suture the future
Over time, cultural traditions meet the same fate – birth, death, rebirth, and change. And at the tender age of 45, questions about Singapore’s national culture and identity are overwrought, if not entirely naive. Ours is a nation ‘asserted’ on the cusp of post-war changes; one that quickly skipped along from an industrial society organized for production, to a super-industrial one centered on consumption. Along the way, these massive structural revolutions overwhelmed our people and their capacity for change; the escalating rate of technological and social growth rendering them isolated and distressed… or so Alvin Toffler would have you believe. By dreaming up such a process – documented as ‘Future Shock’ in his eponymous book – Toffler would go on to inspire the very soundtrack and expression of post-industrial angst: Techno music.
But no, dear reader, NO – unlike that Euro-dance-trash spilling from arcade machines which many confirm as its unyieldingly proper definition, ‘true’ Techno music refers to a complex (really!), near-spiritual (seriously!) dance music born in the city of Detroit around the late 80s. There are many origins contended of electronic music as it exists currently, but there’s a good chance some junkie will take you aside and whisper in hushed tones how ‘Detroit Techno’ has had more impact on what music now sounds like around the world – than any genre since the Blues.
Broadly speaking, as an updated amalgamation of disco, electro and house; Techno music’s hard-hitting four-four drum patterns, brooding, synthetic bass tones and volatile analogue synths represent, at their finest, discontent and longing for flights of fancy from settings in which they were produced. Techno, wherever fabricated, paints a picture of the city and its architecture: pouring forth from borderline social spaces that plug the cracks between corporate establishments, transmitted by unofficial mediums that remain obscure to the public sphere. As an idea of life in the 21 st century, with technology shaping the way we think and space becoming more limited, Techno(logy) creates other spaces for us – both virtual and sound-based.
What of the people, then? Us humans, if still alive at all, have been absorbed by the urban system; pounded into process and drilled by unrelenting rhythms evoking – hackneyed as it is – machines along assembly lines. Our disorientated consciousness; our jacking, dancing bodies, all at once enslaved, fetishized and locked into repetitive rhythms – no different or any less automatic than the daily grind at work or school. It is easy to see a culture of people as ‘robots’ and instruments of capitalism, but it is in Techno where one finds the suggestion of surrender and resignation of identity as a kind of warped resistance. Rejecting choice and freedom, as an eleventh-hour act of rebellion…
Now without me saying it, you – we – already recognize the incredibly one-size-fits-all popular culture lying omnipresent all around you. Infinite consumer choices as societal adhesive, peer groups and financial pressures toiling to censor opinions against the insipidity: with few elements of opposition and scarce forms of expression, I’d like to think that it all speaks volumes as to the feeble presence of Techno music here. Dance music is just that: music with beats, a hip lifestyle product, the sound of leisure and recreation. Any outward displays of hedonism strike as routine and programmed, pulsing tediously without relevant diversification. A night at local ‘institution’ Zouk akin to, as one rare, accomplished local Techno producer describes, “shopping at NTUC”.
But this is by no means a final condemnation. Now that we’ve looked around, its time to look within (yes, I do hear the fairy dust sprinkling down from above and beyond)… Anyway, self-identity should certainly defy boundaries of a nation-state; no individual should be a mere component of a country’s cultural character. It is up to us to shy away from mass appeal or acceptance, and instead support autonomy and resistance to musical dictate. Importantly, we need to affect and believe in music and its possibilities. Nothing grandiose here, really – just advocating a personal adventure we each embark on: a way of listening to, abstracting, and feeling music.
Originally published on twntysmthg.sg
Over time, cultural traditions meet the same fate – birth, death, rebirth, and change. And at the tender age of 45, questions about Singapore’s national culture and identity are overwrought, if not entirely naive. Ours is a nation ‘asserted’ on the cusp of post-war changes; one that quickly skipped along from an industrial society organized for production, to a super-industrial one centered on consumption. Along the way, these massive structural revolutions overwhelmed our people and their capacity for change; the escalating rate of technological and social growth rendering them isolated and distressed… or so Alvin Toffler would have you believe. By dreaming up such a process – documented as ‘Future Shock’ in his eponymous book – Toffler would go on to inspire the very soundtrack and expression of post-industrial angst: Techno music.
But no, dear reader, NO – unlike that Euro-dance-trash spilling from arcade machines which many confirm as its unyieldingly proper definition, ‘true’ Techno music refers to a complex (really!), near-spiritual (seriously!) dance music born in the city of Detroit around the late 80s. There are many origins contended of electronic music as it exists currently, but there’s a good chance some junkie will take you aside and whisper in hushed tones how ‘Detroit Techno’ has had more impact on what music now sounds like around the world – than any genre since the Blues.
Broadly speaking, as an updated amalgamation of disco, electro and house; Techno music’s hard-hitting four-four drum patterns, brooding, synthetic bass tones and volatile analogue synths represent, at their finest, discontent and longing for flights of fancy from settings in which they were produced. Techno, wherever fabricated, paints a picture of the city and its architecture: pouring forth from borderline social spaces that plug the cracks between corporate establishments, transmitted by unofficial mediums that remain obscure to the public sphere. As an idea of life in the 21 st century, with technology shaping the way we think and space becoming more limited, Techno(logy) creates other spaces for us – both virtual and sound-based.
What of the people, then? Us humans, if still alive at all, have been absorbed by the urban system; pounded into process and drilled by unrelenting rhythms evoking – hackneyed as it is – machines along assembly lines. Our disorientated consciousness; our jacking, dancing bodies, all at once enslaved, fetishized and locked into repetitive rhythms – no different or any less automatic than the daily grind at work or school. It is easy to see a culture of people as ‘robots’ and instruments of capitalism, but it is in Techno where one finds the suggestion of surrender and resignation of identity as a kind of warped resistance. Rejecting choice and freedom, as an eleventh-hour act of rebellion…
Now without me saying it, you – we – already recognize the incredibly one-size-fits-all popular culture lying omnipresent all around you. Infinite consumer choices as societal adhesive, peer groups and financial pressures toiling to censor opinions against the insipidity: with few elements of opposition and scarce forms of expression, I’d like to think that it all speaks volumes as to the feeble presence of Techno music here. Dance music is just that: music with beats, a hip lifestyle product, the sound of leisure and recreation. Any outward displays of hedonism strike as routine and programmed, pulsing tediously without relevant diversification. A night at local ‘institution’ Zouk akin to, as one rare, accomplished local Techno producer describes, “shopping at NTUC”.
But this is by no means a final condemnation. Now that we’ve looked around, its time to look within (yes, I do hear the fairy dust sprinkling down from above and beyond)… Anyway, self-identity should certainly defy boundaries of a nation-state; no individual should be a mere component of a country’s cultural character. It is up to us to shy away from mass appeal or acceptance, and instead support autonomy and resistance to musical dictate. Importantly, we need to affect and believe in music and its possibilities. Nothing grandiose here, really – just advocating a personal adventure we each embark on: a way of listening to, abstracting, and feeling music.
Originally published on twntysmthg.sg
