So as you may know, I love having my music providing device on shuffle quite often. I have if not a huge library, still a pretty big one with a lot of variety across genres and styles. This often causes me some WTFs, and the occasional hey that treally works should ot it down for DJing to other interesting eyebrow rasing reactrions.
Just now, my phone gave me these two songs one after another:
It may be just me, but to me? that WORKS. and it works HARD. And it made me go "wow that is scary"
You guys know by now that I am an old school conservationist and a genre purist. I get rabid when people misidentify music genres, but I nbever deny good music it's due. But then again, genres are fluid and subective things - on Discogs, Silence is Sexy, the album form which Sabrina comes from, is identified as "Electronic, pop" (with the substyles experimental and abstract) while Exit Ghost is identified as "Electronic" (with the sub syle ballad)
One of these songs, to me, is complex and layered and evokes different emotions with a rapid progression of rich imagery that engages the mind; rife with symbolism and multiple intrepretations and a rich, layered sound. One is less layered, but instead presents a deeply evocative story where a few words convey a wealth of not information, but of reflections of a specific world. it pulls you in and engages in a narrative level. And yet, in the fact that they evoke a deep reaction, they are the same. They bring out a reaction that is in the deeper, darker side - I hesitate to use the word "negative" but neither one of these songs paints a picture of hope and happiness now, do they?
What is also mportant, both artists seek innovation - EN in a scale larger than Faderhead, but still the drive to go far beyond the comfort zone is there. Do you really want me to nitpick specific influences and instrumentation and arrangement but quite frankly, I know I am not qualified and I know most of you would not care.
I hesitate to call Sabrina a "typical" EN song, as let's face it, it is very hard to say that a band that has spent thre past 30 years reinventing itself and its output could be typical anything, but Exit Ghost is an atypical faderhead track, as it is not a thumpy club style track with the express intent and purpose of getting people move their bodies on the dance floor. Nevertheless, it is still unmistablably a Faderhead track, and has the same qualities that ifentify the artist's other songs to me.
Remember me wafflinbg about genre? ah yes. Both of these songs are, to a lot of people, industrial. some would say one is and the other isn't. I personaly? Actually do fall into the latter category. to me, Einstürzende Neubauten is industrial. (amongst a lot of other things) Faderhead? is not. Post-industrial electronic music, yes, but not industrial. And guess what?
In the end, that doesn't really mean anythinbg. Because these are two good songs that work in different ways to evoke the same places in our hearts and heads, and the work together in a pretty nifty way. Doing it diferently dos not mean doing it wrong.
And now, I think I will go to sleep and when i wake up realise I sut wrote utter pointles drivel I no longer agree with, but for now, this is it.
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