I seem to have this habit that can manifest itself in any environment or under any circumstances, of listening to the birds wake up in the morning as the sun rises, and lately I have also been listening to deep house. Nature, and in some ways human history, consists of a base line of chirping—stasis, interpreted as rhythm— accentuated sporadically, or at intervals, by a pigeon flying past or a crow in the distance— chaos, interpreted as lyricism. Think about jazz, it’s only rhythm and lyrics, whether they be vocal or instrumental. New elements are introduced and incorporated into whole. Rainer Trueby, “To Know You” and Nicolas Jaar, “A Time For Us” are two perfect examples of contemporary deep house tracks breaking down elements in order to show their complexity, incorporating them into the rhythm, and adding vocal and instrumental lyricism to accent it. Floating Points is another artist that comes to mind.
Why, Rusko… why did you have to do this to yourself? I should have known when I saw him play at Hardfest last fall… He is was so boring, everyone just stood there as he pretended to jam on stage for an hour or so, playing the same song over and over…
While his debut album, entitled O.M.G.! (worst title ever to go with the worst album cover ever), is slightly more varied than the set he played back in October of 2009, it is equally as boring. This is sad; dubstep is on the verge of becoming a mainstream phenomenon in the US, and Rusko is its biggest representative— no wonder Britney Spears tagged him to produce her newest album, they seem to be of similar talent.
This new album is nothing more than radio-friendly popstep. It is a collection of relatively few poor ideas wrapped up in nice 4-minute packages for the pedestrian dubstep listener to enjoy. There are some good ideas in here, like when the arpeggio comes in during “You’re On My Mind Baby”, or the party-pleasing call and response of “Woo Boost”, but they are dealt with in such unsophisticated ways that it is absolutely impossible to appreciate them for any artistry that they may contain.
He felt the need, apparently, to cover up his inadequate production skills by guesting the most random fuckers he could think of. Amber Coffman of The Dirty Projectors? Her voice sounds as beautiful as ever in “Hold On”, but there is nothing holding me from pressing the next button… and don’t even get me started about the Gucci Mane track.
“Rubadub Shakedown” and “District Line” show Rusko recognizing the dub roots of dubstep (obviously), so at least he knows where his productions stem from musically, but what about these songs make you want to play them on massive ass speakers? This brings up a more important point about the album as a whole… the complete lack of actual bass, and the repeated use of self-same drum and horn samples over and over.
[What happened to a music of self-similarity? Fractals are the way of the future.]
Yes, this is supposed to be bass music, so where is it? Oh, that’s correct, right there— in the mid-range. Most commercial dubstep is more interested in the mid-range wobble than the deep sub bass that the genre was founded upon, and Rusko is the epitome of this downfall. Where is the rhythm? Where are the chord structures? The lack of complexity in Rusko’s music is aggravating and confounding. I guess it speaks volumes about the quality of the electronic music industry today.
Asshole. You are ruining bass music for the rest of us… and nobody seems to notice. A quick Google search will leave you blinded by the shining niceties of the popular press. This is catchy music for an unintelligent culture of 160-character snippet-people.
New techno track I did as Geoprim in the Berlin/Detroit style with dubstep elements.
Something interesting is happening in American music. Creativity has been stagnate for a while now, but there are points of interest popping up all across the country.
I’m thinking about an interesting new strain of hip Hop, dubstep, and electro coalescing in popular circles [Laidback Luke’s edit of “On To The Next One”, Electro stardom, Lady GaGa], but I’m thinking more specifically about new strains of underground talent in New York [Fred P./Black Jazz Consortium, Anton Zap, DJ Qu, DJ Jus-Ed, Levon Vincent, Anthony Parasole, Derek Plaslaiko, Eric Cloutier], Detroit [Omar-S, Theo Parrish, Kyle Hall, Jason Fine, Luke Hess, Anthony Shakir], and Los Angeles [LCD Soundystem and Flying Lotus are both coming out with albums this year].
American talent is penetrating European trends; with Kyle Hall producing for Hyperdub, Black Jazz Consortium and John Roberts producing for Dial [via sublabel Laid], and Levon Vincent producing for Ostgut Ton, Americans have house in Hamburg, techno in Berlin, and dubstep in London. European cities are all taking cues from new American talent because America is producing truly interesting music. Think about Animal Collective, Atlas Sound, Dirty Projectors, all American bands leading the way in indie hipster music circles [let’s be honest, they are good, but we can label appropriately], although I think there will be a resurgence of ’90s guitar indie rock.
