Electronic music
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On Bassweight
The documentary DVD Bassweight offers an overview of the emergence of dubstep, perhaps the most significant vector in the past few years of electronic dance music. Dubstep originated in South East London in the late 1990s, growing out of instrumental dub remixes of the two-step garage sound, combining its rapid-fire, double time feel with the sub-bass basslines of dub and a Continue reading
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Categorizing (One’s) Music
If you want to set up, as I recently did, an artist account at CDBaby to sell your music, you will be directed to a screen where you will be asked not only to succinctly describe your sound, but also categorize the material in terms of pre-existing labels. For my description I wrote this: “This collection of Continue reading
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The 1980s Revisited: Synthesizers, Drum Machines and La Roux
In the early 1980s, just as I was getting seriously interested in music, electronic musical instruments were getting seriously interesting and affordable. I spent a lot of time lurking around the back section of music stores and even home organ stores (yes, they used to have such places; do they still?) fiddling with the then brand-new Roland Continue reading
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Electronic Music and Gaming Theory
In this week’s New Yorker there is an article by Nick Paumgarten on the Japanese video game designer Shigeru Miyamoto that unpacks the magic behind such Miyamoto game creations such as Super Mario Bros. and Legend Of Zelda. Game designing is a creative endeavor that few people besides Miyamoto have mastered. (Though the American Will Wright, designer of Sims and Continue reading
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Brian Eno on Improvisation, Computers and Music
One of the reasons why musician and producer Brian Eno’s words are worth reading is that he often has timely things to say about music and says them in a way that makes sense and makes you pause and think. In a recent Pitchfork interview (my second Pitchfork-related post in a week), Eno discusses strategies for improvisation and the Continue reading
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The Disguised Musical Voice
Recently I blogged about Auto Tune and its magical pitch-correcting abilities. While the post was ostensibly about a musical technology, its subtext was of course all about the human voice, specifically the delight we take in altering how our voices can sound. Auto Tune is one way to do it, but that’s really just the Continue reading
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Sound Exploring
If you make electronic music of any type you can’t get around the inescapable fact of needing and wanting to explore new sounds. Back in the early days of electronic music–think Stockhausen, Otto Luening and Vladimir Ussachevsky–making electronic sounds was a laborious process. One had to layer sine tones, or manipulate magnetic tape, or deal Continue reading
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Eno & Co. Improvising Electronic Music
Ambient music guru Brian Eno recently released a recording called Small Craft On a Milk Sea (2010 Opal Ltd.). Perhaps as part of a promotional strategy for the new release (?), Eno is making a series of seven videos called “Seven Sessions On a Milk Sea” documenting improvised performances with two other musicians (Jon Hopkins Continue reading
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Making Musical Systems Public
Over the years, a lot of electronic musicians have shrouded their work in a veil of mystery: they tell us very little about how they make their music–the tools the use, their working methods, and so forth. We are reminded of vinyl DJs back in the day who would cover up the labels on their Continue reading
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On Autechre: Exercising The Materiality Of Machine Music
I don’t think of a sound in my head and try and find it on the keyboard. I just find the sound on the keyboard. -Sean Booth, Autechre Have you ever listened to the music of Autechre? They are a UK-based electronic music duo that has been releasing their unique brand of adventurously experimental and probing techno music Continue reading
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