New Music

[Canar]

Just downloaded a purported collaboration between the orb and meat beat manifesto off of torrentbits.org. Very interesting stuff. They're not two artists I'd really expect to hook up, given how different their focuses seem to be with music.

The first of the two more interesting tracks are called "matron" which is nifty old-school acid breaks. It's got more of the mbm dysphoria than the orb uncertainty.

The second one is called "insane", which takes the style of matron and applies it to old-school-sounding house-esque beats. It's more layered than a lot of old-school work though, making it an interesting listen for people that like both styles.

The middle track, called "1855bc" is kind of free-floaty ambient with all sorts of weird little tangents by both artists. Not generally my kind of tune, but very interesting nonetheless.

I think it's kinda funny how new music is starting to emulate the way electronic music was earlier. Generally I look at electronic producers as innovators, searching for new sound. To perceive them as being historians in a way wasn't something that hadn't really occurred to me.

Now we're starting to see more of the retro sound influence things. The ease with which Trip-Hop picked up real instruments and became new jazz and pop tracks occurred to the complex synth work that had been prevalent previously.

I see more of the electro and acid genres today than i used to. The simple structure is being sought again, in whatever direction. Hardstyle is showing up in greater hordes (after the uk hard house peak whenever it happened), goa's going to more mainstream venues, and electro's emerging as an innovator again.

Maybe this is what "maturity" is for the genre. I could so go for it getting more mass-media approval. Get some of the complex, interesting stuff out there. Not like it'll happen in the current rather lyrically-weighted music scene, but there's hope for the future, right? U2's new album's pretty good. It's definitely looking back, but it's looking back to a time when music was better.

Lyrics are interesting sometimes, I'll give them that. But I find more often than not lately, it's just a tired, over-used instrument. Give it a rest for a while. We've done what we can with them. We've sung, explored new ranges, used vocoders, rapped... We need a break. Let's get some instrumentals out into the popular music scene, get people into the music, not just the lyrics.

Since when did anyone start caring about the hardcores though? It's much easier just to see to everyone who can be passively entertained by the media, rather than seeing the people who get real active enjoyment from it, because that takes effort and people are lazy. Hell, I'm as guilty of that as anyone.

At least our scene's big enough from the help of the internet to survive. We get our parties and our new innovative producers (some doing things like live PA, woot), and can organize well enough to make it happen.

I don't know where I'm going with this rant any more. Except maybe for how much I loathe the popular music scene right now, but we all do generally here, right? So I'll just be another random stoned ranter?