DJs seek voice beyond machines in e-music boom
Electronic music has enjoyed soaring growth in recent years, but to detractors the genre consists of little beyond crowd-pleasing DJs clicking “play” on their computers. But several leading artists are seeking to combat such perceptions with a renewed effort to emphasize the human element behind the music.
Richie Hawtin, a leading force in techno, on his latest tour has gone not only to clubs but to college campuses where he brought fellow DJs to lecture.
Hawtin, a British-born Canadian who has performed as Plastikman, is known for his minimalist techno but says honing his style took time.
“As big as the scene has become and as easy as it is to get involved ... to go beyond that and to find your own unique voice or sound is quite difficult,” he told aspiring electronic artists at New York’s New School.
“Sometimes people criticize electronic music for being computer music — ‘it’s not made by people, it’s all about the machine.’
“Well, it can be, but it shouldn’t be,” says Hawtin, who spearheads summer techno bashes on the Spanish party island of Ibiza.
The lecture tour featured workshops for students and was supported by equipment makers. But Hawtin’s message was different — it is most critical to discover a voice in the studio.
“Our instrument keeps changing and evolving and there always seems to be someone — a friend or a manufacturer — trying to entice you that there is something new that you have to get to sound great,” he says. “But you can spend all the time chasing that and never having enough to find yourself.”
A rapidly growing number of millennials in Western nations have embraced electronic dance music as their generation’s defining sound. A study presented last year at the International Music Summit in Ibiza found that the industry was worth $6.2 billion, soaring from $4.5 billion a year earlier.
Around two-thirds of the revenue from the industry came through festivals and clubs, with growth especially strong in India, the study found.
Among reasons for the high profit margin is the relatively low overhead for many DJs, who can fly to international events easily with their equipment.
But Francois Kevorkian, a pioneer of house music, told the students it was a mistake to think that expensive equipment was key to success.
The French-born DJ, a longtime staple of the New York club scene under the stage name Francois K, saw the need for the human element first-hand when he mixed Depeche Mode’s blockbuster 1990 album Violator. He says that he bought a $3 gadget from electronics chain Radio Shack that gave a certain touch to singer Dave Gahan.
Music executives were ecstatic, thinking he had invested thousands of dollars in high-tech equipment, he recalled.
“It’s not that at all — it’s more the idea that you want to experiment,” Kevorkian says.
While catchy dance music has fueled the boom in festivals, the British artist Squarepusher has tested the limits in a different direction with a complicated web of sometimes jarring blips and beeps set to frenetic drum loops.
Squarepusher, who used his background in jazz to bring a radical take to drum-and-bass starting in the 1990s, went a step further with his new album, Damogen Furies, by designing his own software. Squarepusher, whose given name is Tom Jenkinson, had been working for years to create the system and also performs a customized six-string electric bass.
Reflecting on his music’s sonic jungle, Squarepusher designed a visual live show in which he wears a mask with flashing LED, although more recently he has performed in what resembles a fencing attire.