I agree with most of the points Seamus makes, and am not suprised, as it
is pretty much what i expect anyone who is critical is going to uncover
(new-agish paradigms, neo-colonialism as the approach to indeginous
musicks, and general opportunism). Why is it that, moreso than many
other visual/aural products/genres, one can really easily spot these
commercial elements by the covers? I listenned to parts of the Deep
Forest LP when it came out (the first one) and was dumbfounded that, try
I might to not judge a book by its' cover, the design elements of the
cover betray the bland commerciality of the album.
That's what got under my skin about "Enigma" as well, the music was
something an ad exec would cut and paste together at that moment in the
'scene' as I saw it. I want to not find my intuition to slag the record
for its' cover right off follow through, but when I heard the music, it
was exactly what the cover made it seem. There is no mystery in
techno-related cover art it seems. One exception sticks out: the inside
cover of the AI B12 lp on Warp. Watercolor/gouche is totally left-field
as a visual for entirely electronic music. That's like putting a
Raushenberg on the front of a country&western LP: mysterious and
reality-bending.
Sorry to spew across this bandwidth, but I gotta mention that while I
like Dead Can Dance, they had also always bugged me for being sort of a
neo-colonial filter for Eastern European music to the gothic crowd. I
couldn't get my goth friends to listen to my old lps of the Bulgarian
state singers or 16th century harp music, but they'd go buy it on 4AD.
Go figure; is a hip label necessary for people to cross national
boundaries and check out other cultures' music?
<sermon mode off>
David Chandler - chandler@nethost.multnomah.lib.or.us (503)301-3011
grep -i casio goodwillbins >> mystudio ;
grep -i atari goodwillbins >> mystudio ;