It didn’t strike me until I was on my way home just how ungrateful a feat compiling the history of electronic music to a 90-minute lecture is. Where to start? What to include? What to leave out? In hindsight and from the safety of the crowd, it is always easier to be wisecracking, but just thinking about the extent of that job made me glad I was not about to embark on the same journey as Ralf Christensen.
Where did he start? With the very basics, it turned out. Landmarks like the first voice recording, the first manipulatable sounds, John Cage’s experiments, reel-to-reel cut-ups, and all the other steps that allows today’s youngsters to twist knobs and look cool, to paraphrase Christensen, were duly covered. Although the importance of these events cannot be questioned, my guess is that the majority of the crowd - again of a pleasantly surprising size - were mainly interested in the tipping point where electronic music became less about the electronics and more about the music.
Christensen’s focus on the former was perhaps much needed educational input for those of us who never put much thought into those prehistoric times. As technology advanced, however, both the lecture and the musical evolution it covered became more coherent. The jumps from, say, Lee Scratch Perry to Giorgio Moroder or Larry Levan to Frankie Knuckles are, after all, easier to make. That is not to say that they are more important, but merely that they revolve around a musical landscape much closer to that of today.
Of course, this is also the point where electronic music becomes so widespread that covering every newly bred genre seems naive. Focusing on a few key elements, Christensen described how Juan Atkins grew out of Kraftwerk’s man machine and how the ensuing second summer of love fostered both a UK depression and subsequently a new and meaner genre of music as hardcore and drum’n’bass came into being. Christensen’s extensive knowledge of the scene was obvious, and the constant struggle between the limits set by technology (today, unfortunately also the instances present on stage) and the pioneers pushing them forward became crystal clear.
With words on ”bedroom scientists”, the slightly derogatory ”intelligent techno,” ”braindance,” modern dubstep (from haunted to soulful, Burial to Woon), the beauty of the accidental, and the sounds of Shangaan Electro, Christensen rounded off his presentation. I cannot say I expected a 90-minute lecture where Frankie Knuckles took over the Warehouse with 15 minutes to go. Then again, my perspective on the history of electronic music was certainly broadened, which might not be a bad thing. I wouldn’t mind sitting through another lecture with a stronger focus on more recent events, but if the goal was to go as far up as possible in the electronic family tree, Christensen succeeded.
Photographic high five via Strøm's Flickr (Marcus McNair & Adam Garff). Read more on the Strøm blog
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