As a follow-up to our chat on playlists last time, I'd like to take look at the subject in more detail. Specifically, I'd like to show you how much obsessive thought goes into making one of my playlists. So maybe this blog won't be the most amusing or embarrassing (don't worry I have more teenage confessions planned for the future!). But who knows, you just might learn something.
Now shut up, class is in session.
I made the playlist we're going to analyse about 4 years ago. If I remember, I made it for my dad in order to try and get across the sheer wealth and diversity of sound possible through electronic music and also to celebrate my favourite muiscal instrument; the humble computer. I'm going to closely examine 5 key areas of this 22 track playlist. The full tracklist is at the end of this post and I've also tried to re-create it as much as possible in Spotify here.
1) Track 1: Pierre Henry & Michel Colombier - Psyche Rock
Instantly recognizable to Futurama fans, the playlist begins with this upbeat psychedelic prologue. This song encapsulates the most prevalent theme in the playlist that of the combination of electronics with traditional instruments. It also sits in the space between academic/experimental (Pierre Henry being one of the pioneers of musique concrète) and popular music, in this case 60's rock, which in my opinion is the space where the most interesting and vital music is produced. But most importantly it just rocks!
2) Track 2: Stockhausen - Studie II & Track 21: Pierre Schaeffer - Etude Violette
Acting as bookends to the almost entirely 21st century meat of the playlist are pieces by two of the most important composers in the development of electronic music. Each represents two of the most prominent approaches to using electronic machinery in the creation of music. Schaeffer and musique concrète in France made music by processing the sounds of everyday objects while Stockhausen in Germany favoured purely electronically generated material. (And their positions in the running order are clustered around modern artists with similar ideologies). While it would be hideously inaccurate to state that Schaeffer and
Stockhausen were the founders of all electronic music, their influence cannot be ignored and I thought it'd be quite neat to give any listening ears some historic context
3) Track 5: Autechre - Tankakern & Track 6: Aphex Twin - Vordhosbn
Oh how far we've come in the years since old Karlheniz's Studie II, where a mere 3 minutes of music took months of cutting and splicing magnetic tape by hand. Now I can make something just as complex on my phone on the way to work! Yes I'm talking about music software and the vast amounts of producers/musicians/DJs of the current age. I only had so much room in this playlist and my prediliction for IDM at the time meant that most popular electronic music had to be represented by just a few tracks in this sub-genre. No doubt if I made this playlist again there would be a Burial track in there somewhere. Anyway these 2 tracks sit nicely between some of the more academic and experimental stuff, if nothing else just to up the tempo a bit! And the fact that Stockhausen famously could not appreciate the music of Aphex Twin makes it all the sweeter that I've stuck them on a playlist together.
4) Track 9: Biosphere - Spring Fever
Under represented in this playlist, but important in highlighting the diversity of the computer in modern music, is the genre of field recording. While predominantly working in the genre of ambient music, here Biosphere's Geir Jenssen captures the sounds of a pack arctic wolves. Their mournful, sonorous cries in Spring Fever are just as powerful as any man-synthed tones. Here we see the computer not as creator or destroyer but as editor. Its ironic that the music of the natural world is only brought to us through these most synthetic means.
5) Track 11: Four Tet - Spirit Fingers; Track 19: John Wall - Construction I & Track 20: Bernard Parmegiani - Accidents/Harmoniques
Briefly discussed earlier, the relation of traditional acoustic instruments with the computer is one of my favourite topics. These 3 tracks approach that relationship from popular, experimental and academic standpoints. Four Tet's sampling retains some of the original acoustic character and creates a piece that is far more energetic and detailed than any acoustic arrangement could ever be. Equally detailed is Wall's composition which is much more destructive with its material to the point where a symphony orchestra sounds like its been ground down into sand. Finally, Parmegiani seeks to blur the lines between instrument and computer by mixing real instruments with carefully synthesised facsimiles.
6) Track 22: Peter Rehberg - Black Holes
An epilogue rounds the playlist out into a neat 2 hours (yes mild OCD helps when making playlists) which is mainly here just because I love the album this track came from. Written for performance to the theatre work of Viennese puppeteer Gisèle Viene, the words denote distressing scenes of psychological trauma and domestic violence. As our sojourn through electronic music ends we see computer music as high-drama competing on the same level as operatic and film scores.
There is even more I didn't get to talk about. Like improvised music created by the interplay between acoustic instruments and live electronics vs the powerbook scene or the joys of putting "high" academic acousmatic music next to drum and bass. Subjects for another day perhaps...
Although I probably imposed all these themes onto this playlist after the fact, its a lot of fun to draw these kinds of connections. Anyway I hear the bell ringing. I hope you've all been taking notes. There'll be a test next week.
