longer than a quart

as most cratediggers know, it's pretty easy to date a song by the way its drums sound. while this may not apply to all types of music, it holds up pretty well for dance and hip hop. admittedly, part of it is because of the gears. before the days of reason and live, your sound is pretty much what you can squeeze out of the latest beatbox and a fistful of effects. so if the "state-of-the-art" is say, the oberheim dmx, you’re going to get a bunch of records all going for that beefy "state-of-the-art" sound, and end up sounding more like they all chipped in for the same drummer.

and of course there’s the “me too” factor. one of the more nauseating recollections is what is best described as the “kid-n-play bounce.” a nerf-ball of a groove concocted by producer herbie luvbug for nearly all of his kid-n-play tracks, it is just too fucking cute. everything about it, like its emphasis on the radio-friendly mid-range, is an ernest play for the mainstream. in my mind, however, it will forever be synonymous with high-top fades and scores of "me too" records with similar sunny disposition and chart ambition. and what about that once ubiquitous “soul ii soul shuffle,” which by the early ‘90s had permanently ruined "ashley’s roach clip" for me, and ironically, was originally championed by top djs because it was such a departure from everything else in clubland.

so i usually hold a beat with a shelf-life longer than a quart of milk in the highest regard. i believe some people can just hear the future, stuff that others haven’t even begun to imagine. i don't mean the kind of "next big thing" wanking popular with critics and pundits, but the visionary way some artists create music that are sonically relevant decades later. pop culture recycling notwithstanding, it also excites me just to know that somewhere out there, someone already knows what tomorrow sounds like.

best known for his pioneering work with kraftwerk (the seminal “autobahn”) and krautrockers neu! and cluster, german producer konrad “conny” plank’s influences can still be felt in everything from radiohead’s trippy artrock to virginia beach’s electronic hip hop. check out whodini’s “nasty lady” (jive, 1983) and tell me pharrell and chad haven’t at least been paying some “homage” to plank’s sonic vision.

equally beguiling is riuichi sakamoto’s “riot in lagos” (island, 1980). the former yellow magic orchestra frontman (and future “last emperor” soundtrack composer and oscar winner) was clearly in an expansive mood. weaving afroasian-flavored synthetic palettes with a tight proto-electro groove, the track’s cultural mix and structural complexity is staggering, especially considering it was made in a time before sequencers, fancy effects, and multiculturalism.

and just because i like the way “riot in lagos” goes with maverick composer lou harrison’s “main bersama-sama” (1978), as performed by gamelan sekar kembar (cri american masters, 1991), i’m throwing it in the mix. i first got into harrison after reading a new yorker profile several years ago, and have since thought of him as the sakamoto of his time. i find his music strikingly fresh and original, not how i would typically imagine music written 30 years ago would sound. although harrison mined a more academic vein in his career, he arguably marched to the same drummer as plank and sakamoto.

Posted by cellpharmer at September 3, 2004 07:04 PM