State of the dance nations from Sherburne

[Corpsey]

It’s Time for Electronic Music to Turn Its Dreams Into Reality

After the pandemic decimated dancefloors worldwide, electronic music seeks a new way forward.

pitchfork.com

I guess this is more optimistic than we tend to be on here, although he does talk about how there's a yearning for something new and fresh.

Thought this might start a good discussion/bitter argument on here so

 

[version]

Guess the report of Pitchfork's death was an exaggeration.

 

[version]

It’s Time for Electronic Music to Turn Its Dreams Into Reality

After the pandemic decimated dancefloors worldwide, electronic music seeks a new way forward.

pitchfork.com

I guess this is more optimistic than we tend to be on here, although he does talk about how there's a yearning for something new and fresh.

Thought this might start a good discussion/bitter argument on here so

He doesn't have much to say, does he? You can guess pretty much every point he's going to make. COVID, people not clubbing as much, a bit about politics, established artists still dominating. We've heard it all before. Vague musings on the usual topics.

 

[shakahislop]

it's a bit narrow minded to expect a form as now as old as electronic music you can dance to, or a practice as old as putting up big soundsystems and taking drugs and dancing, to still be producing the shock of the new.

as i keep going on about on here if you are interested in newness it is going on absolutely everywhere but it's hard to see it if your basic parameters are ones that made sense in the 80s and 90s, eg that music is the thing you look to to provide that

it's still great as a cultural practice and that aspect of it feels like it's in rude health in nyc

 

[shakahislop]

i dunno how you can go about your daily life without being smacked in the face by eg something you struggle to process or something that feels like a dream made real

 

[mvuent]

He doesn't have much to say, does he? You can guess pretty much every point he's going to make. COVID, people not clubbing as much, a bit about politics, established artists still dominating. We've heard it all before. Vague musings on the usual topics.

haven't read it but sherburne is a successful middle aged guy living in some sunny, tasteful part of spain, so there's no way he'd be coming up with anything original. probably knows about some great hiking or cycling trails though.

 

[thirdform]

said this numerous times before regarding the imaginary of futurism, but the shock of the new only makes sense within the gradiants of the ruthless injunction to consume, and hence inarguably bourgeois. Once you penetrate a little deeper, the shock of the new merely becomes following the relative trajectories of popular culture, and not the absolute shock of the new in all forms of artistic production. In that sense we can't really speak of a historical shock of the new since free jazz and musique concrete. Whenever I said this though barty used to poo-poo me, as if I was slating dance culture, when all I was doing was taking his critical impulses to their logical conclusion.

 

[thirdform]

I should say I defend the relative shock of the new of popular forms, dance music, dub and dancehall, hip hop and industrial being prime examples, but they are relative and in large part self-contained by criteria of standardisation.

 

[thirdform]

said this numerous times before but the shock of the new only makes sense within the gradiants of the ruthless injunction to consume, and hence inarguably bourgeois. Once you penetrate a little deeper, the shock of the new merely becomes following the relative trajectories of popular culture, and not the absolute shock of the new in all forms of artistic production. In that sense we can't really speak of a historical shock of the new since free jazz and musique concrete. Whenever I said this though barty used to poo-poo me, as if I was slating dance culture, when all I was doing was taking his critical impulses to their logical conclusion.

I should say that this kind of shock of the new elevated to principle of how music should operate or how should musical discourse should operate is untenable, you'll just get hit with constant attempts to reinvent the wheel rather than the cataclysmic explosions which produced these forms (in this case the fall out from WW II) and the continued expansion of the productive forces. It would be like attempting to pursue constant ontological ego death, deeply unpleasant.

 

[thirdform]

i dunno how you can go about your daily life without being smacked in the face by eg something you struggle to process or something that feels like a dream made real

Because I'm not a liberal.

 

[chava]

"Even before arriving in Poland, I’d been taking inspiration from artists like Chuquimamani-Condori, whose 2023 album DJ E collages together Andean styles like huayno and kullawada into an overwhelming, ecstatic rush of frequency and sensation. While rooted in the California-born artist’s Aymara culture and heritage, "

Aaargh

 

[Corpsey]

I guess newness is overrated, and it wears off fast, faster than ever these days.

I still find footwork music exciting to listen to, even though by now I'm not at all surprised by the general sound of it.

It isn't its newness that makes it exciting, its something intrinsic to the form that made it exciting in the first place.

 

[wektor]

"Even before arriving in Poland, I’d been taking inspiration from artists like Chuquimamani-Condori, whose 2023 album DJ E collages together Andean styles like huayno and kullawada into an overwhelming, ecstatic rush of frequency and sensation. While rooted in the California-born artist’s Aymara culture and heritage, "

Aaargh

surprisingly good album, especially as this kind of attempts usually flop.
Wonderful sound fonts.
It’s chopped and screwed latino that defends itself, highly recommended

 

[thirdform]

I guess newness is overrated, and it wears off fast, faster than ever these days.

I still find footwork music exciting to listen to, even though by now I'm not at all surprised by the general sound of it.

It isn't its newness that makes it exciting, its something intrinsic to the form that made it exciting in the first place.

yes well @luka never liked music, only the consumption of ideas, a bad democratic habit!

 

[version]

Is there a chasing the dragon aspect to it? Can the new indefinitely hit the same way or will you burn yourself out and struggle to register it at some point?

 

[Corpsey]

I wonder if it's something that people get more and more obsessed with as they get older, it wouldn't be surprising would it. Of course, a lot of people are happy to just keep listening to what they liked when they were 20 for the rest of their lives, but there's others who really want music to be as all-consuming and exciting as it once was and maybe searching for that new sound is part of that?

 

[version]

I wonder if it's something that people get more and more obsessed with as they get older, it wouldn't be surprising would it. Of course, a lot of people are happy to just keep listening to what they liked when they were 20 for the rest of their lives, but there's others who really want music to be as all-consuming and exciting as it once was and maybe searching for that new sound is part of that?

When I was frequently finding new and exciting music it was because I was into scenes which were thriving at the time, not because I was actively looking for something new and exciting. I did go through a phase of that, but it was fairly short-lived and a byproduct of those scenes stagnating.

 

[chava]

When I was frequently finding new and exciting music it was because I was into scenes which were thriving at the time, not because I was actively looking for something new and exciting. I did go through a phase of that, but it was fairly short-lived and a byproduct of those scenes stagnating.

Yeah, I don't really believe people are that obsessed about whatever that is new other than journalists and those jack-of-all-trade producers who rarely does anything really original or 'authentic' even (which is just as bad a word as 'new'). I had a brief confused phase as well in the early to mid 00's after techno broke down, where I was listening to all sorts of 'new' and experimental stuff. And 90% of that was just self-indulgent crap which I hope I never return to again.

 

[woops]

90% of that was just self-indulgent crap which I hope I never return to again.

can you post some of this stuff? new thread

 

[version]

Trite, but if someone makes a jungle or dancehall thing or whatever in a style I've heard before and it bangs that's all that matters, e.g. the Kartel tune in the gun tune thread. Shock of the new can be a rush, but it's fleeting by nature and an increasingly unsatisfying way to navigate something like music as you age. Depressing when you catch yourself trying to force the excitement.