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Even from the birds-eye view of larger genres, the interrelations and ongoing transformation of music is dynamic, complex, and inter-connected. That’s the view in The Evolution of Western Dance Music, a map of musical styles in five-year chunks across the 19th and 20th Centuries, through Africa, Europe, the Americas, and Asia. The project is the work of London/Seattle/New York Web agency Distilled, pulling genre births from Bass Culture, Last Night A DJ Saved My Life,The All Music Guide to Electronica, and Wikipedia.
Having just edited a book entitled The Evolution of Electronic Dance Music, I find it extremely interesting to watch in this visualization the way in which European synth pop and Jamaican dub can become, at once, vessels for a lot of these other musical idioms, just in terms of their ability to carry musical ideas across geography.
What is peculiar: this is more a selection of a few threads than it is any kind of comprehensive history, and many of those threads in turn trace backwards from a few modern styles more than they do forwards over those 200 years. If you accept that, though, there’s still something interesting to watch. Even hand-picking a few genres shows some fascinating connections.
But before I say any more, I think any methodology here will raise questions, and I’m as interested in reader questions as I am commenting myself. Mark Johnstone of Distilled has offered to answer questions, so from the intricacies of how the data visualization and mapping work to thoughts on how one untangles this musical history, I’d love to start a conversation.
Specifics of the genres aside, I think it’s the geographical connections that are in many ways the most interesting – all the more so as we can inexpensively get on trains and planes, cross increasingly-open borders (with some admitted major caveats), and be somewhere altogether different – or do the same from the comfort of our chair. Appropriately, I now see Thomson are a travel/vacation agency.
Discuss.
How Music Travels – The Evolution of Western Dance Music [Thomson blog]
Interactive Music Map [Thomson]
Piers Faccini is a soulful and expressive singer/songwriter whose music fuses folk and West African textures. His debut album found critical acclaim in Europe and brought comparisons to classic artists like Nick Drake. Get your free download here!
Buy your album here from itunes!
Introspective space boogie and ADD jitter-funk are the order of the day on the final record in eLan's trilogy of limited press vinyls before he drops an album on Modeslektor's Monkeytown imprint. Bearing in mind the functional nature of Monkeytown - it's music for nightclubs and DJ's, eLan takes a decidedly pedestrian route - 'Blackout' is a 21st century take on, err Jazz funk that bar some squelchy low end could be a pitched down Paul Hardcastle number. 'Next 2 Last' is similarly sedate, with some interesting sampling that I cannot quite put my finger on, slinky beats and nod L.A's new school of funk. Modeselektor inject a bit of head nodding swagger and aquatic oscillating samples for the heads into 'Bleep Bloop Brrrmmp' where 'Down 4 You' is the highlight for me - menacing FM synths spasm and a mournful, snaking melody make for some pretty deep skanking. Rounding off the package is Anstam's take on 'Saccharin on Top' which comes a close second on the personal favourite stakes. Laid back AND fierce, you can stream the record below.
eLan "Fuzzy Numbers EP" (MTR016) - Out on October 14th by Modeselektor
With laidback, exotic grooves and richly-coordinated interlaced cello, saxophone, turntable, and electronics, Archie Pelago’s music relies on some serious technological savvy. To be sure, all you really need to play instruments and computers and turntables together is to get into a room and start jamming. But to realize their specific musical vision, the trio of Hirshi, Cosmo D and Kroba have turned to an advanced Ableton Live rig, centered around The Bridge to couple Serato and Live. Here’s a look at their music – and all the gory details that combine to make their setup tick.
Grab the free EP for some music:
END004: Shrinin EP by Archie Pelago by end fence
To be honest, after a lot of launch hype, it hasn’t always been easy anecdotally speaking to find a lot of people using The Bridge. The software, combining Ableton’s clip-launching facilities with Serato’s digital DJ setup, perhaps demands a lot conceptually and musically of its users. But boy, are these three using it – and pushing its envelope to the breaking point. I caught up with virtuoso cellist and technologist Greg Heffernan (Cosmo D) at the lovely Percussion Lab party in New York. Greg sends a full description on how the setup works technically, as he originally wrote for the folks at Ableton (who I imagine were quite interested). There’s a lot to follow, so happily, there’s a gear diagram, as well:
To start, there are three of us. I play cello, Zach ‘Kroba’ Koeber plays saxophone and Dan ‘Hirshi’ Hirshorn is on two turntables + mixer. We play our instruments into and alongside Ableton, recording, manipulating and effecting our sounds on-the-fly. Dan provides the rhythmic foundation for our music and because of The Bridge, all of us are in sync with each other.
