The Nature of Sound Pt. 2: The Furthest Destination You Can Place Your Mind

I’m headed to a place I do not recognise. This is not out of a lack of education, but a choice. A choice to formerly be unaware and a choice to go there. Like a broken bottle shattered into tiny glass shards and stuck on a ceiling, the stars remind me of all that has yet to be discovered or understood. Just the same then, certain elements of music have been left untouched, or so we choose to think. The nature of sound is one that leads to forced interpretation of different aspects of everything. There are many alleyways and many doors, we can only go through so many before we hit the proverbial wall and figure that a gap must be there and it must be filled.

I’ve often gazed up and wondered what lies beyond and sound can fill that gap for us. I’ve been listening (in the last year) to music recorded for the stars. It’s exciting shit. Be it the Black Sabbath stuff of their Paranoid album (thinking about “Planet Caravan” as an important one here), or the acid punk of the Flaming Lips or perhaps even the deft sci-fi of the Fall. Sound provokes and tortures, it doesn’t just see the brick wall and is content with standing in front of it; IT KNOCKS THE FUCKER DOWN. And this is my problem...there is so many doors and yet so few are willing to walk/run/crawl/jump through them.

How many times do you think a group of kids have gathered around and wondered about the intentions of their music in the wider market, perhaps even the mainstream? I’m chancing it with not many. Mostly it happens along because they’ve been listening to the first few Oasis records and have been filled with something close to energy. Sometimes it happens because someone figures out that there isn’t a post-dance-fusion band. I know that sound’s horrible. The two imaginary groups often come out sounding similar and that’s due to a lack of definition, not due to an absence of thought.

Sound comes and goes. We all know that trends exist and the A&R guys are often hunting for the next best thing...it’s usually the easiest band to market, but who the fuck cares. At the moment we are stuck in a vortex of choice. There is far too much choice; not only in terms of style or genre but with the way we listen in how we pay; so on so forth. And that is the problem. There is too much music. There is also too much of one thing. Mind numbing, isn’t it? So this is why when the Strokes came about in 2000, the entire decade focussed on indie-boy group rock and simultaneously when Sugababes came about in 2000, the entire decade would focus on dance-girl group pop. So, I’m glad the 2000’s are gone so we can focus on the thing I like about music; the groove.

SO sound comes back to rear its ugly head. I’m begging for the 2010’s to suck out the lifelessness and replace it with subterranean groove. Harsh, sexually provoking groove. There’s something to be said about a rock n roll group with a heavy beat and a pulsating rhythm. I’ve missed it and had to fall back on the 60s and 70s. The 80s had no fun with it, but the 90s brought it back. I’m hoping we just skipped one decade and I won’t have to begging for it when I’m in my thirties or forties. Oh, also, I really hope this fanciful technical shit dies down too. Don’t want that now.

Part three coming soon.