I may have misunderstood some of the ideas, but I do find this interesting from the person who has, for the past few albums, been reinventing older forms of music. In mixing the "old" and "new" (folk and electronica, baroque and synthesizer ...) haven't you, in essence, created yet more examples of what you call retro necro?
Not that I mind. I've enjoyed your work greatly (for the most part) and I have also found similar enjoyment in a few mash-ups for creating a new feeling or even a better recording of older songs. The reimagining allows us to find more to do with the old by mixing it with the relatively newer. Even so, I don' think of that as creating anything new, just moving pieces around. Quoting or paraphrasing Shakespeare in a new poem relies on the power of the original source to add to the current work; yet in the new context we change the past by using it in a new way. It is possible that "everything that can be done has been done," but it is not necessarily true that they've been united in interesting ways. I believe another poster worked on this idea with his four ideas (my favorite was the opera over the 808 drums). Still, a reinvention of the wheel; but a reinvention by molding together those of a motorcycle and those of a truck.
It will be interesting to see the next new thing. I don't doubt that it exists. I don't think your work has ever tried to be anything more than barely a step ahead of where pop was at the time, and I don't look to your work for that either. The sludge and doom rock I've found myself listening to seems strange and entrancing and new, but is probably based on ideas as old as music (or at least as old as Lou Reed's Metal Machine Music). Even the spazz rock of Germlin's Watermelon Dude Zone does not feel new to me. It feels like a natural extension of the electronica genre for those with short attention spans who want the oral equivalent of strobe lights.
At the end of all this, my understanding is that you are explaining to the world why its ok that many artists (yourself included) aren't trying to create new types of music, but rather just changing the boundary lines between genres by mixing them together. -Edge
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Reimaging as retro necro?
Date: 2009-01-09 03:38 am (UTC)Not that I mind. I've enjoyed your work greatly (for the most part) and I have also found similar enjoyment in a few mash-ups for creating a new feeling or even a better recording of older songs. The reimagining allows us to find more to do with the old by mixing it with the relatively newer. Even so, I don' think of that as creating anything new, just moving pieces around. Quoting or paraphrasing Shakespeare in a new poem relies on the power of the original source to add to the current work; yet in the new context we change the past by using it in a new way. It is possible that "everything that can be done has been done," but it is not necessarily true that they've been united in interesting ways. I believe another poster worked on this idea with his four ideas (my favorite was the opera over the 808 drums). Still, a reinvention of the wheel; but a reinvention by molding together those of a motorcycle and those of a truck.
It will be interesting to see the next new thing. I don't doubt that it exists. I don't think your work has ever tried to be anything more than barely a step ahead of where pop was at the time, and I don't look to your work for that either. The sludge and doom rock I've found myself listening to seems strange and entrancing and new, but is probably based on ideas as old as music (or at least as old as Lou Reed's Metal Machine Music). Even the spazz rock of Germlin's Watermelon Dude Zone does not feel new to me. It feels like a natural extension of the electronica genre for those with short attention spans who want the oral equivalent of strobe lights.
At the end of all this, my understanding is that you are explaining to the world why its ok that many artists (yourself included) aren't trying to create new types of music, but rather just changing the boundary lines between genres by mixing them together.
-Edge