Retro, Meta And The Future Of Sound

there was one thing that made techno of the 90s interesting, and especially it's hardcore variant, and especially the sample-based digital hardcore / noizecore variant of it. this was that by sampling and other techniques, it was build on top of other genres, using their sounds, methods, and fusing them together, and building something that was above them - a higher level of sound. it was one of the first widespread meta-genres; the sonic exploration no longer took place within the confines of a single genre such as punkrock, reggae etc, but stacking whole genres together by using samples out of them. while producers before took care of elements of a genre - which chord to use, which notes, this was not so important to a techno producer; rather, which "genre" to use, to fuse together with the other elements of the track. producers use drums, baselines, guitars, chords; meta-producer produce their track out of genres.

there is a widespread feeling that culture, especially music, is stuck right now and has been for the last decade at least. it's not. culture is just slowly moving to the meta-genre i talked about.
on the sonic level, almost everything seems to be done already; disharmonic sounds, harmonic sounds, distortion, analogue stuff, accoustic guitars, noize, ambiance... so what is next? no longer caring about sounds on this level, or at least not putting the main focus on it, but to move to the next higher level, and no longer stack sounds together, but fuse and combine genres and create something new out of that.
i think it's unlikely that either something wholly new on the basic sonic level could be found, or that it is possible to produce music really in the old styles, and if it is possible, it should not be done, because that level should be left behind - it's time to go the higher level.

again, meta-music means that music is built out of existing music, creating something new by the combination of it and other things. like sound is the element of music, genres and existing concepts are the elements of meta-music.

obviously, this is going on for a while now, starting long before the turn of the millenium. you can see it in an egg-like state in rock genres now; rockbands now longer want to sound like ac/dc or hardrock only, or just like the pistols buzzcocks and punk; they fuse everything from funk reggae rap metal folk, anything that you can think of.
this meta-intention might be noble, but to me it's still lacking; there is too much of a focus on creating a seamless sound, meta-music should have some rough edges; with it's almost "mystical" sentimentality for old rock and rock'n'roll or CBGBs heroes, it's anti-intellectual, and meta-music has to be intellectual. and, above all, its products don't really sound so meta to me.

with a lot more focus on sampling and its issues, than there was in the 90s and 80s, it's not viable to really do "sampled-based" music anymore, at least not if you don't have permission for that. this is actually a hindrance to creating a higher level sound; but it's not something that would really stop it. focus not on literally sampling music or re-using notes and melodies, or rhythms, but on the concepts of music, of genres, of takes on sounds. like the emotionality of early punkrock. the "grooviness" of funk. the mindblowing effect of avantgarde music. by this, you can fuse new creations, higher level creation of sounds, without touching your samples at all.

it would be interesting where this leads in the future. maybe this meta-concept will fade away like so many cultural hopes. but i don't think music will be created on a "simple" level again; like a punkband writing just a punksong; or a techno act doing just a 90s techno track; these times are definately over.

there is a lot to be said, on how music on this higher, new level can be created; maybe in another text. but maybe it's better to be left in the open and for everyone to be found out by him or herself.

but the point remains; by putting together existing concepts, creating something new and building something on top of that, you can produce something really new.

The Dilemma Of Subcultures

"I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness, starving hysterical naked, dragging themselves through the Negro streets at dawn looking for an angry fix". this statement still rings in our ears & is ever present. i too saw subcultures fall apart, and people going down with them. even if they started with a great idea, spirit, movement. there was one cause for this, that was a more important factor to this then most other. this is that the "system" - let's call it system for now - the hierarchy, society, this mainstream culture, has its very own immune system. there are always plenty of fuck-ups and creeps, in a negative way, that do not fit in to society. in fact it took me a long time to realize this; that not every outcast or outsider is this for noble reasons, but sometimes just because he is indeed more fucked up in a multitute of ways than "normal people" (who are, of course, already pretty fucked up). these people always run around and try to find some social circle and subculture that "accepts" them, lets them in, as they have nothing else they can cling to.
once they're in they're leeching off the creativity, enthusiasm, spontanity of the subculture and generate a negative mood and drag everything down. like a virus, this strain is eventually too much and the subculture breaks down, turns sour. once these creeps have established themselves, they will start to bully the original people out of the scene. also, some of the originators of the culture, who have some torn personality too, will realize that the creeps outnumber the creative people and if they support them, they will elevate them - as a DJ, artist, musician whatever - to their own stardom. so their support their agenda, turn their back on the creative people, and the scene gets torn.
just a short intermission - of course they're also wonderful "freaks" and outcasts and people who have a hard time to fit in - i'm not talking about these but their negative counterparts. those who cannot amount to contribute anything positive and just inject decay into interesting and noble goals, ideals - scenes.
one of the difference between these groups is that the "positive" people find their scene eventually, and contribute to it and stick with it. while the negative losers do not care what scene or culture or movement they join as they just want to leech creativity and have some false illusion of "fitting in" - if there is no hardcore scene in their town they will become goths for example, if there is no goth scene they turn punk, without any idea or commitment to these scenes really.
i should also add something about the bullying; for example a radical music scene starts with people who share a certain, futuristic mindset, criticize existing hierarchies, criticize ideas about morality, society, culture, nation, military, racism and such.
eventually the creeps will join the scene and they will bring their dumb and conservative ideas and spread racism and rightwing opinions, and in many ways bully those who are smarter then them.
the one issue i want to point out is that the creeps can, in a sense, only enter because the scenes are voluntary open to everyone and everything.
this was the one main flaw, of the punk scene, of the hippie scene, of the techno scene, of the hardcore scene; that everyone was allowed and even encouraged to join, so the people who were too dumb to fit in elsewhere joined quickly, and eventually the reactionaries, the bigots, the idiots and rightwing joined too; because after all, the dumb outnumber the smart by a million; so if everyone is free to enter a subculture, it will become a pit for dumbness.

it should be noted that in the past, in centures and millennia ago, art, wisdom, teaching, culture, was not "open to all"; it was circulated by restricted and sometimes secret circles; you needed initation and qualities to become part of these circles.
the early techno scenes were in some sense a revival of these secret societies; with their info about parties, locations, events only circulated to a select few - not to the masses!

if we want to see that art is not degraded more, and a renaissance of creativity and beauty, we need to get rid of the idea of "access for all"; there needs to be a kind of secret, initiated system again. this way, a stable and ongoing subculture, or better, movement can be created, and the short-livedness of these will be a thing of the past; and an amount of inspiration, beauty, brilliance, will fill these scenes.
but how should we go about this? this is indeed hard to tell. things like money ("you need to pay to get in") are a bad choice for this; this will only attract the rich creeps then and keep the creative poor out.
also, any fixed hierarchy could be a problem; as those are usually prone to get the worst creeps gaining a position at the top!
the early techno scene could maybe be an inspiration; it was not bound on money, and there were no "leaders" and such, still the content was not spread to the "masses"(at least not at first).
it should be noted that even small steps of restriction would already work wonders; if people would have to personally contact and convince people to be part of the secret society (a very "easy" step) this would already prevent most creeps from entering the scene.
another most important thing is that in these times of "social network" circulation, we need to learn the benefits of secrecy again; and if we use secrecy, in the way we do art and spread art, this could already be one of the biggest steps in the right direction.
the question on how to do these things remains open; but we will ponder on them.