captain hook. [revenge of the nerds]
Electronic Music has never been known for being the source of cool kids or heartthrobs. In fact, may of our most prized artists are misanthropic, submarine driving savants (a la Aphex Twin). Our heroes are anonymous, often faceless characters that really only communicate with fans via speaker output, even the generally accepted concept of a DJ spinning records puts the booth between the artist and the fans. In the end, from the many artists I’ve been lucky to meet, this may actually be a good thing, as their music always seems to eclipse their actual humanness.
But where EDM, for the majority of its existence has had such round peg/square whole individuals, we are starting to get cool somehow. Our newest generation of voices, from Skrillex to The Dusty Kid, the artists we are so mesmerized by are profoundly young, reasonable, socially amicable fellows. Save- of course- for the occasional odd haircut, our current popular artists are, dare I say cool. The music even appears to become more friendly, less aggressive, even as the popular music of EDM, namely dubstep, has appeared to get darker and more dingy (we will of course, omit Korn’s rather sad attempt at staying pertinent in pop culture, or rather, omit them altogether from pop culture if at all possible). Frankly, we’re faced with an interesting situation, we have no upstarts, young turks or Robespierre’s, we have no punks, no Sex Pistols, no Clash. Put more simply, by Alice Cooper himself “… [I] looked around and I said, ‘Rock ‘n’ roll is full of Peter Pans. Where’s Captain Hook?’
Indeed, our “villains” used to be all found contained inside one of our most proud sub genres, Drum & Bass. Often times, Dieselboy would be found referencing Dungeons & Dragons, Roni Size was known for sampling scores that were horror themed, or even the villain’s march of a given film (at one point even the Imperial March from John William’s score of Star Wars). But with the fall of Drum & Bass, or more accurately its fragmentation, we lost the darker side of electronic music. And by darker side, I do not mean Terrorcore or some other esoteric citing from Ishkur’s wonderful Guide to Electronic Music**. However, a lot of us seemed to have missed the fast forward rise of Indie Dance, [the rebirth of] Electro or the Nu-Disco scene. And nobody thought this shot of life to our hungry veins would come from the Atlanta club scene. Honestly… Atlanta?
But quietly, at least outside of the clubs like Masquerade and the truly prolific “Fuck Yes!” Parties, a few very notable artists have been retooling an rethinking what you can do with EDM. And one particular artist, with a deep background in Drum n Bass has become a promethean voice in the Electro and Indie Dance scenes. Le Castle Vania, aka Dylan Eiland, who has taken the pitch bending, call and response song writing, Indiana Jones style drops of DnB whilst adding trance build ups, massively crushed compression and progressive house hooks, creating something entirely new. I know I have mentioned this artist before, positively gushing about this sound and how excited I am to see where this new scene and style goes, but it really must be made clear, the future of electronic dance music is going to be shaped by the likes of Le Castle Vania, Computer Club, Designer Drugs, Fukk Off, Andy’s iLL, Steve Aoki and a few more here and there. We’ve found our Captain Hook, hidden away in the portamento of our synths, the speed up and slow down cross fade tool in Logic Pro, the distortion settings in Reason’s Scream Distortion Module and the ratio dial of our compressors. Be aware, keep your headphones on and get to finding LCV, follow Computer Club and find his immaculate retooling of New Order’s “Bizarre Love Triangle,” check out Andy’s iLL remix of Caribou’s “Sun” and the Designer Drugs remix of “We Run The Nite” by Tonite Only. Do not miss this before it gets destroyed by enterprising record labels, get to this sound now. Much respect to these artists for the sheer force of will it takes to create a new indie scene.
Regards,
_backchat.
*For the interview regarding Alice Cooper and where I cited that quote: go here
**Ishkur’s Guide to Electronic Music is an absolutely wonderful find, equal parts categorization/history of electronic music and gentle prodding of a very very eccentric brand of music, I tip my hat to Ishkur. Link here
