The Last Flowering of the Future

The thing I’m trying to say is about an issue of containing, restricting, isolation, incubating in the internet age

That festering point was about scenes and gatekeeping to an extent. Here’s what it is and here’s what it isn’t. but even at the level of an artist in production, the accessibility of digital software, presets etc can mean visions might be articulated in a *good-enough* way too easily, too easy to flippantly try things on

Someone here has already said something like this better, dunno who
 

Beagle

Active member
Barty discovered Migos after the "Bad & Bougee" song and thinks they invented a new genre by doing WOOP adlibs between their triplets LOLOLOL
 

padraig (u.s.)

a monkey that will go ape
Curious what the people here think

idk it sounds to me like only someone who wasn't familiar with older forms of African pop music would call that "the future", in that sense

like the way a hip person would wear an "Africa is the Future" t-shirt; possibly true, but mainly a signifier

I admittedly have no idea who Chal Raven is, nor is my finger on the pulse of gqom

but tbh turn of the 90s kwaito sounds more fwd to me, if being fwd is the criteria
 

padraig (u.s.)

a monkey that will go ape
Maybe I'm just old
but to the main point of the thread, this is it

the time barrier is also, and/or is related to, an age barrier, albeit one that varies person by person

silverdollar is correct - innovation is always happening, based on new ways of perceiving and shaping reality

in other words, usually based on new technologies and/or drugs, or the confluence thereof

this is a stereotype but it's also in my experience largely true - wherever the young queer kids, often of color, are, there's the cutting edge of dance music
 

padraig (u.s.)

a monkey that will go ape
Why people are perturbed at the idea of there being no future left is that it suggests that the process itself has paused
idk man I think it perturbs people mainly cos we're by nature egocentric, defaulting to ourselves as the center of that process, even if we intellectually know otherwise

"the future" is the future as it relates to me

so on a personal level it's both a mortality thing (I'm getting old) and/which leads to an existential thing (there is no future/I have no future)

"future" and "past" being, obviously, individually and temporally relative

i.e. people at any given point in "history" didn't see themselves as living through history
 

padraig (u.s.)

a monkey that will go ape
so this feeling of there's nothing new or whatever is pretty much entirely to do with individual perspective rather than whatever's actually happening

tbh in the last couple years I've gone from indifferent from to actively feeling that things like whether new innovation is happening in music are pointless

i.e. Australia was on fire for months, Miami and most of Bangladesh (and the Maldives, etc) will likely be underwater within some of our lifetimes, etc

granted, that's just me and how I feel. as I'm saying innovation will happen regardless of what I or anyone feels, as long as the means, will, and demand for it exist.
 

Bellwoods

Active member
this is a stereotype but it's also in my experience largely true - wherever the young queer kids, often of color, are, there's the cutting edge of dance music

Perhaps a touchy subject, but I submit that there is nothing inherently (ie. genetically) innovative about being queer, or of colour.

I have queer friends complaining there are no gay bars left in the city. Not because gay people are under attack, but because the destratifying forces of capital have lead most bars to hang a rainbow flag in their window. Some combination of activism and woke capital have resulted in a situation where gay people go to "regular" bars. Not great if you're trying to meet gay people specifically.

Cultural homogenization, Auge's supermodernity of the ego, black people need televisions too, etc. etc.

So we would expect to see innovation coming from places where destratifying processes haven't yet set it.
 

thirdform

pass the sick bucket
people like Chal Ravens and London hipster techno do drugs. more than people on here i would wager. the whole coordinates are false. psytrance being a prime example of shite drug music. honestly youse are resting on ur laurels. try and create a new framework. don't be so basic!
 

Bellwoods

Active member
But festering does occur, think 4chan, alt-right etc. Cultures that are hidden and incubated because of their repulsiveness or incompatibility. weird underworlds can thrive and come to influence mainstream culture in big ways.

There was a moment in the early 2010s when all that Landian NRx stuff was genuinely interesting, for this very reason. It was truly countercultural—you couldn't talk about it with people in real life without them looking at you like you were crazy.
 

thirdform

pass the sick bucket
jungle was precisely good because it shoved mdma in the attic. then drum bass brought back mdma into the orbit.
 

