RE: Fela (was Re: Hi)


Gokhan Karakus (gokhan@superonline.net)
Tue, 1 Dec 1998 13:29:38 +0200



Really important point here. The breaking down of beats from
traditional and ethnic music, abstracting it down to simple lines and
phrases, then repeating it to emphasize every nuance is definitely
modernist. Where the curve comes in is when you throw this stuff into
the digital sphere. Then you have something thats a post-modernist
melange-sampling, time distortions etc. Without getting bogged down in
labels you can point to some current examples in house, the new Jephte
Guillaume or Ashley Beedle's Black Jazz Chronicles, or drum and bass,
the new Grooverider or taken to the extreme, Ed Rush and Optical's
Wormhole where the funky/jazzy/ethnic elements are almost dissipated to
nothingness in a way that only this style can achieve.

GK

>
>
>Just a thought about Fela.
>
>In a strange way his work is exceedingly modernist, and almost cybernetic.
>He employs relatively simple sonic potentials and sets them in repetitive
>motion
>through complex systems. From this stirring of purity in form and function,
>patterns and connections arise which give birth to emergent properties. I've
>often noticed a commonality between his work and some of the more intelligent
>drum and bass compositions.

>
>



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