What sounds 'cutting edge' in 2015?

i hate looping. it's so lazy. webern all the way

xp however we must also acknowledge that on a certain theoretical level "music" is synonymous with "perfection"

actually this reminds me of something I meant to post earlier in the thread, about a sound that really IS new and unprecedented: software keyboard instruments capable of computing on-the-fly pitch adjustments, to make the intervals of a chord sound as harmoniously as possible -- put that in your well-tempered clavier & smoke it!

most novel thing about Jute Gyte is the strength of the songwriting and the integration of the quartertones as not gimmick but melody

― an absolute feast of hardcore fanboy LOLs surrounding (imago), Thursday, 28 May 2015 13:52 (8 minutes ago)

this is just an invocation of classical virtues and the sort of thing you bring up when your ideological white knighting veers from 'pure pop' to worthless progressive rock music

the future imperfect music will have been looping and autopitching

Well when I think of artists who are currently making music that doesn't quite sound like anyone else, I think of Colin Stetson, but I don't think he quite counts cutting edge.

I hate questions like this because:
- there is no limit to the number of candidates you could come up with. "Cutting edge", objectively, is meaningless, and in practice only defines what sounds new to whoever you're asking
- thus, there really isn't ANY answer.
- And who cares what's cutting edge? It's not a contest. If there WAS a contest, it would be based on whoever is most popular, which kind of defeats the idea of "cutting edge"
- it makes cynical music journalists posit that there is no avant-garde, no progress left to be made, and other nonsense claims that say more about how hard it is to write about music -- in an age when opinions matter less than the minuscule space on the twitter server where they're placed -- than insight into music or people or anything else

That said, for me, footwork and teklife stuff seems like a pivot point in the development of electronic dance music, in a similar way as Aphex Twin, and early IDM did in the 90s. IMO it is meaningful when I can play it in a hipster DJ situation, or for my girlfriend while we're cooking dinner, and have each "audience" enjoy it (and still have it written about as "avant garde" dance music)

less white knighting, more attempts to express aesthetic preferences in the terms of value, maybe i shouldn't bother, except 'worthless' does the same thing so it's the only countermanoeuvre available

thought about mentioning colin stetson upthread but it's a novelty of recording technique more than anything else

The Scott Walker/Sunn O))) collab sounds pretty cutting edge to me, can't really identify any antecedents for that drone doom w/crooner from hell sound

this qn is beyond stupid in strong ie teleological terms but in more modest terms ie 'what seems vaguely different' its fine

the qn is 'what sounds' not 'what is' so i don't feel foolish answering it

what sounds cutting edge at 2015

less white knighting, more attempts to express aesthetic preferences in the terms of value, maybe i shouldn't bother, except 'worthless' does the same thing so it's the only countermanoeuvre available

― an absolute feast of hardcore fanboy LOLs surrounding (imago), Thursday, 28 May 2015 14:31 (8 minutes ago)

the claim was that it was new/different/etc not aesthetic preference and your retreat into thatisjusthowifeel solipsism is the end of a failure to argue on those terms, which ought to apply even it is worthless since it perfectly possible for terra nova to be covered in turd

This is quite similar to that awful poptimism thread that's still rumbling on it that both of them are full of people folornly straining for some kind of pseudo-objectivity to justify their tastes.

i <3 footwork, but a lot of it sounds like the tracker gabber my friends and i were making in the 90s /Wyschnegradskyguy

some of it reminds me of kate bush

what i mean is, it's very exciting music and it sounds unlike much other stuff, but it's not inconceivable that it could have been made at any point in the last 25 years, apart from some exceptions (JLin)

the claim was that it was new/different/etc not aesthetic preference

moving the goalposts eh, you were talking about my 'white knighting' for pop & prog

i can well justify the subjective novelty of all the acts i mentioned in a way that most people on this site would identify with - only a few would yawn and say 'it's been done' with any weight of justification