Bellwoods

Active member
I would think if anything there's a giant stash of amazing, weird fucking music being made in China, and we don't have access to it for obvious reasons
 
but to the main point of the thread, this is it

the time barrier is also, and/or is related to, an age barrier, albeit one that varies person by person

silverdollar is correct - innovation is always happening, based on new ways of perceiving and shaping reality

in other words, usually based on new technologies and/or drugs, or the confluence thereof

this is a stereotype but it's also in my experience largely true - wherever the young queer kids, often of color, are, there's the cutting edge of dance music

Sometimes yes but early jungle and grime had plenty of homophobia in the mix...

The time barrier thing, yes obviously a factor, this is an argument i remember making in response to kpunk on retromania. You're just fucking old mate! Partly true but there were certain thought experiment arguments made that were difficult to cut down ie play jungle to someone in 1972 vs playing say drill to someone in 96.

It's subjective yes, innovation is always happening yes, but its about the rate and impact of innovation, there are obv points with any art form where you can point out the formal innovation as well as some causality and the drugs or environments that enhance its effects.... like velocity and frenzied cross-pollination in jungle, slinky syncopation in garage and funky, physicality of dubstep (very reductive i know but its there). And lots of people seem to be saying that the rate and impact and reach of these innovations has slowed in the last 10-15 years, I don't fully disagree
 

Bellwoods

Active member
The time barrier thing, yes obviously a factor, this is an argument i remember making in response to kpunk on retromania. You're just fucking old mate! Partly true but there were certain thought experiment arguments made that were difficult to cut down ie play jungle to someone in 1972 vs playing say drill to someone in 96.

Point taken, but doesn't this really depend on who you're playing it to? For someone keyed into funk, dub, and krautrock maybe it wouldn't be so insane. In 1930 if you'd seen Metropolis, read Red Harvest and Frankenstein, and maybe been paying attention to the european avant garde, you could have dreamt up some bizarre version of Blade Runner.

A bigger blast for 96-guy might be chicago footwork, but I do remember the first time I saw a drill video thinking "fuckin hell what is this"

A big aspect of this is also, as Simon pointed out, that it has to be accessible—in other words, it has to have some sort of social mass around it. Those IDM guys in the late 90s arguably anticipated stuff that would come later, but they did it in like one track and then moved on. It's not the same
 
Yes I see what you're saying.

It's maybe important to make a distinction between the perception of novelty (i havent heard this before) and novel ways of working (things havent been done this way before) here. What i'm focusing on is some impossible subject who's heard everything ever recorded, at which points in human history might they be shocked and surprised?

The fuzzy point im trying to get is the internet's distortion of both these processes, because of how its totality and accessibility fucks with our perception of time and place
 

Simon silverdollarcircle

Well-known member
at the level of an artist in production, the accessibility of digital software, presets etc can mean visions might be articulated in a *good-enough* way too easily, too easy to flippantly try things on

Yeah I think the relative ease of making different types of dance music now there's various formulas set for them does lead to a risk of homogenisation. Like if someone does come out with a new sound then other genres can quickly bleed into their production style, before it really has time to fester as you say.

In relation to this thread I've been thinking about those awful "against the clock" production videos on Fact. You know where someone joylessly makes a formulaic deep house tune in 10 minutes or whatever. I find them deeply saddening.

But on your other point I think a "that's good enough" flippancy can lead to be musical revolutions. Like "on and on" is so basic it's hardly even a tune but it birthed house. And there was some well sketchy "that'll do" mentality in early grime. pulse x is hardly even music.
 

padraig (u.s.)

a monkey that will go ape
I submit that there is nothing inherently (ie. genetically) innovative about being queer, or of colour
of course there isn't. that's not the kind of qualifier I feel like I'd normally have to make here, but consider it made.

if that relationship exists - and any examination of dance music's history will reveal it does, tho the extent is debatable - it's cultural.

and assimilation, or homogenization is, to put it lightly, an ongoing issue in queer culture, which is itself not monolithic

I can't speak to where you are, but where I am there is distinctively queer culture, of various iterations

what I'm talking about wouldn't be in bars anyway, it would be in warehouse parties, on sound/mixcloud, and to some extent in clubs

as I said it's both a stereotype and in my personal experience largely true

not that young queer people will be the only ones innovating by any means, but wherever innovation is they're likely to be found

for again, cultural reasons
 
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