(04.27.07) Every generation gets the electric guitar it deserves — the device that a million kids run out and buy and use to make music that drives their elders to ranting about “old school” this and “back in the day” that. So now we have new rave and mashups and DJ mixes that don’t require the ability to beatmatch, and we have Ableton Live to thank. Live doesn’t so much align tempos and sync beats automatically; it just makes all that irrelevant. Whether you think this is exciting or appalling probably depends on how many records you own and how much you spent on that 30th-anniversary Technics 1200. I spent the last year learning to beatmatch, but fuck me if Live isn’t incredible. True, Live obviates the need for certain technical skills, and it reduces the likelihood of some of those accidental moments that provide dance music with a human touch, but it also opens up a world of new possibilities which cutting-edge dance producers are only now starting to explore.
Take Modeselektor’s new mix CD Boogy Bytes Vol. 03 for Bpitch Control. I can’t say for certain the German producer-duo used Live to sequence all the mixes, but it sounds like they did. Really, it doesn’t matter how they made this; they made it to sound like right now. This mix is a touchstone for today’s left-of-center dance culture. Why? It’s all about the math. Math Problem #1. The album features 27 tracks in just over 65 minutes. Divide. That’s one track every 2.407 minutes. But many tracks come in at under a minute, serving as bookends for the standout songs. Digital tools make such breathless mixing possible. But a new problem arises because some tracks even feature multiple songs. Math Problem #2. Track 11 contains 4 songs (Errorsmith’s “Free For All,” Robag Wruhme’s “Papp-Tonikk,” Female’s “Cally 2,” and Krause Duo’s “Tigerbett”). Another division problem? No, this is a mashup, using German magic to turn 4 into 1. I know everybody says mashups are no longer cool, but this isn’t Britney Spears mixed with Cannibal Corpse. It’s a creative layering of some lesser-known electronic music to create something wholly original, and something that blends seamlessly with the rest of the mix. Thus digital mixing allows DJs to transform their material, making new music that is uniquely theirs. The final math problem is way more complicated, so it’s worth more points. Math Problem #3. This is the complex interplay of algorithms that Modeselektor use to create beautiful ripples of reverb and waves of delay and tsunamis of other effects, sometimes as transitions between tracks and sometimes within the tracks themselves. Although I wish Modeselektor did not rely so much on massive filter sweeps in their mixes, how else are you going to go from IDM to hip-hop to techno? It’s a problem.
But why does any of this matter? If a DJ can create a mix spanning multiple decades, genres, and tempos, and do it at just over two minutes a track, then the emphasis shifts from how individual tracks sound in relation to one another to the trajectory of the overall sequence — its emotional content, say, or its ability to get people to lose their shit. (Granted this has always mattered, and the best DJs have always been more than just jockeys, but today’s audiences are less likely to tolerate a boring DJ just because he never fucked up.) Modeselektor’s mix may not be ideal for dirty dance floors, but its emotional statement is thrilling. It is at times buoyant, other times haunting, and then it ends with Radiohead’s “Idiotheque.” You may think of that song as a guilty pleasure, but when it comes after an hour of journeying into the heart of darkness, it simply sounds beautiful. And speaking of guilty pleasures, thank you Modeselektor for including Spank Rock’s “Rick Rubin.” (But have you heard “Shake It ‘Til My Dick Turns Racist” yet? My god.)
In the end, I worry that with the rise of digital tools like Ableton Live, producers will start to forget how to take chances that are not pre-programmed. After all, there is a plugin for Live that has a knob called Chance. But these tools also give DJs an enormous amount of freedom. As they always have, most DJs will continue to make terrible choices, and we will be constantly reminded that indeed freedom isn’t free. But then something like Boogy Bytes Vol. 03 will come along and remind us why we liked dance music in the first place.
Boogy Bytes Vol. 03 will be released 5/15/07 on Bpitch Control.
