Any one of us, myself included, may break at any moment into armchair analysis of the music scene. But it’s worth asking an expert. Taste-setting, deeply influential DJs Pete Tong and Gilles Peterson of BBC Radio 1 recently stopped by National Public Radio’s thoughtful music program, All Songs Considered. Joining the American hosts, the BBC stars play favorite tracks and weigh in on the connections in electronica and club music in the US and the UK. The timing was appropriate: with DEMF taking over Detroit, that same world scene was returning to the cradle of the techno genre. But the message might surprise you: according to Tong and Peterson, the US is in a full-blown dance resurgence. It’s about time.

This isn’t the first time England has exported back to America tastes America helped define. Just ask the Beatles, who were able to market folk and country traditions, Everly Brothers harmonies and practicing guitar licks, more successfully than American artists had been in their own country.

Imagine what is possible now. Today, you can almost certainly have an easier time tuning into BBC Radio 1 from anywhere on Earth than you can a terrestrial radio station just a few miles away. Electronic dance music, while it may draw its roots from the likes of Juan Atkins and Frankie Knuckles in Detroit and Chicago, is arguably a hybrid, global and transnational by definition, and both American continents alongside Europe, Africa, and Asia, continue to forge its style.

All of this makes it more noteworthy that Tong and Peterson are finding the US increasingly fertile ground. Outside the over-saturated UK, BBC Radio 1 DJs are doubly superstars. These Radio 1 legends report that the act of gigging in the US – fueled by demand in the unfairly-dubbed “flyover states” – is better than ever, and even better than anywhere else. (Where but the US, they say, can you do a 7-day-a-week tour?)

In just those places, people are rediscovering classics like Lil’ Louis’ “French Kiss.” And in turn, those records may come to mean something new and refreshed, transported into new contexts.

In making their argument, and tracing some exemplary records, these two also make a case for a dance music more informed by tradition than flavor-of-the-month trend. It’s fitting that older records are finding new audiences, or that new styles are more conscious of their antecedents. The program also offers some perspective on English club culture, and without hopping on a soapbox, suggest the US may have paid a cultural cost for societal squeamishness about difference and homosexuality. Beyond what gets gigs or prompts dancing in the club, that suggests a grander societal significance to all these great records.

But Americans looking for some hope, I think the message of this recording is as clear as the title of the last song: “Coming Home.”

Let’s turn it over to Flying Lotus…

It’d be unfair to allow the UK side to monopolize this conversation, so let’s look at one of the US artists who has helped lead the US dance resurgence. Flying Lotus, himself popularized by BBC Radio 1, has been a tremendous force in supporting the blossoming scene around Los Angeles.

I think he can say as much musically as any other way, so take a listen to his recent podcast for Stones Throw records. Pulling some surprising cuts into the mix, he spins a dreamy, future-retro, soulful-spectacular world. As out of a parallel analog reality, warm and fuzzy vinyl crackles through a gauze-covered lens, but paints a futuristic landscape.

Perhaps Steve Ellison was assembling this deliciously-curated wonderland in a trance, because there’s absolutely no track list. (I’m holding out hope that maybe he’ll reveal their provenance; we’ll see.)

But a future portal opened by the past, steeped in soul and jazz, seems just the kind of universe that could give electronic dance music a second renaissance. So, I’ll best shut up at this point and let you listen.

Good listening

Hear the whole NPR program, and find additional commentary and track selections:

Pete Tong And Gilles Peterson On Dance Music, UK And American Style [NPR Music: All Songs Considered]

This Week On All Songs Considered: America In The Grips Of Dance Fever [All Songs Considered Blog]

And be sure to subscribe to Stones Throw’s podcast, picking up episode 66 for Flying Lotus:

More FlyLo — a full live set, also via NPR Music:
Sasquatch 2011: Flying Lotus, Live In Concert

Pour some port, find a comfy spot on the couch, and fire up the YouTubes. A surprisingly-rich raft of terrific documentary video for synth and electronic music enthusiasts has been making the rounds.

In our queue: Analog Suicide interviews a legendary vintage synth spot in Berlin, an hourlong documentary features not only Richie Hawtin but a range of techno pioneers, as well as other shorts from T-Mobile (yes, the phone company), and the BBC scores more history of the British side of the synth revolution in music. Sit down and get ready, because here we go.

