Electronica Music

[Guest Copycatalyst]

Electronica music is the continuation of the overwhelming beauty, power, and focused musicality of classical music. It is obvious that if Mozart or Beethoven existed today they would be using synthesizers, and various other electronic components which have been introduced into the music composition process. Many people have a stereotype which assumes only a certain type of person listens to electronica music, and at times it is my experience many have a blatant misappreciation for this teeming, growing, genre of music. The entirety of its genres is so vast and rich that it is truly a pleasure to be surrounded in the birth and the true crystallization of this entire genre of music.

I believe my favorite type of electronica music is psytrance. Otherwise known as psychedelic trance, it often employs tempo-changes, distortion of sound, and a wide array of other "psychedelic" aspectations to its presentation. It is often netted into various sub-categories. Goa trance or progressive psytrance or dark psy are a few. Goa is named after where the genre was developed, and is often slower, more meditational on an even level, and is more "chill" one could say.

I'd say one of the most amazing psytrance artist these days is Yahel. Infected Mushroom is also pretty well-known. Yahel has a very distinct style and use of synths which makes it obvious to know if it's a song by him or not. Infected Mushroom is pretty diverse. One of their albums implements various classical elements, such as pianos and other almost orchestral instrumentation, together along with psytrance elements, such as tempo-changing, and other odd things which are rather hard to explain to the uninitiated and really just have to be heard to be experienced. A few other artists I really enjoy are Derango, Skazi, and really I could go on and on with artists.

Uplifting trance usually uses synths and such in a very. . .uplifting matter. It gives a general feeling of heightened well-being. This can be pegged into artists perhaps such as Above & Beyond, Art of Trance, and so on. Again. . .it's better to be heard than explained.

There are many, many other various sub-genres to electronica music. There is electronic dance music, or EDM. There is dark trance, like dark psy. Electronica music is simply teeming with a large diversity of differing tones and moods and expressions of the artist's message. There's more vocal-trance, but for the greater part most trance is vocalless, and the best trance is often all about the sound getting across its meaning, with no lingual-distortion of it at all.

Due to copyright and othersuch things, I cannot just link you to where you can find good examples of very good electronica music. You can, however, instant message me. I have an MSN [email]name--dilapoid@hotmail.com[/email]--as well as an AIM name--mitchellgrantAIM. So if you would like to drop me a line there I can hook you up with some nice tracks. It is my opinion that the common person, at least in the USA, does not appreciate electronica music in many aspects.

In fact, in Israel is where psytrance is pretty big. Artists like psycraft hold various festival-like events where people simply listen to them DJ. . .and dance, and such. :)

[Darren]

Well, I'm new to electronica... Of course I've heard it before, but it's like you said, most of America doesn't really like electronica... I can appreciate it, but my music taste is very picky and so far, I've only found 2 electronica bands that I like, one being Imogen Heap, and I only like maybe 2 songs... I don't even know if the other band qualifies as electronica, but they label themselves as that so I'm assuming it is... Here's a link to their myspace!

[url]http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendid=3861087[/url]

[Wondershot]

Well, I have to say that I am in agreement with what has been said about the similarities drawn between classical and electronic music, but I think what attracts me to electronic bands or artists is their complexity or aggressivity. To this end, I have a preference for unusual artists that employ percussion or samples of voices or the like to create more surreal songs.

If you're looking for examples of this, I reccommend the works of Squarepusher or Kid 606, although the former artist is known for his jazz inspiration and the latter his desire to twist and distort popular music into something altogether more chaotic and almost repulsive to the average listener. If you want to get a sense of both artists at their best, try getting "Hard Normal Daddy" by Squarepusher and "Kill Sound Before Sound Kills You" by Kid 606.

One other artist I like would have to be Montreal artist Kid Koala, who makes electronic music using turntables and vocal samples rather than synthesizers or samplers. However, the end result is rather similar, but also very humourous, as it is usually very self-referential and most of the songs usually deal with the act of listening to records or poking fun at the act of scratching records to produce new sounds. If you can find anything by Kid Koala, I suggest you get it, as it is usually an amusing listen.

There's actually more that I can go over, but I have to give up the computer I am using in public at this time, but I will be sure to share a bit more about my electronic music preferences in the future.

[Guest Copycatalyst]

Kid 606 is awesome.

