No Future?

I've just done a review of a reissue of War of the Worlds by Dark Comedy aka Kenny Larkin and it prompted me to think about how far electronic music has progressed in the 15 year since its original release. In most cases, I'd argue that it hasn't come that far. For anyone who isn't familiar with 'War', it combines epic, widescreen chords that inavariably create a feeling of optimism - it almost feels like the track is saying 'welcome to the future, it's great to be here isn't it?' - over a soaring, pulsing bassline that also evokes images of a greater, happier society. It's much less introspective and more uplifting than techno often is, and when you first hear it, it sounds like a piece of music that should always have existed in your life but until now has been missing. How come so little music nowadays fails to achieve this effect? ( this is just a personal observation - maybe everyone else feels differently) Maybe Larkin's vision was too optimistic; possibly it has to do with wider societal issues - the world has become a far darker place since the early 90s and our collective gloominess and world-weariness means that we are less enthusiastic towards new music; the availability of digital technology to make music means that there is a lot more music out there that sounds similar and that the wow factor is missing, or that with age, we get more and more cynical - or possibly just selective. Having said all that, this theory is open to contradiction all the time - new works by Cristian Vogel, Thomas Melchior (I've just bought 'No Disco Future') and Burial (ditto for 'Untrue') still make me think 'what the fuck is that and how did he do it' and all open doors to new possibilties. Maybe the future is still as bright as it was in 1992- what do you think? What music / artists have this effect on you nowadays?

Comments

[Greg J. Smith]

A very good post & question. :)

Two recent forays into techno(ish) musical futurism that have done it for me:

klimek - dedications (anticipate)
uusitalo - karhunainen (hume)

I love the tone of each of these records. The sophistication and texture of the Uusitalo record is what club usic *could* be in a rosey, progressive future.

..and I'm waiting with bated breath for the return of the revisionist histories of Danny Zelonky via his forthcoming Suite Crude full length.

[Greg J. Smith]

oh.. fabric 36 wasn't too shabby either. ;)

[Kent Sandvik]

I must say, I had a small aha experience after reading the Mark Mothersbaugh interview in LA Times:http://www.laweekly.com/music/music/are-you-not-devo-you-are-mutato/17826/?page=1

In other words, if someone could create innovative tunes with a small electronic piano (Apple Macintosh ads), there's still hope for good music.

Anyway, I'm sure I will soon drop back to the darkness of worrying about 64-bit audio engine sound qualities and so forth, and forgetting the whole idea why music is done in the first place.

[b0b]

Matt Chester's music has this "what was that?" factor (in a good way).
I struck me recently how futuristic it sounded

[beat]

I know exactly what you mean with this post. What happened from the days of songs like Kraftwerk's "Popcorn"? That song had so much emotion and optimism.

I summed up the same in a review I did recently of Boltzmann's "Transformers":

"The tune screams "amateur!", but not in a technical way. On the contrary, the track is well polished with some nice mastering, it's just that the melodies scream "hey, hey, this is my music, listen up!". All too many producers these days are making clinical, tight-knit melodies that are clever and enjoyable, but don't have much emotion. This track is the complete opposite - it's almost like an anti-minimal theme song, with tons of euphoria and a soaring, unpredictable melody that's immediately likeable. This "amateur" sound is extremely refreshing; you wouldn't be likely to say this is the best song you've heard in recent times, but it's extremely stand-out in it's approach, and therefore memorable."

[Sotek]

I think that Burial is putting out near-perfect material. I'm not big on dubstep but his stuff is mindblowing. I know there's a lot of hype around "Untrue" - but in this case it is justified.

[drop]

dubstep is the only thing that really excites me these days. it reminds me of that part in "neuromancer" where gibson sez that dub is the sound of the future.

or something like that.

you mentioned burial - untrue
add to that
pinch - underwater dancehall
boxcutter - gyphic
disrupt - foundation bit

[dj sergej]

should we look on music as a reflection what is going in the sociaety ?
in the 80s gay liberalization in us, in 90s fall of berlin war in EU, and 2000 eastern europe entering into eu ?

looking from that perspctive - future is looking very bright
great music from russia - scsi9 and their label protez,
raresh and his crew from rumunia, or davor o and zvukbroda from croatia, or jan nemecek from serbia

so i think it is future, but depend where it is - but as we know in these days of digital technology and cheap airplane tickets it doenst matter at all

[subborg]

Well, the question is who can do something new or fresh and who push electronic music in future...
I think Burial with his fresh ideas in freestyle. in techno... it's hard to say, maybe young talent romanian musicians, hardwax team (Dettmann, Fengler, Cassy). In house... i don't know... crazy FXHE or classic staff like Slowhouse, maybe minimalhouse-monster :) RV or soul-king Claussell...

[Brophy]

@ everyone(!) sorry! yeah, am in the middle of checking burial, but i like what I hear; i'm a big fan of cassy, think her stuff is very 'out there' in a futuristic sense as is some of the fxhe stuff, matt chester's stuff is very good, he's one of the producers who is pushing detroit-style techno onwards and upwards, and that boxcutter album is great; however, I'm not so keen on those romanians - I thought that petre inspirescu ep on cadenza was very very weak and that raresh mix on cocoon put me to sleep; still, I won;t dismiss them until I hear more....

[B]

That Burial really did it for me...First time I heard Archangel samples on Boomkat I couldn't stop playing them for weeks until the damn thing finally dropped!
Besides that the Foundation Bit album also really gave me a wow factor...I agree that in techno and house the knockout factor isn't there as much because they're older genres where mutations and variations are repeat themselves more often(ie. rob hood/mike ink detroit minmal vs. today's m_nus mnml or electroclash becoming dancerock becoming nu-rave). I guess what I'm trying to say is that there's still room for creativity and its still exciting but rarely do you get the WTF IS THIS? that you can get from the dub side of things...Maybe I'm wrong though...'Blood on My Hands Remix', 'Primer Encuentro...' and the Pantha Du Prince album were really, really sick...