From Detroit to Berlin and Back: In-depth Interviews with Pioneering Artists

At top: an hour-plus documentary produced for T-Mobile’s Electronic Beats series follows the rise of techno legend Richie Hawtin, including some terrific Detroit footage with artists like Derrick May, Kevin Saunderson, and of course Magda. Love him or hate him, Richie’s impact on electronic music is formidable, and it’s great to see coverage finally return to a tale of his roots. It seems the perfect way to get ready for Detroit’s Movement Festival, starting May 28. Via the astute music coverage on the XLR8R blog, here by Ken Taylor.

There’s quite a lot more Electronic Beats TV on the YouTube page:
http://www.youtube.com/user/ElectronicBeatsVideo

Here are a few of my favorites. Kangding Ray of Raster-Noton is framed by signature, hypnotic minimal visuals. He has some wonderful things to say about the beauty of materials in sampling. Then there’s some beautiful footage of TESSEL, a morphing architectural form which really deserves some separate coverage here. Have a look:

Thomas Heckmann looks at machines, vintage and circuit bent, and talks about working with their idiosyncrasies in musical production.

From the role of machines to the role of humans, Moderat talk about collaboration as therapy, and what it does for them … and then go parachute jumping. I think people falling from a plane makes the perfect soundtrack.

Conversations for Synth Lovers, via AnalogSuicide

AnalogSuicide’s Tara Busch is one of our favorite journalists covering synthesis, and a great artist to boot. This week, she visits the legendary vintage synth destination Schneiders Beuro in Berlin. Via Synthtopia, who, like MatrixSynth, I think has an alarm that goes off when videos hit YouTube with certain keywords – incredible.

On the producer side, massively-accomplished producer Gareth Jones (Depeche Mode, Wire, Erasure) makes an appearance, too:

Lots more where that came from:
http://www.youtube.com/user/tarabusch

Synth Brittania

Via our friend and Chicago producer/nerd fashionista/writer Liz McLean Knight comes a BBC Four documentary that covers British synth artists in the late 70s and early 80s, including Joy Division, Human League, Kraftwerk, Cabaret Voltaire, and Gary Numan.

There’s just too much goodness here. I want to sit down with the past and present staff of Keyboard and watch this one. Watch it while the Beeb lets you.

I’m personally gratified in that I believe technically and artistically, we’re entering another of these sorts of ages. Who knows what the cultural impact may be, but at least for those passionate artists and technologists who are involved, something’s happening. And these videos are a great place to begin for inspiration.

So, now that you have those to watch, I guess I really need not write until Monday! See you then! (joke … sort of.)

Readers have spoken, and it seems recent outings by Brian Eno can be a bit divisive. (Okay, I’ll admit – I wasn’t at all fond of Everything That Happens Will Happen Today, as a huge fan of Byrne and Eno.)

But Eno isn’t the only English musical legend who … cough … might make fans long for the earlier stuff. See video explanation above.

Music is, of course, taste – part of why we enjoy it is that it is emotional and not objective or (gasp) entirely quantitative.

So, to me, there’s not a moment of the above BBC Web-only comedy sketch that isn’t brilliant. Of course, you’re welcome to disagree. I might just have to ask you to leave.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to frame my exclusive artwork from King of Limbs and put the vinyl edition on the phonograph, after connecting my gold-plated cables. You just can’t hear it at all, otherwise. Who said “hero worship”? SHUT UP! OUT!

(quiet voice in the back … “well … i rather liked … king of limbs…”)

Via Myles Ashley Borins.

When I asked what albums readers were loving early in 2011, England-based James Blake’s full-length stood out in numerous reader comments. If you haven’t already seen him plugged on radio and online – and at least some of you haven’t yet – it’s a perfect time to check him out, with the full-length this week available for digital download even outside the UK. Blake made a name for himself in some astonishing EPs over 2010, with a haunting but fragile voice singing soulful melodies atop minimal percussion and warm, fuzzy keys in close-fingered voicings. Now, his full-length is here. If you needed someone to tell you to listen to it, you certainly would have no problem finding a blog — or five hundred – to do so. But what strikes me is that the self-titled James Blake is something readers say they are giving repeated – and I mean repeated – listening. That’s when any hype or popular opinion melts away, and it’s just the intimacy of you and a record. And it’s an experience that, amidst plentiful access to music today, has never been more valuable.

Apologies if any of these videos refuse to play in your country because of odd licensing restrictions. (No soup for you!)

