If you read over some of my articles on the subject of electronic music, you’d see where I come from as I approach this particular grouping of expression. I’m not a dude who knows all the various subgenres and genres of electronic music, yet I tend to mostly review that stuff.
When I grade electronic I think about various forms of vibrations, both literal and on a more cosmic scale. This may be narrow minded, but if I don’t find some kind of attention paid to psychedelic (meaning that it produces a seeming or real physical effect upon the listener, meaning facial flushing, chills, jerks, twitches, brain overload, headache, resonance, total harmine balance (in which all of reality folds in on itself due to the waves canceling each other out). If attention isn’t paid to these types of dynamics, I find that the song is just an exercise, and not valuable on almost any means.
These physical feelings often team with emotions. These are good to have too. The best way to listen to electronic music is closing your eyes and listening on REALLY high quality headphones. Meditation and complete contemplation, meanwhile I let my fingers do their silent movements that output the influence of the music.
This creates a third form of resonance, the interaction of my review with the piece itself, this can cause more reverb and if you think metaphorically of my words as vibrations, and the piece in question also as a vibration, I can cancel out the piece, the piece can cancel out me… I’m not making sense again.
The closer an electronic piece gets to either a) creating an entirely new reality, b) imitating without fail a particular reality, or c) bringing out significant features of our current reality in new lights. Innovation is key as well. If the particular reality has been explored by previous psychonauts, then unless there is something new to offer, it is almost entirely useless.
And that’s my thoughts for electronic music today.
