This is the band I most enjoy recently:
http://www.slavicsoulparty.com/
I have yet to see any computer or electronic music show that can hold
a candle to the feeling of being packed into a room of people dancing
face-to-face with 9 musicians pouring their guts into completely
physical instruments. Of course, the website and digital recording
does a poor job of conveying that.
There is something about physical exertion that lends an essential
character to the music. Computer and electronic music is too easy, it
takes almost no physical effort. And it sounds like it most of the
time. To me there is potential in live coding, you since it takes a
lot of mental exertion at least. But people are just learning, so the
music mostly isn't good. Most laptop music barely takes mental
exertion during the performance.
.hc
On Sep 3, 2009, at 5:17 AM, Derek Holzer wrote:
So let's see, it was 1996, and Bob's making noises like Jungle,
Drum&Bass or some other megatrend crowdpleaser just arrived to save
him from the avant-hegemony of the elbow patch professor crowd's
software diddlings. About the same time, Paul Miller aka DJ Spooky
was lamenting how jazz has been run off the rails by the
(subtextually white) "downtown squeaky music scene" in New York (I
might argue that something called the 1980's killed it already...who
actually listens to the last couple drum machine- and sampler-
plagued Miles Davis records? Bob O?). The "high culture" vs "low
culture" thing was very big that decade if I remember correctly...
But I will have to go with Yves on this one. Any time something
fossilizes into a genre it's all downhill from there. Keep your
references clear, quantize to grid, don't step out of line. Bob's
article only seems to go after one of them, but the academic
computer music scene and the club music scene(s) both share the
distinction of being some of the most conservative places I've ever
visited.
Trying to think of a few releases that do it for me, that don't go
for the quantized clubstep grid or the usual academic Fast Fourier
Tropes, use computers and related technologies in a refreshing way
and sound really visceral and alive, off the top of my head I'd say:
Kevin Drumm - Sheer Hellish Miasma reissue [2007 Editions Mego]
John Wiese - Bubble Pulse [2003 Kissy Records]
Anthony Pateras & Robin Fox - End of Daze [2009 Editions Mego]
O.S.T. - Waetka [2008 Ideal]
Hecker - Acid in the Style of David Tudor [2009 Editions Mego]
(No I'm not anywhere near being banked by Mego, these just happened
all to be sitting near the top of the pile due to repeated
listening...although finding much "computer music" at all around my
house is a bit of a challenge!)
D.
Greg Pond wrote:
don't know if any of you have read Ostertag's " Why Computer Music
Sucks" but here is the link
http://bobostertag.com/writings-articles-computer-music-sucks.htm
(this link does not necessarily represent the views or opinions of
the sender)
--
::: derek holzer ::: http://blog.myspace.com/macumbista ::: http://www.vimeo.com/macumbista
:::
---Oblique Strategy # 157:
"Think
- inside the work
- outside the work"
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