Member Since: 3/21/2006
Band Website: soaringbrain.com/
Influences: It is retrofuturist, heading in opposite directions at the same time: forward, to the seductive dystopia of Blade Runner's Los Angeles, 2019, and backward, to the psychedelic utopia of the 'Summer of Love'. At its best, it is like orgasmic relief or Buddhist Nirvana, or the momentary blackout of a fighter pilot pulling G's at supersonic speed. At its worst, it can pummel the brain to mush with its locomotive rhythms and monorail melodies.
Listen to it. On one hand it has a love of silky, lustrous textures. On the other, a fondness for scabrous, crusty timbres. It is an amorphous sexuality and a masculinist algebra of dominance and submission. It is fluidity and rigidity. It is utopia and dystopia.
Sounds Like: The application of the music is paradoxical. In an age where the standard formats are CDs and digital recordings, techno largely reverts back to 12-inch vinyl cuts and analog synths.
The genre is also anti-capitalist at the same time. Dozens of 12-inch singles are released every week, but few of the producers or musicians--there is usually no band--use the same name twice; they form short partnerships, release a couple of tracks and move on. None seem worried about fame or fortune; the 'image' of the music is transported directly from composer to consumer, without any interfering middleman.
Techno is the end of natural law of pop music: the end of harmony, of melodic development, of album-oriented marketing, of live performance in the "classic rock" sense. Techno signals the death of the song, to be replaced by the unresolved, infinite track. It is the death of the star, of message, of meaning.
Type of Label: Indie