VARIOUS ARTISTS
– Re: Haydn
(CD, Deutsche
Grammophon / Monopol)
A
wild ride indeed, this compilation, that combines a few things that usually
stand askew like a clown in a pink tutu on the stockholder congregation of a
global company, but it does so with verve and an attitude that is best
described by the old “with a vengeance”. Yes, indeed there is a certain,
small trend of modern electronic artists to remix or rework classical
pieces, and the old lady Deutsche conservatism of regular classical music
(you know, the few big “B”’s, from Bach to Brahms and Beethoven to
Bruckner, with a little Mozart here and there. If it weren’t for the
anniversary, there is only a minor group of fanatics for Haydn anyway..),
and the question coming up all along is: how desperate is Universal music
really? But that is not a fair question in many ways, because the answer
would be “very desperate” no matter if they did this project or not. So
it does not really help in the review of this CD.
Another
level of coming to grips with this compilation is turning it up really loud
while driving through the night, which it supports grandly and with the
relevant energy. Personally, I don’t care too much for minimal techno ever
since I got fed up of it a few years ago. I don’t count Kompakt releases
anymore nor do I care for the latest revolution in glitch software adding
another tiny bit to something I couldn’t differentiate from the twelve
inch played before or that before anyway. Maybe that is the best preset to
approach this compilation anyway. But having these beats pumping your stereo
while riding the Ring in Vienna looking at the beautiful buildings and
feeling the sparks of energy shaking your head automatically is a visceral,
intuitive reaction to music that cannot be negated when talking about this
album. There is some fucking great minimal electronic on here.
Of
course, from the contributors at least something decent and danceable should
be expected, yet they don’t hide behind formulas or traditions. Some of
them even have a classical education regarding music (the prototype of the
working class kid toiling away on his computers late at night and finding
genius talent just by instance is more a romantic delusion of leftist music
critics than reality I am afraid; good music is mostly still hard work to
achieve, in all genres…) like ClaraMoto or Dorian Concept. On the other
hand there are big “stars” like Patrick Pulsinger (here: Wolfgang
Amadeus Pulsinger) or Antye Greie aka AGF with her husband Sasu Ripatti aka Vladislav
Delay. And so on. The mix and consequently the styles are pretty eclectic
within the confines of the music presented. The selection has a certain bias
towards Austria and the hometown’s available artists.
The
more interesting in question in this respect though is about the different
kind of biographies usually connected with the two styles. Classical music
with its basic concept of conservation and re-viving of the past has a
basically elitist standpoint. No matter how many “bring the children to
the opera” programmes there are and no matter how much classical musicians
like to stress the fact that their music is open to anybody, it is not true.
Their kind of art has left the connection to regular people quite some
decades ago and is now only contacting normal people in movie scores and
bitparts of symphonies perused for advertisment on tv. Techno on the other
hand set out with the (almost) political quest to destroy the star-aesthetic
of almost all other kinds of music, which it has not achieved in anyway.
There is not a lot left from the non-elitist stance and the everyone can do
it propaganda of earlier techno decades. Nowadays getting the right
equipment, software and purely technical skills to produce interesting
techno is a very long and hard way for any aspiring techno superstar. And
maybe, after all, this is not only a synthesis for the two styles in all
their demographic difference, but also good for the art as such. Whoever
believes that art that “everyone can do” will be better than average,
should set his antennas straight.
Musically,
the biggest leap to take is the distance between the structural cores of
classical pieces and techno music, which are completely contrary. Whereas
classical music lives on dynamics and formulas that enforce changes,
re-changes and re-hashes of a main theme or melody, techno lives on the
repetition and the basic sound. There is no equivalent of “basic sound”
in a classical orchestra. Of course, some people are able to recognize a
certain orchestra by its sound, but nobody is able to say whose 808 is doing
a single drumbeat. The differences are more basic, though. Techno lives on
loops, that cannot be mentioned often enough in this regard, and on top of
that, especially in minimal techno, the tiniest parts are constantly
changing, sometimes hardly noticeable. Everybody is mentioning Gas by
Wolfgang Voigt all the time, so there, you know what I mean. In classical
music the contrasting and harmonizing of melodies is part of the structural
dogma.
Maybe
this is the reason why the Haydn is hardly recogniseable in most of the
tracks on “Re:Haydn”, because the artists had to reshape the basic
tracks so much that almost nothing was left over. Either just a simple sound
or part of a second of sound used to build the beats and patterns, or a very
very small part of a melody. Whenever a song sample is being used, it almost
comes as a surprise. (I am not gonna give it away. You listen closely,
you’ll hear it…) But as I mentioned in the beginning, that is okay. If
either a techno kid goes out and buys a Haydn-Box (for 5.99 at Media-Markt)
or some old dude becomes interested in electronic music and orders from the
internet some tracks by Krazy Baldhead or Moulinex to shake his ass to, the
overall effect has been good. Me, I’ll keep this close for whenever it is
a late shift in the office and I need some pulsing energy to carry me home
well.
