· via Philip Sherburne
FR 182: Picture’s Uuuuuuuu Perfects a Forgotten Strain of Minimal Techno
For paying subscribers: some thoughts on the retromanic pleasures of Picture’s Uuuuuuuu (Short Span), which I was thrilled to see receive Best New Music on Pitchfork this week, smartly reviewed by H.D. Angel. Should music move forward? Not in time—all music, after all, does that—but in history? Should musicians strive to reflect, or express, or even prod the changing times in the forms they choose and the sounds they imagine? This is not, in any way, a new question (just ask Stravinsky!), but for the past decade or so, it has seemed particularly pressing in electronic music, a genre (or collection of genres) as rooted in specific technological developments as it is the social formations that coincided with them. Recently, RA’s Gabriel Szatan wrote at length about what he perceived as the stagnation of European and North American dance music. It’s a good piece, particularly in its analysis of dance music’s commercial (even if ostensibly “underground”) mainstreams. The argument boils down to, essentially, that vast swaths of dance music sound functionally indistinguishable from the music of 20 or 30 years ago. In indie rock, such an observation might not even be remarkable. In electronic music, an ostensibly futurist genre, it gives pause. And yet: My admission—and this is just me talking about my own tastes and my own desires—is that the past exerts a powerful pull. Your support makes this newsletter possible! Subscribe Paid subscriptions are $5 a month or $50 a year; perks include exclusive playlists for chilling and clubbing (now available on Tidal as well as Apple Music, Deezer, and Spotify); Eavesdropping, a new series of mixes by me; the ongoing Mixes Digest series; and full access to the archives, including interviews with Smalltown Supersound, Bill Orcutt, Kara-Lis Coverdale, Call Super, Avalon Emerson, Nick León, and more.
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