With all that hype, of course, some of the reviews of the album have been less than spectacular. Some of the best tracks, like “CMYK,” were on previous EPs and not here – and it’s well worth giving those releases a try alongside the full-length. I’m personally in no need to hear any more applications of pitch correction, ironic or otherwise – the effect that was for me utterly magical in the hands of Bon Iver now seems a sort of cliche, and those to me are the weakest tracks on this collection. Call it hipster AutoTune. Anyway, even with lo-fidelity digital effects part of the aesthetic, and successfully so, you don’t want anything standing between you and James Blake’s lovely voice. When it does come out, the album shines.

I say give it a listen yourself, and forget that anyone has hyped this. What some people criticized as weak songwriting I find to be part of the appeal. Absent hooks and willfully earnest, the melodies are often sparse fragments, repeated as though a sentence trailed off. At its best moments, it’s something really unique. BBC has removed some of the excellent live performance videos; I’ve included one candidate below before it goes, too, though the official video is nice, as well.

BBC did leave an official, and excellent, interview:

Let us know what you think. I’d love to hear a track-by-track review and not just broad strokes, perhaps from someone other than me. (I’m in my head all the time.)

Enjoy, and have a great weekend.

http://jamesblakemusic.com/

Adding a remix here, thanks to reader John Meredith:

Mary Anne Hobbs has announced that she is leaving BBC Radio 1 after fourteen years to pursue other work. It’s a changing of the guard at one of the world’s major musical beacons. In her tenure as a DJ for the Beeb, Hobbs famously helped fuel the explosive rise of the dubstep genre. Notably, she also became a champion of many American artists, shining a light on artists like Flying Lotus. (Leave it to the British to appreciate the significance of American popular music more than Americans – ask The Beatles.) And on a radio station known mostly for charting the top of the pops, Hobbs’ “experimental” show was been a cultural highlight. The show will continue through September 9.

It seems that after a decade and a half, Hobbs is leaving the station on good terms. And she’s going on to teach. Here’s the statement from her MySpace site:

Yesterday i resigned from BBC Radio1, after an amazing multi-dimensional 14 year career.

The great freedoms the BBC have given in me as a broadcaster, have allowed me to help break so many confrontational artists as diverse as Slipknot and Skream, and of course, the whole genre of Dubstep in recent times.

My current Experimental show is in peak condition, it’s never been stronger. And although it’s a very emotional decision to leave the show that I love so much, it’s also an optimum moment to bow out, at the very top of my game.

My work for Radio1 on the Breezeblock, Rock Show, many fascinating documentaries about everything from David Bowie to Dubstep, on daytime, at festivals and award ceremonies, has been exceptionally rewarding. These have been glory days not just for me, but for all the artists who have shared my BBC platform, and of course, the listeners everywhere from Beijing to Berlin, Baltimore to Blackpool, who shared a great passion for future sound.

I will continue to DJ live, work in film, and curate at Sonar festival in Barcelona.

I have also accepted a new job mentoring and teaching students at the University of Sheffield’s Union Of Students radio station, TV station and the newspaper that operate out of their superb Forge Media Hub, which presents me with a really exciting new challenge.

My last show on BBC Radio1 will be broadcast:
September 8th>>9th … Wednesday night >> Thursday morning… 2-4am
www.bbc.co.uk/radio1/maryannehobbs

Thank you so much for listening..

I think we need to organize a listening party for the last show. To Ms. Hobbs, best of luck with your new endeavors. And I know while your listeners will miss you on the airwaves, we’ll continue to enjoy your other appearances and live sets.

http://www.myspace.com/maryannehobbs

The Music Bore – Video 2 from Nicholas Humfrey on Vimeo.

“I’m sorry, Dave, I can’t allow you to listen to Coldplay.”

What would radio be like if playlists were not only robotic, but had robot DJs pulling information from the Interwebs dynamically? That’s the question asked by the winning team at London’s Music Hackday last weekend, which created an epic mashup of data sources to produce a voice-synthesized IRC chatbot that researches and plays music for you.

Music Bore

Music Bore was just one of a number of projects developed in the weekend of musical hacking, some for listening, and at least one (a fantastic and free synth plug-in) for what we really like – production. With some of the world’s top musical coders in attendance, the results were amazing, even if not all projects were entirely finished. (Hey, that’s why they call it hacking.)

You can check out the full list on the wiki, but here are some favorites — and if you were there, do shout out to us as you put more documentation up of the event and projects.