[Wondershot]

Yeah, I would have to agree that Kid 606 is awesome, but the music he makes is so diverse, so different from one album to the next, that it's actually very difficult to like the music from one album to the next. I have three albums of his, "Kill Sound Before Sound Kills You", "Down With The Scene" and "Pretty Girls Make Raves".

"Kill Sound..." would have to be my favourite, as it is usually very frenetic and employs a diverse range of sounds while still being musical it its core. Plus, the music video to "The Illness" must be seen to be believed. See it on YouTube if you get the chance. I can't post a link now, though. Also, songs like "Woofer Wrecker" and "Powerbookfiend" are pretty fun to listen to as well, especially if you can recognize a few samples from them.

"Pretty Girls Make Raves" is somewhat formulaic for a Kid 606 album, and actually seems to follow the pattern set by other dance music musicians as each song title features a BPM marker and all of the songs are in 4/4 and can be danced to. It has a few good tracks like "TYTR" or "Oakland Highsiding", but is generally less interesting than the aformentioned album.

"Down With the Scene" is downright scary. It is noise half the time and quiet synth or piano the other half, and sometimes it can switch between the two very quickly. There are also signs of the man's somewhat perverse sense of humour regarding pop music in some of the tracks, including "Secrets 4 Sale", which sounds like a Backsteet Boys song from hell, and "Chart Topping Radio Hit", which is about ten seconds long and must be heard to be believed. Preferably with headphones.

In all, I have respect for Kid 606, but he's a tough character to latch onto and his music can be endlessly confusing and exciting at the same time. Whenever I get a friend to listen to him they usually question my sanity or ask me why I would listen to stuff like that.

If you like his music, I would also suggest the works of Benn "The Flashbulb" Jordan, or Aaron "Venetian Snares" Funk, as they follow the similar off-beat and chaotic tunes (Fun fact, Venetian Snares' favourite time signature is 7/8).

If you want to talk about it at length, though, You can probably find me on MSN: [email]wonder_shot50@hotmail.com[/email]

[Fasteriskhead]

606 hasn't really made a decent album since Kill Sound Before Sound Kills You (I'm in disagreement with Wondershot on this), which was pretty much a straightforward rave collection. He hasn't made a [i]great[/i] album since Down With The Scene, which is an absolute monster (the amount of detail alone makes it a CD which, for me, never gets old).

Especially in the past two years or so, the "extreme" electronic music crowd (sometimes they get the name "breakcore," but it doesn't really matter what you call them) have really quieted down. It's like someone somewhere found a limit to what they could do, and that was the end. Everyone else also seems to have been faced with the crushing question: is what we're doing right now really any different from what the Warp label was up to ten years ago? Even Snares, the reigning demigod of the scene, has slowed way way down. The really interesting things he's done recently have been [i]soundscapes[/i] of all things; his drum-focused tracks now sound almost obligatory. Hrvatski has veered off towards psych rock and academic music; Squarepusher's moved his bass playing front and center, with the drums an afterthought; Doormouse has loosened up quite a bit; Aphex Twin has returned to his early '90s analog equipment; Tigerbeat 6 has basically disintegrated. Lots of good music is still being made, but the force behind it has receded. (this rebellious streak will definitely return in force, but probably only when there's something more coherent it can rebel against)

As for an introduction to "electronica" (note: electronica as such does not exist), even a half-decade on the best attempt ever made remains [URL="http://www.di.fm/edmguide/edmguide.html"][U]Ishkur's Guide to Electronic Music[/U][/URL]. If you're curious about this stuff, I highly recommend hunting through it for a few hours. It's extremely useful, if only for throwing dozens of samples at you in one go so you can actually tell what these things sound like (just don't take very seriously the distinctions between genres, and don't pay much attention to the snarky commentary).

[Guest Copycatalyst]

Yeah, electronica music was just a conception of my own. I think it gives it this neat kind of flair; that extra -a, you know? You sound very knowledgeable about this type of music, Faster. It was a treat to read your post. Thanks. You sound very critical of the artists which we were talking of, which I am not saying is a bad thing at all. That criticalness should come through if you decide to make your own music. . .or do you? Music needs minds which are critical, yet attuned. So I think your criticalness is a good thing.

