I've been looking backwards more than forwards recently with eyes on the early 80's minimal wave and synth experiments - Chris Carters headspace experiments and Chris & Cosey's frozen worlds of grey and ice particularly goosebumpy - as well as the UK BBC4 synthpop documentary making me dig out my Mute Documents Boxset and listening repeatedly to Fad Gadget demos on repeat. Maybe it's the UK suddenly becoming cold and grey. Maybe it's just modern music sounding so over produced it just fails to move me.
I'm not sure how everything fits together but some ((a small minority)) of dubstep sounds somehow linked to the early 80s for me. Especially some of Shackleton's recent output - that clanking industrial sound of Nick Cave banging a piece of metal - I'm not sure how much Berlin links into all this but it's historic impact on music and art in general can't be denied.
"I see the towers falling"
Blood On My Hands repeat to fade...
I've been reading JG Ballard's The Atrocity Exhibition again recently. Frightened by the prophecy?
Crash Course In Science are one of those groups that had a very short life but seem to be just, for me, a perfect expression of what music should be.
RAW
POWERFUL
EMOTIONAL
I remember hearing Cardboard Lamb played by Optimo and was knocked soundways by it. It sounds like the future the way it was supposed to play out. Not what we've ended up with.
Here's a demo that was never officially released. It sounds like the basis for Losing My Edge. SRSLY >>>>>>>>
Other CCIS sources.
I'm DJing at Pure Groove in Farringdon London tonight. Come down and say hi. What will I be playing?
If you can draw a line through Silver Apples via David Bowie's LOW (Side 2) via Crash Course In Science turn left at Mute and head straight through Detroit techno (some at 33+8) turn right at DFA+Output and end up in Shackleton's basement in Berlin (whilst Spectral Empire sit in the corner tweaking a prophet) then this could be the story of your life.
Turn your head inside out.
Then Detachments will play live and channel the spirits of: Depeche Mode, The Cure, Talking Heads, New Order, WARP and some of the more interesting dubstep ( raw - glacial - rather than farty farty updated garage / breakbeat ) into something modern and relevant.