From 2013, but still out in front, for me anyway - http://www.discogs.com/Rashad-Becker-Traditional-Music-Of-Notional-Species-Vol-I/master/583248, but I'd also considered mentioning Mark Fell/Sensate Focus and the Demdike Stare testpressings as above, and many of the things I've heard on PAN, specifically, Afrikan Sciences, Beneath, Hecker Leckey, NHK'Koyxeи.

massaman gai might though, he's definitely the most avant-garde poster on ilx

oh nice, more recommendations. that is what this thread should mostly be imo

From 2013, but still out in front, for me anyway - http://www.discogs.com/Rashad-Becker-Traditional-Music-Of-Notional-Species-Vol-I/master/583248, but I'd also considered mentioning Mark Fell/Sensate Focus and the Demdike Stare testpressings as above, and many of the things I've heard on PAN, specifically, Afrikan Sciences, Beneath, Hecker Leckey, NHK'Koyxeи.

― neilasimpson, Thursday, May 28, 2015 2:54 PM (4 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Yeah, that Rashad Becker is the best and closest suggestion that I recognise so far ITT, in that the sounds themselves aren't ostensibly man-made or synth-made but something quite alien to anything else I've heard in music. i've had some very strange visceral reactions to moments on that record while listening on headphones; emotions that I'm not even sure how to pin down, but they're there.

what's also great about it, is it doesn't appear to be seated in any previous style of music - it's not a breaks record like Autechre do. rather than trying to fuck with any occidental (or oriental, for that matter) tradition, it doesn't even acknowledge them. still, it's recognisable as music rather than just sounds. they are compositions.

moving the goalposts eh, you were talking about my 'white knighting' for pop & prog

i can well justify the subjective novelty of all the acts i mentioned in a way that most people on this site would identify with - only a few would yawn and say 'it's been done' with any weight of justification

― an absolute feast of hardcore fanboy LOLs surrounding (imago), Thursday, 28 May 2015 14:54 (8 minutes ago)

the claim to novelty was just aesthetic white knighting, as demonstrated, in this instance with an appeal to novelty

the cutting edge being invoked is of course the appeal of sharp and serrated surfaces that david kelly would be familiar with from that fated day in 2003 when he read the words 'objective' and 'subjective' being used one too many times on a music message board

what i mean is, it's very exciting music and it sounds unlike much other stuff, but it's not inconceivable that it could have been made at any point in the last 25 years, apart from some exceptions (JLin)

well yeah, it's pretty much just MPC+808! it's a really simple idea, as far as what you need to make it, and it's funny how something so spare and ironically hard-to-dance-to fascinates me so much as dance music. Musically, it's also not far removed from patterns you hear in dubstep, trap and hip-hop, and house and techno. It's like a hybrid lifeform, and I think that's why it strikes me as "cutting edge".

Also the question isn't whether it could have been made at any point in the last 25 years. If that's the case why wasn't it? There are social and cultural reasons why it emerged when and where they did, and whether or not some isolated IDM nerd made something that sounded much the same in 1995 is neither here nor there.

Likewise with deep tech, the issue is less about what the music sounds like as who is dancing to it this time round.

exactly. that's why when someone leaps in and starts talking about how 'Stockhausen did it first' in relation to, say Aphex Twin or whoever, it's not a big deal.

the type of novelty being described here is the sort of process music where its sound is immediately apparent from a bare descriptor, 'mictrotonal bedroom black metal' or 'it is 2004 and someone has just ysid an epic bossanova cover of love will tear us apart'

rashad becker album is formless and meandering but timbrally quite unlike anything else around

If I'm to answer this semi seriously, which feels like an embarrassing move somewhat, I feel like what I'm really doing is offering a prediction over what will most visibly shape the sound of music in the future. In the u.s. I feel like the goon cru follows stuff that tends to be the vanguard of what's new and shaping hip-hop's future already. though the young thug thread may make it seem like there's a bit of an imbalance as the corny fuxx praise as distorted his contributions relative to a swath of other rappers.

