Moving Cabs-vs-Clash stuff at Blissblog and K-Punk. Despite having a fondness for Erik Davis's writing, the SO WHAT thought is sometimes near the surface.You can nicely tie-in people's feelings towards Technology (and cyber-culture) with the ways in which they approach electronic music.
Techno-optimism always seems to go in waves. It's at it's peak in US culture circa McLuhan (Tonto's Expanding Head Band and Raymond Scott- playing Techno to babies) then takes heavy hits throughout the 70s. In the US Tech became the wrongdoer behind everything from Watergate/Three Mile Island/Vietnam. Maybe UK punk's gee-tar rudimentariness had as much to do with a connected "wholesome" anti-synth attidude as anything else (esp.The Clash) When synths regained currency once more it was as a tool with which to induce terror, through a manipulation of the dominant cultural feeling. Detournement innit. Used effectively at the hands of Japanese and German youth to emotionally terrorise the West.
I've always thought that the synths in Electro and Detroit Techno were aimed at striking fear in to the heart of mainstream America. But slowly, and especially amid the growing (post Jaron Lanier) bubble of techno-optimism, the synth sound once again stood for everything shiny and bright. Ambient etc. Sure sampling has made a nonsense of this. Computer music no longer has to sound as such. Though I'm sure the Avant-folk crew are riffing on ideas like these.
Posted by Woebot at June 2, 2003 03:59 PM