[2010DigitalBoy]

[COLOR="DarkOrange"]Hm. Well, I've never really gotten into the genre. I own a sountrack to the anime Boogiepop Phantom, and it is mostly techno (or whatever you call it 'electronica') and I do love the album. Especially the songs by SilC and Red Line.

I followed that link darren provided and listened to 4 songs by Infected Mushroom - all were awesome.[/COLOR]

[Guest Copycatalyst]

I haven't just sat and listened to psy for a while. So that's what I am doing right now. I own some Stantons, which are a DJ-type of headphone which are very very very nice for listening to any form of trance. So yeah, yum. I guess I might sound weird but I love to just sit and listen to music haha.

[Fasteriskhead]

[quote name='Copycatalyst']You sound very critical of the artists which we were talking of, which I am not saying is a bad thing at all. That criticalness should come through if you decide to make your own music. . .or do you? Music needs minds which are critical, yet attuned. So I think your criticalness is a good thing.[/QUOTE]Well, I mostly just pay attention to the "breakcore" and "braindance" kinds of stuff now (scare quotes ahoy), but I used to listen to all kinds of things. Especially Goa/Psytrance, although I pretty much gave it up after Hallucinogen's Lone Deranger (which is, for my money, THE album of the genre - Mushroom and the rest have made good attempts at unseating it, but that's still the one to beat). And if I'm critical, especially of "breakcore" or whatever, it's pretty much coming from the same perspective as, say, a Motown fan in 1978 ("this is still pretty good music, but when are they gonna do something [i]different[/i]?"). I'm still absolutely in love with 'Pusher and the rest, but Big Loada came out like ten years ago and most stuff since that time has been an expansion on ideas already pretty established. Damn it, my jaw dropped the first time I heard Autechre's LP5; I want new things that are going to kick my head in, that are going to force me to relearn how to listen. I don't want to sound overly pessimistic or jaded (there's nothing worse than some old vet whining about the state of music), but it's been a long time since that flash of insight ("I don't even know how to react to this") last happened.

(and this is the state of the electronic style that's [I]most[/I] willing to try weird new things; I'm a little afraid of what might be going on in house and the rest)

And yes, I used to do a little bit of music myself. Most of it was awful, and let us never speak of it again.

[Wondershot]

Regarding Ishkur's Guide, I would have to agree that it is the definitive source of information online for all things electronic music related. Back in college, I ended up using it as a primary source for a project on electronic music, and I was genuinely amazed at some of the history behind the music. The fact that the site itself is consistently humourous and full of irreverent sarcasm also means that it is great fun to read.

As far as the "state" of electronic music today goes, I really can't comment very much on that as I tend to jump between genres of music frequently and I only really started getting into a lot of it last year. For example, Squarepusher's "Hard Normal Daddy" came out in, what, 1998? I only got it last winter, so I'm hardly an authority on the state of electronic music today.

Though you may not like his latest efforts, Fasteriskhead, I would have to say that "Pretty Girls Make Raves" is definitely Kid 606 at his most fomulaic, and "Kill Sound..." is far more, shall we say, creative by comparison. As far as Venetian Snares goes, I only have his "Rossz Scillag Alatt Szuletett" and "Cavalcade of Glee and Dadaist Happy Hardcore Pom-Poms" albums, and I would say that the former is the one I prefer by far, simply because it is more musical in nature, and even if you're only working with samples of Billie Holliday songs and string instrument quartets, you can still create something engaging and unusual for your listeners. However, I say again that I have only been listening to electronic music in abundance recently, so I'm no refined authority on the subject.

On the note of Autechre, though, the only album of theirs I have is "Chiastic Slide", which I find very interesting and surreal, but I have heard that LP5 is the album to have, so to speak, so I am, needless to say, disappointed that the music store in my area is so poorly stocked with electronic music.

In the meantime, I'll be content with my ancient Warp Records albums and Kid Koala, whom, again, you should really try listening to if you want a little humour in your electronic music collection.

[Billy Shears]

[COLOR="DarkRed"][SIZE="1"]Pretty much the only electronica music I enjoy is Boards of Canada and Venetian Snares.

Call me a narrow minded prick, but most other electronica music is terrible in my opinion. It all sounds the same to me, and I really don't understand all the different subgenres of the same thing. Boards of Canada sounds more interesting and Venetian Snares incorporates all these complex time signatures, so they sound different than all the other artists.

And Kid Koala is a badass[/SIZE][/COLOR]