Harmony Box by Dave and Mike is a synth plug-in for Mac (AU/VST) and Windows (VST, thus also Linux) that quickly creates lovely chords. I love the simplicity of the instrument – really lovely work, gents – and I think I may actually use it on a project. They accept donations if you’d like to see this instrument mature. Of course, with everyone else doing Web mash-ups, this didn’t win, but it’s more up our alley. (Web 2.0 – meh, whatever.)

The synth has its own project blog:
http://davenoise.com/blog/

Other winners (in our book, and as recommended by Harmony Box co-creator Dave Gamble):

LonelyHarps by Jamie Hollingworth and David Padbury is a Last.fm-based tool concept that helps you find dates – and choose the right tracks to set the mood – using music for compatibility. And, really, do you really want to date someone who doesn’t have musically compatible tastes? (I’m sure it’s just because they spotted lots of hotties on Last.fm, but…) The only bad news: the app didn’t actually get fully made yet, but we’ll stay tuned, gents. They do have impressive-looking formulas.

Music Zeitgeist by Cristiano Betta visualizes lyrics by decade, such as the 1980s, above. (Yeah, it was all about wanting and karma, the 80s.) Check out the project directly.

Theremag by Jono Cole and Jonty Wareing of Last.fm is actually the app I most want to see, but there’s no documentation yet. It’s a Theremin emulator on the Google Android-based HTC G1, with an unusual sensor — the built-in magnetometer (the one that normally acts as the compass) which was used to pitch-bend Michael Jackson. Once they get documentation up, expect to see it here. (I love that magnet sensor, too. Good fun.)

iPhone Music Visualizer by George J Cook and Matt Biddulph grabs Soundcloud files, analyzes them with Echonest (which recently got an iPhone-friendly Cocoa API), and then plays them back with a visualizer. It looks like a great place to get started if you’re planning on building something similar yourself.

In fact, it’s well worth checking out the wiki not only because some of the projects have (okay, sometimes-sloppy) source code, but point you at the resources you’d need to tackle something like this yourself if you’re a coder. And the event prompted a lot of folks from Last.fm to Echonest and BBC and others to get their APIs together.

It’s a terrific idea, and it sounds like we need another music hackday here. (Press releases, ahem, claimed this was the “first” music hackday, even though we’ve done a global event ourselves, but who cares — let’s do more!)

New York would make a nice base of operations for a similar event because a lot of folks with interesting APIs are here (or in nearby East Coast towns), but I think it’d be great to get more people online and not just in one locale.

What think you, sirs and madames? Tips on how we could make an online event work?

Delia Derbyshire, UK electronic composer extraordinaire and BBC Radiophonic Veteran, inspires depths of love and respect from us electronic muzos male and female that defy description. As Tara Busch from AnalogSuicide puts it, people aren’t just fans: they’re Delians. I think if you could see the image inside the heads of Delia fans at the mere mention of her name or the sound of a single sound effect, it’d probably look something like this slow-motion clip Tara posted to AnalogSuicide last fall:

(Well, the editor at the BBC working on the show obviously felt that way.)

Via: We Love Delia! More Delia Derbyshire Deliciousness! [Analog Suicide]

I think people’s passions run this deep not simply out of a mad Delian crush, but also because of what she represents for the future of electronic music: Delia Derbyshire seemed to embrace sound with a relentless freshness and playfulness, the kind of spirit that could move forward the future of music in the same way she invigorated its past. And she came out of an entire scene of experimentation at the BBC and in the UK that could now spread virally online and in radiophonic workshops of independent musicians’ own creation.

Darren Landrum on Twitter is nice enough to send along two three newly-posted 1997 interviews with Delia on Radio Scotland. First part above; second part below. In YouTube bizarro fashion, they’re accompanied with strange sweeping slide shows, but Delia’s bubbling personality and insight shine through.

But perhaps you want to wear your Delian adoration on your sleeve, literally. Well, Analog Industries created a t-shirt this morning that, by the time Tom Whitwell (once and future Music thing creator) and myself Twittered and forum commenters posted, is now gone. Look out, Urban Outfitters.

Anyone want to try alternative Derbyshire couture? (Delia Derbyshirts?) Let us know; I have some screenprinting connections.

Part two of the interview:

Plus part three:

And for some Delian sonic creations, here’s her 1972 “Wizard’s Laboratory.” Listening to her work via YouTube videos is not ideal, so I must say I’m rather keen for some disc releases we can buy. But, on the other hand, the montage of who’s who in women in electronic music can serve as a reminder that dudes alone did not construct electronic music history – not unless you ignore a cadre of some of electronic music’s greatest pioneers.