Europe has been producing most of the interesting electronic music over the past few years [specifically dubstep and techno, and the recent musical and geographical experimentation in between], but I think American musicians have the ideas about what is happening next, and will probably be dominant on the avant-garde of certain musical styles again soon.
Last year, Black Meteoric Star collaborated with assume vivid astro focus for an audio/visual installation at the MoMA; this year, Animal Collective performed an installation piece (?) at the Guggenheim. I think there is some sort of connection there, of contemporary American music with contemporary American art. Maybe contemporary American music is the preeminent form of American art.
Furthermore, in European music there has been a dichotomy of new musical ideas (Shed’s Shedding the Past, developments in dubstep, and raw techno white labels abound) and a looming sense of nostalgia. Labels like Clone are putting out new material from across the world, but it seems like their most hyped releases have been re-issues of vintage house and techno gems, mostly made in America. They are promoting a certain conception of where electronic music is at the moment, and considering that Clone’s distributor Rush Hour has its hands and feet all over European house and techno right now, that conception is influential.
I have this theory that the most well-respected underground house and techno labels in Europe are like haute couture fashion houses. New ideas in fashion are started on the runways of Paris and Milan, taken by fashion designers in London and New York, and eventually trickle down to the mainstream. Everyone says, European cities see trends quicker than New York and LA, which get to them quicker than the majority of society. There are obviously fads started in different places, outliers and anomalies, but I think we can all agree on that basic progression. Where these ideas come from is a completely different debate, a fascinating one, but not one I’ll get into.
Basically what I’m saying is that Clone is influential, and the ideas they espouse trickle down, how far into the mainstream I’m not sure, but what I’m getting at is that there is an idea floating around in the avant-garde that electronic music needs to reinvigorate itself by going back to the roots. I see it as coming from the reaction to minimal, if you can see minimal techno as a form of modernism. Techno music is rooted in Detroit, so it is interesting that you have Clone in Europe releasing Frictionalism 1994-2009 [a retrospective of Anthony “Shake” Shakir’s work for his own label from Detroit], as well as Motorcitysoul and Motor City Drum Ensemble naming themselves after Detroit even though European, but you have labels like Underground Quality in New York putting out new interesting ideas about techno [via house], Kyle Hall putting out interesting ideas out in Detroit about house [via dubstep], and DFA and Flying Lotus in Los Angeles putting interesting ideas out about house [via disco] and hip hop [via dubstep].
And then there is Terre Thaemlitz aka DJ Sprinkles, who is just doing his own thing, and totally awesome.
Geoprim - Western Hemlock [March 2010]
I made this track today while fucking around and thinking about the neon synth revolution (thx Joy Orbison, Bok Bok, Floating Points, et al), the disco/deep house revival, and the pretty green trees outside my window.
Two weeks ago we had a dubstep party in LoFo, the BASSment of Middlebury College’s Forest Hall. Shit was underground as fuck [literally].
The bass was so heavy it brought the ceiling crashing to the floor, but nobody cared until we got shut down at 3:30 A.M.
Babies were made, souls were thrashed, and as cliche as it sounds we couldn’t help but release ourselves to the music.
Check out my promo mix for DubNight, No Dubstep Future. I explore the communicative properties of bass through new mixing techniques and challenging assumptions about dubstep as it relates to electronic music and club culture in general.
Music describes the cultural context which births it.
You can understand the values of disenfranchised urban subcultures by listening to the topics of debate expressed within hip hop music. How many gunshots? How many hoes? Drug deals? Jail time.
Or rather, how many bank accounts? Whips? Yachts? Properties.
Writers write what they know, and artists express what they are thinking, and quite often that is derived from what the society at large is thinking and doing, although the conclusions don’t need to be equivalent.
You can stratify such issues geographically: by country, by region, by city, by neighborhood. Music is rooted in time and place.
Techno music expressed the industrial wasteland of Detroit in the ’80s.
Chicago responded, fuck it, let’s groove.
Elvis is irreconcilable from America in the ’50s.
Where do we stand today? Perhaps our collective unconscious can only be expressed in frequency. We have become so disillusioned from traditional ways of expression [[technology has destroyed our ability to communicate in real terms]] that only deep bass will satisfy our bodily and intellectual needs.
“How low?” asks Ludacris. Pretty fucking low, I say.
It is the apotheosis of bass. Can you feel it?
