here) Talk Talk (their later albums such as Spirit of Eden and Laughing Stock) Tortoise Tricky (and Massive Attack?) Underworld Windy & Carl ___________________________________________________________________________ __ Again, the full manifesto is at: To subscribe, send email to and put in the body: subscribe pure-impure FirstName LastName Please read the web pages before posting -- there's additional info about subscription options as well as list etiquette (hint: don't post any for-sale lists or ask when tickets go on sale!) The list has been running in beta test for about 1 1/2 weeks now with about 15 subscribers, and there's been some good discussion of Stereolab, DJs Shadow and Spooky [whom I always get mixed up], the Lilys, Flying Saucer Attack, etc. If you like this kind of music, we need your contribution too! See you there... __________ ___________________ ________________________ Jens Alfke Recovering C++ User jens@apple.com [work] jens@mooseyard.com [play] "Bobby, jiggle Grandpa's rat so it looks alive, please." _____________________________ http://www.mooseyard.com/Jens/ Date: Mon, 20 Oct 1997 08:50:00 -0700 From: Jens Alfke Reply-To: pure-impure list To: IMPURE-L@PIG.CKS.COM Subject: ListServ commands, digests, & the web page [The following text is in the "iso-8859-1" character set] [Your display is set for the "" character set] [Some characters may be displayed incorrectly] This weekend I updated the pure-impure web pages slightly, mostly to reflect the new address and new list server software. The pages are still at: http://www.mooseyard.com/Jens/pure-impure/ Info includes how to get digests, stop receiving cc:s of your messages, et cetera. Let me know if anything is incorrect. I'd also like to set up a page of useful links to other sites (band pages, record labels, etc) so if you have anything you'd like to see there, please e-mail me privately. --Jens