Nothing essential happens in the absence of noise

IN SEARCH OF THE TRUE ELECTRICITY.

HARD/SOFT
We didn’t say ‘hard music is good’ and ‘soft music is bad’; this is not the problem. The question is with what intention, motivation, attitude this music is made. Techno is about innovation as much as about intensity. If something is underground or overground isn’t necessarily determined by the amount of records sold, than how far it is driven by market forces themselves. Our polemic response to the trance- and ambient hypes (in nl1&2) wasn’t directed against repetitive electronics that may induce some sort of trance, nor against electronic music without the dance beats, but mainly against the mechanism how labels (such as ‘Trance’ etc) get created that serve one purpose above all: to reach the white middle class kids who have the money to spend on CD’s and expensive clubs. How the corporations pick things up, how the media is their sales agent (or do you think it just ‘happens’ that magazines have those ads next to the features and interviews?). What happens next is that it becomes obvious that money is being made, and so many bedroom artists are jumping on the bandwagon, desperate to suck corporate dick and the result is shiny tack, still pretentious but without substance. What about some fake string sounds straight out of the presets, for that uplifting feeling? Why this is supposed to be ‘intelligent’ is a total mystery to me, coupled with the claim that more hardcore, ‘working class’ styles are supposed to be primitive and stupid. Read More »