Does Techno need more music videos?

[The_Laughing_Man]

I think techno for the most part, is just not meaningful enough to have videos.
The majority of it is just music designed for DJ`s to be mixed with other music, and hardly has enough emotional content to even hold itself up as a piece of music for 6 mins let alone have enough spirit to conjuire up a vid.

The musical concept needs to have a strong identity for any visual to work beyond your typical beat synced VJ monkey stuff.

[Luke_C]

Visuals are good at a venue by a VJ. I don't see any point in investing in making videos for techno tunes myself. But of corse if someone wanted to make a video using my music i would obviously go for it.

[davethedrummer]

I think techno for the most part, is just not meaningful enough to have videos.
The majority of it is just music designed for DJ`s to be mixed with other music, and hardly has enough emotional content to even hold itself up as a piece of music for 6 mins let alone have enough spirit to conjure up a vid.

The musical concept needs to have a strong identity for any visual to work beyond your typical beat synced VJ monkey stuff.

I totally DISAGREE !
Techno has tons of identity and it's though provoking abstract nature
makes it work really well with a well thought out video.

personally I can't stand VJ stuff either unless it's good original art by the VJ himself
put together in a cool way ie: VJ Lupin the guy we had at the last Hydraulix party
he films himself running about in a rubber suit covered in paint, that kind of stuff...
y'know, the usual.


all that old fashioned fractal stuff and cut out pieces of Bladerunner/Alien/The Discovery channel mixed together YUK!
I mean OK, in a club, I'm not going to get bothered about it, there is beer to be drunk after all.

But watching the recent vids from Dirty bass and Oscar Mulero really got me thinking.

and hey, Aphex Twin's Windowlicker !
I think that in itself is enough to close the argument , that's a piece of genius right there that is.
And you have to ask yourself , would that track been so big if it weren't for the vid ?
it's a pretty abstract Aphex style mash up really.
I think the video complements it perfectly.

I just wish I had time to put into making vids myself
maybe I bloody well will!!!!


(I haven't read the whole thread and I bet someone has already mentioned windowlicker
bollocks if they have, and hooray for me if they haven't.)

[The_Laughing_Man]

I totally DISAGREE !
Techno has tons of identity and it's though provoking abstract nature
makes it work really well with a well thought out video.

personally I can't stand VJ stuff either unless it's good original art by the VJ himself
put together in a cool way ie: VJ Lupin the guy we had at the last Hydraulix party
he films himself running about in a rubber suit covered in paint, that kind of stuff...
y'know, the usual.


all that old fashioned fractal stuff and cut out pieces of Bladerunner/Alien/The Discovery channel mixed together YUK!
I mean OK, in a club, I'm not going to get bothered about it, there is beer to be drunk after all.

But watching the recent vids from Dirty bass and Oscar Mulero really got me thinking.

and hey, Aphex Twin's Windowlicker !
I think that in itself is enough to close the argument , that's a piece of genius right there that is.
And you have to ask yourself , would that track been so big if it weren't for the vid ?
it's a pretty abstract Aphex style mash up really.
I think the video complements it perfectly.

I just wish I had time to put into making vids myself
maybe I bloody well will!!!!


(I haven't read the whole thread and I bet someone has already mentioned windowlicker
bollocks if they have, and hooray for me if they haven't.)

I think you might have missed my point a little.

can`t really compare window licker to yer run of the mill 6 loops running for 6 mins techno tune though can ya? Window licker had plenty of interesting cuts and edits for the video editor to work with. It helps if the music is original and creative to begin with.
I mean sure there is great creative techno out there that would benefit from visuals.
But your average tool tune just doesn`t warrant a video.
I`d rather see more creative techno being made first, but of course image is important, we are very visually led creatures, more so now than ever.

[davethedrummer]

I think you might have missed my point a little.

can`t really compare window licker to yer run of the mill 6 loops running for 6 mins techno tune though can ya? Window licker had plenty of interesting cuts and edits for the video editor to work with. It helps if the music is original and creative to begin with.
I mean sure there is great creative techno out there that would benefit from visuals.
But your average tool tune just doesn`t warrant a video.
I`d rather see more creative techno being made first, but of course image is important, we are very visually led creatures, more so now than ever.

Perhaps......BUT
( and it's long "but" , sorry )

I listened to Windowlicker just recently on it's own
and it struck me how much the video had influenced my decision
on whether I even liked the track or not, at all.
In the same way, you could take a fairly bland/repetitive techno track, and really enhance it with some creative visuals, in fact you could completely change the track around f the visuals were good enough.

For example: Steve Dirty Bass's last video post with the Butoh (?spelling?) dancer.....
The track there wasn't something I would particularly play,
( sorry Steve, I'm not slagging the track, just making a point )
and normally, being a DJ, I wouldn't really listen too hard to a techno track once I've decided it's not playable for me, there's just too many good tracks to get through you see?

But, combined with the video...
Well, it takes on a new life, and now I can imagine the track and the visuals instantly come to mind,
meaning it's stuck in my head way more than it would have done if it had just been the audio alone.

you get me ?

So, as an artform, Techno music and musicians should be embracing visuals, to complete the creative circle if you like.
Look at Final Cut Pro and Logic for example.
The two pieces of software are growing closer and closer with each update.
Both operate on a timeline, both deal with loops, and layers of loops and effects.
but now they even have a similar look and feel so you can get straight in and start creating in either one if you have knowledge of the other
It's no accident that these programs are so similar, apple bought Logic to do exactly this in an attempt to move the visual and audio industries closer together, so they can work in harmony.
ringtones , iTunes etc etc ........ Steve Jobs' vision of the future, or the ifuture if you like.

