|
|
Coldcut
|
The Ninja Tune objective of
innovation and exploration is the recurrent theme which underpins most of the label’s
productions :
"…primarily [to] strive to expand the boundaries
of music & how we perceive it. Music is multi-dimensional & and verticality is the
goal we run for. " We must break, at all cost, the restrictive
circle of pure sound & and conquer the infinite variety of noise sounds " Luiji
Russolo, 1913. " (extract from the cover of U.S.S.R.
Repertoire (the theory of verticality), DJ Vadim).
Coldcut et al. clearly perceive the
intellectual challenge of musical experimentation which does not simply involve generating
new sound/noise and contrasting the new with the old. Every musician is aware that
producing sounds is relatively easy. As the previous quotation suggests, it is the
arrangement of these sounds which makes music, the musician’s role being his skill in
appling his knowledge of the dynamics of musical sounds and his ability to manipulate them
into structures. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Information systems lend
themselves to such manipulation : word processing spills over into sound processing.
That anything, regardless of its aesthetic beauty, can be systematically reduced down to
binary code is not the most astonishing. It is that, once in digital form, this
information can be reproduced ad infinitum.
Therein lies the revolution which throws up the crucial questions about the position of
the musician and of the DJ, of acoustically produced sound, of creative originality and
the composer’s rights, and, wider still, about the presentation and purpose of music
as an aesthetic and social phenomenon. |
|
|
|
|
|
| The drum machine and sampler
have replaced the electric guitar and the cassette player under the christmas tree. The
extravert rock-star lifestyle and performance has given way to the unassuming DJ who prefers to refer to his music
through a name/trademark and not through an image. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
If
Electronic music has displaced King Rock,
his stadium extravaganzas, set lists and the nostalgia of the cover version, it is
because it institutes an approach which favours references and samples, intelligent
quotations and links to other worlds, where merging tracks into music-scapes emphasises
progression over the autonomy of the musical idea and the three and a half minute song.
|
|
|
follow ? |
|
|
|
