Injecting politics into techno

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Mattias
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Re: Injecting politics into techno

Post by Mattias »

jordanneke wrote:
Mattias wrote:Most of my music is political.
Does that convey to the listener you think?

I ask because I know your music doesn't have lyrics.
I have no idea to be honest. Occasionally I hear from people on gigs but mostly on emails / facebook PMs regarding it.
I title many of my tracks in a political fashion, sometimes with hidden messages, subtle or not, it varies a lot. Some people get it right away.
winston wrote:without lyrics music is much more open to interpretation, so there is much more chance that any message might be lost.
Very much so. I personally think that in more "anonymous" music the message can be a bit open and not necessarily thrown in your face. I quite like that.
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Lost to the Void
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Re: Injecting politics into techno

Post by Lost to the Void »

I don't think song titles count as being political. It's more like an afterthought in those cases.

But like percs "it's political innit"
When it really just means throwing shit through distortion and having stiff beats.

A bit like that painting you find in every art gallery in the world?
You know the one.
Canvass painted black with pretentious title like "a small soul falling in deep water" or "the final question" and then a whole essay to explain what it means.

Mills is good at this.
3000 word essay about futurism and the questions that artificial intelligence and machine consciousness might make us ask about ourselves and what it actually means to be conscious.

And then basically 909 drums with some bloops, bleeps and some strings.

Doesn't mean anything really.

Song titles are not enough.
And I know this because I make some incredibly poncey track titles with esoteric literature references.
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Mattias
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Re: Injecting politics into techno

Post by Mattias »

I'm glad I never really give a shit what others think about stuff or what qualifies and what doesn't.
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Re: Injecting politics into techno

Post by Lost to the Void »

Come now, we all care (to varying degrees) otherwise we would never release stuff and only ever play it to ourselves.
The fact you have a recent release in your signature shows you clearly care.

Ain't buying that "I do it all for myself" stuff for one minute ;)
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Re: Injecting politics into techno

Post by Mattias »

Let me phrase it like this then:

When I get approached by people who wishes to release my music, and I agree to it, it's all good, but I don't do it for others. That part is a happy occurrence
further down the line. It's a bonus that other people happen to like what I do, it warms my soul. I'm very grateful for it. At this point in the chain I obviously feel that I should share
what I've made, what I (and others) invested time and effort into. I guess it's a degree of nurturing.

Every time I got into the bad habit of thinking what other might except of the music I create or if I should do anything in a certain way to please other I get stuck.
Possibly that happens to everyone and occasionally it's not so easy to just ignore. I usually find a way through it.

In the case above I simply meant that I don't let others thinking dictate what I do or don't. If I get the impression or sense to title my work in a political or society re-formal manner then I, from my view as the creator, see it as political. Or silly, or humorous or whatever it now may be. I cannot see the point in using vocals or too pronounced messages to convey a message when it doesn't suit me as a person to do so in my music. If others don't feel that only titles counts as a political, then I'm fine with that. Hence I really don't give a shit! But for me it can be. That's what matters.
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Re: Injecting politics into techno

Post by Lost to the Void »

Well yes, second guessing your audience is a road to disaster.
And once the music or any art, leaves your creative hands and enters the public domain, you no longer have ownership of the meaning of it.
What you intend to mean something can mean something else entirely to someone else.
Which essentially is what we are talking about here.
If the intent is to be political, or social commentary or whatever, then to successfully convey that intent it has to be clear.
Otherwise you will be disappointed.
If your intent is to use your music as catharsis then the situation is different. To you the influence of a particular track may have been political or whatever, but then the initial intent is catharsis rather than trying to actually intentionally convey something (and the reason why arbitrary song titles don't really mean anything except to the person who made them).

Both serve a purpose. The majority of my music is cathartic, and the titles reflect more the influence, thinking or general emotion present at the time of creation. Occasionally when my intent is specific then obviously an arbitrary title (as referencing my black canvass example) is not enough to successfully convey specifics.

Actually that is why I made a heavy metal album last year, and am doing another this year. Some concepts are too... detailed or complex to convey in techno (or with song titles alone).

I am using you colloquially here. Proper English would dictate I use the term One. One does..... Etc
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Re: Injecting politics into techno

Post by Lost to the Void »

Anyway, injecting politics into techno is blah.
We should all be injecting crack into babies and then racing them.
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Re: Injecting politics into techno

Post by jordanneke »

I'd actually be more in favour of injecting techno into politics now I think about it.

I mean Carl Cox and Dave Clarke running the country surely can't be worse than what's gonna happen on June 9th.

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Re: Injecting politics into techno

Post by winston »

jordanneke wrote:I'd actually be more in favour of injecting techno into politics now I think about it.

