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An excerpt from More Brilliant than the Sun, a 1998 book on music by Kodwo Eshun, was posted on this blog six years ago in March. Here it is again, and it will be reposted yet again in 2013, that's how much I like it:
There are no drum-machines, only rhythm synthesizers programming new intensities from white noise, frequencies, waveforms, altering sampled drum sounds into unrecognizable pitches. The drum-machine has never sounded like drums because it isn't percussion: it's electronic current, synthetic percussion, syncussion. The sampler is at first termed an "emulator," as if it does nothing but imitate existing sounds. Calling the rhythm synthesizer a drum-machine is yet one more example of [r]earview hearing. Every time decelerated media writes about snares, hihats, kickdrums, it faithfully hears backwards. Electro [music] ignores this vain hope of emulating drums, and instead programs rhythms from electricity, rhythmatic intensities which are unrecognizable as drums. There are no snares--just waveforms being altered. There are no bass drums---just attack velocities.Somehow the passion and insight of this writing in response to music that was revolutionary ten, fifteen, twenty years ago, ought to be held onto in the face of overwhelming excess production--the microchip revolution that has probably resulted in more djs than listeners, as represented by the surfeit of grooveboxes in stores and on eBay. What if there were only a few of these left in the world? Someone would be hacking the chips for sure once the factory-intended "unlimited sonic possibilities" had run out. When writing music for machines like this--and it's a hoot, I recommend it, they're cheap used, kind of a latter day harmonica or skiffle pole--I sometimes envision a jaded, overworked "holy man" of a post-apocalyptic tribe that has somehow preserved one of these rarities (plus a generator, amp, and speakers). The tribe engineer is constantly tweaking it, and together they are responsible for keeping people amused and "up" at all events requiring shamanic jubilation such as weddings, funerals, and war rallies.