Massive post on ELECTRONIC MUSIC

I had been planning this post a long time ago, probably sometime around last year. I told myself I needed several hours, maybe even a day to complete this post, because I want to talk sooo much about it, but everyday I listen to more and more artists and I think if I don't pen this down now (2am on a Monday D:), I'll never be able to do it.

So I'm gonna do it now.

Music wise I grew up with a classical background so it's quite normal to find me indulging in long piano pieces for hours and hours. I've always quite disliked opera and classical works for the voice, and even though I studied singing classically, I much preferred music made on instruments than through vocal chords. My obsession with electronic music actually started from my love for Nujabes (since 2007 when I heard Luv Sic by chance on some online clothing store), and Minimalism which stemmed from probably around 2 years ago (I vaguely remember penning it down on this blog).

Around a year ago when it started to hit me wow-I-actually-really-like-this-sort-of-music, I was very very skeptical and hypercritical about the artists I listened to. Because I really disliked music that's produced via machines, ie stuff that is generated through the brains of a electronic device, rather than through a human brain. At the time I was concerned with the fact that some artists I listened to might not have been as talented as the classical world virtuosos I was so used to hearing, or even talented at all. But times have changed as people around me drummed into me that hey, if music is good to the ears then chances are the people who made it are good at what they're doing, so I've basically shed all my skepticisms and am currently fully embracing every microscopic detail of the art that is electronic music.

Not too sure about the accuracy of this, but I like to group music under the genre of Electronic Music as the name describes it: when parts or all of the music is created by electronic devices.

In the beginning, Nujabes paved the way which also led me to listen to related Japanese artists such as DJ Okawari [here] and [here], and you can tell that the classical influence totally appealed to me at the time when I was making these transitions in tastes. The beats are often quite 'tame', keeping to a usual 4/4 rhythmic structure and layering progressively throughout the track. It's the type of mix where you could sit down and pick out all the samples used to layer without much difficulty. Hence very tame.

I kinda left all classical influences behind when one day I fatefully discovered Green Butter (which I must have talked about in a previous post). Their music totally relaxed me to a much deeper level than what my usual piano pieces did.

Also worth mentioning are Bugseed and Weirddough, both artists of which I think belong in roughly the same category as Green Butter. I actually discovered Weirddough only 2 months ago.

Bugseed:



Weirddough:



There's this other Japanese beat maker I follow called Taku, on soundcloud he releases a lot of his experimental stuff quite regularly and names them Night1, Night2, etc.
Night8 [here] is definitely my favourite.

I find with music genres everything is like bubbles. As producers get tired of the big bubbles they burst into lots of little ones, and a sequence of such bubbles determines the mad number of genres we have today. Esp in the digital era with mashup platforms easily accessible to any music lover out in the open, is there really a way to define a music genre in this century? For us listeners, journeying through these bubbles are be a very fun but addictive thing. There was long period when electro influences took me to more melodic creations, such as the works of Tokimonsta and eAeon (both Korean).

eAeon outdid himself by releasing the instrumental versions of all tracks from the A side of this album on the B side, which definitely makes me love him more by miles. I think all artists should release Less Vocal versions of their works because it allows for us to listen to all the intricate details without having the voice distracting us.

Recently I've been going down this more outlandish route and entering some bubbles which I really should not have. I can see that at the end of the day I'm going to fall into the 80s Disco bubble, and even worse, Sci-fi electronica or Dubstep (noooooooo). But I can no longer deny that I have recently retrograded back to the 80s in many aspects of my life, and so I cannot avoid falling in love with all the cheese like Synth pop or classic disco. But I try to keep it as quirky as possible.

Yukihiro Takahashi:

From this I can either go down the even quirkier route (Miharu Koshi [here] for example), or futuristic sounds with vocaloid like qualities (Capsule [here] for example). But I choose not too because tunes like these will ultimately just do my head in.

Instead I embraced a more 'stylish', contemporary sound, which is definitely and thankfully not so much classic disco, but has a mixture of both indie and electronic qualities. Synth pop is currently a massive obsession of mine with great bands like POP ETC and Two Door Cinema Club, and I don't think I've finished my business with this genre just yet.

Glen Check:

Glen Check is a band that just radiates bouts of insane talent. They are clearly very skilled instrumentalists and so the extra electronic stuff is just a divine plus. Haute Couture was an album made in the heavens.

An even more minimalistic version of Glen Check is probably Idiotape [here], which I can only listen to when my ears are asking for a wild ride. Their music is almost a bit too intense, with plethoras of samples and good beats all squeezed into 5min slots. They're still amazing though.

Here I'll let you in on a little secret. When I make remixes, I turn to microsound/glitch artists such as Alva Noto and Ryoji Ikeda for inspiration. Glitch is something that makes one slightly uncomfortable when listening to it in its bare glory, hence why one would say they're 'mindfcked', but I think with a bit of melodic fusion it really brings out a certain sample you want to highlight. For example if you are using a rap verse with some amazing rhymes, you might want to add in some glitch to make it stand out.

Alva Noto:

For some crazy glitch that will LITERALLY make your entire body vibrate,

Ryoji Ikeda (listen to this with headphones)

As I said, glitch will always leave you feeling slightly uncomfortable. Which is I guess why Alva Noto collabed with Ryuichi Sakamoto perhaps, so that the piano could try to free the mind a little.

As an often tired student who lives in an extraordinarily rainy city, I'm forever in need of dosages of upbeat, sanguine delights to brighten up my day, sometime loud and colourful enough so that I could totally immerse myself in the songs for a good half an hour. I'll end this post (now at 4am zzzzz) with these 3 tracks that I have been listening to on repeat this weekend:

The Chemical Brothers - The devil is in the details

I love this song so so so so soooooooo much. It's so cute and chirpy and overall just an amazing track.

Justice vs Simian - We are your friends

And finally, due to currently working on a cover of Cocorosie's Smokey Taboo, I have listened to vast amounts of trippy gypsy, Native American music for inspiration, and so obviously some exotic/electronic hybrid is always welcome.

Marianne Feder - Toi Mon Indien (remix version, sorry I have no idea who made the remix D:)

I hope that today I have successfully taken all your ears on a great adventure. Now you can take it from here!