Whither minimal? Once a niche proposition, now an increasingly bulky subset of house and techno-- at least in name-- the genre is suddenly ubiquitous. A year or two ago, when Ubercoolische.com launched its not-so-gentle parody of the minimal trinity (Ricardo Villalobos, Richie Hawtin, and Magda), bringing the world the unforgettable slogan "Magda make the tea," it felt like an inside joke for Berlin clubbers and sad sacks who fantasize about club life in Berlin. But these days the word is everywhere...

The problem, insofar as there is one, is that no terms have come along to supplant "minimal," and it's come to mean as little as "progressive," a genre misnomer if ever there was one. Let's face it, some genre tags simply suck: Witness IDM, a name so powerfully lame (and lamely powerful) that it birthed an entire movement of lackluster music to fit the desires of an internet mailing list. Other appellations manage to transcend their signifiers, much as Banana Republic dropped every last vestige of Indiana Jones hats in its transformation into Business Casual Inc: It's been a long time since hip-hop had much to do with "a hip to the hippy to the hop," but that hasn't slowed it down-- if anything, it's been a boon. The durable genres-- the universalist ones-- create their own realities apart from those suggested by their names. I'd imagine that part of indie rock's perpetual navel-gazing-- sorry, meant to say soul-searching-- has to do with that pesky "i"-word, which automatically circumscribes a value system that hampers aesthetic risk-taking.

Maybe we can live with "minimal," and in 20 years, when minimal has its own Billboard Hot 100 and a video-music mobile-telephony network dedicated to it, we'll look back on this column as quaint. Or far more likely, the term, reflecting the currently specialist, niche-oriented quality of the music, will have a limiting effect. It's the first time in a long time that what is quaintly called "underground" electronic music has the potential to attract a wider audience. Maybe not Jay-Z wider, but hopefully more ample than the four-digit sales that your average techno CD enjoys today. Hell, DFA just commissioned Baby Ford for a remix. Baby Ford was once a major-label artist; now he (sort of) is again. We can have our Maximum Rock 'n' Roll debates about the perils of the majors 'til we're blue in the face, but we can at least accept that it's an interesting, and promising moment for techno. And what we choose to call it-- and more importantly, for how we actually think about it, and what we ask from it-- might have some measure of effect on its prospects.

By Philip Sherburne , May 24, 2006
Lifted from: http://tinyurl.com/748hvym
Philip Sherburne's writing and photographs can be found at www.philipsherburne.com.