Friday, February 10, 2012
Synth Britannia and a tangent.
So, Modulations it's not, but I still think this is an excellent and basically essential documentary. In particular, I was reminded of it when responding to Jason's last post; one of the middle-aged British guys appearing here (I don't think it's the dude from Human League, but he does say something kind of similar at one point) basically calls bullshit on the notion of DIY punk, because you've still got to learn those 3 chords. Real DIY, in an appropriately defeatist, dystopian sense, is making a machine do it for you (neither stance adequately addresses how one affords an instrument of any kind). Brian's comment about, you know, all the kids with their preset-core dance parties reminded me of this attitude- except now almost everybody (OK, admittedly every-middle-class-and-up-body) has a computer.
I guess what I'm getting at is, we have this established notion in western popular music of celebrating intense amateurism (1977ish-present) and an increasing accessibility of sound software (1999ish to present? I don't really know when Garage Band came about), now coming home to roost in various forms- hipster noise, Girl Talk, "Witch House," Animal Collective, Dan Deacon (BTW I think Dan Deacon is awesome), and Brian's umbrella concept of "PCG," which I like because it's a catch-all, like EBM or IDM.
I'm not trying to bring taste into this by any means, or I wouldn't be posting a YouTube video that is partially about Yazoo. I just want to know what the kids are up to; to see them coming before they're all over my lawn and it's too late for the prize-winning begonias.
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Yeah dude, totally required viewing. Glad this is up on YouTube now in its entirety, rather than in 10 minute chunks. To me this is a much more solid documentary than Modulations, which I don't think has held up quite as well (granted, it's a lot older, but the scene it covers is newer). I like that Synth Britannia is focused on a more particular, albeit diverse, scene and mostly has interviews with primary sources.
ReplyDeleteIt definitely gives me much respect for the people doing synth music in the late 70's/early 80's, even bands like Yazoo and the Human League which I don't particularly dig, simply because of how difficult it was to even make a song on this gear back then. It also makes me realize how phenomenally depressing and bleak the UK was in the 70's.
What you said about intense amateurism and how everyone has a computer reminded me of an interview I read with Aphex a long time ago (I think it was Aphex) where he said that electronic music was the new folk, simply because it was accessible to everyone. I think the fact that entire genres, especially dubstep at the moment, for better or worse, have evolved completely from bedroom producers, is a testament to that.
Exactly! I think I remember that interview dimly too.
ReplyDeleteThis is definitely a superior documentary to Modulations also, which I'm sure looks like so much sensationalistic rubbish when you subtract the Autechre from it (did you also see that companion BBC documentary on Krautrock? Equally brilliant), but our coaches up there on the banner aren't Richard H. Kirk and Gary Numan, so I thought this might be hitting a
little left of center for some of our dudes.
I have accidentally started getting pretty into the Human League from watching this. One of my favorite moments is when Phil Oakey is talking about firing Martyn Ware from the band, because it totally reminded me of this scene from Peep Show: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Y76JMUQJ6g.