I mean Carl Cox and Dave Clarke running the country surely can't be worse than what's gonna happen on June 9th.
it's more likely it would be Fatboy Slim as it is the House of Commons
and Duke Dumont in the Lords

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Re: Injecting politics into techno

Post by Lost to the Void »

If any DJ was to run the country it could only have been the late great Jimmy Saville, with Dave Lee Travis as DPM.
Obviously.
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Re: Injecting politics into techno

Post by over9000 »

i always like political song titles, or samples like escape the system from dax j.
but i think its really difficult to get a complicated message across trough techno.
Obviously you can use phrases, but thats like at a demonstration, the "no justice, no peace, fight the police" wont reach many people. Or in other words its just a statement of an oppinion and not really something that will make people think or get political imo. If you share parts of the believe system, in which the phrase was formulated, it will appeal to you in a way. though it most certainly wont appeal in the exact same way as it did to the author. Same problem goes with phrases or political track titles.
Its more of a feeling that can be transported, and i always like when that happens.

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Re: Injecting politics into techno

Post by jordanneke »

Lost to the Void wrote:If any DJ was to run the country it could only have been the late great Jimmy Saville, with Dave Lee Travis as DPM.
Obviously.

I think he still fucked fewer kids than Teresa May once she passes her social funding cuts.

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Re: Injecting politics into techno

Post by terryfalafel »

jordanneke wrote:
Lost to the Void wrote:If any DJ was to run the country it could only have been the late great Jimmy Saville, with Dave Lee Travis as DPM.
Obviously.

I think he still fucked fewer kids than Teresa May once she passes her social funding cuts.
Zing! Would be funnier if it wasn't despair inducingly true though

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Re: Injecting politics into techno

Post by Revaron »

On the subject of UR:

A lengthy and decent interview with Mike Banks was aired on Benji B's Radio 1 show on Thursday. Well worth a listen, I'm sure everyone here knows Mad Mike interviews are rocking horse shit rare, and it's a good interview. Obviously lots of excellent music as well.

Politics in techno and UR's role in that is a pretty big topic that is covered. To those who say UR never really had a message, I think Mike would disagree, and he explains himself pretty well here. The interesting thing (imo) is that it isn't really about party politics, and yet is definitely political. The message is definitely in the music - do not allow yourself to be programmed - don't let corporate America dictate the music you listen to, etc.

But obviously Mr. UR himself does a much better job than me of explaining himself, haha, check it out: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p052kczq

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Re: Injecting politics into techno

Post by Lost to the Void »

jordanneke wrote:
Lost to the Void wrote:If any DJ was to run the country it could only have been the late great Jimmy Saville, with Dave Lee Travis as DPM.
Obviously.

I think he still fucked fewer kids than Teresa May once she passes her social funding cuts.

You got the joke!!
I thought that would fly over most people's heads.
Haha.
I was going to throw that in a few posts later.
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Re: Injecting politics into techno

Post by innovine »

Sample yourself reading your political messages, and put them in the track at low volume, BACKWARDS.

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Re: Injecting politics into techno

Post by Vox Veteran »

Confident that Steve's on the right track here when saying vocals are the one truly meaningful medium for conveying political commentary within music.

Good efforts have been made historically to inject techno with political meaning but it's rarely achieved unless in the context of a track like Autechre's Anti EP with the irregular beats as a 'two fingers' to the UK's criminal justice bill at the time. Equally, you'd have had to be aware of it to 'get it' at that time.

I do think UR and the Detroit folk need to be given more credence though.

There have been a variety of political agendas running through their work, be they environmental with the Acid Rain series or addressing the horrors of America's troubled history with narratives like the tales of Drexciya, even if represented symbolically rather than literally. Perhaps this is an even more effective device once the reader/listener understand the meaning. Also, their direct action against the 'majors'.

Robert Hood's Blackness on Nighttime World Vol 2 with the Eunice's socio-political poem is as political an ideology as I have ever heard techno.

Other artists like Bone link tracks with a very strong socio-political message.

I guess there is that direct history with rap's social commentary but it's not to be underestimated in the history of this music at the very least.

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Re: Injecting politics into techno

Post by TheBinaryMind »

We should inject techno into politics, not the other way around. Lock them lying fuckers down on a rave in front of the speakers playing Murder was the Bass (or anything else sounding ugly) at 110 dB.

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Re: Injecting politics into techno

Post by chava »

To me techno and the rave movement was initially liberating exactly because it got rid of the stupid lyrics telling people how to think and feel. That was the real political message; a kind of de-subjectivization of the music experience also witnessed in the dispersal of stage-antics of rock and the "band" as purveyor of trancendent meaning. Conflating the traditional hierarchy of music consumption and production in this way changed our relation to music completely. It was a true aesthetic AND political revolution (as in : social and material/economic/technological change) and even though techno might be dead or irrelevant in its original incarnation, starting to convey political messages directly is regressive in my view.

And it is not that I can't understand the inclination, but the current toxic political landscape is hard to navigate without being overly partisan. And that hardly helps the situation getting better.

My 2 cents!

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Re: Injecting politics into techno

Post by rktic »

Guess that the time one's been growing up in also has an impact on finding certain vibes in music. New/Cold/Dark/Wave and Punk as well remind me strongly about the 80s cold-war era. Even with new material that doesn't come with any political message at all.

Likely that Techno does the same for those discovering it during times at which politics was at stake in a way?


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