Flash is another example of a program that was once reliant heavily on code
and is now breaking away by enhancing the use of layers and tweens on a timeline,
very similar to a music sequencer, and providing standard pre-written blocks of code for you to insert as you need.

Computers have become so powerful that code is becoming obsolete,
now we have programs with simple interfaces that write the code for us.
allowing us to be more creative.

ie: make films to accompany our tracks

as a techno musician, personally, I think this is the future, 100%.

[The_Laughing_Man]

Perhaps......BUT
( and it's long "but" , sorry )

I listened to Windowlicker just recently on it's own
and it struck me how much the video had influenced my decision
on whether I even liked the track or not, at all.
In the same way, you could take a fairly bland/repetitive techno track, and really enhance it with some creative visuals, in fact you could completely change the track around f the visuals were good enough.

For example: Steve Dirty Bass's last video post with the Butoh (?spelling?) dancer.....
The track there wasn't something I would particularly play,
( sorry Steve, I'm not slagging the track, just making a point )
and normally, being a DJ, I wouldn't really listen too hard to a techno track once I've decided it's not playable for me, there's just too many good tracks to get through you see?

But, combined with the video...
Well, it takes on a new life, and now I can imagine the track and the visuals instantly come to mind,
meaning it's stuck in my head way more than it would have done if it had just been the audio alone.

you get me ?

So, as an artform, Techno music and musicians should be embracing visuals, to complete the creative circle if you like.
Look at Final Cut Pro and Logic for example.
The two pieces of software are growing closer and closer with each update.
Both operate on a timeline, both deal with loops, and layers of loops and effects.
but now they even have a similar look and feel so you can get straight in and start creating in either one if you have knowledge of the other
It's no accident that these programs are so similar, apple bought Logic to do exactly this in an attempt to move the visual and audio industries closer together, so they can work in harmony.
ringtones , iTunes etc etc ........ Steve Jobs' vision of the future, or the ifuture if you like.

Flash is another example of a program that was once reliant heavily on code
and is now breaking away by enhancing the use of layers and tweens on a timeline,
very similar to a music sequencer, and providing standard pre-written blocks of code for you to insert as you need.

Computers have become so powerful that code is becoming obsolete,
now we have programs with simple interfaces that write the code for us.
allowing us to be more creative.

ie: make films to accompany our tracks

as a techno musician, personally, I think this is the future, 100%.

Oh I agree, Aphex twins` music benefits massively from the video work of Chris Cunningham, he`s one of the best in the business, and Aphex Twin makes music that is quite ambigious.
Sometimes you think he is taking the piss, and sometimes he IS taking the piss.

And of course visuals will benefit the music.

But I have a number of problems.

If a piece of bland and repetative techno needs visuals to give it validity, then it hasn`t done it`s job in the first place.
Music is one of the most powerful artforms I believe for one simple reason. It forces the user/observer to use their imagination. They have to participate in it. There is no visual reference so you use the music to engage you own visuals and emotions which makes each piece of music subjective and personal to the observer.
Abstract music is even better as it challenges the brain even more.
Visual arts are like the fast food of the art world. Instant gratification, and unless very creative, unchallenging to the mind.
That music can bring someone to tears from pure soundwaves alone is what makes music fantastic, and nature has few parallels to music, whereas visual arts partly imitate reality (unless you go for total abstraction, but then, look at a sunset or a cloud, live visual abstraction).

The other point is that to be a good musician you need to really put in the time, hone your art, be patient and work at it.
Same with visual arts.

It`s very difficult to do both effectively.
With peoples inpatience with music and their need to just nock out tracks as quick as possible, we have a glut of bland techno.
The last thing the music needs is bland techno with bland visuals.

(I`m not knocking the visual arts here, I studied fine art at college and graduated university with a degree in animation, so I understand visual arts).

But yes I think a more synergistic relationship between visuals and techno, if handled properly, would be massively beneficial.

How it would work I don`t know. The nature of techno has changed so much over the last few years, and the improvements of technology mean anyone can DJ without having to spend ages learning the mechanical skill of getting 2 round things to revolve at a similar speed. Leaving the actual real part of DJing, ie mixing, eq, song choice etc with more time to be worked on.

I think this has caused DJ`s to try to be more busy, as they aren`t spending all their time on the pitch control. This has led to an increase in tune turnover, and 3-4 deck style mixing etc.
To the point now, where a techno tune effectively is maybe used for 1 minute or so, possibly layered under another 2 tracks.
So in a way the validity of tunes is being reduced to just being tools.

Will visuals help improve this?

Although the improvements in technology allow us to make a melange of everything and blend it all together, for me I think it takes away the beauty of music.
What`s wrong with a massive, really well set up sound system, one phuck off strobe, and some amazing amazing music?
The music should be enough.

I understand my thinking may well be out of step with the new generation of ADD kids but in all art forms a step back to purity happens in cycles when the debauchery gets too much.

The main reason I made the video with the Butoh was to experiment with taking what I thought was already something very dark and doom laden even further with some disturbing images. I don`t think what I did there has any place in mainstream techno, both the music and visuals obviously aren`t very commercial, they were never intended to be, but I`m glad you liked it.

My problem is that I am very pretentious, and I want to make art in an arena that is more about entertainment and escapism, so maybe I am barking at the wrong forest, it`s why I lost my faith with the Dirty Bass project, Sasha, Digweed, Lawler and people like that were playing my stuff and it caused me to re-think what I was doing as I realised I was no longer making underground music.

I`d like to see things become more about the music again.
I`d like the music to become more about the music again.

I`m probably thinking too much about things. Video is a good way to promote music.