And lastly, for all our friends at the BBC Radiophonic Workshop, here’s a 50th Anniversary of the workshop, also via a previous Analog Suicide post.

Previously:
Delia Derbyshire Recordings Found, Including Ahead-of-its-Time Dance Track
Archivist Responds: Yes, Virginia, Delia Derbyshire Really Was That Awesome
Music Tech History Day: Inside BBC Radiophonic Workshop, and Delia’s Lampshade
Delia Derbyshire: Reel-to-Reel Beat Matching Virtuosa
Doctor Who Theme: Behind the Scenes, Hear the Themes

Apologies; looking at this post, we have some very odd YouTube thumbnails. But it’s worth it for a listen to some of the sounds.

Ah, the BBC. Their world news sounds like an apocalyptic rave and their inexplicably long-running, trippy strange “children’s” sci-fi show has one of the greatest pieces of synthesized music ever.

I’m running out of ways to say Delia Derbyshire is one of the most brilliant composers ever to use electricity, so let’s just get straight on to the bit where Coldcut show up and hold a big musical party for the Beeb Radiophonic Workshop and do their own kickass remix of Who’s opening titles and sounds. (Making the classic Doctor Who video feedback seem psychedelic? Not really a challenge. And yet these episodes always wound up with wandering around a rock quarry…)

Coldcut were there, the wonderfully-talented Dick Mills and Mark Ayres… sounds delicious. I’m still waiting for the Derbyshire music release, and I think there’s still more that could be done to document the UK’s electronic history — CDM stands at your aid, ye worthy workshop of sound.

BBC Electric Proms 2008: Coldcut
Via Carter Rosenberg’s tumblr and
vdmx co-creator David Lublin’s Twitter

Because it must be done, let us also consider Orbital’s classic remix (thanks, gwenhwyfaer) – provided it doesn’t make you hide behind the sofa:

I’ve had some amazing meetings here in Berlin, with plenty to share with you over the coming weeks and months. I’m now headed to Dublin tomorrow for the amazing-looking DEAF festival. If you’re in or near Dublin, you may want to just clear the next few days for live music lineups, parties, film screenings, gallery events, and generally a dream lineup of electronic music events.

I’ll be part of a series of talks Saturday. I’ll be talking generally about how we can think about music visually, and how those visual metaphors in software impact music, with some new examples built in Processing (among examples of other work). I’m really excited about every one my fellow speakers, as well. Gavin from Future Audio Workshop (creators of Circle) will be talking about sound generally, complementing what I’m covering, and we have a number of terrific figures to chat. The film Totally Wired covers the scene around synth building and the modular renaissance as found at Schneider’s Bureau … well, you can see the lineup for yourself.

For the rest of the world not in Ireland, believe me, I’ll be sure to bring you as much back from this event as possible, even if I’m catching up through the end of 2008.

Saturday 25th October at The Digital Hub:

1.00pm – 1.40pm FAW [Future Audio Workshop]
1.40pm – 1.50pm Break
1.50pm – 2.30pm Peter Kirn [Create Digital Music]
2.30pm – 2.50pm Break
2.50pm – 4.10pm Totally Wired Film [Dir. Niamh Ahern]
4.10pm – 5.10pm Andreas Schneider [Schneider’s Bureau]
5.10pm – 5.30pm Break
5.30pm – 6.30pm Dave Vorhaus & Mark Jenkins [White Noise / BBC Radiophonic Workshop]
6.30pm – 7.00pm Break
7.00pm – 8.00pm Diffusion Concert / Soundings
8.00pm – 9.00pm Spatial Music Collective Concert

More details on Saturday’s lineup, at the DEAF Ireland Blog

DEAF live events

Here’s the trailer for “Totally Wired,” which also features a terrific original score:

Trailer for ‘Totally Wired’ from niamhahern on Vimeo.

I can’t say anything this song doesn’t say brilliantly. Comedian Adam Buxton takes on the Radiohead remix contest with his own entry, which cuts through the hype brings a bit of wit to TV incidental music and remixing alike. And, really, how often do you get to say "Radiohead" and "rap" in the same sentence? Take my mechanical rights, please!

See, there, I said something. It wasn’t very good. Just so listen to the song and thank me later, okay?

See also Adam Buxton’s sketch for BBC3′s Rush Hour which cleans up NWA to "Help Da Police." Thanks, Jaymis!