I’m running my cello into a MOTU Ultralite Mk3 Firewire interface, which is connected to my MacBook Pro running Ableton and Serato simultaneously. I use a Behringer FCB1010 foot pedal (connected via an M-Audio UNO [MIDI] interface into my computer) to record clips of my cello playing, cue effects and generally navigate around the Session View of Ableton. I record my cello live into the Session View as clips, then run these clips through an effects chain on an effects rack. I then use the two expression pedals on the FCB1010 to crossfade between my ‘dry’ cello sound into an effected sound. The effects are controlled with two Korg Nano Kontrols situated below my laptop. I also use a Korg nanoPAD to play sampled clips of various found audio.
Zach’s setup mirrors mine, to an extent. Using a mic to capture his live sax sound, he runs his signal into a Tascam US100 [audio] interface which goes his computer running Live. He uses his FCB1010 to capture and record clips of his own, alongside a Korg nanoKONTROL to control effects. The reason why we chose the FCB1010 and the Korg nanoKONTROL is because they’re relatively inexpensive, easy to carry around the city and on the subway, and have a lot of buttons, knobs and faders for their size. Zach’s computer is connected to mine via an Ethernet cable and his Live set is slaved to mine via Midi Sync, so we’re always locked in the groove together.
The linchpin of this whole setup, however, is Serato and The Bridge. In addition to my running Ableton, I have Serato running via a Rane SL1 [mixer] also connected to my laptop. Coming out of my laptop is a cable going into an external monitor. Dan uses this monitor to display Serato, enabling him to do what he does with his two turn tables, Serato control vinyls, and his Behringer DJ Mixer. Because of the Bridge, my Ableton rig is locked in with whatever he’s spinning, whether it be our original dubs or tunes that inspire us. With everything sync’d up, Zach and I, through our instruments and software, react musically and rhythmically to Dan’s DJing. Dan, via the effects on his mixer and control of his vinyl, reacts musically to us as well.
In terms of audio routing, my audio and Zach’s audio are running into Dan’s mixer, so he’s mixing our sounds as much as he’s controlling Serato.
Cosmo D:
1 cello
1 MacBook Pro 13″
MOTU UltraLive Mk3 Firewire Interface
2 Korg nanoKONTROLs
1 Korg nanoPAD
1 Behringer FCB1010Zach:
1 saxophone
1 MacBook Pro 15″
1 Tascam US100 interface
1 Korg nanoKONTROL
1 Behringer FCB1010Dan:
1 Rane SL1 DJ Interface
1 Behringer DJX750 DJ Mixer
1 Dell 17″ Flatscreen Computer Monitor
2 Turntables (Technics SL 12000)
2 Custom needles.Lots of cables.
New York public radio station WNYU hosted the trio on their program Table Tennis. Three highlight excerpts below, followed by the full program for those of you who want it:
For those of you who aren’t quite ready to leap into The Bridge yet, but do want to loop your instrument, here’s a great place to start. Cosmo D talks about his live looping process in Ableton Live, at the site Bangbang.
And in an interesting way of visually interpreting their music, dancer Genna Baroni choreographs a dance to a track from the trio’s Chocolate Waveplates EP in a music video:
There – now no one has any excuse for not dancing at an Archie Pelago jam. The setting and videography is pretty informal, but it’s nice to see movement as a way of interpreting music.
Music:
Chocolate Waveplates EP Sampler [Slime Recordings] by Archie Pelago
And lastly, a live show from earlier this year at Glasslands in Brooklyn.
Official site:
http://archiepelago.com/
From the opening moments of '3 Minutes', the first song on the debut album of Emika, it is clear that this is not going to be a dubstep album, a bass album or in fact any kind of record that will fit easily into pre-existing pigeonholes. Furthermore, I have no intention of trying to invent one either, this is an album that proudly, and rightly transcends. Working as a sound designer at Native Instruments by day, providing vocals to artists such as MyMy and producing her own music at night, Emika is a musical polymath. Cutting noir-ish themes and with brutal, ambiguous vocals - "Hit me where you wanna and I'll take the blame, hit me and I guarantee you'll feel the same. Hit me if you think I will help the pain, hit hit hit hit me anyway" - Katy B this is not. Unrelentingly dark in her medium, there is still hopefulness to be found around the edges. The likes of 'Common Exchange' and 'Professional Loving' take familiar, almost obvious topes and subvert them for an unsettling effect. Chest crushing bass and discordant samples are a common template, and more than once when listening Lynchian scenes formed in my minds eye. Perhaps on occasion wearing some of her influences a little too boldly - Portishead for example on 'Count Backwards' nonetheless this is spectacular first album. 'Fm Attention', 'Drop the Other' and 'Be My Guest' are all stunning examples of the what can still be achieved making music electronically. Unsettling. Enjoyable. My current favourite.
