quoted 6 lines These artists, including my heros Autechre (and your> These artists, including my heros Autechre (and your
> hero, Squarepusher), are quite literally thieves of the sonic variety.
> There's no way around it, really. Just the nature of the technology
> involved. Now you want to start to talk about why one thief is more
> legitimate a thief than the other, a la bjoerk vs. cylob. That's fine > --
> but (lesson #2) these two are both stealing their sound from other > people.
Hmmm. Surely what constitutes 'stealing' a sound is hearing it and
saying "I want that sound in my music". Now whether this sound comes
from a trumpet, synth, sampler or full on orchestra matters little. If
you 'play' an instrument nowadays you are largely reliant on former
techniques because the possible techniques of playing such an instrument
have (mostly) already been explored. Thus in most cases 'new' music with
such an instrument constitutes fusion - placing the instrument in an
unusual context - which is basically what Squarepusher does so well.
In my mind Autechre are not really fusion because their sound cannot
easily be broken down into individual influences which can traced back
to older forms of music (or at least not by me). Some have said electro
- but to me Autechre's sound seems to have little to do with any electro
I've heard. Squarepusher's sound on the other hand can be easily broken
down - the breaks are from jungle, so is the sampled bass, the live bass
from funk, the synths (although harder to pin down) could be said to be
from a lot of IDM and techno stuff including RDJ's stuff and there are
plenty of more blatant samples in there too. When was the last time you
heard a direct sample from someone elses record on one of Autechre's
recordings (Gescom's 'Snackwitch' is the only one I can easily recall).
Autechre are less guilty of stealing a particular sound than someone who
physically 'plays' an instrument because they select sounds for their
records based on lots of different sounds they make. In other words they
sculpt the sound. Playing a 'real' instrument involves sound
manipulation, but essentially the sound has already been defined. Having
said this, both techniques are still a matter of "I like that sound
therefore I will use it in my music". Surely what really makes the
difference is how much exposure the sampled or stolen sound has already
had (whether it be a part of music - ie the Amen break - or a musical
form itself - ie acid/house/traditional jazz whatever). If a lot of
artists make similar sounding music for a period of time surely you will
become bored more quickly with this sound than hearing more 'original'
artists put out similar LPs every few years. It's all about saturation.
I didn't buy the last Mu-Ziq LP because his sound (for me) had reached
saturation point. For the same reason I haven't bought a lot new techno
or house lately because I have a stack of similar (and often better)
records already.
Anyone for a pay per view Chris Jeffs/Bjork cage match? Place your bets
please...
Gb.