Full Tracklist:
1) Pierre Henry & Michel Colombier - Psyche Rock
2) Stockhausen - Studie II
3) Pita - Resog 45
4) Pan Sonic - Mayhem I
5) Autechre - Tankakern
6) Aphex Twin - Vordhosbn
7) Satanicpornocultshop - Some Velvet Morning
8) Matmos - For Felix (and all the rats)
9) Biosphere - Spring Fever
10) Colleen - Everyone Alive Wants Answers
11) Four Tet - Spirit Fingers
12) Tanja Orning & Natasha Barrett - Anchor Synthesis
13) a_dontigny - Tatline
14) Marcelle Deschenes - Big Bang II
15) Fenn O'Berg - Fenn O'Berg Theme
16) Fennesz - Endless Summer
17) Amon Tobin - Triple Science
18) Asa-Chang & Junray - Tsuginepu To Ittemita
19) John Wall - Construction I: Stat/Unt/Dist
20) Bernard Pamegiani - Accidents/Harmoniques
21) Pierre Schaeffer - Etude Violette
22) Peter Rehberg - Black Holes
Wednesday, 26 September 2012
Saturday, 8 September 2012
There Will Be Playlists
As far as I'm concerned, making playlists is a dead - or at least dying - art. While I'm not quite the right age to have lived through the glories of cassette swapping in the 90's, some of my fondest musical memories from my teens involve sitting on the floor of my dad's study crafting my own mix CDs. My efforts were childish but damn if they weren't fun to make: designing album covers (with hideous clipart); thinking of a witty title; I even had a device for printing onto the non-shiny side of the CD!
My epic; my saga was the Anti-Pop series. It was born, it died, it went on a world tour and was gloriously resurrected over a quadrilogy (or maybe a qunitrilogy) of compilations. A messiah formed of rock and metal arisen to smite all that chart, pop and dance rubbish.
Naive as these compilations were I put a lot of effort into ordering them just so. The mood of one track would flow almost seemlessly into the next - although to be honest they all followed the same pattern of increasingly heavy songs culminating in whatever was the most extreme music I can could handle at the time.
The format of the CD with its laughable 74 minute - or sometimes 80, oh the joy of squeezing in one last song! - running time, forced care and careful consideration of content. Maybe I wouldn't choose that monster anthem, maybe instead a sneaky B-side or track from an unsigned band could nestle between Master Of Puppets and Raining Blood. Themes, leitmotifs, 3 songs in a row with the word METAL in the title, all was possible with just a CD and an idea. But in these mp3 days, size is of no concern. Why indeed cut anything from your list of monster tracks? Why not just pile them all in a big heap and hit shuffle? Which is what I did with when I first got an iPod, like all the rest of you did too, and a small part of us all died. The Anti-Pop was never seen again...
My creative yearning for putting songs in a sequential order reared its head again, however, about 2 years ago. I decided to embark on a playlist making experience once more, the only catch was that I could only include bands/musicians I'd discovered on Spotify. This was of course during the 4th great era of my musical development (a theme for future blogs) where I bought a Spotify subscription and set out to listen to as much as I possibly could while pretending to work*. It took me nearly a year to create an epic 100 track playlist, named after a quirky track by Black Dice. Despite its 100 track length - no more, no less, thems the rules - I had considered each transition carefully, moving almost seemlessly between all the genres I was interested in: avant rock, synth-pop, contemporary classical, world music, pseudo-world music, noise, glitch, ambient. That's the most beautiful part of playlist making, drawing links between such disparate and different musics.
Then Spotify decided to fuck things up and remove stuff from its library, this included the title track of my most precious creation. So I thought screw it, I'll chop it in half and declare it the official What Was Music? playlist.
What Was Music?
It doesn't fit on a CD though. And also its almost 4 hours long... Enjoy!
The Anti-Pop lives!
*Dear current employer, I swear that this was during my last job.
My epic; my saga was the Anti-Pop series. It was born, it died, it went on a world tour and was gloriously resurrected over a quadrilogy (or maybe a qunitrilogy) of compilations. A messiah formed of rock and metal arisen to smite all that chart, pop and dance rubbish.
Naive as these compilations were I put a lot of effort into ordering them just so. The mood of one track would flow almost seemlessly into the next - although to be honest they all followed the same pattern of increasingly heavy songs culminating in whatever was the most extreme music I can could handle at the time.
The format of the CD with its laughable 74 minute - or sometimes 80, oh the joy of squeezing in one last song! - running time, forced care and careful consideration of content. Maybe I wouldn't choose that monster anthem, maybe instead a sneaky B-side or track from an unsigned band could nestle between Master Of Puppets and Raining Blood. Themes, leitmotifs, 3 songs in a row with the word METAL in the title, all was possible with just a CD and an idea. But in these mp3 days, size is of no concern. Why indeed cut anything from your list of monster tracks? Why not just pile them all in a big heap and hit shuffle? Which is what I did with when I first got an iPod, like all the rest of you did too, and a small part of us all died. The Anti-Pop was never seen again...