Vieux’s recently released album, The Secret got stellar reviews by Rolling Stone. Will Hermes from Rolling Stone says Vieux, “joins American peers for a crossover set that slays, primarily because the players come to his music, not the other way around.” read the full article here. He is currently on tour and coming to a city near you! Check out the full tour here.
Here’s a quick update on Brazilian-electronic ensemble Da Cruz: we’ve got an Boom Boom Boom remixes EP (digital-only) on the way! Stay tuned for more news, but be sure to check out their latest album Sistema Subversiva or this video of Da Cruz performing Boom Boom Boom.
The first video off the latest The Real Tuesday Weld album The Last Werewolf made its debut on Mashable this week. The stop-motion video for “Tear Us Apart” was directed by Alex de Campi and was described as “creepy yet sweet”. Mashable has more background on the video, and we’ve got the video below.
A merry band of complementary filmmakers, photographers, and musicians, a curated ensemble perfectly fitted to the landscape, are heading to remote Iceland to make images and a musical soundtrack inspired by the landscape and its people.
Photographers Tim Navis + Kim Høltermand and film collective Scenic are heading up the visual component, while composer and electronic producer Deru has assembled the musicians. Improvisation is intended to be a guiding force, say the creators. With the assistance of a community organized on Kickstarter, it’ll also be crowd-funded. In addition to the obligatory, pretty photo book and prints and boxed set of music, they also propose to share behind-the-scenes glimpses of the process, which crosses from the LA area to Danish architect-descended photographer Høltermand.
For fans of richly-sonic, thoughtfully-composed and designed electronic music, the music lineup looks fantastic. Aside from Deru, you get:
Shigeto (Ghostly International)
Loscil (Kranky)
Goldmund (Unseen)
Asura (NonProjects / Leaving Records)
Tycho (ISO50 / Ghostly International)
Joby Talbot
Ryuichi Sakamoto
Take (Alpha Pup)
Thomas Knak/Opiate (Co-Producer of Björk’s Vespertine)
Other artists are TBD.
But don’t listen to me; go grab Deru’s fantastic first single. [direct download link]
Machinedrum has been making music for over ten years now and it shows. Lavishly detailed, mind bending percussion and drums programmed so precisely that if music fails him, Travis Stewart could always tray a second career as a watchmaker. After a lengthy period of inactivity following the release of the remix leaning Mergerz & Acquisitionz in 2006, he recently re-appeared at the club ready to enter a party that was eager to engage with his stuttering ADD beats and myriad snippets of dance music's past glories as both Machinedrum and Sepalcure -his similar sounding project with Praveen.
With a slew of 12" releases on Luckyme, PlanetMu and others that discogs is yet to catch up with (I only know, because I've seen them in record shops) the question is why did Stewart decide to come back to releasing club music now? Or to put another way, has it taken until now for the landscape to mutate enough to finally be open to his particular brand of drum heavy bass music?
Channeling the spirit of John Carpenter on 'Now U Know Tha Deal 4 Real' for example, or smacked out autotune vocals on 'Youniverse', Room(s) is as a cohesive album as you could expect from someone who generally aims his weapons at the dance-floor. Commercial rave piano chords on 'Come1' stride atop beats that are nothing short of claustrophobic, wheezing in and out of the speakers and making me tense and excited - the jungle that Stewart plays in his DJ sets is a clear influence, but so is much of myriad styles of post-bass music.
There's plenty of producers following a similar path to Stewart at the moment and one slight criticism is that Room(s) is very fixed in the 'now' and although his production chops set him way above many of the (admittedly just starting out) young guns, he is no grizzled veteran - his light touch and ever so slight pop appeal means that this is machine music that girls can get down to when the boys are freaking out. However as an album, it is best appreciated in small doses for the full visceral effect.
