"How much further can electronic music be explored? are we beginning to feel
the claustrophobic nature of the technological limitations, or is there
infinite breath to express ourselves in them? in places other than
headphones and club spaces?"
electronic music has nearly infinite possibilities. electronic music as we
know it is becoming somewhat dated though. human expression is something
electronic music is just now beginning to explore....most electronic stuff is
rather emotionally lacking. with people like aphex and autechre and those
before them (eno comes to mind) electronic music is just recently becoming a
means for people to express themselves.
"Can this music take on higher application to other groups of people outside
of ourselves, like the blind for example, and serve as alterior sets of
eyes?"
possibly i guess. i doubt it though.
"Where do you view the current point of the music's evolution on the timeline
within the genre?"
i think it's right after a bit of a fork in the road. i don't hear much
common ground between many artists anymore....it seems like they all kinda
got desterted on islands, and are forced to evolve. and with evolution
comes death of the weakest. and i firmly believe there is some seriously
weak shit abound right now. i'm looking forward to this mass abundance of
mediocrity to be a thing of the past.
"Does the music seem to be boiling down more and more to essentially the same
format, same sounds, same spectrum of experience?"
it sounds like that to many because they have heard so much that it becomes a
blur. overexposure sort of....but i also think so because most artists don't
focus on creating fresh sounds. not that i necessarily think everyone
should focus tons of writing time towards getting completely unique sounds,
but it does add a lot of spice that many artists don't use. as for the
spectrum of experience, i don't see that as a problem, because all the IDM
acts i know of have rather diverse and unique tastes in influences and life
experience. i just don't think many of them are any good at translating
such things into their own music.
"Are we ready for new technology to enable further revolution here? ... "
artists are always ready and waiting for new technology to use. we don't
need anymore than what is available in order for a complete revolution to
occur. everyone just needs to learn how to severely twist what is there to
achieve their end goals.
"What would be your dream piece of gear, your optimal interface for making
music? .... the wind, the seismicity of earthquakes?"
rain i think. i would have to also be in control of what the rain was
hitting too (rocks, puddles, leafs, etc.) in order to have that vision work
correctly.
"Where do we hear the limitations in this music, and where still do we see
room for further exploration?"
the main limitation i see is in traditional keyboards/drum machines and the
like. not that they don't have a place, they certainly do. they are often
stale though. i don't see them being used in any interesting or creative
ways usually.
room for exploration: i see found sounds and observational music (recordings
of general ambiences and whatnot) having some potential. i don't by any
means see it as the future of electronic music. the possibilities within
computer created music are just being glimpsed right now. if anything is
the future, it's that. but then again that's not too far from the
present.
"Are we hearing aggregations of sanitized sound, merely the extent to which
music can be represented and manipulated through code, have we begun to
exhaust the idea of sampling, how inevitable is the avant garde doomed for
the commercial here?"
the possibilities of sampling are limitless. no one is good enough with
them to really show us amazing things with them yet though. i'm waiting
for mozart with a sampler i guess. and no, i'm not talking about aphex
twin. as for the avante garde doomed to commercialism....who cares?
anyone who may reply to this, please send an email directly to me
(cichli@aol.com) along with yr copy to the actual list, because i have
terrible problems recieving any mail from the IDM list itself, so i generally
get less than half of what is on here.
:jason (ecux - www.zenapolae.com)
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