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Tuesday, January 26, 2010

New Meets Old, The New Genre: Two Examples

Genre are starting to more and more become undefined. It's getting closer to the point where R&B meets hip-hop meets pop meets classical meets rock.
Two examples of this genre breaking artists:
BT is an electronica artist. He did most of his work with House/in the greater idea "Techno" music. However, after most of his work was stolen, he worked on something quite amazing. True U-Ziq, Aphex Twin, and Venetian Snares did highlight how easily classical goes hand-in-hand with electronic, glitch-styled music. However, BT's album This Binary Universe did something amazing. Ideas of breaking notes down to hundredths, working with computer coding, synths, and 100 piece orchestras was so well conceived, his love of math being infused in his music doing wonders, it was no wonder why he got such great critic reception. I usually listen to the album once a month. I have it on my personal top 20 albums you absolutely must know. His work successfully launched the patented rhythmic BT style glitch pattern, reminiscent (and programmed in this track) of the chaos of a rainfall, but with an underlying pattern. Not only are his glitch style beats something quite wonderful, but how they so easily fall in from an orchestra, to jazz, to electronica, in one song, almost seamlessly, are just beautiful.
BT - Dynamic Symmetry



Mayer Hawthorne started his career as a joke, quite literally. He though that R&B styled Motown was going to be a farce, and jokingly approached Stones Throw records with a couple tracks. What was next, well, a new wave of Motown. But it's not quite Motown, but yet it's also not quite R&B now is it? Peanut Butter Wolf was confused at the tracks, not knowing if it were re-edits, old tracks but remastered, or what he was listening to. Mayer was signed, but only if he released original material. But before he knew it, Mayer Hawthorne was publishing not only new tracks, but newer versions of old Motown tracks. However he incorporates many R&B tricks through the ages to his work. The flutes and bass are a reminder of the funky side of R&B, but the vocals just scream Motown. Well listen for yourself!






As said, it's easy to see where Peanut Butter Wolf was confused. Maybe So, Maybe No is a redone track originally done by The New Holidays back in 1969. Even more amazing is that Hawthorne never had any vocal training, it's just his up and go, first time to a microphone. I look forward to more of his work.

-Minimal foX, confused about Genre.

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