My creative yearning for putting songs in a sequential order reared its head again, however, about 2 years ago. I decided to embark on a playlist making experience once more, the only catch was that I could only include bands/musicians I'd discovered on Spotify. This was of course during the 4th great era of my musical development (a theme for future blogs) where I bought a Spotify subscription and set out to listen to as much as I possibly could while pretending to work*. It took me nearly a year to create an epic 100 track playlist, named after a quirky track by Black Dice. Despite its 100 track length - no more, no less, thems the rules - I had considered each transition carefully, moving almost seemlessly between all the genres I was interested in: avant rock, synth-pop, contemporary classical, world music, pseudo-world music, noise, glitch, ambient. That's the most beautiful part of playlist making, drawing links between such disparate and different musics.
Then Spotify decided to fuck things up and remove stuff from its library, this included the title track of my most precious creation. So I thought screw it, I'll chop it in half and declare it the official What Was Music? playlist.
What Was Music?
It doesn't fit on a CD though. And also its almost 4 hours long... Enjoy!
The Anti-Pop lives!
*Dear current employer, I swear that this was during my last job.
Monday, 3 September 2012
What's in a name?
Hello again.
So it occurs to me that last week I kinda launched straight into a fairly long album review without properly introducing the blog. I guess now is as good a time as any...
It's a blog.
About music.
Now that that's out of the way I thought I'd explain the nature of the blog's title. I nicked it from an album by noisy husband and wife duo Harry Pussy. In their case What Was Music? is a statement of anarchic destruction. Their blistering and abrasive 30 second "songs" aimed to take apart rock and roll with the very tools of its creation, leaving nothing in its wake. Incidentally What Was Music? (the album) is probably too anarchic - or at least anarchy manifested as crummy sound quality - for its own good. For the real phenomenal HP experience I really recommend the late period You'll Never Play This Town Again! compilation.
This title stuck with me though, like some breed of parasitic idea worm boring into my brain until it burst forth as a half-arsed idea to write a music blog. In the end I decided my interpretation of the eponymous question would be archival in nature. I want to record for history how truly inventive and amazing music can be, before it all melts into the homogeneous sludge of mainstream Western culture. Of course, I don't really believe this is happening - although the 2012 Olympic Closing ceremony didn't help - but its nice to think I'm railing against something.
There also seems to be this pervasive idea - at least among some of my friends and relatives - that everything has been done before and there is no new music anymore. Everybody is ripping each other off or gorging heavily on nostaliga. I guess this is something else I want to take a swipe at.
So historians of the future. This was music!
Oh, and there will be playlists. Lots of playlists and maybe a few more free albums. Music writing is essentially meaningless without the music itself. So each week I'll try my hardest to include something you can wrap your ears around. Most, if not all, of these playlists will be on Spotify, which, if you're not aware, is amazing! (and sort of free).
So it occurs to me that last week I kinda launched straight into a fairly long album review without properly introducing the blog. I guess now is as good a time as any...
It's a blog.
About music.
Now that that's out of the way I thought I'd explain the nature of the blog's title. I nicked it from an album by noisy husband and wife duo Harry Pussy. In their case What Was Music? is a statement of anarchic destruction. Their blistering and abrasive 30 second "songs" aimed to take apart rock and roll with the very tools of its creation, leaving nothing in its wake. Incidentally What Was Music? (the album) is probably too anarchic - or at least anarchy manifested as crummy sound quality - for its own good. For the real phenomenal HP experience I really recommend the late period You'll Never Play This Town Again! compilation.
This title stuck with me though, like some breed of parasitic idea worm boring into my brain until it burst forth as a half-arsed idea to write a music blog. In the end I decided my interpretation of the eponymous question would be archival in nature. I want to record for history how truly inventive and amazing music can be, before it all melts into the homogeneous sludge of mainstream Western culture. Of course, I don't really believe this is happening - although the 2012 Olympic Closing ceremony didn't help - but its nice to think I'm railing against something.
There also seems to be this pervasive idea - at least among some of my friends and relatives - that everything has been done before and there is no new music anymore. Everybody is ripping each other off or gorging heavily on nostaliga. I guess this is something else I want to take a swipe at.
So historians of the future. This was music!
Oh, and there will be playlists. Lots of playlists and maybe a few more free albums. Music writing is essentially meaningless without the music itself. So each week I'll try my hardest to include something you can wrap your ears around. Most, if not all, of these playlists will be on Spotify, which, if you're not aware, is amazing! (and sort of free).
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