MY KETCHUP IS FART

New blog is new! I finally made it on my own domain with WordPress instead of Tumblr. Though I may consider posting to Tumblr a bit still because I like the networking aspect of it. But anyways…

io9.com recently posted an article about ‘The Most Futuristic Music of 2011‘ which linked to a bunch of YouTube videos and the reasoning as to why they he considers them futuristic. Obviously a lot of it is subjective, as what happens in the future of anything is really anyone’s guess. Many of the bands listed were considered futuristic by the author largely due to the artists combining elements that sound futuristic. Nothing wrong with that at all, but one of his choices stood out in particular -

Wormrot, “Dirge” and Nervecell, “Psychogenocide”
Wormrot are a grindcore band from Singapore; Nervecell are a death/groove metal band from Dubai. Neither of them are putting any special twists on their chosen sound, other than being really good at what they do. The reason each of these groups is on this list is simple: just by virtue of playing metal while living in countries dramatically different from the ones where this musical style was born, they are the future. Metal is global; rage is universal.

The future of music is not simply in the way the music itself sounds, but the manner and circumstances in which they are produced. I highly recommend checking out Metal: A Headbanger’s Journey and its follow up Global Metal, both of which (particularly the latter film) feature bands that bring music previously unheard of  in their respective countries. A band that may be considered mundane in the Western world can have an impact on culture and religion in another country. But, I digress.

I was about to post a reply mentioning djent, but somebody beat me to it, recommending Animals As Leaders, Tesserect, Uneven Structure & Textures as bands to check out in the djent scene. Just like any other genre, djent can sometimes be very unique and other times it can be more of a spin that bands use to add a different texture to an already popular sound. What that person did not mention, however, was what I believe truly separates the genre from many other styles of music. I don’t really want this to get lost in the sea of comments, so here’s what I added to the thread:

Animals As Leaders is my favourite band next to Dillinger Escape Plan. Tosin Abasi is an innovative guitar player, both in terms of rhythm and lead. I have to say though, many bands, old and new, have been playing with multiple alternating/polyrhythmic time signatures for centuries and there are so many other things that make the djent scene/genre/sound/whatever a truly innovative ‘futuristic music’.

One of the things that sets djent apart from many other genres of metal is songwriters self-producing their own albums to an extremely high standard of quality. One of the hardest things about recording an album is recording drums – something requiring multiple microphones, acoustically treated rooms and expensive recording hardware; however this has been made significantly easier with the use of extraordinarily realistic drum samplers, either played through an electronic drumkit or programmed manually.

Then there’s recording guitars and bass. Down-tuned 7-string and 8-string guitars are veeeery popular in the djent scene, so achieving a fair amount of clarity is a bit of a challenge. Many people still record the traditional way – that is, a microphone positioned in front of an amp. Digital technology, on the other hand, has come a long way in the last few years, with digital modelling amplifiers that very accurately model the way traditional analog amps work. Using just a little box, you can choose the type of amp you want to emulate, the microphone and almost any sort of effect you want. The amount of accuracy that digital amps provide is up to debate, however the fact is that they have progressed so far as to make tweaking your recording sound exponentially easier and cheaper and to a professional quality. And it’s not just the fact you can emulate analog sounds. It’s the ease of which you can craft these tones into something unique.

They can be used live, too. Often at a djent gig, you won’t see gigantic guitar cabs with microphones shoved up to them and guitar pedals cluttering the stage; instead there’ll be little black boxes plugged directly into the PA. The sound is therefore generally much easier to control for the sound engineers.

Due to the relative ease and cost-effectiveness of these recording techniques, some djent bands are hardly bands at all – it’s just one person, their guitar and a computer. The ‘band’ part only comes in when they play live. Many djent songwriters started honing their craft on guitar/metal community forums on the net, releasing works in progress for people to critique. Sometimes they might ask another forum member (who could be in an entirely different country) to add vocals on top. They can even trade amp preset files in order to help each other improve and build upon their guitar tones.

All of the above does not necessarily apply to all djent bands out there, but the scene likely would not exist if it weren’t for the progression of digital technology and the social connectivity afforded by the internet. The music itself may not be for everyone, but the technology behind the music is something that will only become more popular in the future.

Now, I know I sound like some sort of a djent sensationalist, but there are many bands in the genre that I actively dislike or ultimately find underwhelming. I’m have no delusions that I can be very picky about the bands I listen to. But the reasons above really have made me quite excited about the production (and even performance) of music in general.

Oh, and here’s a video from one of my favourite djent-ish bands. Hayato Imanishi, sole songwriter of the band Cyclamen, really shows off the versatility of the genre. He’s one of the few metal musicians who play with single coil pickups (for those who don’t play guitar, these are most popularly used by blues, country and jazz guitarists and make the guitar have a very ‘twangy’ sound, whereas most metal musicians prefer smoother sounding humbucker pickups). When he’s not screaming his arse off, he often sings in a beautifully soft falsetto voice. It sounds like a completely different person.