I just got finished listening to the new Funkstorung as well, and for me
it begs the question that I must ask: Does the fusion of IDM an Rap really
work all that well?
I generally really like Funkstorung, and have consistently enjoyed their
work pretty much up to this point. I have noted obviously their fascination
with infusing hip-hop/rap elements in their music with such tracks like their
remix on the East Flatbush project and Add'l Prod., both of which I think
succeeded only moderately well. The fusion both times I felt to be tenuous
at best. It always seems forced, or strained. Like an element that doesn't
belong. (Of course, there are loads of other IDM artists who incorporate
hip-hop elements in their music as well, Autechre being no exception, and
each time, from what I can hear, to questionable results.)
The problem is I think they are just two very different genres of music
listened to for very different reasons. A good rap track can have steady
beat (usually a typical 4/4 or otherwise), a funky baseline, hopefully an
original sample, and an MC whose rhymes flow in tandem with the beat and
rhythmn. (When it's done well, that is.) And that's fine.
IDM can have a similiar mindset, but is ever moving forward as a genre,
pushing the limits of sound and structure into bounds well beyond what any
average listener would even call music. And that's fine, too. Great even!
It is why I've always liked it and listened to it.
Rap, however (primarily in it's current state of stagnancy) isn't
concerned with any of these things (as neither is most anything mainstream),
probably because simply it doesn't need to be. It will all make it onto MTV
just the same. And it just never seems to work when these two conceptually
opposed musical cousins are brought together.
Having an MC rapping over Funkstorung's beautiful squeeches and
squelches, disjointed rhythms and distorted melodies just doesn't work for
me. Sorry.
And while the singing vocals weren't as jarring, I found myself groaning
every time an MC chimed in over the glitchy squelchy rhythmic mayhem of
Funkstorung, which is solely what I was looking forward to when I bought the
cd. I found all the MC'ing to be an unwelcome addition. I think it grounds
the album's otherwise impressive sonics down in a way which I felt worked
against it, rather than with it.
You've probably surmised by now that I'm not the biggest fan of Rap.
Well, it's really only modern day rap in particular. The reason being is
that I think it has descended into nothing more than yet another commercial
medium absorbed whole by the mainstream, and, in a striking bit of irony, has
become the very thing that's initial inception was meant to defy against.
Gone is the classic originality of the old school, where a clever sample, a
catchy beat and a good rhyme got you everywhere, and not just what hit single
from a decade ago you can get the rights to, add a new beat, rap over it, and
make millions of dollars from.
IDM is one of the few bastions of hope I have left in a largely
uncreative, cruel mainstream MTV world. It could be that my alarm in hearing
more and more rap/hip-hop elements creeping into my IDM is the sign of the
Mainstream finally making it to the shores of IDM it getting it's money
grubbing hands on my music (shudder to think), and it in turn suffering a
similiar commericial fate and losing it's potency, much like rap did. (The
day I hear Ae or Funkstorung in a Mountain Dew commercial, I'll KNOW it's the
end and just commit Seppuku.)
Of course, any artist should always be free to explore whatever creative
avenues they wish in their music. But really, If I wanted to hear an MC,
then I'd go to down Tower Records and pick up whoever newest commercial
sensation is this week off the Top 10 chart.
Bottom line, I'm just not interested in hearing it over my squeeches and
squelches.
Again, it could just be my own bias talking, brought on by my groaning
frustration with all things mainstream.
Or maybe, like I said, MC rapping and glitchy squelchy IDM just don't mix
well.
I don't know....
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