For a long time, electronic music was beaten down by the cudgel that it lacked "feeling' and was too "stiff" and "rigid". This was something that was even embraced by groups like Kraftwerk, who integrated the rigidity of electronics into their aesthetic, to brilliant effect, i might add. But still, for the first two decades as the technology worked its way from novelty to necessity in the creation of popular music, there were restrictions on its flexibility. It took time for keyboards to develop sensitivity to velocity and after-touch and rhythmic devices like drum machines and sequencers were generally slavishly tied to quantization.
It wasn't until the 1990s that the tech began to truly develop the abilities to incorporate more organic feeling attributes into its compositions. One of the most preeminent pioneers in terms of breaking electronics free from the shackles of perfection and repetition was Amon Tobin, who debuted with his first album, Bricolage, in 1997.
I recall this album being something of a revelation in my social circles as we'd never heard anything that sounded quite so loose and spontaneous before. I remember listening to this with fellow musicians who were well up on the latest tools and techniques and being aghast at the fluidity of the percussion and the arrangements. So much was going on and no two bars of music seemed to be the same. There were constant shifts and variations happening and it all felt like someone was really playing this stuff, even though we knew it was mostly done by sampling and editing. We couldn't figure out how the hell he was doing this stuff.
The style of the music also broke free of genre pigeonholes. Tobin would effortlessly glide from devastating drum & bass to downtempo coolness to jazzy chill without breaking a sweat. The title, Bricolage, which is an arts term for "the construction or creation of a work from a diverse range of things that happen to be available, or a work constructed using mixed media", fit the contents perfectly as it was a diverse assemblage of sounds and styles that created its own unique vision for both the dance floor and the living room in equal measure.
It wasn't until the 1990s that the tech began to truly develop the abilities to incorporate more organic feeling attributes into its compositions. One of the most preeminent pioneers in terms of breaking electronics free from the shackles of perfection and repetition was Amon Tobin, who debuted with his first album, Bricolage, in 1997.
I recall this album being something of a revelation in my social circles as we'd never heard anything that sounded quite so loose and spontaneous before. I remember listening to this with fellow musicians who were well up on the latest tools and techniques and being aghast at the fluidity of the percussion and the arrangements. So much was going on and no two bars of music seemed to be the same. There were constant shifts and variations happening and it all felt like someone was really playing this stuff, even though we knew it was mostly done by sampling and editing. We couldn't figure out how the hell he was doing this stuff.
The style of the music also broke free of genre pigeonholes. Tobin would effortlessly glide from devastating drum & bass to downtempo coolness to jazzy chill without breaking a sweat. The title, Bricolage, which is an arts term for "the construction or creation of a work from a diverse range of things that happen to be available, or a work constructed using mixed media", fit the contents perfectly as it was a diverse assemblage of sounds and styles that created its own unique vision for both the dance floor and the living room in equal measure.
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