Internationally, big picture though, I still think Nigerian afropop feels like the most obvious direction for the shape of music to come, a populist genre that is also popular, which provides an aesthetic "out" for genres currently spiraling in boring directions cf UK deep house, edm, most rap, r&b, etc

it's a big deal for me. originality is a big part of how I respond to music. plus, credit should be given where it is due

xxp

it is static and bloops evoking the Seoul cityscape being overrun with cockroaches

tbf it is always interesting to hear a 'new musical language' outside of known form, katie gately is of that stripe as well imo

anagram, but context is everything here. Jute Gyte's not the first person to experiment with microtones, but in the realm of extreme metal, he is.

kanye west

agree with deej that afropop feels like a vanguard for pop music. the fact it's so accessible and at the same time diverse and different enough from established UK/US dance music is a plus. Spent the other night with my g/f just watching vid after vid from the afrobeats thread and we were transfixed, which i doubt would have happened if with any other dance genre.

Jute Gyte's not the first person to experiment with microtones, but in the realm of extreme metal, he is.

Is this true though? How do we even know? (serious question, not trying to be a smartass)

well it's AFAIK of course.

http://www.heavyblogisheavy.com/2012/12/07/agm-week-microtonal-metal/

Couldn't care less if he's the first. He might be the first to do it well, though

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7rBhv-Wg-Kw

Thanks for the AGM week link, NickB!

agree with deej that afropop feels like a vanguard for pop music. the fact it's so accessible and at the same time diverse and different enough from established UK/US dance music is a plus. Spent the other night with my g/f just watching vid after vid from the afrobeats thread and we were transfixed, which i doubt would have happened if with any other dance genre.

― p:s nerds know (dog latin), Thursday, May 28, 2015 10:09 AM (52 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

word. i think part of this is the logic of hip-hop making other genres seem like they were merely feeder-genres for its innovations...i feel like afropop does the same thing with dancehall,hip-hop,R&B, EDM, etc...makes them all feel like individual ingredients rather than genres unto themselves, the same way hip-hop made jazz, funk, disco, breaks etc seem like mere tools

originality is a big part of how I respond to music.

thing with this is, a lot of stuff i've responded to because it sounded so original and wildly innovative to my ears at the time, i've later heard precursors that make me think "ohhhh that's where they got that idea from". not that there's anything wrong with this but imo what's important isn't just originality - though innovation is a great thing of course! - but a) the other musical and emotional components of a song, the stuff that keeps me coming back to it even after i've realised it wasn't so original, and b) the personal/social context, how it fits into either/both my world or the world at large, ie is this person saying this or making that music radical at this point in time?

and on a similar note, even if something is wildly original, of what use is this if i never want to listen to it?

yup context is everything.

I think confusing what is literally technologically cutting edge in terms of how music is produced (which is what I was referring to upthread in terms of how we've reached this plateau where progress has reached a logical endpoint) for what is aesthetically or culturally cutting edge is a mistake - those two have been separate for quite some time now.

Xxp to deej yeah that's a good analogy. also, the early rave scene in the UK before genre specialism really came into play, and you tended to get a grab bag of dance styles being played next to each other through the night because it was 'all dance music'

Οὖτις yeah these are two completely different things And shouldn't be confused.

I think they were confused in the past when you would have serious cultural arguments/splits over, say, the use of amplified instruments, or whether or not sample-based music was "music", or whether drum machines were evil etc. but those days are gone.

did you guys hear the acid house album that the red hot chili pepper dude made?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WpUv4tVBISA

It is good to have a strange little cabin in the woods now and then, something that you hadnt seen before and you think well who put that there. But if there were only cabins then the magic is gone and you are in a timber housing estate.

microtonal metal music is groundbreaking in the least interesting way possible to anyone vaguely familiar with the prewar heterodox avantgarde

― lex merk a tory ya? (nakhchivan), Thursday, May 28, 2015 8:40 AM (5 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

pvmic

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DPC9erC5WqU

My roommate showed me this video last night love those purple monsters.

I expect to hear the cutting edge sounds of Sheb Wooley when I click this link